Apple retail stores and the Apple online store are now carrying the Activ5, a fitness device designed by Activbody.

Described as a portable isometric-based strength training device with digital coaching, the Activ5 coaches users through each isometric exercise, measures maximum strength for each exercise, and communicates this to an iPhone.


The device itself is a small pad that's outfitted with a number of pressure sensors inside.

The Activ5 is personalized to each user to create a challenging but achievable workout. Each workout pose is demonstrated in the app, and the device itself is able to tell users to push harder or less hard throughout the workout. Every detail of the workout is tracked via the app, providing fitness stats for each exercise.


There are more than 100 full body workouts available based on isometric exercises, which are designed around contractions of a specific muscle or group of muscles. Activbody says that the average strength gain for Activ5 users is 30 percent.

Because the Activ5 is portable, it can be taken to work, used at home, used in a bar, a plane seat, or anywhere else with workouts provided for different situations. Exercise is gamified through various games you can play in the app.


The Activ5 has an Apple Watch app to untether workouts from the iPhone, and it integrates with Apple's HealthKit so workout information is uploaded to the Health app. The Apple Watch app offers up exercise and heart rate tracking as well as calculating calories burned.

The Activ5 can be purchased from the Apple online store and Apple retail stores starting today for $130.

Apple and Madonna have teamed up to launch new Today at Apple Music Lab classes where attendees will go hands-on with Crave, a track from Madonna's latest album, and will be able to remix it.

The Today at Apple session will also walk students through deconstructing the song, and there will be details on what inspired her.

Go behind the making of a hit song featuring your favorite Apple Music artists in this series of Music Lab: Remix sessions. Exclusively in Apple Stores, you'll get hands-on with a track direct from the artist. In this session, you'll deconstruct Madonna's song Crave, find out what inspired her, and create your own version of the song using GarageBand on iPhone. Devices will be provided.

Madonna shared the news on her Twitter account this morning, and Today at Apple classes for the Music Lab: Remix Madonna are now available. Attendees can book starting now, with classes kicking off a bit later in June.

The Remix Madonna classes are available at Apple Stores in the United States as well as other Apple retail locations around the world.

Madame X ’s exclusive Music Lab is here! Remix #Crave at Apple Stores around the world. 🔥 🎧 Starting now, you can reserve your spot for an upcoming #todayatapple session here: https://t.co/NZ0rnqxF8F @applemusic #remixmadonna pic.twitter.com/XH8nyO91bk

— Madonna (@Madonna) June 14, 2019

Apple has also teamed up with other well-known musicians to create Today at Apple Music Lab curricula. There's a Beat Making class co-created with Swizz Beatz, for example.

Mattel's Hot Wheels brand is getting a major digital upgrade with the launch of the Hot Wheels Smart Track Kit, Race Portal, and Hot Wheels id vehicles, all of which are available exclusively from Apple starting today.

With the Hot Wheels Smart Track Kit, Hot Wheels id vehicles can be raced on a track that incorporates digital tracking elements through an app on the iPhone or iPad. The system allows users to keep track of speed, count laps, build a digital garage, and more, providing a mix of physical and digital play.


The new Hot Wheels id setup includes 51 die-cast cars with NFC tags that are going to be released in six mini collections throughout 2019, with each vehicle to be priced at $6.99. Each car can be leveled up digitally, with challenges available to break race records.


Launch vehicles include the Corvette C7R, SRT Viper GTS-R, 2016 Mercedes AMG GT, Aston Martin One-77, Howlin Heat, Motosaurus, Shark Hammer 2.0, and Arachnorod.


There's a Hot Wheels Race Portal ($39.99) for connecting classic Hot Wheels track and scanning Hot Wheels id vehicles to measure speed and count laps via infrared sensors, and then there's a Hot Wheels Smart Track ($179.99), which provides a whole kit so kids can jump right into racing.


The Smart Track has been designed to boost speed and enhance racing, jumping, and crashing, while also keeping track of total distance traveled by each car. Mattel says the track includes the most powerful booster the Hot Wheels brand has ever made for maximum speed.


Each component can be purchased separately, but the Race Portal includes two id cars (and can be used with existing Hot Wheels track you might have), while the Smart Track is a set that includes the track, a Race Portal, and two exclusive id cars.


You can use the Hot Wheels id system with the free Hot Wheels id app, which provides a virtual garage and features for racing, collecting, and more. Gameplay modes include Collection, Portal play, Smart Track play, and digital racing.

Hot Wheels id vehicles, the Race Portal, and the Smart Track Kit can be purchased today from the Apple online store and from Apple retail locations. Vehicles are priced at $6.99, the Race Portal is $39.99, and the Smart Track Kit is $179.99.

Huawei today confirmed it is delaying the launch of its Mate X foldable smartphone from June to September for quality assurance purposes.

Huawei's Mate X
A spokesperson for Huawei said the Chinese smartphone maker is being more "cautious" after some reviewers experienced embarrassing display issues with Samsung's foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold. "We don't want to launch a product to destroy our reputation," the spokesperson told CNBC.

Samsung delayed the launch of the Galaxy Fold back in April and plans to announce a new release date "in the coming weeks," according to CNET.

Last month, the Trump administration added Huawei to a trade blacklist over alleged national security concerns, effectively forbidding U.S. companies from doing business with the Chinese smartphone and telecom giant, but a Huawei executive said that supply chain issues are not behind the delay.

Huawei is instead postponing sales of the Mate X in part to improve the quality of the device's folding screen, said Vincent Peng, a senior vice president at Huawei, on the sidelines of a Wall Street Journal tech conference in Hong Kong.

Adhering to the ban, Google parent company Alphabet previously said it will no longer license Android to Huawei for its smartphones after a 90-day reprieve granted by the U.S. government expires in August. In this event, Peng said Huawei could have its own Hongmeng operating system ready by early next year.

"Our preference will of course be Google and Android as we have been partners for many years," said Peng, according to Reuters. "But if the circumstances force us to, we can roll out Hongmeng in six to nine months."

It is unclear if Apple will ever release a folding iPhone, but it has certainly explored the idea in patents. The technology is not cheap, with Huawei's Mate X expected to start at $2,600 in the United States, and clearly is not without its issues either as evidenced by Huawei's and Samsung's struggles.

As part of the deal allowing cable companies Comcast and Charter to sell iPhones for their respective mobile services, Apple has required them to also sell large numbers of other devices, reports CNBC.

Both Comcast and Charter have wireless services as part of an MVNO agreement with Verizon. Comcast offers Xfinity Mobile with approximately 1.5 million subscribers, while Charter offers Spectrum Mobile with approximately 300,000 subscribers.


The two cable companies wanted to be able to offer the iPhone in an effort to better compete with the four major carriers in the United States -- Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile -- and as part of the deal allowing Comcast and Charter to sell iPhones, Apple made them agree to sell other devices too.

The iPhone's popularity made it impossible for Xfinity Mobile and Spectrum Mobile to compete without offering it, according to CNBC's sources, which meant Apple had "ample leverage" in deal negotiations.

Specific terms of the two deals are not known, but Comcast is required to sell a certain number of iPads, which CNBC says is in the thousands, at a subsidized cost. Comcast is required to pay the difference between the discounted price and the retail price.

Comcast offers the cellular 6th-generation iPad for $422.99, a discount from the standard $459 price. Comcast also sells cellular versions of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, the 10.5-inch iPad Air, and the 7.9-inch iPad mini, all at discounted prices.

Subscribers are promised a $15 per month credit applied to their monthly statement for any iPad purchased.

Charter's deal is different and involves the Apple TV, which Charter offers as an alternative to a traditional cable box.

Charter sells Apple TVs at $7.50 per month for 24 months - or $180, the retail cost of an Apple TV. Alternatively, a customer can lease a Charter set-top box for $7.50 per month. In other words, Charter offers an Apple TV at the same price as a Charter set-top box, but a customer ends up owning the Apple TV and returning the Charter box. Charter has become the largest third-party seller of Apple TVs because of the agreement, two of the people said.

According to CNBC, there are benefits in these deals for Comcast and Charter beyond being able to offer the iPhone. iPads and Apple Watches "enhance the value" of the Comcast wireless service, and the Apple TV offers a better navigation interface for Charter customers.

Many of Apple's carrier partners around the world also sell Apple devices other the iPhone, much like Charter and Comcast.

Apple at the 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference introduced watchOS 6, the latest version of the software designed for the Apple Watch. watchOS 6 brings some notable improvements to watchOS, including new apps, a dedicated App Store, new watch faces, updated health features, and tons more.

watchOS 6 is limited to developers and won't be available as a public beta ahead of its fall launch, so we thought we'd take a look at the software to give MacRumors readers a hands-on look at what's coming to the watch later this year.

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For the first time, watchOS 6 brings a dedicated App Store to the Apple Watch, letting you search for, browse, and download apps right on your wrist even when an iPhone isn't available. The update also further untethers the watch from the iPhone, as it allows developers to create apps that are just for the Apple Watch and don't need to be tied to a companion iPhone app.


There are also some exciting new APIs that will bring new functionality to third-party apps, including a new runtime API for accessing sensor data for a longer period of time. The longer runtime API will lead to apps that can, as an example, guide you through a meditation or a workout.

A new streaming audio API will let third-party apps stream audio for the first time, so you can listen to streaming content with just your watch. Streaming audio support was previously limited to Apple Music.

There are quite a few new watch faces in watchOS 6, including Numerals Mono and Numerals Duo, focusing on huge numbers; Modular Compact, which puts an analog watch face next to larger complications; a gradient watch face that shifts over the course of the day; a Solar Dial watch face that visualizes the sun in a 24 hour path around the dial; and the California watch face, which offers standard analog dials and a mix of regular numbers and roman numerals.


With the exception of the Numerals Mono and Numerals Duo watch faces, the new watch face options are designed for the larger display of the Series 4 and are limited to the Series 4 devices. Though not part of watchOS 6, Apple in June also debuted new Pride watch face options.

Apple added a Taptic Chimes feature in watchOS 6, designed to provide a silent touch on your wrist at every hour. If sound is turned on, you'll hear an audible chime. Another new feature, holding two fingers on the watch face, lets you hear the time spoken out loud.

There are several new apps on the Apple Watch, including Audiobooks, Voice Memos, and Calculator, which lets you do calculations right on your wrist and even calculate tips and bill splits. There's also a new Noise app for tracking the decibel levels of environmental sound or music you're listening to on your earbuds to make sure you're not accidentally damaging your hearing health.


The Noise app is designed to send you a notification if it detects a decibel level over 90 decibels, which can impact hearing over time. Noise is a feature limited to Series 4 Apple Watch models.


Reminders has an iOS 13-style redesign, Messages supports Animoji stickers, and there's also a new Cycle Tracking app designed to let women track their menstrual cycles.


Activity Trends, viewable on the iPhone, is a new watchOS 6 feature that compares various fitness metrics from the last 90 days to the last 365 days to chart your progress and to make sure your overall fitness trends are improving.


There are new complications, many of which are related to new apps and features. You can see a measurement of the current wind speed or the chance of rain, and a Noise complication provides a meter of the current decibel level. Voice Memos lets you quickly record a memo, cellular strength provides a readout of the current signal level on an LTE Apple Watch, and Calculator opens up the Calculator app.


Siri can provide full web search results when asked a question, and Siri is also able to identify songs via Shazam even when an iPhone isn't nearby. For Mac users, the Apple Watch can now approve security prompts when the side button is tapped, and it will also now display Apple ID verification codes when logging into an Apple account on a new device or browser.


When it launches in the fall, watchOS 6 will be available on all Apple Watch models with the exception of the original Apple Watch, released in 2015. For more on what's new in watchOS 6, make sure to check out our watchOS 6 roundup.

Apple today released a new macOS Mojave 10.14.5 Boot camp update, which is designed to address a bug that prevented the creation of a new Boot Camp partition on a iMac or Mac mini with a Fusion Drive.

The new software can be downloaded from Apple's support document accompanying the update.

The software update is available for iMac and Mac mini users, and won't be available to those who have other Mac machines.

Boot Camp is designed to allow Mac users to set up a partition to run Windows, providing access to PC-only apps and content.

Apple's Boot Camp update for macOS 10.14.5 comes about a month after the release of the macOS Mojave 10.14.5 update.

Apple today launched a new version of Logic Pro X, its music production and editing software designed for professionals. The new update includes performance optimizations that Apple says are designed to take advantage of the "groundbreaking power" of the upcoming Mac Pro.

Logic Pro X 10.4.5 now supports up to 56 processing threads, allowing music producers and film composers to work on demanding music projects with "unprecedented ease."


Apple says the Mac Pro with Logic Pro X 10.4.5 will allow pro musicians to do things that were never before possible. On the new Mac Pro, Logic Pro X can run up to five times the number of real-time plug-ins compared to the previous-generation machine.

Logic Pro X 10.14.5 increases the available track and channel count for all users, maxing out at 1,000 audio tracks and 1,000 software instrument tracks, a 4x increase.

The new software also supports 1,000 auxiliary channel strips, 1,000 external MIDI tracks, and 12 sends per channel strip. Apple has also improved the responsiveness of the Mixer and Event list when working with large sessions, as well as projects with multiple time edits and tempo changes. Additional features are highlighted below:

- The loop browser can filter by loop type and allows drag and drop of multiple loops into your project simultaneously.
- The redesigned DeEsser 2 plug-in provides more options to reduce sibilance on audio tracks.
- MIDI beat clocks can be sent to individual ports, each with unique settings like timing offset and plug-in delay compensation

Apple's announcement includes statements from several composers and producers who are excited about the new Mac Pro. "Black Mirror" composer Daniel Pemberton said time is "incredibly valuable" when working on scores for TV shows and movies, and that he's excited about the performance improvements coming in Logic Pro X 10.4.5 with the new Mac Pro.

Oak Felder, producer for Demi Lovato, Drake, and Alicia Keys, said that it's clear Apple is committed to the pro community.

"As someone who uses Logic for everything I create musically, I got a huge kick seeing all the performance tweaks coming in Logic Pro X 10.4.5. And the expandability of the new Mac Pro will give it longevity and a home in my studio for a long time to come. It's clear that Apple is committed to the pro community, and I love that they are really listening and paying attention to our needs." -- Oak Felder, producer for Demi Lovato, Drake, Alicia Keys and Rihanna

Logic Pro X 10.4.5 is available today as a free update for all existing users, and new users can purchase it from the Mac App Store for $200. [Direct Link]

The new Mac Pro, and its accompanying Pro Display XDR, will be launching sometime this fall.

Apple has registered seven unreleased Mac models in the Eurasian Economic Commission database today, including A2141, A2147, A2158, A2159, A2179, A2182, and A2251, according to listings uncovered by MacRumors. All seven models appear to be notebooks, as they are described as "portable" computers.

MacRumors mockup of rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro
On the more imminent front, the 12-inch MacBook is certainly long overdue for an update, having been last refreshed in June 2017. A spec bump to the MacBook Air is also plausible, but its October 2018 refresh was not too long ago.


Looking farther out, we've heard rumors about a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an all-new design launching later this year. Given the MacBook Pro was just refreshed weeks ago, the 16-inch model is presumably a fall product at the earliest. Apple occasionally hosts Mac events in October, including in both 2018 and 2016.

Eurasian Economic Commission filings like these have foreshadowed the release of new Apple products on numerous occasions, including multiple Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro, Apple Watch, and AirPods models. The filings are legally required for any encrypted devices sold in Russia and select other countries.

Apple has removed Dashboard support from WebKit, not long after it was discovered that the feature has been completely dropped in macOS Catalina, according to a changelog spotted by Japanese blog Mac Otakara.


While this news is not entirely surprising, it eliminates any slim hope that Dashboard might have returned in a future beta of macOS Catalina. The feature has already been disabled by default since OS X Yosemite, but it can still be manually enabled within Mission Control in System Preferences as of macOS Mojave.

Dashboard, first introduced in OS X Tiger in 2005, was effectively a secondary desktop on the Mac that housed a variety of customizable widgets, ranging from sticky notes and the weather forecast to a clock and a calculator. These widgets have relied on Safari's open source WebKit engine for rendering.

Dashboard appears to remain functional in macOS Mojave for now, although it is clearly a legacy feature and some widgets do not work. After over 14 years, the feature is about to ride off into the sunset for good.

With the launch of iOS 13, Apple decided to split iOS 13 for the iPad into its own dedicated operating system called iPadOS. Going forward, iPadOS will be the version of iOS that runs on Apple's iPad devices.

iPadOS includes all of the features of iOS 13, plus some additional tweaks and changes made specifically for a device with a larger display. In our latest video, we went hands-on with iPadOS to check out the new features.

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As mentioned above, iPadOS includes almost all of the iOS 13 features, such as Dark Mode, Find My, new app updates, Sign In with Apple, and more.

There are also iPad-specific features, though, such as a new Home screen that features smaller app icons so you can fit more apps on each page. The new Home screen also lets you move the Today view widgets from the left side of the screen onto the Home screen itself so you can see at-a-glance info like weather, upcoming events, news headlines, and more, whenever your iPad is in landscape mode.

Multitasking features specific to the iPad have also been overhauled. Split View now supports multiple windows from the same app, so you can do things like view two Safari pages side by side, and in Slide Over, you can now have multiple Slide Over windows open, flipping between them as needed for quicker swapping between apps.

You can keep all the apps you need to access occasionally stored in Slide Over, dragging upwards on the display to see everything that's open. App Exposé, a new feature available when you press on an app's icon, is designed to show you all of the windows from a particular app.

Apple improved Apple Pencil latency, dropping it from 20ms to 9ms, and Markup is more deeply integrated everywhere in iPadOS. You can tap on the corner of the display with an Apple Pencil to open up Markup, which can be used for webpages, documents, screenshots, emails, and more. A redesigned tool palette offers up quick access to tools and color palettes, and there's a new ruler and a new pixel eraser.

Like iOS 13, iPadOS brings support for external drives to the Files app, along with new folder sharing capabilities. A Column View lets you see previews of your files, and Quick Actions support allows you to do things like mark up and rotate images and create PDFs right from the Files app.

Safari has a new download manager and will always load the desktop version of a site, and there are new gestures that while also available on iPhone, work well on the iPad's larger display. Scrolling through long documents and webpages is faster through a new gesture that lets you grab the scroll bar and drag it, and selecting text can now be done by dragging a finger over it.

Selecting a word can be done with a double tap, selecting a sentence can be done with a triple tap, and a quadruple tap selects a paragraph at once. Double tapping selects elements like phone numbers and email addresses, and you can now pick up the cursor and move it wherever you want. There are new pinch-based gestures for copy and paste, and a new three finger swipe for undoing and redoing.

Both iPadOS and iOS 13 introduce a new swipe-based keyboard called the QuickPath keyboard, but in iPadOS, you can grab the keyboard and move it wherever you want on the display for a floating keyboard that offers one-handed typing access.

Used with macOS Catalina, the iPad can become a second display for your Mac thanks to the new Sidecar functionality, and the iPad now supports both mice and Xbox/PS4 game controllers.

For more detail on iPadOS, make sure to check out our iPadOS roundup.