MacRumors

The United States Transportation Security Administration today announced stronger screening procedures for carry-on electronics, and will require all devices larger than a cell phone to be placed in bins for X-ray screening when going through standard screening lanes.

The TSA already requires laptops to be removed from carry-on bags and placed in a separate bin with nothing above or below, and it appears this will now expand to devices like iPads and portable gaming consoles.

According to the TSA, extensive testing and successful pilot programs have been going on at 10 airports, which has led the administration to expand the measure to all U.S. airports "during the weeks and months ahead."

"Whether you're flying to, from, or within the United States, TSA is committed to raising the baseline for aviation security by strengthening the overall security of our commercial aviation network to keep flying as a safe option for everyone," said TSA Acting Administrator Huban A. Gowadia.

"It is critical for TSA to constantly enhance and adjust security screening procedures to stay ahead of evolving threats and keep passengers safe. By separating personal electronic items such as laptops, tablets, e-readers and handheld game consoles for screening, TSA officers can more closely focus on resolving alarms and stopping terror threats," said Gowadia.

The TSA has found ways to "improve screening measures" by using "quicker and more targeted measures to clear the bags," but requiring more bins is bound to slow down screening procedures.

The new rules are already in place in the following airports: Boise (BOI), Colorado Springs (COS), Detroit Metropolitan (DTW), Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL), Logan International (BOS), Los Angeles International (LAX), Lubbock Preston Smith International (LBB), Luis Muñoz Marín International (SJU), McCarran International (LAS) and Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX).

There's one way to get around the rules -- a TSA Pre membership. Customers who are enrolled in TSA Pre and using TSA Pre lanes will not need to remove their laptops or other electronic devices.

In an internal memo obtained by MacRumors, Apple has informed Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers that it is actively working to rebuild worldwide supply of top case assemblies with batteries for Mid 2012 and Early 2013 models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Apple's memo says, effective July 26, service inventory of top case assemblies with batteries is now available for new repairs. The directive adds that MobileGenius, the service and support tool that Genius Bar employees use on the iPads they carry around, has stopped presenting messages about delayed repairs.

For all new repair requests, Apple advises Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers to order the necessary inventory. Apple advises its service providers to inform customers that the inventory should arrive within 15 business days of the part order, corresponding with early August.

Prior to today, a customer with an eligible MacBook Pro that failed Apple's battery diagnostic test was offered the option of exchanging the notebook for a functionally equivalent model. Or, customers could wait until battery inventory became available, in exchange for Apple covering the cost of the repair.

Likely because Apple no longer makes Mid 2012 and Early 2013 models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the functionally equivalent model ended up being a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro, or sometimes even a 2016 or 2017 model, according to many customers who shared their experiences on MacRumors and Reddit.

What made the deal so compelling is that, for the exchange, Apple only charged its out-of-warranty battery fee of $199 in the United States, £199 in the UK, or $259 in Canada, significantly less than a new MacBook Pro costs.

Apple's memo today appears to mark the end of the company offering outright exchanges for newer MacBook Pro models. Many users on MacRumors and Reddit have confirmed Genius Bar employees are now informing customers that battery inventory is available in 15 business days as instructed.

It's unclear if Apple Stores will honor exchanges initiated prior to July 26 that are still being processed.

Apple previously said top case assemblies with batteries for the MacBook Pro models would remain severely constrained until September 15, 2017, according to an older internal memo obtained by MacRumors. The directive did not identify a reason for the shortage, which has been ongoing since at least March.

WSJ. Magazine has shared a lengthy interview with Apple design chief Jony Ive about Apple Park, the company's new headquarters in Cupertino, California, revealing a few new anecdotes about the all-new campus and the exhaustive architectural process that has gone into constructing it.

Ive, for instance, reportedly scoffed at a recent article claiming Apple Park has contributed to a tree shortage in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ive takes offense at the idea that he hasn’t already thought of every detail during the years of planning Apple Park. He scoffs at an article claiming that Apple contributed to a tree shortage in the Bay Area by buying up so many plants for the campus, “as if we’d got to the end of our project and we thought, Oh, we’d better plant some trees.” Apple began working with an arborist years ago to source trees, including varieties that once made up the bountiful orchards of Silicon Valley; more than 9,000, many of them drought-resistant, will have been planted by the time the campus is finished.

The report also mentions that Ive's design team will be among the last to move into the new headquarters this fall. Employees began moving over from Apple's existing Infinite Loop campus in April, and when the transition is completed, the spaceship-like campus will reportedly house some 12,000 workers.

Apple Park's fourth floor is where the company's executives will be situated, including Ive's design studio, along with the Apple Watch team and part of the group working on Siri, according to the report. Apple's Mac and iPad divisions will be interspersed with software teams on the middle levels, it adds.

Apple Park's main cafeteria, which will reportedly serve some 14,000 lunches a day, is a four-level atrium with massive 440,000-pound glass doors. Apple employees have to pay for food, but at a somewhat subsidized rate, the report said. For perspective, some tech companies like Google offer entirely free meals.

Outside, the green space within Apple Park's inner circle will play host to Apple's iconic "beer bashes" on Friday afternoons, which often include featured performances. Here, more than 9,000 trees, many of them drought-resistant, will supposedly have been planted by the time the campus is finished.

Some of the trees will be regularly harvested to provide fruit for the campus kitchen, according to the report.

WSJ. Magazine's complete interview is a worthwhile read for those interested in learning more about Apple Park. A handful of drone operators have also been filming monthly videos that provide a closer look at the new headquarters and its surrounding facilities throughout the construction phase.

Apple is planning to build three "big, big, big" manufacturing plants in the United States, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly told U.S. President Donald Trump. The news was shared by Trump in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Cook is said to have promised to build "three big plants, beautiful plants," but little additional information is available. What those plants will manufacture is unclear, as is their potential location.

"I spoke to [Mr. Cook], he's promised me three big plants--big, big, big," Mr. Trump said as part of a discussion about business-tax reform and business investment. "I said you know, Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won't consider my administration an economic success. He called me, and he said they are going forward."

Apple representatives declined to provide clarification on Trump's statement.

Apple has been investigating manufacturing in the United States since Trump said "we're going to get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries," during a campaign speech at Virginia's Liberty University in 2016. At the time, Trump threatened to introduce a 45 percent tax on products imported from China.

Following pressure from Trump, Apple reportedly asked its suppliers Foxconn and Pegatron to look into making iPhones in the United States.

While Pegatron declined, Foxconn is planning to build a TFT-LCD factory in the United States, with the latest rumors suggesting the company is considering Wisconsin as the state where the facility will be built.

Apple CEO Tim Cook previously explained that iPhones are manufactured in China because of the skill of the workforce. "China put an enormous focus on manufacturing," he said. "The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills. I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we're currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields."

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.

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group, comprising Apple, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and other companies, today introduced an upcoming USB 3.2 specification, which will eventually replace the existing USB 3.1 specification upon release.

An incremental update, USB 3.2 is designed to define multi-lane operation for USB 3.2 hosts and devices. USB Type-C cables already support multi-lane operation, and with USB 3.2, hosts and devices can be created as multi-lane solutions, allowing for either two lanes of 5Gb/s or two lanes of 10Gb/s operation.

With support for two lanes of 10Gb/s transfer speeds, performance is essentially doubled over existing USB-C cables.

As an example, the USB Promoter Group says a USB 3.2 host connected to a USB 3.2 storage device will be capable of 2GB/sec data transfer performance over a USB-C cable certified for USB SuperSpeed 10Gb/s USB 3.1, while also remaining backwards compatible with earlier USB devices.

"When we introduced USB Type-C to the market, we intended to assure that USB Type-C cables and connectors certified for SuperSpeed USB or SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps would, as produced, support higher performance USB as newer generations of USB 3.0 were developed," said Brad Saunders, USB 3.0 Promoter Group Chairman. "The USB 3.2 update delivers the next level of performance."

Along with two-lane operation, USB 3.2 continues to use SuperSpeed USB layer data rates and encoding techniques and will introduce a minor update to hub specifications for seamless transitions between single and two-lane operation.

More information about USB 3.2 will be unveiled at USB Developer Days 2017 later this year.

Apple today seeded the third public beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra update to public beta testers, two weeks after releasing the second public beta. The third public beta of macOS High Sierra is likely identical the fourth developer beta, which was provided to developers earlier this week.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program are able to download the third macOS High Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store after the proper profile has been installed.

Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas. For instructions on how to install the public beta, check out our how to, and make sure to make a backup before giving the software a try. Don't install the beta on a main machine, as betas are notoriously unstable. High Sierra runs on all machines that support Sierra.

The macOS High Sierra update is designed to improve and refine the existing macOS Sierra operating system. Along with a new, more efficient file system (APFS) designed for modern storage, the update introduces Metal 2, the next-generation version of Apple's Metal graphics API with support for machine learning, external GPUs, and VR content creation.

High Efficiency Video Encoding (HEVC aka H.265) is coming in High Sierra, and many of the existing apps are being updated. Photos features a new persistent side view and editing tools for Curves, Selective Color, and Live Photos, while Siri is gaining a more natural voice and support for more music-related commands.

Safari offers a new autoplay blocking feature for videos and Intelligent Tracking Prevention to protect your privacy, while Mail storage is being optimized to take up 35 percent less space. iMessages can now be stored in iCloud, and there are new iCloud Drive file sharing options and new iCloud storage family plans.

For a full overview of the new features you can expect to see when macOS High Sierra is released in the fall, make sure to check out our macOS High Sierra roundup.

Apple today released the third public beta of iOS 11 to its public beta testing group, allowing non-developers to download and test the new operating system ahead of its fall launch. The third public beta of iOS 11 comes two weeks after Apple released the second public beta and it likely corresponds to the fourth developer beta.

Beta testers that have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the new iOS 11 beta update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on an iOS device.

Those who want to join the beta testing program can sign up on Apple's beta testing website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas. Step-by-step instructions for downloading installing the public beta can be found in our how to. Betas should only be installed on a secondary device as the software is not stable and often includes many bugs.

The fourth developer beta brought some of the most significant changes we've seen yet in an iOS 11 beta. A much-desired swipe feature for clearing Notifications on the Lock screen has been added, and there are also several visual tweaks to icons throughout the operating system. An overview is below:

The iOS 11 operating system introduces several design changes to the operating system, including a new Lock screen experience and a customizable, redesigned Control Center. Siri is smarter, has a more natural voice, and can do more, Messages features person-to-person Apple Pay, Notes has searchable handwriting and document scanning, and Music lets you share playlists with your friends.

A new Files app improves file management on iOS devices, and on the iPad, there's a new Dock, an App Switcher, and support for Drag and Drop, all of which improves multitasking on the device. A revamped App Store is coming in iOS 11, photos and videos take up less space, iMessages can be stored in iCloud, and developers are getting new tools like ARKit for creating impressive new augmented reality apps and games.

For complete details on all of the features included in iOS 11, make sure to check out our iOS 11 roundup. Apple plans to release iOS 11 to the public in the fall following several months of testing and refinement.

Adobe today announced plans to end-of-life its Flash browser plug-in, ceasing development and distribution of the software at the end of 2020. Adobe encourages content creators to migrate flash content to HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly formats.

But as open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past several years, most now provide many of the capabilities and functionalities that plugins pioneered and have become a viable alternative for content on the web. Over time, we've seen helper apps evolve to become plugins, and more recently, have seen many of these plugin capabilities get incorporated into open web standards. Today, most browser vendors are integrating capabilities once provided by plugins directly into browsers and deprecating plugins.

The elimination of Flash and Flash Player should not heavily impact most users because popular browsers have already moved away from the format. Starting with macOS Sierra and Safari 10, Apple disabled Adobe Flash by default to focus on HTML 5, and Flash has never been available on Apple's iOS devices. Google's Chrome browser has also been de-emphasizing Flash since the middle of last year.

Adobe's Flash Player has always suffered from a never-ending stream of critical vulnerabilities that expose Mac and PC users to malware and other security risks. Vendors like Microsoft and Apple have had to work continually over the years to keep up with security fixes.

Apple also shared Adobe's Flash news on its WebKit blog, and the company says it is working with Adobe and industry partners on the transition from Flash to open standards.

Ahead of its sunsetting in 2020, Adobe will continue to support Flash on major operating systems and browsers, issuing regular security updates, maintaining OS and browser compatibility, and introducing new features and capabilities "as needed."

Adobe says it will, however, "move more aggressively" to end Flash distribution in countries where unlicensed and outdated versions of Flash Player are distributed.