MacRumors

Michael Tsai, the developer of EagleFiler and the SpamSieve plug-in for Apple Mail on Mac, has written a blog post warning macOS users about potential data loss in Mail when upgrading to macOS Catalina 10.15.0 (build 19A583).

According to Tsai, he's heard from several users that updating Mail's data store from Mojave to Catalina sometimes says that it has succeeded, when in fact on closer inspection it turns out that large numbers of messages are incomplete or missing entirely.

In addition, users have reported the loss of message content when moving emails between mailboxes. From Tsai's post:

Moving messages between mailboxes, both via drag-and-drop and AppleScript, can result in a blank message (only headers) on the Mac. If the message was moved to a server mailbox, other devices see the message as deleted. And eventually this syncs back to the first Mac, where the message disappears as well.

Tsai warns that these issues are particularly pernicious because users may not realize anything's wrong unless they look at affected messages or mailboxes. Since the data is synced to the server, these problems can also propagate to other computers and devices, and relying on backups is difficult because Mail data is continually changing and there's no easy way to merge restored data with messages received since the last backup.

Despite the latter risk, it's still good practice to make backups, but Tsai notes that Apple Support appears to be erroneously advising users that lost Mail data in Catalina can't be recovered from a Time Machine backup made using macOS Mojave.

According to Tsai, this is not the case: Apple Mail's File -> Import Mailboxes... menu bar option can be used to selectively import them into Mail in Catalina as new local mailboxes.

Tsai says he's unsure whether these issues are due to Mail bugs or to other factors such as problems on the Mac or with the mail server. Apple released macOS Catalina 10.15.1 beta to developers on Friday, but it's still unclear if this version resolves the Mail app bugs. Regardless, Tsai's advice to users who rely on Apple Mail is to "hold off on updating to Catalina for now."

Affected readers can find the full breakdown of the issues here. Have you had problems with Mail since updating to Catalina? Let us know in the comments below.

Bose and Sonos, both well-known speaker manufacturers, recently came out with new AirPlay 2-enabled speakers that are designed to work with Apple's latest ‌AirPlay‌ protocol and offer an alternative to products like the HomePod.

In our latest YouTube video, we went hands-on with the Bose Portable Home Speaker and the Sonos Move to see what the speakers have to offer and how they compare to one another.

Both the Bose Portable and the Sonos Move are designed to offer a premium audio experience and are more expensive than the ‌HomePod‌. The Sonos Move costs $399 and the Bose Portable costs $349, but each company is known for its audio quality and audiophiles won't flinch at that price point.

When it comes to design, the Bose Portable and Sonos Move are both fairly standard looking vertical speakers with simple designs, but the Sonos Move is quite a bit larger than the Bose Portable, which also comes with a little handle, hence the "portable" part of the name. The Sonos Move has a built-in handle that's a bit more subtle for when you need to move it around.

Size wise, the Sonos Move is in between a Sonos One and Sonos Play:3 speaker. It's all black with Sonos branding on the front and media playback controls at the top. There's a power button, a button for linking multiple Sonos speakers, and a button to switch between Bluetooth and WiFi.

The smaller Bose Portable is cylindrical in shape like other 360-degree speakers, but with a high-quality construction. Media controls are located at the top, and it too is able to swap between Bluetooth and WiFi. The Sonos Move and Bose Portable both have durable builds and they're water resistant.

Both speakers charge over USB-C, and the Sonos Move includes a useful charging cradle that makes it easier to charge right out of the box. There's a comparable charging cradle for the Bose Portable, but it's sold separately and costs an extra $30.

The Sonos Move and the Bose Portable are ‌AirPlay‌ 2 compatible, so you can control the audio with your Apple devices and create a whole home audio system with other ‌AirPlay‌ 2-enabled devices with just a tap or two. Sonos, of course, has been doing whole home audio for years, but the benefit of ‌AirPlay‌ 2 is that it allows all ‌AirPlay‌ 2 devices from different brands to work together.

The Sonos Move is Sonos' first Bluetooth speaker that can be used on the go - no WiFi connection required. The same is true of the Bose Portable. Through the Sonos and Bose apps, Alexa and Google Assistant are available for controlling audio and syncing with music services, but there's no Siri integration, of course.

Both of the speakers offer crisp, clear audio that sounds fantastic. Each one can deliver high-quality sound even at louder volumes, with no distortion. Bose had a slight edge over the Sonos Move in our testing because we were able to adjust audio settings in the Bose app and the Sonos Move seemed to be lacking a bit in the low end. All in all, though, both speakers sounded great, which should be expected given their high prices.

The Sonos Move is going to appeal to those who prefer Sonos devices and already have a Sonos setup, while the Bose Portable may be the better choice for those looking to save $50. Do you prefer the Sonos Move or the Bose Portable? Let us know in the comments.

Following the release of iOS 13.2 beta 2 yesterday, some 2018 iPad Pro owners found that the update failed to install properly, ultimately bricking their tablets and requiring a full restore.

We've seen several complaints from ‌iPad Pro‌ owners who were affected by the issue, and in some cases, even a restore from DFU mode failed to work. From the MacRumors forums:

My iPad Pro 11" is in the same position, it failed during the update of iOS 13.2 beta 2. What you can try is putting it into DFU mode (press volume up, volume down, then hold power for 5 or so seconds) and plug it into iTunes via cable to restore it that way.

However, unfortunately mine gets an error when i try this so i have an Apple appointment tomorrow to get them to fix it.

Amid these reports, Apple appears to have pulled the iOS 13.2 beta 2 update for the ‌iPad Pro‌ as attempting to install the software at this time now produces an error message that the update was unable to be verified because of a lack of an internet connection, despite a connection being available.

Apple appears to have been blocking the iOS 13.2 beta update from the ‌iPad Pro‌ as of last night, and the company likely has a new version in the works that is safer to install. For now, ‌iPad Pro‌ owners should avoid attempting to install iOS 13.2.

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.1 update to developers, just days after releasing macOS Catalina to the public.

The new macOS Catalina beta can be downloaded using the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after installing the proper software from the Developer Center.

It's not yet known what improvements the first update to macOS Catalina will bring, but it likely includes performance improvements and fixes for bugs that weren't able to be addressed in the first version of Catalina.

macOS Catalina is a major update that eliminates iTunes in favor of new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps, nixes support for 32-bit apps, adds a new Find My app, brings a new Photos interface, and includes multiple privacy enhancements and other app refinements.

For full details on what's new in macOS Catalina, make sure to check out our macOS Catalina roundup.

Update: According to Apple's release notes, macOS Catalina 10.15.1 introduces support for the AMD Navi RDNA eGPU architecture and brings some changes to ‌Photos‌. You can now filter by Favorites, Edited, ‌Photos‌, Videos, or Keywords in the All ‌Photos‌ view, and you can choose View > Metadata > Titles to enable titles and filenames in the All ‌Photos‌ View.

Apple shares are currently trading above the $234 mark on the intraday market, setting a new all-time high for the company. As noted by CNBC, the stock's previous all-time high was $233.47 in October 2018.

AAPL has surged nearly 10 percent over the past month, fueled in part by multiple reports indicating that iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro sales have been better than expected so far in several countries, including the United States, China, and India, something that Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to in a recent interview.

Apple is set to report its fourth quarter earnings results on Wednesday, October 30 after the stock market closes.

Apple Arcade today gained five new games for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV:

• Decoherence by Efecto Studios: A strategy game that tasks players with building robots and planning a battle strategy for victory.
  

• INMOST by Chucklefish: An atmospheric, story-driven puzzle platformer following three playable characters within one dark, interconnecting story.
  

• Mind Symphony by Rogue Games: A classic shoot-'em-up game with both an intense, fast-pace mode and a calm mode with peaceful, rhythmic interactions focused on relaxation.
  

• ShockRods by Stainless Games: A vehicle-based arena shooter where players score points by shooting opponents, achieving objectives, scoring goals, stealing the other team's flag, or dealing the most destruction.
  

• Stela by SkyBox Labs: A cinematic, atmospheric platformer about a young woman witnessing the final days of a mysterious ancient world.

Apple Arcade also added two more games for the Mac on Thursday:

• Pilgrims by Amanita Design: A playful adventure game in which players roam the land and solve various tasks using dozens of items and unique characters, and without being obliged to follow a single designated path.
  

• Shantae and the Seven Sirens by WayForward: Traverse a vast, interconnected undersea world, make new Half-Genie friends, and battle the Seven Sirens as part of an all-new tropical adventure.

Trailers for some of the games:

Apple Arcade is Apple's new subscription-based gaming service, providing iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Mac users with access to dozens of games with no in-app purchases or ads for $4.99 per month. With these additions, Apple Arcade now has a total of 80 games for iOS and tvOS, while there are 61 games for the Mac.

Apple Arcade officially launched on September 19 for iPhone and iPad, although some users were able to access the service a few days early. Either way, the one-month free trial period will soon come to an end for early adopters.

Apple has reportedly set an aggressive 2022 deadline to develop in-house 5G modems as part of a system-on-a-chip (SoC) design to be used in future iPhones and iPads, claims a new report today.

According to Fast Company, Apple plans to have completed all the development, testing, and certification necessary by the new deadline to be able to include the modems in new iPhones the same year.

However, given the arduous testing and certification process required after the chip design and fabrication is complete, a two-years deadline for the modem is "really pushing it," according to the report's source, who is said to have knowledge of Apple's plans.

The main stumbling block is said to be the network optimization testing that's necessary to make sure the modem doesn't conflict with the wireless networks of other carriers. In addition, tests are needed to ensure compliance with global standards, not to mention the ability of the modem to satisfy FCC requirements.

Given those hurdles, Fast Company's source believes 2023 may be a more realistic completion date for Apple's SoC modem.

Apple agreed to acquire the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business in June, with a view to accelerating the development of its own 5G modem. A previous source claimed the iPhone maker wants to have an in-house chip ready for use in some of its products by 2021, while earlier sources reported timeframes of between 2022 and 2025.

Whatever the timeline is and regardless of whether Apple is able to stick to it, the company's transition to custom 5G modems will likely happen in phases, starting with lower-end and older models of devices. Apple has a multiyear chipset supply agreement with Qualcomm, and a six-year patent license agreement, so it doesn't exactly have to rush the process.

In the meantime, Apple is expected to use Qualcomm's chips for the first 5G-enabled iPhones in 2020.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has written to employees defending the company's controversial decision to pull an app used by Hong Kong protestors to coordinate gatherings and avoid large concentrations of police.

Apple removed HKMap Live from the App Store on Thursday following the app's approval last week, which itself only came after an internal review of the company's original decision to reject it. Apple's reversal came after the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper criticized Apple for letting the app into its store.

In a company-wide memo, a verified copy of which has been reproduced on Pastebin, Cook told staff that the decision to remove the app was not easy, but that Apple had received "credible information" from Hong Kong police that the app was being used to target individuals for violence. Here's the memo in full:

Team,

You have likely seen the news that we made the decision to remove an app from the App Store entitled HKmap.live. These decisions are never easy, and it is harder still to discuss these topics during moments of furious public debate. It’s out of my great respect for the work you do every day that I want to share the way we went about making this decision.

It is no secret that technology can be used for good or for ill. This case is no different. The app in question allowed for the crowdsourced reporting and mapping of police checkpoints, protest hotspots, and other information. On its own, this information is benign. However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law. Similarly, widespread abuse clearly violates our App Store guidelines barring personal harm.

We built the App Store to be a safe and trusted place for every user. It’s a responsibility that we take very seriously, and it’s one that we aim to preserve. National and international debates will outlive us all, and, while important, they do not govern the facts. In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users.

Tim

Cook has since been criticized for his claim that the app is used to target individual police and members of the public. The developers say HKmap Live is designed to help protestors avoid law enforcement. As such, it doesn't show individual officers but only large concentrations of police, as reflected in the web-hosted version of the app.

In a Twitter post, Charles Mok, a developer and member of Hong Kong's legislative council, revealed that he had written to Cook saying he was "deeply disappointed with Apple's decision to ban the app, and would like to contest the claims made by Hong Kong Police Force's Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau (CSTBC)."

"There are numerous cases of innocent passers-by in the neighborhood injured by the Kong Kong Police Force's excessive force in crowd dispersal operations," he wrote.

"The user-generated information shared using HKmap.live in fact helps citizens avoid areas where pedestrians not involved in any criminal activities might be subjected to police brutality which many human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have observed."

Mok's letter went on to note that since the banned app aggregates real-time reports from Telegram, Facebook and other sources, then the same standard should also be applied to review these social media apps.

In the U.S., lawmakers have also criticized Apple for not standing up for democratic values and free speech. "An authoritarian regime is violently suppressing its own citizens who are fighting for democracy," said Democrat senator Ron Wyden in a tweet. "Apple just sided with them."

"Apple assured me last week that their initial decision to ban this app was a mistake," tweeted Republican senator Josh Hawley. "Looks like the Chinese censors have had a word with them since. Who is really running Apple? ‌Tim Cook‌ or Beijing?"

At a press conference on Thursday, Hong Kong's Secretary for Transport and Housing was asked by reporters which local laws HKmap Live had violated that led Apple to remove it from the ‌App Store‌, but the official deferred to Cupertino: "The taking down of the app from the ‌App Store‌ is the decision made by the operating company – Apple. So, if you want to know the reason for them to take down the app, maybe you can approach Apple and the Apple Store."

Apple has so far declined to comment on the matter.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

When Apple announced macOS Catalina at the Worldwide Developers Conference and unveiled its new Catalyst feature that would allow iPad apps to be easily ported over to the Mac, Twitter was one of the upcoming apps shown off.

macOS Catalina launched on Monday, and as of today, the Twitter for Mac app is now available. macOS Catalina is required to download and use the new app, as it is built using Catalina technologies.

Twitter discontinued its prior Twitter for Mac client more than a year ago, which wasn't a popular decision with Twitter users. At the time, Twitter said that it was ending support for the app to focus on a Twitter experience consistent across platforms, and recommended Mac users use Twitter on the web.

Because Apple's Catalyst initiative makes it easier for apps designed for iOS to be brought to the Mac, Twitter has decided to reintroduce its Mac app, which shares similarities with the Twitter for ‌iPad‌ app.

Design wise, it's in line with the iPhone and ‌iPad‌ apps, but Twitter in June said that it has all of the features that users expect from a Mac app such as multiple windows, window resizing, drag and drop, dark mode, keyboard shortcuts, notifications, and more.

Twitter for Mac can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Apple's worldwide Mac shipments were down in the third quarter of 2019, according to new preliminary Pc shipping estimates shared this afternoon by Gartner.

During the quarter, Apple shipped an estimated 5.1 million Macs, down from 5.3 million in the third quarter of 2018, marking a 3.7 percent drop in shipments. Apple's marketshare also declined slightly, dropping from 7.9 percent to 7.5 percent.

Apple continues to be the number four PC vendor in the world, ranking below Lenovo, HP, and Dell, but above Acer and Asus. Lenovo was the number one vendor during the quarter, shipping an estimated 16.8 million PCs for 24.7 percent market share.

HP came in second with 15.3 million PCs shipped for 22.4 percent market share, while Dell was third with 11.3 million PCs shipped and 16.6 percent market share. Acer shipped 4.2 million PCs for 6.2 percent market share, while ASUS shipped 3.8 million PCs for 6.5 percent market share.

Apple's decline in Mac sales follows refreshes of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines this year, but comes as the iMac, Mac Pro, and ‌iMac‌ Pro continue to go without an update. Apple is planning to release an updated ‌Mac Pro‌ at some point this year.

The drop in Mac sales comes amid slight growth for the overall worldwide PC market. A total of 68.1 million PCs were shipped during the quarter, a 1.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2018.

Apple saw slight growth in Mac shipments in the United States in Q3 2019. Apple shipped a total of 2.186 million Macs during the quarter, up from 2.182 during the third quarter of 2018, a 0.2 percent increase.

HP was the number one PC vendor in the United States, shipping 4.4 million PCs. Dell came in at number two with 4 million PCs shipped, while Lenovo was third with 2.2 million PCs. Microsoft and Acer trailed Apple in the United States.

IDC also released its own shipment estimates this afternoon, noting an even steeper decline in sales for Apple. According to IDC, Apple shipped 5 million Macs during the quarter, down from 5.3 million, a decline of 6.1 percent.

In IDC's rankings, Apple falls below Lenovo, HP, and Dell, also coming in as the number four worldwide PC vendor, which is up from fifth place last year. IDC's data also suggests overall worldwide PC market growth of 3 percent percent rather than the 1.1 percent growth noted by Gartner.

Apple could see some growth in Mac sales next year following the release of the new ‌Mac Pro‌ and rumors suggesting a new 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ is on the horizon.

It's important to note that data from Gartner and IDC is based on estimates, and while Apple used to provide specific breakdowns of Mac sales, the company is no longer doing so and there will be no way to confirm shipment estimates going forward.