MacRumors

Apple today announced the launch of a new SSD service program for the 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar after determining that the 128 and 256GB SSDs in a limited number of these machines have an issue that can result in data loss and failure of the drive.

Apple says that 13-inch MacBook Pro models with affected drives were sold between June 2017 and June 2018, and Apple will provide service for these drives free of charge.

MacBook Pro owners can submit their serial number on the page announcing the program to see if their machines are eligible for servicing. Apple recommends that affected machines be serviced as soon as possible to avoid loss of data.

13-inch MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar and older 13-inch MacBook Pro models are not affected.

Customers will need to visit an Apple retail location, an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or contact Apple Support for a mail-in repair. Apple says that all machines needing service should be backed up first, with the company outlining the repair steps:

Prior to service, it's important to do a full back up of your data because your drive will be erased as part of the service process.

- A technician will run a utility to update your drive firmware which will take approximately one hour or less.
- Your 13-inch MacBook Pro will be returned to you with macOS re-installed.
- After service, you will need to restore your data from a backup.

Apple also recommends having another device, such as an iPhone, available to view the Apple support article with details about restoring data from a backup since the Mac in question will not be able to access the internet until it is updated.

Apple says that files corrupted due to this issue will not be able to be restored, and any damage to the MacBook Pro that impairs the ability to service the drive will need to be addressed first, possibly at customer expense.

The program covers affected MacBook Pro models for three years after the first retail sale of the unit, but it doesn't extend the standard warranty coverage of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Customers who already paid for a repair for a drive failure can contact Apple Support for a refund.

Back before the iPhone X came out, there were rumors suggesting Apple would do away with the Home button by implementing Touch ID under the display of the device, preserving the fingerprint sensor while allowing for an edge-to-edge display.

That didn't end up happening and Apple ultimately replaced Touch ID with Face ID, but since then, other companies have implemented in-display fingerprint recognition technology.

OnePlus recently unveiled its new OnePlus 6T, one of the first commercially available smartphones in the United States that's using in-screen fingerprint recognition technology. We were able to get our hands on one of the new smartphones to see if Apple is missing out on anything with its Face ID implementation.

There are instances where a fingerprint sensor offers benefits over facial recognition. Face ID, for example, doesn't work well when you're laying in bed and the phone is held in landscape or when an iPhone is flat on a desk. With a fingerprint sensor, those are non-issues.

Fingerprint sensors have their own problems, though, and as we discovered with the OnePlus 6T, in-display fingerprint technology isn't as great as it sounds. OnePlus' implementation is slow and inaccurate, a major negative compared to Face ID.

With the OnePlus 6T, you need to make sure to place your finger in the designated spot on the display for your fingerprint to be recognized, and sometimes you need to hold it there for what seems like a long time before it reads the fingerprint. Touch ID and Face ID both unlock almost instantly, so the wait with the OnePlus 6T makes a huge difference.

Had Apple pursued in-display fingerprint technology its implementation might have been better than what OnePlus came out with, and there's still a chance the tech OnePlus is using will improve with software updates or future iterations, but we'll never know if Apple would have done it better.

Apple is all in on Face ID, which is now in both modern iPhones and iPads, and the company has said that other solutions, like in-screen or rear-facing Touch ID, were never under consideration once it decided to pursue Face ID.

Apple's Face ID technology is still so advanced that no other company, OnePlus included, has managed to match it as of yet. And in-display technology still has a ways to go, it seems, with most major Apple competitors instead opting for rear-facing fingerprint sensors as a way to achieve edge-to-edge displays.

Do you miss Touch ID and wish Apple would have worked towards an in-display fingerprint sensor, or do you prefer Face ID? Let us know in the comments.

Amazon and Apple have reached an agreement that will see Amazon selling an expanded selection of iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch devices through its online storefronts in the United States, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and India, reports CNET.

In the near future, Amazon will offer its customers the Apple latest devices, which includes the new 2018 iPad Pro models, the iPhone XR, the iPhone XS and XS Max, Apple Watch Series 4 models, the 2018 Mac mini, and a selection of Beats headphones. The products will be available through Apple-authorized resellers on Amazon's marketplace.

Certain Apple products will not be included on Amazon's site, such as the HomePod, which directly competes with Amazon's line of Echo devices.

In a statement provided to CNET, Amazon said that it added Apple products because it's always aiming to improve the customer experience.

"Amazon is constantly working to enhance the customer experience, and one of the ways we do this is by increasing selection of the products we know customers want," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement Friday morning. "We look forward to expanding our assortment of Apple and Beats products globally."

At the current time, many Apple products are not available on Amazon's site or are sold through unreliable third-party marketplace sellers at non-standard prices. With the new agreement, Apple devices will be available at regular retail prices.

Independent sellers who offer new and used Apple products on Amazon will have their listings removed after January 4, 2019, under the new deal. Those sellers will need to apply to become Apple authorized resellers on Amazon to continue to offer their wares.

As CNET points out, while this deal will provide customers with access to a greater selection of Apple products at standard prices, it could potentially impact the used Apple device market on the platform.

Apple plans to donate to fire relief efforts in Northern and Southern California, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Twitter this morning.

It continues to be fire season in California, and right now, the dry, windy weather has led to three major fires in the state. The Camp Fire, north of Sacramento, has burned upwards of 70,000 acres, with residents of Chico and Paradise being evacuated. Many homes have been destroyed in Paradise, California.

In Southern California, the Hill Fire and Woolsey Fire are raging in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The Woolsey Fire is approaching Malibu, a well-known area of Los Angeles, and residents are being evacuated. Upwards of 75,000 homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties have already been evacuated and some structures have reportedly been destroyed.

Santa Ana winds that exacerbate the fires are expected to continue through Friday and into Saturday, with a second round of winds forecasted to start on Sunday and last through Tuesday.

Apple often provides aid during serious environmental disasters. Late last year and earlier this year, Apple donated several million towards fire relief aid for other fires that impacted California.

While the new MacBook Air with a Retina display can only be configured with one processor option, a 1.6GHz dual‑core eighth‑generation Intel Core i5 processor, Apple may have prototyped a faster version too.

A benchmark result on Geekbench last week has surfaced via Slashleaks for an unreleased Mac, codenamed AAPJ140K1,1, powered by a dual-core eighth-generation Core i7 processor with a base clock speed of 1.8GHz. The exact model is not listed, but its logic board has the same part number as the new MacBook Air.

As further evidence, the benchmark result lists 16GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM, an existing upgrade option for the new MacBook Air. And the Core i7-8510Y appears to be part of Intel's low-power Amber Lake lineup, as is the Core i5 in the new MacBook Air, although it's not listed on Intel's ARK database.

The apparent MacBook Air with a Core i7 chip has a multi-core score of 8,553 on Geekbench, which would make it roughly 8.5 percent faster than the average multi-core score of the existing option with a Core i5.

Geekbench founder John Poole told MacRumors that nothing about the benchmark result looks fake to him, although that possibility can't be entirely ruled out. If real, however, it suggests that a 2018 MacBook Air with a Core i7 exists within Apple, but obviously hasn't been released to the public.

It's reasonable to assume that Apple prototypes several different versions of its products, and not all of them see the light of day. Why the MacBook Air with a Core i7 wasn't released is anyone's guess — maybe it ran too hot, or Apple elected to keep the dual-core Core i7 a MacBook Pro option, or something else.

If Apple does plan to add the Core i7 as an upgrade option for the new MacBook Air, it's hard to envision that it would do so anytime soon considering the notebook was just refreshed. Apple has bumped up the MacBook Air's processor mid-product-cycle in the past, though, so there is some precedence for the move.

All in all, there is possibly a new MacBook Air with a Core i7 in the wild that Apple decided not to ship or may ship at a later date.

Apple today shared a story about how the iPhone's accessibility features enable blind veteran and surfboarder Scott Leason to live independently.

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Leason was blinded in 1993 after seven years of service. After years of adapting to his new normal, he received an iPhone 5 in 2012, along with training from Sarah T. Majidzadeh, assistant chief of blind rehabilitation at the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California.

Leason is one of many individuals who are blind or have low vision who rely on the iPhone's built-in VoiceOver screen-reading software for daily tasks.

"It's a lot easier to navigate with the phone," Leason told Apple for its story. "I think a lot of the visually impaired prefer the iPhone because they can do everything on it. And VoiceOver works pretty darn good."

VoiceOver is a gesture-based reader introduced on iPhone in 2009, which made it the world's first fully accessible smartphone user interface for the blind, according to Apple. 76 percent of blind and low-vision people using a mobile screen-reading platform choose VoiceOver, per a December 2017 survey by WebAIM.

A competitive surfboarder, Leason has since upgraded to an iPhone XR, which he uses to review the day's surf reports via the Surfline app to prepare for the day's ride, typically at Mission Beach in San Diego. He also wears an Apple Watch Series 4 to track his surfing workouts in the water and at home.

"It's amazing how long ago 10 years feels in the world of technology," said Kevin Waldick, assistant director at the Mission Bay Aquatics Center. "He was not very technologically savvy at all, but when he got his iPhone he was like 'I can just do it. This is amazing.' And so Apple does a really amazing job of making that accessible."

Leason was the first blind champion at the USA Adaptive Surfing Championships at Oceanside Harbor North Jetty in June 2016. The same year, he won second place in men's tricks at the USA Water Ski competition in Harmony, North Carolina. In 2018, he competed in seven competitions in four different sports.

"I'm independent," Leason concluded. "That's the best way to describe the iPhone: independence."

The repair experts at iFixit have completed their teardown of the new Mac mini, providing a look inside the portable desktop computer.

Disassembly of the new Mac mini remains fairly straightforward. iFixit popped off the plastic bottom cover with its opening tool and then used a Torx screwdriver to unfasten the familiar antenna plate underneath.

With access to the inside, iFixit then unscrewed the fan and popped out the logic board with some old-fashioned thumb pressing. While the RAM in the previous-gen Mac mini from 2014 was soldered to the logic board, the new Mac mini has user-upgradeable RAM, as discovered earlier this week.

As seen in older iMacs, the RAM is protected by a perforated shield that allows the memory modules to operate at a high frequency of 2666 MHz without interfering with other device functions, according to iFixit. To upgrade the RAM, the shield can be removed by unfastening four Torx screws.

Other silicon on the logic board of this particular Mac mini includes the Apple T2 security chip, a 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3 processor, Intel UHD Graphics 630, 128GB of flash storage from Toshiba, an Intel JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 controller, and a Gigabit Ethernet controller from Broadcom.

Despite the good news about the RAM, the CPU and SSD are soldered to the logic board, as are many ports, so this isn't a truly modular Mac mini.

iFixit awarded the new Mac mini a repairability score of 6/10, with 10 being the easiest to repair, topping the latest MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and iMac Pro, and trailing only the 2013 Mac Pro.

"Back in the day, a Pro Mac meant a computer you could upgrade, configure, and connect as you pleased," iFixit's teardown concludes. "This new mini aligns so well with that ideal that we're surprised it didn't earn itself a "Pro" title—especially compared to the increasingly closed-off MacBook Pro line."

The new Mac mini earned its higher repairability score thanks to its straightforward disassembly with no tough adhesive or proprietary pentalobe screws and user-upgradeable RAM. However, it didn't earn a perfect score due to the soldered-down CPU, storage, and ports, impacting repairs and upgrades.

Apple's newly revamped 2018 MacBook Air with slimmed down bezels, Touch ID, and a thinner body launched yesterday, and we got our hands on one of the updated machines.

Check out our latest YouTube video for an unboxing and feature overview of the new notebook, which has been described as the ideal MacBook for most people.

Design wise, the MacBook Air looks a lot like the previous-generation model, but it now comes in Space Gray and Gold in addition to Silver. It's not as thin and light as the ultra thin and ultra portable MacBook, but Apple has streamlined the design.

The new MacBook Air is 10 percent thinner than the previous model, takes up 17 percent less volume, and weighs a quarter pound less at 2.75 pounds.

Components from the MacBook Pro, including the larger Force Touch trackpad and the third-generation butterfly keyboard, have been added to the MacBook Air, which will be major changes for anyone upgrading from an older machine that doesn't have these features.

There's been some controversy with the butterfly keyboard (which has been available in the MacBook and MacBook Pro for years) but this third-generation version has additional silicone barriers to keep crumbs out and to cut down on failure rates.

Like the new 2018 MacBook Pro models, the MacBook Air adopts a T2 chip and Touch ID for use as a password replacement, but it doesn't have a Touch Bar. It also uses USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, dropping the USB-A, SD card slot, and MagSafe 2 ports.

For the first time, the MacBook Air features a Retina display, putting it on par with the MacBook Pro and the MacBook. It's not quite as bright and vibrant as the MacBook Pro's display, but it's still a fantastic improvement over the previous non-Retina model.

The display also has slimmed down black bezels, a much more modern look than the thick silver bezels from the prior-generation model.

Inside, the MacBook Air is equipped with a 7W 8th-generation Core i5 Intel processor. It's not as high-powered as the 15W chips used in previous MacBook Air models, but it does offer speed improvements over the old Broadwell chips that prior machines used, and since it uses less power, it's super efficient.

The new MacBook Air has the longest battery life out of any of Apple's notebooks, lasting up to 12 hours when browsing the web and 13 hours when watching iTunes movies.

With all of these new features, Apple is charging $1,199 for the entry-level MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM, $200 more than the base model MacBook Air used to cost. That puts it close to the pricing of both the entry-level 2017 non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro and the 12-inch Retina MacBook.

Still, the MacBook Air is Apple's lowest-priced modern notebook, and with its rich feature set, long battery life, and slimmed down enclosure, it's an appealing machine that's ideal for people who need a notebook to do things like web browsing, light creative work, writing, office work, and other similar tasks.

It's not as powerful as the MacBook Pro and it's not as portable as the MacBook, but it's a great middle-of-the-road machine that's going to suit the needs of most Mac users.

Did you get a new 2018 MacBook Air? Let us know what you think about the machine in the comments.

Bald person emoji, woozy face, smiling face with three hearts, foot, pleading face, and hot face were among the most engaging and highly-discussed emoji in the iOS 12.1 update, according to research conducted by Emojipedia.

The new hairless emoji, bald man and bald woman, was the most popular character, followed closely by woozy face and smiling face with three hearts.

Emojipedia gathered its data by measuring comments, retweets, and likes on various emoji characters on Twitter.

According to the data, the foot emoji saw a high number of retweets, while the smiling face with three hearts garnered a lot of likes and retweets. Of the new smiley emojis in iOS 12.1, only cold face and partying face didn't rank in the top 10.

Emojipedia says that while measuring emoji by engagement doesn't indicate how popular a given emoji will be in real-world use, Twitter statistics like these provide insight into the emojis that people consider interesting, notable, or controversial in some way.

Leg commentary, for example, focused on the weird nature of the emoji rather than interest in using it on a regular basis.

Of food and animal emoji, mango and cupcake were the most discussed food items, while llama and raccoon were the most popular animals. Aside from leg and foot, no other random item emoji made the top 20 list.

Emojipedia has a full ranking of all 70 new emoji introduced in iOS 12.1, along with data on the individual comments, retweets, and likes received by each emoji.

iOS 12.1 with the new emoji characters was released to the public on Tuesday, October 30. It included dozens of new Unicode 11 emoji characters, with our full list available here.

iOS will gain additional new emoji characters at some point in 2019, when Unicode 12 characters are adopted. Unicode 12 is still in development, but new emoji candidates include service dog, deaf people, mixed race couples, diving mask, waffle, Hindu temple, white heart, ice cube, sloth, flamingo, skunk, ballet shoes, falafel, onion, garlic, otter, and more.

Apple in March submitted a series of new accessibility emojis to the Unicode Consortium, which could be included in Unicode 12.

Unicode 12 is likely to be finalized early in 2019, but Apple may not implement it until the release of iOS 13, if past emoji additions are any indication.