MacRumors

Today is Independence Day in the United States, and as people around the country celebrate the holiday, many retailers have kicked off notable sales that can help those shopping around today save some money.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

In this article we've highlighted some of the best sales for Apple products and compatible accessories, offered by companies like Speck, Twelve South, JBL, Anker, CalDigit, OWC, and many more.

iPad Pro Deals

Amazon has introduced a series of notable discounts on Apple's 11-inch iPad Pro from 2018, including a few new all-time-low prices on the tablet. Discounts include both Wi-Fi and cellular models, and reach to as much as $250 off original prices.

Amazon is also continuing sales on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro models this week, offering up to $250 off the larger-screen devices. iPad Pros that are seeing lowest-ever prices have been marked in the lists below.

11-Inch

• Wi-Fi, 512 GB - $949.00, down from $1,149.00 ($200 off, lowest ever)
• Wi-Fi, 1 TB - $1,299.00, down from $1,549.00 ($250 off)
• Cellular, 512 GB - $1,099.00, down from $1,299.00 ($200 off, lowest ever)
• Cellular, 1 TB - $1,449.00, down from $1,699.00 ($250 off, lowest ever)

12.9-Inch

• Wi-Fi, 512 GB - $1,149.00, down from $1,349.00 ($200 off, lowest ever)
• Wi-Fi, 1 TB - $1,499.00, down from $1,749.00 ($250 off)
• Cellular, 64 GB - $949.99, down from $1,149.00 ($199 off, lowest ever)
• Cellular, 256 GB - $1,099.99, down from $1,299.00 ($199 off)
• Cellular, 512 GB - $1,299.00, down from $1,499.00 ($200 off, lowest ever)

Anker

Anker typically has sales running on its accessories, and today is no different. With these discounts, you can save on portable battery packs, a power strip, Lightning cables, Bluetooth speakers, wireless chargers, wireless earphones, and more.

All of the sales listed below will expire on July 10, and none of them require a promo code. Be sure to head to Amazon and place your order soon if you're interested.

Chargers

• PowerWave 10W Wireless Charging Stand - $14.29, down from $16.99
• PowerCore 10,000 mAh Portable Charger - $24.99, down from $31.99
• PowerCore 26,800 mAh Portable Charger - $49.99, down from $65.99

Cables

• PowerLine II Lightning Cable [6ft] - $9.99, down from $13.99
• PowerLine II USB-C to Lightning Cable [6ft] - $15.99, down from $19.99

Audio

• Soundcore Speaker (Red and Blue) - $24.99, down from $29.99
• Soundcore Mini 2 Speaker - $39.99, down from $54.99
• Sport Air Wireless Workout Earphones - $29.99, down from $35.99

Miscellaneous

• PowerPort Power Strip 12 w/ 3 USB Ports - $26.49, down from $34.99
• Security Wi-Fi Video Doorbell - $119.99, down from $159.99

Speck

Today is the last day that you can get 25 percent off sitewide on Speck's website. With this sale, you can save on iPhone cases, iPad cases, and other accessories.

Head to SpeckProducts.com, add a product to your cart, and enter the code JULY4TH during checkout to get 25 percent off. Exclusions to the sitewide sale include MacBook covers, accessories for the Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL, and previously marked down products.

Twelve South

Popular Apple accessory maker Twelve South is offering up to 60 percent off its devices through July 5 at 12:01 p.m. ET. During the "Tent Sale," you can save on items like the BackPack for iMac, Journal for iPhone, Fermata stand, PlugBug World, and many more.

We've highlighted a few notable accessories on sale in the list below, but be sure to head to TwelveSouth.com for the full collection.

• PlugBug World - $24.99, down from $39.99
• Fermata - $34.99, down from $79.99
• HiRise Duet - $53.55, down from $119.00
• RelaxedLeather for iPhone - as low as $19.99, down from $49.99
• Inspire Mac Candle No2 - $19.99, down from $29.99

Olloclip

Accessory maker Olloclip is offering a discount on a variety of its iPhone camera accessories. You can get a few of the Olloclip iPhone cases for $19.99 ($10 off), Ultra-Wide and Super-Wide lenses for $35.99 ($9 off), and the Filmer's Kit for $219.99 ($20 off).

There are also various clips, bundles, and standalone lenses on sale, so be sure to visit Olloclip.com to browse the full sale.

OWC

Other World Computing has a "Sizzling Firecracker Savings Event" happening this week, with 76 deals and various items on clearance.

You can get a HomePod for $228.88, discounted power adapters for the MacBook, Thunderbolt 3 docks, and more during the sale.

CalDigit

CalDigit is providing 15 percent off your entire order from the CalDigit Online Store with the coupon code HAPPY4TH. This promotion is only valid in the United States and United Kingdom, and will end on July 7.

CalDigit is a great place to purchase storage devices for Mac that use Thunderbolt and USB-C, but the company also sells accessories like USB-C adapters and docking stations.

Other Sales

• JBL - Save up to 60 percent on portable speakers, headphones, and more
• Newegg - Save on monitors, RAM, laptops, and more
• Satechi - Use code JULY15 to take 15 percent off orders under $100, or the code JULY20 to take 20 percent off orders over $100
• Best Buy - Save on MacBook, iPad, HomePod, and much more through Saturday

Head to our full Deals Roundup to catch up on all of the best sales and discounts going on this week.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple will do away with its controversial butterfly mechanism keyboard in future MacBooks, beginning with a refreshed MacBook Air later this year.

In a report obtained by MacRumors, Kuo says Apple will instead use a new keyboard design based on scissor switches, which should provide better key travel and durability than the more failure-prone butterfly keyboard.

There have been successful developments in the new scissor keyboard. The new keyboard could improve the typing experience by offering longer key travel and durability by adopting glass fiber to reinforce the keys' structure.

Kuo believes a new scissor switch keyboard will also be used in the MacBook Pro, but not until 2020. Perhaps tellingly, Kuo made no mention of the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ he has previously suggested Apple will launch later this year.

We believe the partially refreshed MacBook Pro models will also adopt a new scissor keyboard in 2020; shipments of MacBook models equipped with a new scissor keyboard will grow 500–700% YoY in 2020. Though the butterfly keyboard is still thinner than the new scissor keyboard, we think most users can't tell the difference. Furthermore, the new scissor keyboard could offer a better user experience and benefit Apple's profits; therefore, we predict that the butterfly keyboard may finally disappear in the long term.

Apple's butterfly keyboards are highly controversial and have been called out as one of the company's worst design decisions due to their penchant for failure due to small particulates like crumbs or heat issues.

Following years of anecdotal complaints from customers, and a few class action lawsuits, Apple initiated a worldwide service program, offering free repairs of 2015-and-later MacBook and 2016 and 2017 ‌MacBook Pro‌ keyboards, which are equipped with low-profile butterfly switch mechanisms.

Apple in 2018 debuted ‌MacBook Air‌ and ‌MacBook Pro‌ models that use an updated third-generation butterfly keyboard. The third-generation keyboard has a thin silicone barrier behind each key, which was put in place as an ingress-proofing measure to prevent dust from getting in the keys.

Clearly the hope was that the updated keyboard would cut down on failures, but the 2018 ‌MacBook Pro‌ is still prone to keyboard issues, and Apple acknowledged as much in March.

Kuo says the new replacement keyboard will be supplied solely by specialist laptop keyboard maker Sunrex rather than Wistron, which currently makes the butterfly keyboards for Apple. The analyst expects the new Sunrex keyboard will go to mass production in 2020 and will make the Taiwan-based firm Apple's most important keyboard supplier.

Apple in June launched a voluntary recall and replacement program for 15-inch MacBook Pro models with Retina display sold between September 2015 and February 2017, citing defective batteries that could overheat and pose a fire safety risk.

Right after the replacement program was announced, designer Steven Gagne shared some images of a ‌MacBook Pro‌ that caught fire, and those images were today surfaced by PetaPixel, giving us a look at why 2015 ‌MacBook Pro‌ owners should take this recall seriously.

Gagne said that the battery in his ‌MacBook Pro‌ exploded, causing a small fire and filling his house with smoke. He heard the sound of the battery popping, and then smelled a strong chemical scent. The ‌MacBook Pro‌ wasn't plugged in and it was in sleep mode.

He was able to get to it quickly enough to extinguish the fire before it did real damage, but the seriousness of the damage to the ‌MacBook Pro‌ emphasizes that this could have been far worse.

Apple has asked customers with a 15-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ from 2015 to stop using it until the battery inside can be replaced. Apple has a website outlining the recall program, with ‌MacBook Pro‌ able to enter a serial number to see if they need a battery replacement.

The recall affects the 15-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ from 2015 and does not impact later models released in 2016 and beyond. Those with 15-inch 2015 machines will need to visit an Apple retail location, an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or contact Apple support to arrange a mail-in repair.

You can determine which Mac you have by clicking on the Apple logo in the menu bar and selecting "About This Mac." The year of the machine is listed in parentheses, and affected machines will say "15-inch, Mid 2015."

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Apple has received a total of 26 reports of batteries overheating, including five reports of minor burns and 17 reports of minor damage to nearby personal property.

Apple sold approximately 432,000 affected ‌MacBook Pro‌ units in the United States and 26,000 in Canada.

The most recent beta of iOS 13 was released yesterday, and it brought an interesting new "FaceTime Attention Correction" feature that changes the way that ‌FaceTime‌ works.

‌FaceTime‌ Attention Correction, when enabled, adjusts the set of your eyes so that it looks like you're making eye contact with the person you're FaceTiming even when you're looking at the iPhone's screen rather than the camera itself. It's a little difficult to explain, so we've made a hands-on video to demo how it works.

As can be seen in the video, iOS 13 corrects this and makes it so that when you're looking at the ‌iPhone‌'s screen, your gaze appears to be on the camera, allowing eye contact to maintained be maintained while still letting you keep your gaze on the friend or family member you're FaceTiming with.

In iOS 12 and with ‌FaceTime‌ Attention Correction disabled, ‌FaceTime‌ looks like it always does - with no direct eye contact.

‌FaceTime‌ Attention Correction appears to use an ARKit depth map captured through the front-facing TrueDepth camera to adjust where your eyes are looking for a more personal and natural connection with the person that you're talking to.

Twitter users have discovered the slight eye warping that Apple is using to enable the feature, which can be seen when an object like the arm of a pair of glasses is placed over the eyes.

You can access ‌FaceTime‌ Attention Correction on ‌iPhone‌ XS, ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, ‌iPhone‌ XR, and 2018 iPad Pro models running the third developer beta of iOS 13. It's a setting that's available in the ‌FaceTime‌ section of the Settings app.

A new feature in the latest iOS 13 beta makes users appear as if they're looking directly at the camera to make eye contact during FaceTime calls, when actually they're looking away from the camera at the image of the other person on their screen.

Why the feature is limited to these devices right now remains unknown. It clearly relies on some form of image manipulation to achieve its results, so maybe the software algorithms require the more advanced processing power of Apple's latest devices.

Rundle predicted in 2017 that ‌FaceTime‌ attention correction would be introduced by Apple in "years to come," but its apparent inclusion in iOS 13, due to be released this fall, has surprised and impressed him.

For more details on the many features coming to iPhones with iOS 13, be sure to check out our comprehensive MacRumors roundup.

Update: As demonstrated by Dave Schukin, the feature uses ARKit depth maps to adjust eye position to make it appear the user is looking at the camera.

Changes found in the latest iOS 13 beta, released to developers on Tuesday, suggest users may be able to transfer data between two devices over a direct wired connection when setting up a new device or restoring one from a backup.

However, new assets in the iOS 13 beta spotted by 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo include an icon that appears to resemble an iPhone with Face ID connected to an ‌iPhone‌ with Touch ID using a cable, indicating a direct wired transfer option will be available when setting up devices.

In addition, a related code snippet uncovered in the beta includes the user request, "Keep your other ‌iPhone‌ connected to this ‌iPhone‌ and connected to power until the transfer is complete," which perhaps refers to the use of a wireless charging mat during the direct transfer process.

It's unclear how any direct wired connection would work between two iPhones, since Apple doesn't sell a Lightning to Lightning cable that would enable such a physical link. Perhaps Apple intends to make such a cable available when iOS 13 is launched to the public in the fall.

Another possibility is that devices in Apple's new ‌iPhone‌ line-up, expected in September, will replace the ‌iPhone‌ Lightning port with a USB-C port. Apple already offers Lightning-to-USB-C cables for connecting iPhones to newer Macs.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is testing some versions of the 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup that include a USB-C connector instead of a Lightning port. It's not known if the company's final plans will include a transition to USB-C, but Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes Apple is going to stick with Lightning for the 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup.

Apple today released its newest transparency report, which outlines the government data requests that the company received during the second half of 2018. The PDF can be read in its entirety on Apple's website for full details, but there are a few notable highlights worth pulling out.

As TechCrunch points out, the newest report includes a section covering the number requests its received from governments asking to have an app removed from the App Store.

Apple received a total of 80 requests from 11 countries to remove 634 apps from various App Stores in different countries. While Apple did not provide specific details on which apps it was asked to pull, requests from China made up the bulk of total takedown requests.

China asked Apple to remove 626 apps, and Apple ultimately pulled 526 of those. Apple also pulled a smaller number of apps at the request of Vietnam, Austria, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Turkey.

According to Apple, the vast majority of the apps pulled in China related to either illegal gambling or pornography. Other reasons apps were pulled in various countries include violations of privacy law, pornography, unlicensed gaming, copyright infringement, and violations of local transportation law.

Apple in the second half of 2019 received 29,183 worldwide government requests for data from 213,737 devices and provided data in 22,691 of cases (78 percent). Apple says that in the U.S., the high number of devices specified in requests for data were due to stolen device and fraud investigations. Apple has similar notices for Germany, Poland, Russia, and South Korea.

There were also a higher number of government financial identifier requests in Canada, Germany, Spain, and the U.S. due to iTunes gift card and credit card fraud investigations.

In the United States, Apple received between 3 and 499 National Security Letters (Apple is required to report a range) for between 1,505 and 1,999 accounts.

Three of the National Security Letters received are no longer subject to non-disclosure orders and have been published by Apple for the first time. Apple also published two other NSLs that were issued earlier in 2018 and in 2015. National Security Letters are issued by the FBI and Apple is forbidden from disclosing them for a set period of time.

Apple says that in its next report, it plans to begin reporting on appeals received pursuant to government requests to remove apps from the ‌App Store‌. The full transparency report is available from Apple's website for those interested, along with breakdowns by country.

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.

Apps designed for the Mac often don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we have a series here at MacRumors that's designed to highlight useful and interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and potentially investing in.

This month's picks include apps for making your Touch Bar more functional, adding quick switches to the Menu bar, creating to-do lists, replacing the dashboard that's now defunct in macOS Catalina, and easily accessing Spotify and iTunes controls.

- One Switch ($4.99) - One Switch is a nifty Mac menu bar app that adds various switches to the Mac's menu bar. You can add toggles that will do things like hide desktop options, activate dark mode, keep the Mac awake, connect to headphones, toggle on Do Not Disturb, activate Night Shift, bring up the Screen Saver, and more. Options are customizable so you can make your One Switch menu do just want you need.

- Microsoft To-Do (Free) - Microsoft earlier this month brought its popular Microsoft To-Do app to the Mac, making it more functional than ever because it's now available across all of your devices. Mac users no longer have to rely on the web app, and can access features like task syncing between devices, file attachments, list sharing, color coding, and reminders for due dates, among other options.

- Flotato (Free) - Flotato is designed to create web apps from your favorite website, so you can get quick access to the web services that you use most often. Flotato web apps can be dragged right into the dock, so you can set up quick access for things like Google Docs, Facebook Messenger, Netflix on the web, favorite news sites, and more.

- Spotmenu (Free) - Spotmenu is another Mac app that's super simple but super useful, especially for Spotify and iTunes users. Spotmenu lets you access Spotify and iTunes content from your menu bar, allowing you to see what song is playing, pause music, play music, and skip tracks.

If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

Following a recent interview with The Times, Apple iTunes chief Eddy Cue sat down with GQ to share further thoughts on Apple Music and Apple TV+, Apple's upcoming streaming television service.

According to Cue, Apple plans to differentiate its streaming service by offering "the best shows," such as "For All Mankind," an upcoming space drama from Ronald D. Moore that explores what would have happened had the Soviet Union landed on the moon first and had the space race never ended.

Cue says that Apple worked with "the best people in the business" to create a show with a lot of attention to detail. "Like, we took the Houston control panel. We were able to get a lot of the original stuff. We didn't create fake ones," said Cue.

Contrary to some reports, Cue says that Apple executives have not been involved in script editing and have not had input on the ‌Apple TV‌+ shows in an editorial capacity.

"I saw the comments that myself and Tim were writing notes on the scripts and whatever," says Cue. "There's never been one note passed from us on scripts, that I can assure you. We leave the folks [alone] who know they're doing."

"I can assure you that was 100 per cent false. He didn't say, 'Don't be so mean.' He didn't say anything about a script."

Cue says that Apple is aiming to create shows for everyone, from children to mature adults. "We're going to do a lot of different shows," he said. Apple will have television shows that aren't family friendly, such as "The Morning Show" with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston.

"The Reese Witherspoon-Jennifer Aniston show [The Morning Show is a workplace drama set behind the scenes of breakfast TV]. It's a show about women in the workplace and some of the issues that happen to them are definitely not appropriate for you to watch with an eight-year-old."

As for the show that he's most excited about, Cue says that he can't wait for "Dickinson," a show about the life of poet Emily Dickinson that stars Hailee Steinfeld.

Cue also commented on the upcoming music lyric syncing feature in iOS 13, which scrolls through lyrics as a song plays.

"It just takes an inordinate amount of money to try to do this and to try to figure out how to do this the right way," says Cue. And while Apple is naturally starting with the most popular tracks, Cue says it doesn't intend to stop there. The plan is to add synced-up lyrics to every song in the Apple Music library.

"I honestly don't know the exact number of people who are working on it. In our ideal world it would be zero because we'd get them all from the labels. But we discovered that it wasn't going to work. In general it takes hundreds of people to do.

Cue's full interview can be read over at GQ, and for a rundown of all of the TV shows Apple has in the works, make sure to check out our guide. For details on how the ‌Apple TV‌+ service will work, we have a guide for that too.

Apple today seeded the third betas of iOS 13 and iPadOS to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after releasing the second betas and a month after unveiling the new operating system at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Registered developers will need to download the profile for the iOS 13 and iPadOS betas from Apple's Developer Center. Beta 3, like Beta 2, can be downloaded over-the-air once the proper profile has been installed.

Apple split iOS 13 and iPadOS into separate updates in 2019, one designed for iPhone and one designed for iPad. iPadOS is identical to iOS 13 in almost every way, though there are some iPad-specific features such as new multitasking capabilities. For the most part, the two operating systems share the same features.

iOS 13 is a major update with a long list of new features. Perhaps the most noticeable outward-facing change is a new systemwide Dark Mode that changes the entire look of the operating system from light to dark, darkening everything from system elements to apps.

Apple overhauled the Photos app, introducing a new ‌Photos‌ tab that curates your entire ‌Photos‌ library and shows you a selection of highlights organized by day, month, or year, and there are revamped Photo editing tools.

For the first time, you can edit video right in the ‌Photos‌ app, cropping, rotating, applying filters, and adjusting lighting and color. There's a new High-Key Mono lighting effect, and for Portrait Lighting in general, intensity can be adjusted.

There's a less obtrusive volume HUD, a new Find My app that combines ‌Find My‌ ‌iPhone‌ and ‌Find My‌ Friends and lets you track your devices even with they don't have an LTE or WiFi connection.

A Sign In with Apple feature (not yet active) gives you a convenient and data safe way to sign into apps and websites, providing an alternative to Facebook and Google sign in options. Apple's even able to generate single-use randomized email addresses so you don't have to give your real info to apps and websites.

Maps has a new street-level "Look Around" mode and a Collections feature for making lists of places, Reminders has been entirely overhauled to make it more functional, there's a profile feature in Messages along with new Memoji and Animoji stickers, and Siri has a new voice.

CarPlay in iOS 13 has been overhauled with a new look, multiple sets of AirPods (or Powerbeats Pro) can be connected to the same phone so you can share music with a friend, ‌Siri‌ on HomePod can detect multiple voices for multi-user support, and ‌HomePod‌ also supports Handoff.

There are a ton of additional new features and changes coming in iOS 13, and for a full rundown of what you can expect, you should check out our iOS 13 roundup. For a list of what changed in beta 2, make sure to check out our what's new in beta 2 post. Not much changed, but some features that weren't previously working were activated. We'll also be adding beta 3 changes below once we've had a chance to install the new OS.

The beta testing period will allow Apple to work out bugs ahead of the release of iOS 13 and iPadOS, and it will let developers build iOS 13 and iPadOS features into their apps ahead of a public release coming this fall.

What's New in iPadOS

- Split View In iPadOS, Split View now shows which side of the display is actively receiving text input.

What's New in iOS 13

- FaceTime Attention Correction - In the Settings section of ‌FaceTime‌, there's a new "‌FaceTime‌ Attention Correction" option that changes the way your attention is focused on the ‌iPhone‌ during a call. The setting says that eye contact with the camera will be more accurate during ‌FaceTime‌ Video calls.

- Home app - In the Home app, there's a new popup that lets you know your cameras do not support secure recording, an iOS 13 feature, if you have HomeKit-connected cameras.

- ‌Find My‌ - There's a new "Me" tab in the ‌Find My‌ app that displays your current location.

- Apple Arcade - When opening the App Store and selecting the Arcade tab, there's a new video highlighting the upcoming Apple Arcade service.