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As the countdown to WWDC 2024 continues, Apple today highlighted the tools and programs that it makes available to developers, and announced an update to the Apple Developer Forums.

Apple says that the updated forums will connect developers with more experts and with other developers for timely responses to technical questions. Apple engineers will provide code-level support, plus the forums have been reorganized into a layout of topics, subtopics, and tags to make it easier to find information.

Apple's Newsroom article delves into how many developers are using some of the programs that Apple offers, such as meeting with Apple engineers in person and attending developer academies. Meet with Apple Experts saw close to 50,000 developer engagements online and in person in 2023. The Apple Vision Pro developer labs in cities that include Cupertino, New York, London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo, were attended by 6,000 developers who worked with Apple experts on visionOS apps.

"It's an honor and a privilege for our teams to work directly with developers at every stage of their journeys, from students and hobbyists, to budding entrepreneurs and coding professionals," said Susan Prescott, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We're always looking for new ways to support this amazing community as they bring their visions to life and push the boundaries of what is possible."

More than 1,900 students attended Apple Developer Academies, and more than 1,800 went through an Apple Foundation Program in 2023, plus Apple also hosted five Entrepreneur Camp sessions. Apple in May debuted Pathways, which are easy-to-navigate collections of videos, documentation, and resources for developers. Since launch, more than 40,000 developers have accessed content on Pathways.

Apple also reminded developers that WWDC 2024 sessions and videos will be shared on YouTube through the new Apple Developer channel. Apple has always made WWDC videos available through the Developer app and website, but this is the first year the company will also be sharing the content on YouTube.

WWDC 2024 is set to begin next Monday with a keynote event that will take place at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Developers will be given access to Apple's newly announced software directly after the event in order to begin work on integrating new features into their apps.

Apple will announce its new AI feature set for Apple devices at WWDC on June 10, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that it will be officially called "Apple Intelligence."

The AI capabilities will be coming to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15. The features will be opt-in, meaning Apple won't make users adopt them if they don't want to.

The processing requirements of AI will mean that users need an iPhone 15 Pro or one of the iPhone 16 models coming out this year to use it. For those using iPads or Macs, models will need an M1 chip at least. Apple's AI features will be powered by its own technology and tools from OpenAI, but there will also be a partnership with OpenAI that powers a ChatGPT-like chatbot.

Apple Intelligence is expected to handle basic AI tasks, and it will work mostly on-device. In other words, the model is powered by the device's onboard processor, rather than in the cloud. It's not clear what the criteria for a basic task will be, but Apple Intelligence is said to include code that determines if a request can be processed on device or requires Apple's servers.

Here are some of the key new AI-related features and changes rumored or previewed for iPhones, iPads, and Macs that we've covered so far:

• Apple Music: Auto-generated playlists and smarter song transitions.
• Apple News: AI-generated news article summaries.
• Health: New features powered by AI, but no specific details are known yet.
• Keynote and Pages: AI-powered features for auto-generating slides in Keynote, writing faster in Pages, and more.
• Mail: Incoming email categorization, and suggested replies to emails, as well as email thread summaries and text composition assistance.
• Messages: Suggested replies, custom emoji, message recaps.
• Notes: A built-in audio recording tool and audio transcriptions.
• Notifications: AI-generated notification summaries.
• Photos: AI-powered photo retouching.
• Safari: Browsing assistant that can summarize web pages.
• Siri: A smarter ChatGPT-inspired version of Siri with more per-app controls (in 2025).
• Spotlight: More intelligent search results and improved sorting.
• Voice Memos: Audio transcriptions.

Gurman says that The AI features will account for about half of Apple’s WWDC keynote presentation, which starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time on June 10.

For those unable to watch the live stream, or who prefer to read a text version of the announcements, we'll have live coverage both here on MacRumors.com and through our MacRumorsLive X (Twitter) account, so make sure to follow.

One of the major factors that contributed to Apple's heavy focus on artificial intelligence in iOS 18 was an experience that software chief Craig Federighi had with GitHub Copilot, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In a report on Apple's AI ambitions, WSJ says that Federighi became an AI "convert" after testing the Copilot coding tool introduced by Microsoft-owned GitHub. Copilot, which uses OpenAI technology, was created to help programmers write, troubleshoot, and translate code into different programming languages.

After "playing around" with GitHub Copilot in December of 2022, Federighi explained that he had "come to appreciate" generative AI, and he reportedly tasked engineering employees with creating new ways to integrate AI features into Apple's apps and features. Prior rumors have suggested that Apple is aiming to integrate AI into as many apps as possible with iOS 18 and future software updates.

Apple accelerated development on internal generative AI development, even recruiting some former Apple Car employees to work on the technology, but it has also held discussions with OpenAI and Google and is expected to rely on both its internal AI models and external partnerships.

Rumors about features coming in iOS 18 indicate that Federighi has been successful in incorporating AI into the operating system in a number of ways, with Apple planning to add AI features to Messages, Mail, Photos, and other key apps. Siri will also be overhauled with generative AI, making the personal assistant smarter and more capable.

A rundown of all of the new features rumored for iOS 18 can be found in our roundup.

Netflix is testing a redesigned version of its TV app, reports The Verge, marking the first major overhaul to the app in the last decade. The new design is a notable departure from the current look, but it is more modern and puts more information about content front and center.

Customers were reportedly performing "eye gymnastics" looking around to different parts of the home screen in an attempt to find a show or movie to watch, so Netflix wanted to simplify the navigation experience. "We really wanted members to have an easier time figuring out if a title is right for them," Netflix senior director of product Pat Flemming told The Verge.

The static tiles for TV shows and movies are being replaced with tiles that extend when the remote lands on them, making information like the trailer and description more centralized. Right now, when scrolling through content, show or movie information is displayed at the top of the screen. With the updated interface, that information is shown in the middle of the display, and tiles for other shows are pushed to the side.

Hovering over a TV show or movie for an extended period of time will cause a short preview to automatically start playing.

Netflix plans to replace the left side navigation menu with a top bar menu that features search, home, shows, movies, and My Netflix, with the menu accessible by pressing the back button on the remote. The current Categories and New and Popular tabs will be removed, but New and Popular will be replaced with the My Netflix recommendations, and Categories will be available from the search tab.

The new design is being tested with a small group of subscribers to begin with, but it will be expanded to additional Netflix users in the coming months if it proves to be a popular change.

Google today announced that it is partnering with emergency technology company RapidSOS to allow U.S. Android users to text 911 in emergencies using its Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol.

When it is not possible to call 911, Android users will be able to send a text instead to get emergency help. The texting feature will provide precise location information to emergency responders, and it will let users send high-resolution photos and videos.

Texting 911 will be available to U.S. Android device owners who use Google Messages, but because it is a feature baked into ‌RCS‌, it could also expand to other devices like the iPhone. Later this year, Apple plans to adopt ‌RCS‌ to replace SMS/MMS.

The option to text 911 via ‌RCS‌ will roll out to emergency call centers across the United States starting this winter. In some places, it is already possible to text 911 over SMS, but not all emergency call centers support the technology. Google is aiming to bring texting to all call centers, and to improve the ability to send photos and videos with ‌RCS‌. Google says ‌RCS‌ for emergency 911 texts will bring the following benefits:

• Confirmation that an emergency request has been delivered and viewed.
• The ability to see if an emergency responder is replying to a message.
• Options for sending high-resolution photos and videos to more accurately relay what's going on in an emergency situation.
• Precise location sharing, language settings, and opt-in medical information sharing.

Google says that it is working with "partners across the industry" to expand access to emergency services through ‌RCS‌, and that it wants to make ‌RCS‌ the "standard for emergency services texting everywhere."

Apple plans to introduce a new Passwords app in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The Passwords app, which will serve as an alternative to third-party apps like 1Password and LastPass, will provide a simpler way for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to access their stored login information.

There's already a Passwords feature built into Apple's operating systems, but it is hidden in the Settings app and it can be a little difficult to find for those who are not familiar with it. Apple has been gradually introducing new password features, such as storing logins and passwords, supporting one-time login codes, and offering password generation options directly in Safari.

Like the existing Passwords section in Settings, the dedicated Passwords app will be built on iCloud Keychain, Apple's feature that is able to sync login and password details across Apple devices. It will support all of the features that Passwords in Settings supports, and it will also work on the Vision Pro and Windows PCs.

The app includes logins and passwords for websites, Wi-Fi network passwords, and Passkeys, a feature that uses Face ID or Touch ID to log into websites instead of a password. Data from the app can be automatically inserted into websites and apps when a user logs in.

Apple's aim with the Passwords app is to encourage customers to use stronger passwords and avoid repeating passwords for multiple websites and services. Apple will be competing with longtime third-party password services like 1Password, and the company does plan to allow customers to import their passwords from other services.

Apple plans to unveil Passwords during next Monday's WWDC keynote event.

It's been three weeks since Apple introduced the new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, and after revisiting the iPad Pro last week, we thought we'd take a deeper look at the ‌iPad Air‌ now that it's been out long enough for day-to-day usage testing.

The ‌iPad Air‌ is the best iPad for people who want a powerful tablet that's also fairly affordable. The M2 chip is close to the same chip that Apple used in the prior-generation ‌iPad Pro‌, and while it's a little older now, it's still more than powerful enough for anything you might want to do on a tablet.

It is worth noting that Apple recently admitted an error and clarified that the ‌M2‌ chip in the ‌iPad Air‌ has a 9-core GPU instead of a 10-core GPU, but in comparing the ‌M2‌ ‌iPad Pro‌ with 10-core GPU to the ‌M2‌ ‌iPad Air‌ with 9-core GPU, there was basically no difference in performance for day-to-day tasks and even with more system intensive apps like those used for video editing.

As we said in our M4 ‌iPad Pro‌ review, there's nothing that can really tax the M4 chip, and that's also true of the ‌M2‌. With iPadOS 18 and the AI capabilities that Apple is working on, chip performance might become much more important in the future, but as of now, the ‌M2‌ ‌iPad Air‌ isn't going to really struggle with anything you throw at it.

The ‌iPad Air‌ doesn't have the OLED display technology of the ‌iPad Pro‌, and it lacks features like ProMotion 120Hz refresh rates, but it otherwise offers a lot of the features you get with the ‌iPad Pro‌ at much more affordable prices. The ‌iPad Pro‌ starts at $999, while the ‌iPad Air‌ starts at $599.

Face ID is not available on the ‌iPad Air‌, with Apple instead using a Touch ID power button. ‌Touch ID‌ isn't as reliable as ‌Face ID‌ because it can fail depending on finger placement, but it works fine for the most part. The ‌iPad Pro‌ has a Thunderbolt port, but the ‌iPad Air‌ is limited to USB-C, so you can't connect Thunderbolt devices.

You're mostly missing out on OLED and the M4 chip with the ‌iPad Pro‌, but you also won't be able to use the redesigned Magic Keyboard that Apple made for the ‌iPad Pro‌ because it isn't compatible with the ‌iPad Air‌. Apple is selling the older Magic Keyboard alongside the ‌iPad Air‌, and it lacks the aluminum frame and palm rest, function keys, and the larger glass trackpad. You can still use the Apple Pencil Pro and all of its features with the ‌iPad Air‌, though.

One of the nice features about the ‌iPad Air‌ compared to prior-generation models is the relocated front-facing camera, which is now on the landscape edge instead of the portrait edge. That means the camera is in an upright orientation when it's in landscape mode, such as when connected to a keyboard, so it no longer looks funny if you're FaceTiming while holding the ‌iPad‌ horizontally.

The ‌M2‌ ‌iPad Air‌ is essentially an ‌M2‌ ‌iPad Pro‌ without the higher-quality display, and it's a good middle tier option if you want solid performance for futureproofing but also don't want to spend $1,000+ on a tablet. For a lot of people who just want a tablet for browsing the web, sending emails, and other simple day-to-day tasks, the ‌iPad Air‌ may even be overkill.

Rivian today announced second-generation versions of the R1S SUV and R1T pickup, and the reengineered models include support for the Car Keys feature that's available on iPhones and Apple Watches.

Car Keys allows an iPhone or Apple Watch with NFC capabilities to unlock a vehicle through the Wallet app. A digital version of a car key is stored in Wallet, and unlocking can be done simply by holding an Apple Watch or iPhone near a compatible vehicle's NFC reader.

A simple tap on the door handle is enough to initiate an unlock, and while Face ID authentication is a security option, Apple offers an Express Mode that eliminates the need to authenticate for a faster unlocking process.

Prior Rivian vehicles supported unlocking through the Rivian app, but Car Keys is a different feature that is better integrated into the iPhone and Apple Watch. While the Rivian app was able to sense a user approaching and unlock the car, it was slow to work and not as accurate or as simple as Car Keys.

Rivian has added Ultra Wideband technology to its new vehicles for improved accuracy.

Use your phone or smartwatch to automatically lock or unlock doors when you're nearby. Accessing your vehicle is easier than ever -- thanks to ultrawideband technology enabled by the wallet feature on iOS and Android.

Rivian says that Car Keys feature can be used with the R1S and R1T for unlocking and starting their vehicles, plus sharing digital keys with family and friends.

Along with Car Keys, the updated Rivian models also feature Connect+, a streaming service that provides access to over 3,000 apps, including music services. Rivian says that it worked with the Apple Music team to "deeply integrate" ‌Apple Music‌ into Rivian's Connect+ platform. Customers can access ‌Apple Music‌'s more than 100 million songs, and with Rivian Premium Audio, ‌Apple Music‌ Spatial Audio is supported.

More information on the upgraded vehicles can be found on Rivian's website.

Apple today revealed three new games coming to Apple Arcade on July 3, including town-building strategy game Outlanders 2: Second Nature, side-scrolling action game Punch Kick Duck+, and the calm and relaxing game Zen Koi Pro+. All games available on Apple Arcade are ad-free and do not offer in-app purchases.

More details about these games can be found on the Apple Newsroom, and the App Store descriptions for each title are pasted in part below.

Outlanders 2:

Welcome back to the Outlands! A new, courageous generation of outlanders is ready to redefine life on the Outlands, with new approaches to building and surviving, uncharted heights and horizons, and an ecosystem more vibrant than ever before.

Outlanders 2 is the latest installment of the charming town-builder that captivated players with its imaginative levels, easy-to-understand but hard-to-master gameplay, and offbeat humor.

Punch Kick Duck+:

Fighting is all about timing. Just ask any duck.

The right move + right time = swift victory.

All you need to do is PUNCH KICK DUCK!

The cruel Baron Tigrisso has imprisoned you in his tower. Fight hordes of the Baron's hench-critters as you battle up the tower to confront your captor.

Zen Koi Pro+:

Collect & nurture colorful koi fish as they grow & transform into dragons in this calming, offline game. Find your zen & unwind with enchanting music & beautiful visuals.

Accessible through the App Store, Apple Arcade is a subscription-based service that provides access to hundreds of games across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Vision Pro, all free of ads and in-app purchases. The service received its first price increase last year, with U.S. pricing rising from $4.99 to $6.99 per month.

Ahead of WWDC next week, Apple has announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards, honoring 14 best-in-class apps and games.

Here are this year's winners, with one app and one game chosen per category:

• Delight and Fun: Bears Gratitude (app) and NYT Games (game)
• Inclusivity: oko (app) and Crayola Adventures (game)
• Innovation: Procreate Dreams (app) and Lost in Play (game)
• Interaction: Crouton (app) and Rytmos (game)
• Social Impact: Gentler Streak (app) and The Wreck (game)
• Visuals and Graphics: Rooms (app) and Lies of P (game)
• Spatial Computing: djay Pro (app) and Blackbox (game)

Apple says this year's winning apps and games were selected based on "stellar design, technical achievement, and innovation." More details about each app and the developers behind them can be found on Apple's website.

In past years, Apple Design Award winners have been revealed at a presentation during WWDC, so Apple pre-announcing the list is a notable change.

WWDC begins with Apple's keynote on June 10 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, with the company expected to unveil iOS 18 and other major software updates.

Today we're tracking a pair of deals on Amazon, which is discounting the M2 MacBook Air to multiple all-time low prices, as well as the Apple Studio Display. Both devices are in stock on Amazon with delivery estimates between June 8 and June 12 as of writing.

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

Starting with the M2 13-inch MacBook Air, Amazon this week has every model available for $170 off, which are matches for the record low prices on this version of the MacBook Air. These prices are available to all shoppers and do not require a coupon code.

The 256GB model is on sale for $829.00 and the 512GB model is available for $1,029.00. These deals are only available on Amazon right now, and the retailer has each model on sale in all four colors.

Following the introduction of the M3 MacBook Air, Apple knocked the price of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air down by $100, and it's still selling them alongside the M3 model. The main difference between the two generations lies in the performance upgrade that the M3 chip brings, so if your priority is saving money you stand to benefit from Amazon's steep discounts.

Secondly, Amazon has again dropped the price of the Apple Studio Display (Standard Glass) down to $1,299.99, down from $1,599.00. This is the model with the tilt-adjustable stand, although you can find the same deal on the VESA mount adapter model right now on Amazon.

The Apple Studio Display is a 27-inch monitor that features 5K resolution, supports up to 600 nits of brightness, P3 Wide color for vivid colors, and True Tone to match the white balance of the display to the lighting in the room. There is an upgraded nano-texture glass model, but we aren't tracking any deals on that one this week.

Head to our full Deals Roundup to get caught up with all of the latest deals and discounts that we've been tracking over the past week.

Popular Mac menu bar management utility Bartender was recently quietly sold to another company, a fact that only came to light after app monitoring service MacUpdater alerted users that updates to the app from version 5.0.52 could be potentially unsafe due to the lack of transparency surrounding the situation.

The original developer has since acknowledged the sale. However, the new Bartender owner is a largely unknown entity that has reportedly hiked Bartender's purchase options, and is alleged to have added code to the app that may be associated with collecting analytics data on users.

Given that Bartender requires extensive permissions to operate in macOS, including screen recording, the whole event has understandably left many users concerned about privacy. Fortunately, Bartender is not the only app of its kind. So unless Apple ever gets round to integrating better menu bar management into macOS, here are some alternative menu bar utilities that are worth considering.

• Vanilla (Free) – Simple app that lets you hide menu bar icons. Just hold Command and drag icons between hidden and visible sections. Vanilla Pro ($10) adds keyboard shortcuts, a removed section, start at login, and an auto-hide option after 5 seconds.
  
• Ice (Free) – Menu bar management tool that hides items, offers an always-hidden section, show on hover, show on click, show on scroll or swipe, automatic rehide, and app menu overlap correction. Also includes hotkeys, launch at login, and options to change menu bar appearance.
• Hidden Bar (Free) – Lightweight tool that lets you drag a divider between icons in the menu bar to separate hidden and shown sections. Includes launch at login, auto-hide durations, show/hide global shortcut, and full menu bar mode.
• iBar (Free) – This tool hides menu bar icons which can be revealed in a floating bar that extends below the notch on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
• Barbee ($3.99) – Management tool with similar interface to Bartender. Includes sections for shown, hidden, and always hidden items, as well as extensive menu bar appearance settings. Also offers ability to quickly search your menu bar items in a Spotlight-style floating window.
• OnlySwitch (Free) – More than just a menu bar management tool, OnlySwitch offers a broad range of customizable toggle switches designed to offer quick access to system and other settings, such as hide desktop icons, dark mode, hide MacBook notch, mute mic, and more.

If you are a BetterTouchTool user, Andreas Hegenberg has a thorough tutorial on how the utility can be used to hide menu bar items. Know of a great Mac menu bar management tool that we haven't highlighted? Let us know in the comments below and we might append it to this article.

Apple Mail in iOS 18 is set to receive substantial improvements powered by new AI capabilities, including more powerful search, generative "Smart Replies," and email composition assistance.

According to a new report from AppleInsider, results returned when performing a Mail search will be beefed up to include additional information from Contacts, locations, and locally stored documents.

Meanwhile, "Smart Replies" will rely on Apple's on-device large-language model (LLM), internally known as Ajax. Combined with Siri's deep integration with Mail and the virtual assistant's ability to create replies on the fly at the user's request, Smart Replies are being developed to streamline communication and save time.

Associated with the new Mail features is a new system-wide writing tools framework that could enable text editing via ‌Siri‌. The framework is apparently included in pre-release versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15.

Although little is known about its implementation, the report claims that it could help change the style or tone of the user's text as they type an email or message. If a user wanted to sound less casual, for example, they could ask ‌Siri‌ to "Make this text more professional."

The report offers a number of other tidbits related to "Project BlackPearl" – Apple's codename for some cross-system AI and machine learning enhancements – including automatic email categorization based on content (e.g. time sensitivity), ability to summarize emails and email threads, as well as notification summaries based on topic.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has previously touched on many of the other rumored new AI features mentioned in the report that are coming to iOS 18 and macOS 15. You can find more details about them in our previous coverage.

Swiss-based privacy startup Proton today announced the availability of Proton Pass for Mac and Linux, bringing the encrypted password manager to every platform for the first time.

Proton Pass features end-to-end encryption for all stored data, and includes a built-in two-factor authentication system, passkey support, and secure password sharing, as well as a Hide-My-Email feature to protect against spam and phishing.

The macOS version of Proton Pass also comes with a Safari extension, which aims to simplify password management and credential filling within Apple's browser. In addition, unlike Safari's default password manager, Proton Pass allows users to sync across multiple different browsers and devices, for simplified access across all platforms.

Proton Pass uses the Argon2 hashing algorithm, which is included within its offline mode feature, and is available to customers on a paid plan. The encryption method is designed so that passwords and sensitive information remain protected against unauthorized access, even when not connected to the internet.

Proton Pass also integrates Proton's recently announced Pass Monitor functionality, which provides proactive alerts for credentials exposed on the dark web, identifies weak and reused passwords, and checks for missing two-factor authentication.

According to Proton, the password manager will also soon support TouchID on macOS, allowing users to unlock their accounts using their fingerprints. This feature will be provided as an automatic update in the coming weeks.

Proton Pass is available for free with unlimited devices and Password Health included. For a limited time, the company is also offering users the chance to upgrade to the premium Pass Plus plan at a discounted rate of $10 for the first year (usually $23.88). Pass Plus includes support for passkeys, the full Pass Monitor experience with dark web monitoring and Proton Sentinel, as well as all the standard features of Proton Pass, including access to the web app.

Proton Pass for macOS and Linux are available to download now from the Proton website.

Apple has revealed its commitment to a minimum of five years of iPhone security software updates from the date a device is launched, thanks to a new legal requirement in the United Kingdom (via Android Authority).

Earlier this year, the U.K. established new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regulations, which force companies that sell internet-capable products in the country to comply with certain security requirements.

One of the requirements of the PSTI is that companies define a support period, or minimum length of time, for which security updates will be provided after sale. A "security update" is defined by the regulation as a "software update that protects or enhances the security of a product, including a software update that addresses security issues which have been discovered by or reported to the manufacturer."

In compliance with the regulation, Apple has submitted a public regulatory filing for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The PSTI filing shows that the device's "defined support period" is a "minimum five years from the first supply date." The "first supply date" is listed as "September 22, 2023," which is when the iPhone 15 series launched.

Unlike Samsung and Google, Apple is not usually explicit about its legacy software support for iPhone devices, so the five-year minimum should come as good news to Apple users holding onto older devices. However, as Android Authority notes, both Samsung and Google guarantee seven years of security updates as well as Android OS updates for their devices, which is two years longer than what Apple is guaranteeing here.

That said, Apple typically provides older devices with the latest security updates longer than the stated five-year period. For example, just this March Apple pushed a security update to iPhone 6s models, which launched in September 2015, or nine years ago.

Going back further, in November 2020, Apple released an update to patch major security issues for the ‌iPhone‌ 5S, which was released in 2013. That's seven years after the device went on sale. In other words, while the minimum-five year period is now set in stone, iPhone users can take comfort in the fact that Apple has a strong history of keeping legacy devices in the loop for several years longer.

Apple will finally address a Safari restriction workaround that has been around for years after the bug was highlighted by The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern. Kids who are restricted from viewing certain websites with the Screen Time feature are able to paste a string of characters in the address bar in Safari in order to get around parental controls.

In a report on Screen Time, Stern says that she was able to use a string of characters on her son's iPad, bypassing the restrictions that prevent access to websites with pornography, violent images, and more. She was able to get around Screen Time on devices running iOS and iPadOS 15, 16, and 17, as well as macOS Sonoma.

In a statement to Stern, Apple said that it is aware of an "issue with an underlying web technology protocol for developers, which allows a user to bypass web content restrictions." A fix is planned for "the next software update."

Security researchers that spoke to Stern said the bug was first reported to Apple in March of 2021, after it was found that inputting a string of characters would get around website restrictions implemented by parents and web blacklists on company devices. The hack worked to bypass restrictions on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Apple told the researchers that it was not a security issue, and instead directed them to submit a report using the Feedback tool. After the report was submitted, there was no word back from Apple. Attempting to resubmit the bug to Apple was met with no response.

Apple ignored the issue for three years until Stern was contacted and publicized the problem. It appears that the workaround was not well-known or widely exploited, as the two security researchers that discovered it never shared it.

In addition to promising a fix, Apple said that it is committed to improving the process that's used to receive and escalate bug reports.

Stern's report highlights several other bugs with Screen Time, including issues with app limits, Screen Time usage charts, notifications for more time, and Ask to Buy. Apple improved Screen Time with iOS 17.5, implementing fixes for app and device usage tracking, app limits, and time requests, but the company says there will be additional updates in upcoming software releases.

Some of Lowe's retail locations are now offering an in-store Apple Vision Pro experience that is designed to allow customers to personalize and visualize their dream kitchen with the help of a Lowe's associate.

Available in select stores in North Carolina, California, and New Jersey to begin with, the experience provides customers with an Apple Vision Pro to use the Lowe's Style Studio app that launched alongside the Vision Pro in February. Lowe's Style Studio offers a 3D kitchen environment that can be customized with hundreds of real-world materials, fixtures, and appliances.

While Vision Pro owners are able to use the Style Studio app at home, many Lowe's customers who are planning a kitchen remodel might not have a Vision Pro available to see the different kitchen options. They can instead visit a Lowe's location to partake in an immersive kitchen visualization session.

A Lowe's employee will guide customers through the kitchen creation process during a one-on-one appointment, where there are 80 billion design combinations available. Completed kitchen setups can be saved, emailed, texted, or AirDropped as a PDF, with the content in the kitchen able to be purchased through Lowe's.

From June 8 to June 12, the Vision Pro demo is available at the Central Charlotte, NC Lowe's, and from June 22 through June 25, it will be available at Lowe's stores in North Bergen, New Jersey and Sunnyvale, California. Customers in these areas will be able to book a session online, with Lowe's also able to accommodate some walk-ins.