MacRumors

Google today unveiled several new products at its Made by Google event in New York, including the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, Pixel Buds 2 wireless earphones, Pixelbook Go notebook, and new Nest devices.

Pixel 4

The new Pixel 4 and 4 XL were widely rumored ahead of their release, to the point that Google even shared teaser photos of its own, and now the devices are official. Key features include 90Hz displays, a new rear-facing 16-megapixel telephoto lens, facial authentication, motion sensing, and more.

The Pixel 4 sports a 5.7-inch OLED display, while the larger Pixel 4 XL has a 6.3-inch OLED display. Both displays are 90Hz for a smoother experience, compared to 60Hz for the iPhone 11 Pro and most other smartphones.

With the Pixel 4, Google says you can fine-tune the brightness and amount of detail in the shadows, helping with difficult shots like sunset portraits. And with a new astrophotography capability, Night Sight on the Pixel 4 can capture shots of the night sky, the stars, and even the Milky Way when visible.

Google has moved away from both the notch and rear fingerprint scanner of the Pixel 3, with the Pixel 4 and 4 XL instead featuring a sizeable top bezel housing an earpiece, front camera, and sensors for a facial authentication system similar to Face ID. Google says the Pixel 4 has the "fastest face unlock" of any smartphone.

Google says face unlock on the Pixel 4 is aided by a new Motion Sense feature that uses a miniature radar sensor to detect movement around the phone. The same sensor allows for quick hand gestures for snoozing alarms, dismissing timers, and silencing an incoming call, all without picking up the device.

The Pixel 4 is powered by a 2,800 mAh battery, while the Pixel 4 XL has a 3,700 mAh battery. Other tech specs for both devices include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, Adreno 640 graphics, 64GB or 128GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, Bluetooth 5.0, IP68-rated water and dust resistance, and stereo speakers.

The Pixel 4 and 4 XL start at $799 and $899 respectively, with pre-orders beginning today ahead of an October 24 release. Google will be selling the devices through all the major U.S. carriers for the first time. The devices come in three colors, including Clearly White, Just Black, and limited edition Oh So Orange.

Pixel Buds 2

Unlike the original Pixel Buds, the new version unveiled today feature a truly wireless design like AirPods.

Google says it scanned thousands of ears to create a design that is comfortable for as many people as possible. The new Pixel Buds feature a low-profile look that sits flush in your ear, with a so-called stabilizer arc and interchangeable ear tip ensuring a secure fit, even while exercising.

The ear tip gently seals the ear to isolate outside noises, but a spatial vent below the ear tip lets through a moderate amount of environmental sound so you can stay aware of the things around you. Pixel Buds can also dynamically adjust the volume based on the loudness of the surrounding environment.

Like Siri on the AirPods, the Pixel Buds have built-in Google Assistant.

The new Pixel Buds will be available for $179 in spring 2020 in four colors: Clearly White, Oh So Orange, Quite Mint, and Almost Black.

Pixelbook Go

Google's latest Chromebook is the Pixelbook Go, a slim and light notebook that is 13mm thick and weighs just over two pounds.

Tech specs and features include a 13-inch touchscreen, 8th-generation Intel Core processors, up to 16GB RAM, up to 256GB flash storage, up to 12 hours of battery life, a backlight keyboard with soft typing, two USB-C ports, and a headphone jack. Like other Chromebooks, the Pixelbook Go runs Chrome OS.

Pricing starts at $879, with pre-orders starting today in the U.S. and Canada, followed by the U.K. in January.

Nest Mini and Nest Wifi

Google also unveiled the Nest Mini, the successor to the Google Home Mini, with key new features including stronger bass and faster response times. Also under the Nest umbrella is a new Nest Wifi router, which builds upon the Google Wifi router with two times the speed and up to 25 percent better coverage.

Apple is currently engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with persistent kids looking to circumvent Screen Time restrictions, but the company has been receiving some criticism for not moving quickly enough to lock down some of the loopholes, reports The Washington Post.

A few of the loopholes and ways for parents to shut them down are documented on the site Protect Young Eyes, while these and others are frequently shared by kids through various social channels.

“These are not rocket science, backdoor, dark web sort of hacks,” says Chris McKenna, founder of the Internet safety group Protect Young Eyes. “It blows me away that Apple hasn’t thought through the fact that a persistent middle school boy or girl can bang around and find them.”

Although Apple has been making tweaks and improvements to Screen Time since its launch, some of the loopholes kids have been using to work around Screen Time limits have gone unpatched. And while Apple declined to address specific issues related to Screen Time, the company noted that it's committed to improving the feature.

Apple spokeswoman Michele Wyman, in an emailed statement, said the company is “committed to providing our users with powerful tools to manage their iOS devices and are always working to make them even better.” Wyman did not comment on specific bugs and workarounds in Screen Time or the speed with which Apple addresses them.

Apple rolled out Screen Time last year as part of iOS 12, and brought it to the Mac just last week with the release of macOS Catalina.

The Apple Card was "the most successful credit-card launch ever," according to Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon (via CNBC). The quote came from a Goldman Sachs conference call held earlier today, in which Solomon discussed the bank's new initiatives with its investors.

Apple created the ‌Apple Card‌ in partnership with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, launching the credit card in August. Solomon stated that since the August launch, the bank has seen a high level of consumer demand for the ‌Apple Card‌.

“In three short years, we have raised $55 billion in deposits on the Marcus platform, generated $5 billion in loans, and built a new credit-card platform and launched Apple Card,” Solomon said, adding “which we believe is the most successful credit-card launch ever.”

“Since August, we’ve been pleased to see a high level of consumer demand for the product. From an operational and risk perspective, we’ve handled the inflows smoothly and without comprising our credit underwriting standards.”

iPhone owners can sign up for ‌Apple Card‌ right in the Wallet app on iOS, and once they're approved they can begin using the digital version of the card immediately. ‌Apple Card‌ also comes in a physical titanium credit card to be used at places that don't accept Apple Pay.

Apple-owned Beats today introduced the Beats Solo Pro, its first on-ear headphones with active noise cancellation.

Like the over-ear Beats Studio3 headphones, the Solo Pro feature proprietary Beats noise cancelling technology known as Pure ANC, but with updated tuning to accommodate the on-ear form factor. Apple says Pure ANC uses advanced algorithms to continuously monitor and adjust to the listening environment.

When enabled, a new feature called Transparency turns on the external microphones on the Solo Pro so the wearer can hear announcements, talk with friends, stay aware of their surroundings, and so forth without pausing music playback. There is a button on the left ear cup to switch between the modes.

Battery life is listed as up to 22 hours with Pure ANC and Transparency, and up to 40 hours with those features disabled. Like other recent Beats headphones, a Fast Fuel feature provides three hours of playback with a 10-minute charge.

Beats Solo Pro feature redesigned on-ear cushions with a remodeled enclosure for improved comfort and acoustics. Beats says exposed metal sliders enable a more durable and personalized fit, while the headband has no visible separation at the hinges when unfolded for a sleek appearance.

Beats Solo Pro also have an evolved acoustic platform, including a refined driver. Two beam-forming microphones, an updated speech-detecting accelerometer, and the Apple-designed H1 chip combine for improved audio quality and enhanced voice recognition for hands-free "Hey Siri" functionality.

Additional features include the ability to unfold the headphones to power them on, and Audio Sharing with iOS 13 devices.

Audio Sharing lets you wirelessly share audio between the Solo Pro and other Beats and AirPods with H1 or W1 chips. Simply bring the second set of headphones near an iPhone or iPad running iOS 13 or later and connect with a tap, and then both headphones can listen to the same audio with separate volume control.

Beats Solo Pro headphones will be available October 30 in Black, Ivory, Gray, Dark Blue, Light Blue, and Red, with pre-orders beginning today on Apple.com in the United States. Pricing is set at $299.95.

Included in the box is a Lightning to USB-A charging cable and a carrying case.

Roku today announced that the Apple TV app will be available on its platform starting today, allowing users to access their iTunes libraries of movies and TV shows, the Apple TV Channels feature, and soon Apple TV+.

The Apple TV app can be downloaded from the Roku Channel Store on smart TVs that either have Roku preinstalled or have a Roku dongle connected, although select older Roku models are not supported.

The Apple TV app is available to Roku users in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

In addition to Roku, Apple TV+ will be available through the Apple TV app on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, select 2018 and newer Samsung smart TVs, and on select LG, Sony, and VIZIO smart TVs in the future. Apple TV+ will also be available on the web at tv.apple.com.

Apple TV+ launches November 1. ‌The subscription-based video service will be priced at $4.99 per month with a one-week free trial. Up to six family members can share a single ‌Apple TV‌+ subscription through Family Sharing.

Apple Pay has expanded to more banks in Europe today, including ING in Germany, bunq in Austria, and ABN AMRO in the Netherlands.

ING supporting ‌Apple Pay‌ in Germany is notable after a lengthy waiting period following the original announcement. ‌Apple Pay‌ made its debut in Germany in December, allowing iPhone and Apple Watch users in the country to take advantage of the contactless mobile payments service if their card issuer supports it.

Meanwhile, the Federation of German Cooperative banks (BVR) are said to be preparing for ‌Apple Pay‌ support, as are the Sparkassen and Giroverbandes (DSGV) association of savings banks. Both the BVR and the savings banks could start offering support later this year.

Also today, European challenger bank bunq brought ‌Apple Pay‌ to its customers in Austria. "Austrian users can now enable both Maestro and Mastercard cards for ‌Apple Pay‌, so they get the best of both worlds. This gives them the freedom to pay with their iPhone or Apple Watch, whenever they want, wherever they go," said bunq founder and CEO Ali Niknam.

Last but not least, ABN AMRO, one of the largest banks in the Netherlands, announced ‌Apple Pay‌ support in early September and now the bank's customers can finally start using Apple's payment service. Rabobank is expected to offer support in the country soon.

‌Apple Pay‌ has been gradually expanding across Europe and the Middle East, launching in Poland, Norway, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, Austria, and Iceland over the last year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in March that ‌Apple Pay‌ would be available in more than 40 countries and regions by the end of 2019. ‌Apple Pay‌ first launched in the United States in October 2014. You can view the full list of ‌Apple Pay‌ countries and regions on Apple's website.

(Thanks, Geert!)

After upgrading to macOS Catalina, you may be surprised to discover a shortcut on your Mac's desktop to a Relocated Items folder that wasn't there previously. The generation of this folder is actually normal behavior when upgrading an older version of macOS to Catalina, but we're highlighting it in this article because a lot of users are confused about why the folder exists and what to do with its contents.

What Are Relocated Items?

Relocated items are older files and data from previous macOS installations that Apple is not sure what to do with after upgrading to Catalina.

Catalina is the first version of macOS to adopt wholesale the relatively new Apple File System (APFS), which is optimized for the flash storage used in recent Macs. Aside from introducing a bunch of other new technical features, an APFS-formatted disk uses a space-sharing "container" that can house multiple secure "volumes" or file systems. This allows the disk's free space to be shared on demand and allocated to any of the individual volumes in the container as required.

When you upgrade to macOS 10.15, Catalina is installed on a dedicated read-only system volume called "Macintosh HD," while your files and data are stored separately in another volume named "Macintosh HD - Data." The idea behind this setup is that it helps prevent the accidental overwriting of critical operating system files, since the user can no longer alter data or store files on the read-only system volume.

In practice, the average user shouldn't notice any difference after the split, since both volumes appear in Finder as a single unified Macintosh HD volume (although if you want, you can view them separately in Disk Utility).

However, during the upgrade process, files or data that were previously stored in the startup volume are now stored in the new Macintosh - HD Data volume, and Catalina may not be able to find a corresponding home for them there. That's where the Relocated Items folder comes in.

The Relocated Items Folder

While creating the two separate volumes during the upgrade process, Catalina reviews the files and data on your hard drive to check that they're valid, authorized, and in the correct location. Any files and data that couldn't be stored on the Macintosh HD - Data volume in a folder equivalent to their original location, are placed in the Relocated Items folder. This folder also includes a PDF document with more details about these files.

Amongst a bunch of other things that you may not recognize, the folder can include configuration files that were modified by you, by another user, or by an app. Regardless, the modifications make them incompatible with macOS Catalina and are considered redundant as far as the system is concerned.

Can I Delete the Relocated Items Folder?

It's worth reiterating that the Relocated Items folder you see on the Desktop is just a shortcut that can be safely deleted. Doing so will not remove the folder or its contents from your hard disk. You can find the actual folder in /Users/Shared/Relocated Items.

Whether or not you delete the Relocated Items folder proper is entirely up to you. Removing the contents should be safe as far as your Mac's operating system goes, just be sure to check the contents carefully for anything that looks familiar. If you have any third-party apps that don't work since you updated to Catalina, then the Relocated Items folder may well contain data related to them, but it likely needs updating by the developers in new versions of these apps. If you recognize custom configuration files in the Relocated Items folder, then you might want to keep them around for reference in case you want to recreate them at a later date.

If your Relocated Items folder isn't very big, then simply remove the Relocated Items shortcut on your Desktop to remove the eyesore and carry on. But if you feel strongly about deleting the actual files, see below.

How to Delete the Relocated Items folder

To delete the actual Relocated Items folder, simply drag it into the Trash and then empty the Trash folder. Having said that, some of the contents may resist being deleted when you come to empty the Trash because of old security permissions on the relocated files.

If that's the case, one way to get rid of the files is to disable system integrity protection (SIP) on your Mac. The following steps explain how to disable SIP, but before you go ahead, note that the process involves rebooting your Mac and using Terminal. If you're not familiar with the Terminal command prompt, or if you have any other misgivings about the steps, our advice is to just leave the Relocated Items folder where it is, or move it elsewhere out of sight. MacRumors cannot be held responsible for any data loss.

1. If the Relocated Items folder is in your Trash, right-click it there and select Put Back from the contextual pop-up menu.
2. Restart your Mac via the Restart... option in the Apple menu bar, and when the boot cycle starts again, hold down the Command and R keys to enter Recovery mode.
3. From the Recovery screen menu bar, select Utilities -> Terminal.
4. Type csrutil disable and hit Enter.
5. Restart your Mac via the Restart option in the menu bar.
6. Now delete the Relocated Items folder, then empty the Trash.
7. Restart your Mac and enter Recovery mode again using Command-R.
8. From the Recovery screen menu bar, select Utilities -> Terminal.
9. Type csrutil enable and press Enter to re-enable SIP.
10. Restart your Mac via the Restart option the menu bar.

Once you've followed these steps, the contents of the Relocated Items folder should be gone from your system for good.

Following user concern over Apple using Chinese company Tencent as one of its Safe Browsing partners for Safari, Apple has issued a statement assuring customers that website URLs are not shared with its safe browsing partners.

For those unfamiliar with the feature, Safari sends data to Google Safe Browsing to cross reference URLs against a blacklist to protect users against scams and malicious sites. It recently came to light that Apple is also using Tencent for this purpose, and there was concern that data from users outside of China was being sent to Tencent.

According to Apple's statement, that is not the case, and Tencent is used for devices that have their region code set to mainland China. Users in the United States, the UK, and other countries do not have their website browsing checked against Tencent's safe list.

Apple protects user privacy and safeguards your data with Safari Fraudulent Website Warning, a security feature that flags websites known to be malicious in nature. When the feature is enabled, Safari checks the website URL against lists of known websites and displays a warning if the URL the user is visiting is suspected of fraudulent conduct like phishing.

To accomplish this task, Safari receives a list of websites known to be malicious from Google, and for devices with their region code set to mainland China, it receives a list from Tencent. The actual URL of a website you visit is never shared with a safe browsing provider and the feature can be turned off.

Safari occasionally receives a list of hash prefixes of URLs known to be malicious from Google or Tencent, choosing between them based on the device's region setting (Tencent for China, Google for other countries). Hash prefixes are the same across multiple URLs, which means the hash prefix received by Safari does not uniquely identify a URL.

Prior to loading a website, when the fraudulent website warning feature is toggled on, Safari checks whether a website URL has a hash prefix to match the hash prefixes of malicious sites. If a match is found, Safari sends the hash prefix to its safe browsing provider and then asks for the full list of URLs that have a hash prefix that matches the suspicious one.

When Safari receives the list of URLs, it checks the original suspicious URL against the list, and if there is a match, Safari shows the warning pop up suggesting users stay away from the site. The check happens on the user's device, and the URL itself is not shared with the safe browsing provider, but because Safari communicates directly with the safe browsing provider, the providers do receive device IP addresses.

Information about Apple's safe browsing partners can be found in the About Safari and Privacy screen, available in the Privacy and Security section of the Safari portion of the Settings app. Fraudulent website protection is enabled by default, and those still concerned about the safety check feature can turn it off by deselecting the "Fraudulent Website Warning" toggle.

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.

Netgear today announced a new mesh router in the Orbi family of products, called the Orbi Dual Band Mesh Wi-Fi System. The new system consists of one router and one or more satellites, and is aimed at homes that measure up to 4,500 square feet (with two satellites).

The router and satellites all feature the same design, measuring 4.1 inches on all sides and 2.7 inches tall. As with other mesh systems, after users purchase the base router they can continue to add on satellites to boost the range of the network throughout the home.

The new router delivers Wi-Fi at speeds up to 1.2Gbps, supports MU-MIMO for simultaneous data streaming, includes two high performance internal antennas, and is powered by a quad-core 710MHz processor. Because it's a dual band router, it also supports 2.4GHz (400Mbps) and 5GHz (866Mbps) bands.

The Orbi Dual Band Mesh Wi-Fi System features Netgear Armor cybersecurity, which is built into the router and satellites to protect the user's mobile devices and computers. Netgear Armor features anti-virus, anti-malware, and data protection for an unlimited number of devices.

The system also includes Netgear's Circle parental controls, allowing parents to set age-appropriate settings for each family member, enable safe search, block certain ads, and more.

The parental control settings and other features are performed through Netgear's Orbi app on iOS and Android, including the device's setup process. In the app, users can perform speed tests, manage devices on their network, troubleshoot connectivity issues, and more.

The Orbi Dual Band Mesh Wi-Fi System is available to purchase today for $229.99, including one router and two satellites.