MacRumors

Apple regularly adds new games to its Apple Arcade gaming service, and this week's addition features characters from the popular SpongeBob cartoon. Described as a platform running game, SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit allows players to take on the role of SpongeBob to defeat Plankton's minions and rescue SpongeBob's friends.

Trouble has come to Bikini Bottom! The evil "mastermind" Sheldon J. Plankton has once again hatched a plan to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula. This time he has enlisted his army of cousins to capture all of SpongeBob's friends! Play as SpongeBob on his epic, most side-scrolly quest through Bikini Bottom ever! Explore, collect coins and spatulas, and crush obstacles as SpongeBob races to rescue his friends, defeat Plankton's minions and take back the formula. Keep an eye out for your favorite Bikini Bottom residents...you never know who you might run into!

Gameplay includes familiar locations like Bikini Bottom, Glove World, and Chum Bucket, along with mechanics like trampolines, zip lines, and transformation machines to morph SpongeBob into a range of silly forms.

SpongeBob universe characters that include Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, and Plankton are present in the game, and there are plenty of enemies to defeat, such as the Jellyfish King.

SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit is available in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV and in the Mac App Store for Macs. Playing the game requires a subscription to ‌Apple Arcade‌, which is priced at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year.

‌Apple Arcade‌ provides access to more than 100 games on ‌iPhone‌, ‌iPad‌, ‌Apple TV‌, and Mac with no in-app purchases or ads.

Images of a new version of the Leather Loop that Apple appears to have in development surfaced yesterday, and today, Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn has shared additional photos and videos that give us a clearer picture of what to expect from the new band.

The bands come in colors that include red, hot pink, blue, black, and brown, with some of the bands featuring different colored accents at the side. The design features more distinct ridging that does not extend to the edge of the band, and it features the same cowhide logo and "Natural Leather" wording that's on the original Leather Loop.

While the current version of the Leather Loop fastens with a loop-style closure similar to the Sport Loop, the new model attaches to the wrist magnetically. Tinhte.vn's bands are all 44mm, but the images shared yesterday suggest there may also be a 40mm version in the works. The current Leather Loop is limited to the larger watches.

The bands appear to feature waterproofing properties that make them suitable for a wider range of activities than the current Leather Loop bands, and they also have a sportier, more casual look to them.

There is a possibility that Apple will sell these bands alongside the existing Leather Loop options as a new band type, but given the similarities between the designs, the new bands could also be a full replacement for the current Leather Loop.

There's no word on when these new bands might launch, but given that they appear to be finished, we could perhaps see them as early as WWDC. Apple often refreshes Apple Watch band colors alongside major events, so it would not be unusual to see a summer release of a new band option.

Alternatively, Apple could save these new bands for release alongside the Apple Watch Series 6 models in the fall.

Hulu is testing a new "Watch Party" feature that's designed to allow up to eight people to watch TV shows and movies together through the Hulu website and chat with one another while the content is playing.

Some Hulu users who sign in on the web will see a popup describing the new Watch Party option, which is available for a select number of TV shows and movies. Watch Party is limited to customers who have the Hulu plan with no ads, and it is only on the web at this time

We're testing something new on hulu.com so you can watch together, even when you're apart. Start a Watch Party by clicking the watch party icon on the details page of your favorite shows and movies. Try it and tell us what you think.

Starting a Watch Party with friends can be done by choosing a TV show or movie that supports the feature and clicking on the Watch Party icon. Hulu then provides a link that can be shared with up to seven people, and when everyone has joined, the host can start the show.

Participants need to be logged into Hulu and watchers need to have the no ads Hulu subscription, priced at $12 per month. As the TV show or movie plays, participants can chat with one another through an included chat box, and each person using the service can control their own playback without impacting the rest of the group.

Watch Party is a Hulu-built feature that works in any browser that supports Hulu streaming, with no plug-ins or extensions required.

Along with Hulu, Plex has also announced a new "Watch Together" beta feature today, which is designed to allow multiple people to watch movies and TV shows through Plex for free. The feature works with all free on-demand content on Plex, as well as content from personal media libraries.

Plex's feature has no communication option, however, and Plex recommends viewers use a separate chat app such as Zoom. Watch Together works on iOS, tvOS, Android devices, and Android TVs. Plex's Watch Together feature is an early release and more functionality will be coming in the future. Unlike Hulu's Watch Party, Watch Together is free to use.

Music streaming service Tidal is bringing Dolby Atmos Music to Dolby Atmos-enabled devices like TVs, sound bars, speakers, and, notable for Apple users, the 4K Apple TV.

Apple's 4K ‌Apple TV‌, released in 2017, supports Dolby Atmos, a feature that brings more immersive sound for content when the ‌Apple TV‌ is paired with a Dolby Atmos soundbar or receiver and speakers.

According to Dolby, Tidal support for Dolby Atmos is rolling out to compatible television streaming boxes as of today. Support is available for the 4K ‌Apple TV‌, 2nd-generation Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Cube, 3rd-generation Fire TV, Nvidia Shield TV and TV Pro (from 2019), and Dolby Atmos-enabled TVs from Sony and Philips.

To use the feature, ‌Apple TV‌ 4K owners will need a Dolby Atmos enabled sound system along with the updated Tidal app.

Tidal began rolling out Dolby Atmos support back in December for Android smartphones and tablets, and it is available for all Tidal HiFi subscribers. Tidal HiFi is Tidal's streaming tier with lossless High Fidelity sound quality, priced at $19.99 per month.

Music playback will default to Dolby Atmos if a Dolby Atmos mix and compatible device are available. Tidal has been adding Dolby Atmos music to its streaming service on a regular basis, and notable albums and songs with support include Ariana Grande's "7 rings," The Weeknd's "After Hours," and Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello's "Señorita."

Tidal's Dolby Atmos content can be found by selecting the "Available in Dolby Atmos" section from the Home screen or searching for Dolby Atmos. For new subscribers interested in Dolby Atmos Music, Tidal is offering an extended 60-day free trial.

With the release of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 and related security updates for macOS Mojave and High Sierra earlier this week, Apple is making it more difficult for users to ignore available software updates and remain on their current operating system versions.

Included in the release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.5 is the following:

- Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag

This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003.

For users still running an earlier major macOS version like Mojave or High Sierra, the Software Update pane in System Preferences typically displays a prominent upgrade button for Catalina and a notification badge on the System Preferences icon in the Dock, but until now knowledgeable users have been able to hide those items by using the softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina" command in the Terminal app.

After updating to macOS 10.15.5 or Security Update 2020-003, this command no longer works, with Terminal displaying the following message:

Ignoring software updates is deprecated.
The ability to ignore individual updates will be removed in a future release of macOS.

As documented in a discussion thread in our forums, there are some additional commands that can be used to temporarily remove the notifications, but it's clear Apple wants as many users as possible to upgrade their Macs with all of the most recent operating system updates.

French accessory maker Netatmo has announced an Apple HomeKit compatible Smart Outdoor Camera with Siren.

The new camera is an updated version of Netatmo's Presence Camera, which came with a large floodlight. The built-in 105 db siren this time around provides even more reason to discourage intruders onto property.

The camera also features infrared night vision, which can trigger the floodlight if it detects movement.

According to Netatmo, the camera analyzes the camera's field of view in real time, and can gauge when a person approaches the house, when a car pulls into the driveway, or if a dog is roaming around the garden.

Any of these cues will trigger an alert for the user, providing them with a "precise notification and video when an event unfolds outside their home."

The camera comes with a 4MP video sensor, 100º FoV, and 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, while the LED floodlight is dimmable and uses 12W of power. The camera requires a power supply of between 100V to 240V depending on region. The camera uses 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and comes with a Class 10 32GB micro SD card.

The Netatmo Smart Outdoor Camera without Siren is available now on Netatmo's website, and can be pre-ordered in Europe, with availablilty coming to the U.S. later in 2020 for $349.99.

An Apple File System bug has been discovered in macOS 10.15.5 Catalina that can prevent users from making a bootable clone of their system drive, according to the creator of Carbon Copy Cloner.

In a blog post on Wednesday, software developer Mike Bombich explained that the CCC team had uncovered the issue in the Apple File System, or APFS, when attempting to create a bootable backup in a beta version of macOS 10.15.5.

According to Bombich, the bug prevents CCC from using its own file copier to establish an initial bootable backup of a macOS Catalina System volume. In technical terms:

The chflags() system call can no longer set the SF_FIRMLINK flag on a folder on an APFS volume. Rather than fail with an error code that we would have detected, it fails silently – it exits with a success exit status, but silently fails to set the special flag. That's a bug in the APFS filesystem implementation of chflags – if a system call doesn't do what you ask it to do, it's supposed to return an error code, not success.

We don't need to set many of these flags, nor set them frequently – just on the first backup of the macOS system volume. It happens to be essential to the functionality of an APFS volume group, though, so the failure to set these flags means that new full-system backups created on 10.15.5 and later won't be bootable, and it will appear as if none of your data is on the destination (to be clear, though, all of the data is backed up). Kind of the opposite of what we're trying to do here. It's hard to find kind words to express my feelings towards Apple right now.

Suffice it to say, though, I'm extremely disappointed that Apple would introduce this kind of bug in a dot-release OS update. We've seen 5 major updates to Catalina now, we should expect to see higher quality than this from an operating system.

On a positive note, existing backups created in macOS 10.15.4 and earlier are unaffected, the bug has no effect on CCC's ability to preserve data, nor does it affect the integrity of the filesystems on a startup disk or a backup disk. In short, the impact of this bug is limited to the initial creation of a bootable backup.

Any CCC users who established their backup on a previous version of Catalina already has functional firmlinks on their bootable volume and CCC will continue to update that volume just fine. Meanwhile, users wanting to create a new backup of a 10.15.5 volume to an empty disk should replace their copy of CCC with the CCC 5.1.18 beta, then follow these steps on launching the app.

1. Click the X button in the Destination selector box to clear the destination selection.
2. Click on the Destination selector and reselect the destination volume.

CCC will then guide users through the procedure of creating a bootable backup, or a Data-only backup instead. The new functionality uses Apple's Software Restore (ASR) utility.

Bombich has notified Apple of the bug, but he ends his blog post by entertaining the possibility that it is a security fix to prevent third-parties from creating firmlinks. If so, he argues, "this is far worse than a bug," since the system currently reports a success when it should report a failure, not to mention that Apple's lack of documentation on the change is hostile to third-party developers who rely on documented functionality.

The Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is receiving a major update today, introducing much-desired features like HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support.

Designed by Signify as part of the Philip Hue line of lights and accessories, the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is designed to let Hue users sync their lights to their home entertainment systems.

One of the major complaints about the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box when it launched in September was its lack of support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. With the Sync Box, Hue users were able to watch HDR10+ and Dolby Vision content thanks to passthrough support, but there was no way for it to detect content to create lighting effects.

That's changed in the new update, and with compatible televisions, the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box now works with both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

Today's update also brings Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri voice control, allowing Hue Sync owners to use voice-based commands to power the Sync Box on or off, start or stop light syncing, switch from audio to gaming or video mode, and switch HDMI channels.

For those who prefer to use infrared TV remote controls or the Harmony universal remote, the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box can now be configured to work with these devices. It can be set to respond to any button on the remote using the Hue Sync mobile app.

Updating the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box requires opening up the Hue Sync app, going to the Settings section, and selecting the install software update option.

The Hue Play HDMI Sync Box can be purchased from the Philips Hue website for $230.

Apple Card users can now export their transactions in two new formats, Quicken (QFX) and QuickBooks (QBO), as noted by Kyle Seth Gray. The new additions will make it more convenient for many users to import their ‌Apple Card‌ data into Intuit's flagship financial software applications.

Apple first added the ability to export ‌Apple Card‌ transactions in CSV format back in January, and Open Financial Exchange (OFX) format was added in February.

• How to Export Apple Card Data in CSV, OFX, QFX, or QBO Format

Earlier this month, Quicken for Mac users discovered that they were able to import Apple Card data in OFX format, as ‌Apple Card‌ had been added as a supported financial institution, but the new direct QFX support should make for more seamless integration.

The next-generation iPhone 12 lineup coming in fall 2020 isn't out yet, but Fudge (@choco_bit), a leaker who sometimes shares information on upcoming Apple devices, today offered up details on what Apple has in store for the 2021 ‌iPhone‌ 13's camera setup.

A simple design drawing depicts a device with a four camera array, which Fudge claims will have the following features:

• 64-megapixel wide-angle lens with 1x optical zoom and 6x digital zoom
• 40-megapixel telephoto lens with 3x-5x optical zoom and 15-20x digital zoom
• 64-megapixel anamorphic lens for video capture (2.1:1)
• 40-megapixel .25x min ultra wide-angle lens with optical reverse zoom
• LiDAR 4.0

The leaker says that the information should be taken with a "Huuuuugggeeeee amount of 🧂," suggesting the source of the rumor is questionable or it's so early that the camera setup could change. Apple makes plans for iPhones well ahead of when a new device is released, but plans change and are tweaked and there's quite a ways to go before the ‌iPhone‌ 13's final design needs to be nailed down.

The rumored ‌iPhone‌ 13 camera is wildly different from what's in the ‌iPhone‌ 11, and while Apple does make major camera improvements each year, the company has thus far shied away from super high megapixel cameras in its iPhones.

The ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro features a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 12-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera, and a 12-megapixel telephoto camera.

There have been some rumors indicating the ‌iPhone‌ 12 models coming in 2020 could get a 64-megapixel wide-angle camera along with a telephoto lens that supports 3x optical zoom (up from 2x), but we've heard surprisingly little about the camera technology.

Most rumors have focused on the inclusion of 3D camera technology in the ‌iPhone‌ 12, which is expected to be similar to the LiDAR Scanner feature that Apple introduced in 2020 iPad Pro models.

In 2020, higher-end ‌iPhone‌ 12 models are expected to continue to feature triple-lens camera setups, while the lower-end ‌iPhone‌ 12 models will continue to offer dual-lens camera setups. The 2021 iPhones will probably be similar, with the best camera technology reserved for the more expensive devices.

Update: YouTuber Jon Prosser says that the image associated with the detail is "not real" and that the ‌iPhone‌ coming in 2021 will feature the same layout as the 2020 ‌iPhone‌.

Leaker L0vetodream, who has also shared accurate information about Apple's plans, says that the ‌iPhone‌ 12 and the ‌iPhone‌ 13 will look different, however, seemingly agreeing with the original rumor.

Apple recently purchased Ontario-based machine learning startup Inductiv for the purpose of improving Siri, reports Bloomberg.

Apple confirmed the purchase with one of its typical acquisition statements: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Inductiv's engineering team joined Apple after the acquisition to work on ‌Siri‌, machine learning, and data science at the company. Prior to the purchase, Inductiv created technology that used AI to automate identifying and correcting errors in data for machine learning purposes. From Bloomberg:

Having clean data is important for machine learning, a popular and powerful type of AI that helps software improve with less human invention.

The work falls under the category of data science, a key element of Apple's broader machine-learning strategy.

Apple's Siri chief John Giannandrea, who is also responsible for machine learning, has been upgrading the underlying technology that ‌Siri‌ is based on with acquisitions of companies like Inductiv.

Apple has purchased multiple AI and machine learning-related companies over the course of the last several years, such as Voysis, Xnor.ai, Turi, Perceptio, Tuplejump, and more.

Prior to when Apple released the third-generation iPod touch in September of 2009, it explored a prototype version that had a centered rear camera, a feature the iPod touch ultimately did not launch with.

Giulio Zompetti, a developer who collects Apple device prototypes, today shared some photos of the third-generation iPod touch with rear camera, giving us a clear look at the design variation that Apple tested.

Back in August 2009, prior to when the third-generation iPod touch launched, MacRumors received photos of the prototype model with camera, sparking rumors that the upcoming device could launch with a camera.

At the time, it was believed that Apple scrapped the camera from the iPod touch late in the design process. Final versions of the iPod touch had an empty space where a camera might have been positioned.

After leaking in 2009, a prototype version of the third-gen iPod touch was spotted in a video in May 2010, and ahead of that, in April 2020, a couple of prototype models with camera showed up on eBay.

The eBay seller at the time said that he purchased the models at a flea market from someone who had bought them from a live auction in the Bay Area. Prototype devices like the third-generation iPod touch are hotly desired by collectors and surface on auction sites. Zompetti has in the past said that some of his devices are surfaced from device recycling facilities.

While the third-generation iPod touch didn't end up with a camera, Apple added it in the fourth-generation model along with a microphone. The fourth-generation iPod touch featured a 0.7-megapixel rear camera alongside its 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera.