MacRumors

Consumer Reports is out with an updated report on the 2016 MacBook Pro, and following retesting, the magazine is now recommending Apple's latest notebooks.

In the new test, conducted running a beta version of macOS that fixes the Safari-related bug that caused erratic battery life in the original test, all three MacBook Pro models "performed well."

Now that we've factored in the new battery-life measurements, the laptops' overall scores have risen, and all three machines now fall well within the recommended range in Consumer Reports ratings.

Consumer Reports originally denied the 2016 MacBook Pro a purchase recommendation in late December due to extreme battery life variance that didn't match up with Apple's 10 hour battery life claim.

Apple worked with Consumer Reports to figure out why the magazine encountered battery life issues, which led to the discovery of an obscure Safari caching bug. Consumer Reports used a developer setting to turn off Safari caching, triggering an "obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons" that drained excessive battery.

The bug, fixed by Apple in macOS Sierra 10.12.3 beta 3, is not one the average user will encounter as most people don't turn off the Safari caching option, but it's something done in all Consumer Reports tests to ensure uniform testing conditions. A fix for the issue will be available to the general public when macOS Sierra 10.12.3 is released, but users can get it now by signing up for Apple's beta testing program.

Each of the three 2016 MacBook Pro models, including the 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar, and the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models with Touch Bars, are advertised as achieving 10 hours of battery life on a single charge when watching iTunes movies or browsing the web.

Real life Battery usage can vary significantly, however, based on factors like screen brightness and the applications being used.

A U.S. Appeals Court today ruled that App Store customers can move forward with a lawsuit claiming Apple created an illegal app monopoly because it did not allow users to purchase iPhone apps outside of the App Store, reports Reuters.

The decision reverses a 2013 ruling that dismissed the lawsuit, originally filed in 2012. The case, Pepper et al v. Apple Inc., alleges that by not letting users purchase apps from third-party sources, there was no price competition, leading to higher app prices.

When the lawsuit was originally filed, Apple requested that it be dismissed because developers, not Apple, set prices for App Store apps. Apple simply provides the platform developers use to sell apps to customers.

According to today's ruling, because iPhone users purchase the apps directly from Apple, they have the right to file a lawsuit against the company.

An attorney for the plaintiffs in the case told Reuters that the aim of the lawsuit is to allow people to shop for iPhone apps wherever they want, an outcome that's unlikely due to security implications.

But if the challenge ultimately succeeds, "the obvious solution is to compel Apple to let people shop for applications wherever they want, which would open the market and help lower prices," Mark C. Rifkin, an attorney with Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz representing the group of iPhone users, told Reuters in an interview. "The other alternative is for Apple to pay people damages for the higher than competitive prices they've had to pay historically because Apple has utilized its monopoly."

The Appeals Court ruling does not address the specific monopoly allegations levied at Apple and pertains only to whether or not Apple can be sued for this issue.

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming iOS 10.2.1 update to developers and public beta testers, a few days after seeding the third iOS 10.2.1 beta and a month after releasing iOS 10.2, the second major update to the iOS 10 operating system.

Registered developers can download the fourth iOS 10.2.1 beta from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air with the proper configuration profile installed.

It isn't yet known what features are included in iOS 10.2.1, but as a minor 10.2.x update, it appears to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements rather than major outward-facing changes. No new features were discovered in the first three iOS 10.2.1 betas, but we'll update this post if any changes are found in the fourth beta.

iOS 10.2.1 follows the release of iOS 10.2, a significant update that brought Unicode 9 emoji, a new TV app, Messages Screen Effects, Music improvements, and a whole slew of bug fixes.

Apple is rumored to be working on a new iPad Pro that adopts an edge-to-edge display, and while it's said to be somewhere around 10 inches, there are a lot of mixed rumors about the specific size of the tablet.

Studio Neat designer Dan Provost yesterday wrote a post on Medium (via Daring Fireball) making the case for a 10.5-inch iPad. His math is solid and his argument makes sense, framing all of the iPad Pro rumors in a new light.

When introducing the 12.9-inch iPad Pro in 2015, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller explained that Apple settled on that size because the width of the tablet matched the height of the existing 9.7-inch iPad. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro, he said, was similar to having two 9.7-inch iPads side-by-side.

The math works out perfectly. This new 10.5" iPad would have the exact same resolution as the 12.9" iPad Pro (2732 x 2048), but the same pixel density of the iPad mini (326 ppi instead of 264 ppi). Crunch the numbers, do a little Pythagorean Theorem, and you end up with a screen 10.5" diagonal (10.47" to be precise, but none of Apple's stated screen sizes are exact). In terms of physcial dimensions, the width of this 10.5" screen would be exactly the same as the height of the iPad mini screen.

Existing rumors all agree that the upcoming iPad Pro will be in the neighborhood of 10 inches, but we've heard everything from 10.1 inches to 10.9 inches, suggesting Apple could be testing multiple prototypes.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo originally suggested the tablet would be 10.5 inches, but recently revised his statement to say that it could be anywhere from 10 inches to 10.5 inches.

Japanese site Mac Otakara has released two separate reports, one mentioning a 10.1-inch tablet and the other suggesting the display will measure in at 10.9 inches, while rumors from the Taiwanese supply chain suggest a 10.5-inch display.

While we can't yet say for certain the iPad Pro will feature a 10.5-inch display, it's the size that makes the most sense and fits well into Apple's lineup.

The upcoming iPad Pro is said to be a new flagship model that will be sold alongside the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. It's said to feature an edge-to-edge display with no Home button and a small top bezel.

Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives, has been named as a member of the new Federal Committee on Automation. Announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the committee will act as an advisory panel to discuss and look into "some of the most pressing and relevant matters facing transportation today."

These matters are said to mainly include the development and deployment of automated vehicles. Additionally, the committee will act as a resource for the Department of Transportation as it continues to provide research, policy updates, and regulations on transportation in the U.S., while also helping "advance life-saving innovations."

Its members consist of "leading professionals and experts" in a multitude of fields.

“During my time at the Department, we have fostered some of the most significant technological changes to ever take place in transportation, and we did so while keeping our focus on the safety of the American people,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. ”This new automation committee will work to advance life-saving innovations while boosting our economy and making our transportation network more fair, reliable, and efficient.”

In addition to Lisa Jackson, the Federal Committee on Automation will include Gloria Boyland (FedEx VP), Robin Chase (Zipcar Co-Founder), Rachel Holt (Uber Regional General Manager), Gerry Murphy (Amazon Senior Corporate Council), and various other technology executives, university professors, and automotive industry professionals.

Each member of the committee is said to contribute the "best practices, challenges, and opportunities" they have knowledge of in regards to the future of automation in vehicles. Apple's own interest in autonomous cars was made official in a letter to federal regulators last month, and now it appears that the company will be willing to share its knowledge for the betterment of vehicle automation across the industry.

As technology develops, automation may play a larger role in a number of modes of transportation, including cars, buses, trains, planes, and UAS (drone) systems. This committee will play a critical role in sharing best practices, challenges, and opportunities in automation, and will open lines of communication so stakeholders can learn and adapt based on feedback from each other.

The full list of committee members can be found on the U.S. Department of Transportation's official website.

Apple is building a "significant" business centered around creating original, scripted television shows and possibly even movies, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. The content would be made available on Apple Music, falling in line with previous reports and accompanying already-announced projects for the music streaming service, including Carpool Karaoke and Vital Signs.

Apple executives have told Hollywood that the new original content will launch by the end of 2017, according to the new report. In terms of specific genres, HBO's Westworld and Netflix's Stranger Things were both used as comparisons for what Apple is aiming to produce on Apple Music. These proposed series and movies "don’t have any particular relationship to music," unlike Carpool Karaoke and Vital Signs.

Rumors about Apple meeting with Hollywood executives to create original TV shows for Apple Music or iTunes have existed since last year, and now Apple is even looking into producing original films for the service, "though those plans are more preliminary," according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is said to have been in talks with producers over the past few months about purchasing the rights to scripted television programs, as well as seeking out marketing people to come on board and promote the new content. The move is looked at as a way for Apple to gain an edge in its competition against Spotify, rather than become a streaming contender alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Because it is looking at just a handful of carefully selected shows, and potentially films, it doesn’t appear Apple is preparing to spend the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars it would need to spend annually to become a direct competitor to Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video or premium cable networks.

Rather, it would escalate the arms race between Apple Music and Spotify, which both offer essentially the same catalog of tens of millions of songs, by adding other content that could distinguish Apple’s service.

Although most of Apple's plans are still steeped in secrecy, the company has reportedly told producers an advantage it hopes to offer is that it would share its viewer and demographic data on the people who watch the new shows. Netflix has remained infamously private about the specific number of viewers who watch its streaming shows, making it hard to tell what is a successful launch or not, "which has been a source of contention among some in Hollywood."

Last Summer, Eddy Cue said that Apple is "not in the business of trying to create TV shows" when asked about the future of the company and its past relationships with Hollywood, where it once spoke with network programmers to get a live-streaming TV bundle launched before ultimately shelving the plans. At the time, Cue said that Apple would "help" producers whenever it had the chance and that any TV project would serve as "complimentary to the things we're doing at Apple Music."

Apple's iOS ecosystem is on course to generate over $1 trillion in revenues for the company by the middle of this year, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu.

Dediu's prediction is based on several factors, starting with an expectation that Apple will have sold at least 1.2 billion iPhones in its first 10 years, earning it the rank of "most successful product of all time" and laying the foundations for the company's iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, and Apple Watch categories.

In its first 10 years, the iPhone will have sold at least 1.2 billion units, making it the most successful product of all time. The iPhone also enabled the iOS empire which includes the iPod touch, the iPad, the Apple Watch and Apple TV whose combined total unit sales will reach 1.75 billion units over 10 years. This total is likely to top 2 billion units by the end of 2018.

Dediu claims revenue from iOS device sales will total about $980 billion by the middle of this year, and adds to that estimate more than $100 billon in revenues from supporting services (including app content sales), putting the ecosystem's total worth above the $1 trillion mark.

The analyst notes this excludes payouts to iOS app developers of around $60 billion, with the rate of payments now reaching $20 billion per year. Those numbers would appear to tally with comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook last August that the company has paid out more than $50 billion to developers over the lifetime of the App Store, which first launched for the iPhone in 2008.

Dediu points to the locked-in nature of Apple's ecosystem ensuring the iPhone's resilience and longevity, despite strong competition from so-called "iPhone killers" that come and go, while its robust feature set and attached services continue to earn it the market reputation as the premium smartphone to beat.

In addition, the analyst claims that Android users are now more likely to switch to iOS rather than the other way around – a trend supported by previous reports from both market analysts and Apple, including, notably, comments made in the company's Q4 2016 earnings call.

Dediu ends by predicting not another "Big Bang" for the iPhone, but a "process of continual improvement" as the smartphone enters its second decade. Indeed, the analyst expresses more excitement for its network of "ancilliary smart accessories" like the Apple Watch, the AirPods, Apple Pencil, and other possible new wearables that point toward a future where the iPhone is a hub to a mesh of personal devices. "The seamless integration of such devices is what has always set Apple apart," Dediu concludes.