MacRumors

Apple's revenue for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2021 came in under expectations, which Apple CEO Tim Cook said was caused by supply constraints on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

In an interview with CNBC, Cook said the supply issues cost Apple around $6 billion.

"We had a very strong performance despite larger than expected supply constraints, which we estimate to be around $6 billion," Cook told CNBC's Josh Lipton. "The supply constraints were driven by the industry wide chip shortages that have been talked about a lot, and COVID-related manufacturing disruptions in Southeast Asia."

For the last several months of the year, Apple has experienced long lead times on multiple products, including Macs and iPads. With the iPhone 13 launch, available models sold out quickly and Apple has been unable to keep up with demand, and the same goes for the Apple Watch Series 7.

Going forward, Cook said that he expects "solid year-over-year revenue growth" in the December quarter, but Apple will to continue facing supply problems. COVID related manufacturing problems have "improved greatly," but Cook says that chip shortages "linger on." According to Cook, older chips are the ones that are in short supply rather than newer A and M-series chips used in newer Apple devices.

Cook said that Apple primarily buys leading-edge nodes and is not having issues with those, but on legacy codes, there is competition from many different companies on supply. He said that he isn't sure when supply will improve as it is difficult to forecast when things will balance. Apple's operational team is working to cut down on cycle ties and improve yields to remedy the situation.

During the quarterly earnings call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri confirmed that the impact of supply constraints will be greater in the December quarter. iPad sales will drop year over year due to the supply constraints, but Apple expects revenue in all other categories will grow.

Apple today reported Mac revenue of $9.17 billion in the fourth quarter of its 2021 fiscal year, which is an all-time quarterly revenue record for Macs. Apple CEO Tim Cook said there was "strong demand" for the M1 MacBook Air in particular.

No new Macs were released during the quarter, with the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models not being released until after the quarter ended, but Mac sales have been strong due to a work-from-home environment and as a result of Apple's successful transition to its own custom-designed chips in Macs, starting with the M1 chip last year.

Apple's financial chief Luca Maestri said the company's last five quarters for Mac revenue have been its best five quarters ever for the category.

iPad revenue was $8.25 billion for the quarter, which was not a record, but up 21% from $6.79 billion in the year-ago quarter.

iPad sales were likely boosted by the launch of the redesigned sixth-generation iPad mini and the ninth-generation lower-cost iPad during the quarter, while iPads remain popular as many people continue to work, learn, and connect with others from home.

Maestri said iPad supply was significantly constrained during the September quarter and Apple expects iPad revenue to decline on a year-over-year basis in the December quarter as a result of continued supply constraints.

Apple reported overall revenue of $83.4 billion for the quarter, which ran from late June through late September of this year.

Apple today announced financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2021, which corresponds to the third calendar quarter of the year.

For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $83.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $20.6 billion, or $1.24 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $64.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $12.7 billion, or $0.73 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Apple's revenue figure was a September quarter record and Mac and Services both set all-time records, but Apple's performance was only roughly in line with analyst expectations and was almost certainly held back by component shortages that have led to lengthy shipping estimates for many products.

Gross margin for the quarter was 42.2 percent, compared to 38.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. Apple also declared a quarterly dividend payment of $0.22 per share, payable on November 11 to shareholders of record as of November 8.

For the full fiscal year, Apple shattered company records with $365.8 billion in sales and $94.7 billion in net income, up from $274.5 billion in sales and $57.4 billion in net income for fiscal 2020.

“This year we launched our most powerful products ever, from M1-powered Macs to an iPhone 13 lineup that is setting a new standard for performance and empowering our customers to create and connect in new ways,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are infusing our values into everything we make — moving closer to our 2030 goal of being carbon neutral up and down our supply chain and across the lifecycle of our products, and ever advancing our mission to build a more equitable future.”

As has been the case for well over a year now, Apple is once again not issuing guidance for the current quarter ending in December.

Apple will provide live streaming of its fiscal Q4 2021 financial results conference call at 2:00 pm Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference call recap follows below...

➜ Click here to read rest of article...

Facebook today held a live event to talk about the "metaverse," aka the virtual and augmented reality evolution of social technology in the future, and as part of the presentation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new name for the company.

Going forward, Facebook the company will be known as "Meta," while Facebook will still be available as a social media product alongside WhatsApp and Instagram.

Zuckerberg said that the Facebook brand is too limited to represent what the company wants to do in the future. The new name and brand will represent Facebook's apps and its evolving work on augmented and virtual reality products. The name is meant to "reflect who we are and what we hope to build," Zuckerberg said. "Over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company."

"From now on, we're going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first," said Zuckerberg. "I hope that people come to know the Meta brand and the future that we stand for."

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Monterey 12.1 update to developers for testing purposes, with the new software coming just a couple days after the official release of macOS Monterey.

Registered developers can download the beta through the Apple Developer Center and after the appropriate profile is installed, betas will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences.

According to Apple's release notes, the update enables support for graphics cards that integrate the AMD Radeon 6600XT GPU. There are no other new features mentioned aside from bug fixes. We'll update this article should we find anything else new after installing the beta.

Apple today seeded the first public betas of upcoming iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2 updates, one day after providing the betas to developers.

Public beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program can download the iOS and ‌iPadOS 15.1‌ updates over the air after installing the proper certificate from the Public Beta website.

iOS and iPadOS 15.2 introduce App Privacy Report, which is designed to allow users to see how often apps have accessed their sensitive info like location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts across the last seven days.

It's also set up to show which apps have contacted other domains and how recently they've contacted them so you can keep an eye on what apps are doing behind the scenes.

App Privacy Report is available by opening up the Settings app, selecting the Privacy section, and choosing App Privacy Report. From there, you can toggle it on. After you use apps for some time, data will begin showing up in this spot.

Today's update adds updates to the Emergency SOS Auto Call feature. You can now press the side button rapidly multiple times to initiate, or hold down the side button and the volume button together. There's a longer eight-second countdown before a call is placed, which is up from the prior three-second countdown.

Apple has also tweaked the Notification Summary feature in the beta, giving summaries more of a card-style look, and there's code for the Communication Safety feature that Apple announced earlier this year. For more detail on everything new in the beta, make sure to check out our dedicated features article.

Throwboy, known for its range of pillows crafted to look like classic Apple devices, today announced its Iconic Pillow Collection 2, a new series of pillow designs.

Available on Kickstarter, the Iconic Collection 2 features five new pillows modeled after Apple devices that include the 1983 Apple Lisa, 1999 iBook G3, 2000 Power Mac G4 Cube, 2002 iMac G4, and 2003 Power Mac G5.

Throwboy said that the new designs are meant to celebrate some of the most "iconic, bold, swing-for-the-fences designs in computer history" that are still beloved by the tech community. Like Throwboy's other pillows, the new Iconic 2 pillows are made from a soft, plush material with intricate embroidery that makes them impossible to miss as Apple device clones.

The Iconic Pillow Collection 2 is priced starting at $27 for a single pillow, though that is a limited price that will go up when initial slots sell out. All five iconic pillows can be purchased starting at $135 to $195 with early bird backing options.

According to Throwboy, these pillows will ship out to customers in May 2022. The new collection will join the existing collection that includes pillows modeled after the iPod, iPhone, iMac G3, and more.

Update 9:45 a.m.: In a reply on Twitter, Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston apologized for the confusion sparked by the "not ideal" support responses and said that Dropbox is "certainly supporting Apple silicon" with a native Apple silicon build planned for release in the first half of next year. Original article below.

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Dropbox appears to have no plans to natively support Apple silicon Macs, almost a year after the first Macs with the M1 chip became available.

An official Dropbox support thread, shared by Mitchell Hashimoto on Twitter, reveals a fiasco around native support for Apple silicon Macs. Dropbox is seemingly insisting that a significant number of community members will have to vote for native Apple silicon support for it to be implemented. There are also multiple repetitious requests with different phrasing, fragmenting users' votes for support.

In July, responses from Dropbox staff on the thread explained that "this idea is going to need a bit more support before we share your suggestion with our team," and flagged Apple silicon support as in need of more votes. A month ago, Dropbox staff again replied to the thread requesting native Apple silicon support, saying that Dropbox will continue to be compatible with all devices that run supported versions of macOS using Apple's Rosetta translation layer.

Additional complaints in the thread claim that Dropbox with Rosetta hemorrhages MacBook battery life and uses a disproportionate amount of memory.

While Dropbox could still natively support Apple silicon Macs in the future, the way in which the issue has been delegated to two standoffish responses on a support thread appears to have caused outrage, with the thread brimming with irate replies and claims that users are planning to move to rival services.

Google Drive was recently updated with native support for Apple silicon, and other services such as Microsoft OneDrive and Box are already testing native Apple silicon support.

Verizon today is discounting the Apple Pencil 2 to $99.99, down from $129.00. This deal has been applied automatically and does not require a special promo code.

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

This sale is a match of one of the lowest prices that we've ever tracked for the Apple Pencil 2, and as of writing it's only available on Verizon. We very rarely see the Apple Pencil 2 dip below this sale price, so if you've been on the hunt for one at a discount, now's a great time to buy.

The Apple Pencil 2 is compatible with the following iPads: iPad mini (6th generation), iPad Air (4th generation), 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd, 4th, and 5th generations), and 11-inch iPad Pro (1st, 2nd, and 3rd generations).

Keep up with all of this week's best discounts on Apple products and related accessories in our dedicated Apple Deals roundup.

In a new support document, Apple has detailed how to measure and fine-tune the calibration of the display on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.

The new MacBook Pro models feature XDR displays with mini-LED backlighting and support for one billion colors, but certain workflows may require custom calibration:

Every MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina XDR display undergoes a state-of-the-art factory display calibration process on the assembly line to ensure the accuracy of the P3 wide color panel and the individual backlight LEDs. In addition, the factory calibration process enables sophisticated built-in algorithms to accurately reproduce a variety of color spaces used by media workflows today, including sRGB, BT.601, BT.709,​ and even P3-ST.2084 (HDR).

The factory display calibration process lets MacBook Pro users enjoy an exceptional viewing experience right out of the box. If your workflow requires custom calibration, you can measure your display, then fine-tune the calibration.

The process involves using a spectroradiometer and a set of QuickTime movie test patterns from Apple to evaluate the calibration of the display. The test patterns can be downloaded from the AVFoundation page on Apple's website under Related Resources > Color Test Patterns, with complete instructions available in Apple's support document.

In System Preferences > Displays, users can fine-tune the calibration of the MacBook Pro's display by providing the white point and luminance values measured by the spectroradiometer and the expected values for their target.

Apple's support document includes additional tips for measuring and fine-tuning the calibration.

Apple TV+ will be coming to Comcast devices, expanding the range of devices that Apple's streaming service is available on and expanding its audience to even more customers, Comcast's CEO announced today during the company's earnings call.

The news was broken by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who said during the company's quarterly earnings call that Apple and Comcast have agreed on a deal that will see ‌Apple TV‌+ come to Comcast devices and Comcast's own Xfinity Stream app come to the ‌Apple TV‌.

With the ‌Apple TV‌+ app, Comcast devices will soon be capable of tapping into Apple's growing library of original shows and movies, such as the Emmy-award-winning "Ted Lasso" and "The Morning Show." When exactly the ‌Apple TV‌+ app will be available on Comcast devices remains unknown, and we'll update this article when we have more information.

Update: British TV provider Sky today announced that ‌Apple TV‌+ will be available on its Sky Glass and Sky Q devices later this year. Sky customers in the UK will also be able to access Sky Go on the ‌Apple TV‌ starting in mid-2022.

Apple is expected to equip the next MacBook Air with a notched mini-LED display and slimmer bezels, similar to the new MacBook Pros. But why would the screen borders and notch on a new MacBook Air be white, as recent rumors suggest, rather than black, like the Pro models? First let's look at the context for these leaks, and then consider Apple's possible reasons for such a design change.

Color in Context

Leaker Jon Prosser claimed back in May that Apple's upcoming redesign of the ‌MacBook Air‌ will be available in various colors, similar to the current 24-inch iMac. Since then, reputable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has made the same claim, and more recently, reliable leaker Dylandkt has repeated the rumor, apparently based on information from his own sources.

Both Prosser and Dylandkt say the bezels on the colored MacBook Air models will be white or "off white," like the screen borders on Apple's 24-inch colored iMacs, along with an all-white keyboard. Both leakers also reiterate rumors that Apple's redesigned entry-level notebook will have several features adopted from the recently announced 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, including mini-LED display technology and the controversial camera notch.

The obvious anomaly here is that the new MacBook Pros have a black notch and bezels, not to mention an all-black keyboard. To make sense of the possibility that Apple will make these areas white on the next MacBook Air, it's worth going back to the iMac and looking at Apple's reasoning behind the 24-inch desktop's colorful redesign, and that contentious white border.

Back to the iMac

When Apple unveiled the radically redesigned 24-inch iMac in April in a range of colors, some observers winced at the white screen borders (Apple calls them "light gray") and wondered why Apple hadn't extended the vibrant color scheme to the edges of the display, or at least used black for the bezels instead.

"The borders are meant to complement the typical home design, for one, and blend into the background," Colleen Novielli, Apple's head of product and marketing, later explained in an interview. "The lack of the stark contrast provides a more seamless experience for the user."

Pitched in this way, Apple was claiming that black bezels would have provided too much contrast against most home decor, but it was also suggesting something else: White borders are there for casual Mac users, the consumer segment most likely to appreciate iMac colors designed "to bring a sense of brightness, optimism, and joy."

Office workers in brightly lit environments are also likely to warm to the same design attributes, while using apps with white backgrounds such as spreadsheets and word processors, which pair well with the light gray bezels.

Apple is essentially saying black borders are better suited to creative professionals – video editors and photographers who tend to work in darker environments, for example. And we don't need to wait for Apple's redesigned larger iMac to see if it has black bezels to prove this theory. Apple has already said the black notch and borders on the new MacBook Pros "look great in dark mode, which our pro users love."

It's easy to imagine Apple likewise claiming a white notch and bezels look "great" in light mode, but the current 24-inch iMac gives us another reason to believe the redesigned MacBook Air is likely to have off-white elements.

Back to Roots Redesign

When Apple revealed that the 24-inch iMac would be available in a range of fun colors, many were quick to note the similarity it bears to the original 1998 all-in-one desktop, the iMac G3, which was offered in several colors and paired with a light gray bezel.

Instantly recognizable thanks to its iconic rounded design amidst an ocean of boxy beige desktop PCs and monitors, the iMac G3 was loved by consumers and quickly became the best-selling computer on the market at the time.

Apple followed the original iMac in 1999 with the iBook G3, which continued the theme of combining color and light gray plastic, and added an off-white keyboard to boot. The iBook was essentially the portable version of the iMac. In ads, Apple even used the slogan "iMac to go. Introducing iBook" and "iMac unplugged."

From the return of the classic "hello" in joined-up handwriting in Apple's marketing material and software, to the latest all-in-one desktop Mac's bold colors, everything suggests Apple is in the midst of a back-to-roots design overhaul for its consumer Mac line. This explains why Apple changed the iMac's bezels to white after 14 years of black, and why it makes sense that the MacBook Air could follow in the same footsteps – even if it does mean a white notch.

For all the rumors and leaks about the upcoming MacBook Air expected in 2022, check out our most recent MacBook Air rumor posts and our dedicated MacBook Air roundup.

Reports suggest that despite the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros sharing the same mini-LED display technology as the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the new Mac computers are not obviously suffering "blooming," a phenomenon found on the ‌iPad Pro‌.

The new MacBook Pros and the 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌ consist of mini-LED technology, which uses dimming zones. These local dimming zones allow specific screen areas to turn completely dark when they're not needed, resulting in richer blacks and improved energy efficiency.

Unlike traditional displays, which control individual pixels, displays with dimming zones control separate zones rather than individual pixels. If one dimming zone is lit up, artifacts from it may be noticeable in neighboring zones with a black background, leading to "blooming," as shown below on the 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌.

Blooming is typically only noticeable when viewing black content or text and when viewed from the side. Apple has in the past addressed the phenomenon by saying the ‌‌iPad Pro‌‌'s display is designed to minimize its visibility. Given that the new MacBook Pros announced last week include the same mini-LED technology, some have been concerned about whether the new MacBooks will face the same issue.

According to users' reports and reviews, that doesn't seem to be the case. Brian Tong noted in his review of the new M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro that while blooming is still present on the new displays, it's only visible with "deep black backgrounds, and bright white text or a white logo is contrasting it." Additionally, Tong stressed that the blooming effect is exaggerated when recorded with a camera and that it's much less obvious when viewed with the naked eye.

New owners of the 14-inch and 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ are also sharing their thoughts on the MacRumors Forums. Compared to the 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌, the new ‌MacBook Pro‌ makes better use of mini-LED and dimming zones. As one forum user wrote:

Overall I think the IPP 12.9 display is awesome but the XDR on the mbp is even better because when I play HDR content only the window portion is super bright - on the iPad everything just looks bright. You're not going to get gimped here on the display of the new mbp. well maybe the ghosting issue is annoying for some overall it is a fantastic display.

Another user shares the same thoughts, saying that despite the small instances of blooming, the new ‌MacBook Pro‌ displays are "fantastic."

Comparing the 12.9" iPad Pro and the new 16" MacBook Pro, the MacBook Pro is a bit better. Much less blooming, and the colors pop a bit more. That being said they are both amazing screens. When I first used the iPad I was really impressed by the screen. When I first used the MacBook Pro I was completely blown away. As a test I played a 4K HDR demo and the peak brightness, colors, and the realism is one of the best I have seen on any screen (not counting extremely high end TVs).

Michael Kukielka, also known as DetroitBORG, noted on Twitter that blooming on the new MacBook Pros is almost "imperceptible" compared to the 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌.

The Liquid Retina XDR display on the new MacBook Pros includes several new features, including higher sustained brightness for HDR content and ProMotion, allowing for a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌ includes 2,500 dimming zones, and while it's not entirely clear how many zones are in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros respectively, it seems that Apple has improved its display technology with its new high-end Mac computers.

Apple has published a new support document detailing the use of high-impedance headphones with the new MacBook Pro models.

As Apple mentioned when it unveiled the latest MacBook Pros, the 3.5mm headphone jack offers support for high-impedance headphones, which is good news for professionals who want to use the ‌MacBook Pro‌ with studio quality headphones.

As noted in the support document, the new MacBook Pros come with DC load detection, adaptive voltage output, and a built-in digital-to-analog converter. For some use cases, they may also remove the need for an external headphone amplifier.

The 3.5 mm headphone jack on the MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) or MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) features DC load detection and adaptive voltage output. Your Mac can detect the impedance of the connected device and will adapt its output for low- and high-impedance headphones, as well as for line-level audio devices.

When you connect headphones with an impedance of less than 150 ohms, the headphone jack provides up to 1.25 volts RMS. For headphones with an impedance of 150 to 1k ohms, the headphone jack delivers 3 volts RMS. This may remove the need for an external headphone amplifier.

With impedance detection, adaptive voltage output, and a built-in digital-to-analog converter that supports sample rates of up to 96 kHz, you can enjoy high-fidelity, full-resolution audio directly from the headphone jack on your MacBook Pro.

Apple's new ‌MacBook Pro‌ models are equipped with the "best audio system in a notebook," according to Apple, thanks to upgrades to both the headphone jack and the speaker system.

Apple today shared a new support document that explains how users can ensure that an app's menu bar items do not appear hidden behind the notch, or the "camera housing" as Apple calls it, on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.

In the support document, Apple says users can turn on "scale to fit below built-in camera" for an app to adjust the active area of the display, ensuring that the app's menu bar items appear below the notch and are always visible.

Menu bar items appearing hidden behind the notch was demonstrated by Quinn Nelson, host of the YouTube channel Snazzy Labs.

To turn on "scale to fit below built-in camera" for an app on the new MacBook Pro models, open the Finder app and click on Applications in the sidebar. Then, right click on the desired app and select "Get Info." In the Info window that opens, check off the "scale to fit below built-in camera" box and the display will automatically adjust when the app is open.

The setting was demonstrated in a tweet by Joseph Angelo Todaro, a design advocate for Sketch.

Apple notes that developers can update their app to work better with the notch, in which case the "scale to fit below built-in camera" setting no longer appears.

Apple in the iOS 15.2 beta introduced App Privacy Report, a feature that was first shown off at WWDC. App Privacy Report is designed to provide users with information on how often apps are accessing sensitive info provided to them through privacy permissions, such as location, contacts, camera, microphone, and photos.

Apple also displays network activity, letting you know which domains apps are contacting in the background.

How to Turn on App Privacy Report

App Privacy Report can be enabled in the Settings app by following these instructions.

1. Open up the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap on Privacy.
3. In the Privacy section of the Settings app, scroll down and tap on App Privacy Report.
4. Tap on Turn on App Privacy Report.

If you already had "Record App Activity" enabled in the iOS 15/iOS 15.1 updates, App Privacy Report will be automatically on and it will already be populated with data. If you did not, you may need to use apps and websites for a few minutes before you start seeing data.

Using App Privacy Report

Apple shows data from the last seven days, and the app is split up into several sections to make it easier to get to what you want to know.

Data & Sensor Access

In this section, Apple provides a list of apps that have accessed sensors and data granted to them through privacy permissions, so your most sensitive information.

Data & Sensor access will tell you when apps have accessed the following:

• Contacts
• Location
• Photos
• Camera
• Microphone
• Media Library

If you tap on an individual app and then tap on the permission that you want to view more about, App Privacy Report will give you a list of every time the app accessed the data in question.

App Network Activity

With App Network Activity, you can view a list of all of the different domains that your apps have contacted across the last seven days.

This includes various internal domains used by apps, but it also lets you see what third-party websites and services are accessed, such as tracking or analytics tools.

You can tap on any app in the list to see a rundown of all of the domains that have been contacted. If you have Instagram installed, for example, you'll see URLs for things like DoubleClock, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and more, along with internal Instagram and Facebook URLs.

At the bottom of each app's data, you can also get a list of the web sites that you visited within the app.

Website Network Activity

Website Network Activity is basically identical to App Network Activity, but it shows you all of the domains contacted by the websites that you visited in Safari and other apps.

This will show you all of the different trackers and analytics sites that websites are using.

Most Contacted Domains

Most Contacted Domains is an aggregated list of the domains that apps have contacted most often, and it is usually populated by various trackers and analytics domains.

In this section, you can tap on any of the domains in the list to see which apps or websites used that particular domain.

How to Turn Off App Privacy Report

If you don't want to use App Privacy Report, you can follow these steps:

1. Open up the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap on Privacy.
3. In the Privacy section of the Settings app, scroll down and tap on App Privacy Report.
4. Tap on Turn Off App Privacy Report.

Note that turning off App Privacy Report will delete all collected data. Once it's turned on again, Apple will again begin aggregating data from apps.

Guide Feedback

Have questions about App Privacy Report, know of a feature we left out, or want to offer feedback on this guide? Send us an email here.

Starting in late September, Apple began letting users rate pre-installed first-party apps in the App Store, putting them on par with third-party apps. Apple did not previously allow its own apps to be rated, even though the apps were listed in the ‌App Store‌.

At the time, Apple implemented the star ratings for a limited number of its apps like Mail, Podcasts, and Maps, and now Apple is allowing additional iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch apps to be rated. As noted by developer Kosta Eleftheriou, Apple is allowing ratings for Phone, Photos, Messages, Safari, Clock, Camera, Apple Health, World Clock, Workout, Heart Rate, and more.

Ratings for Apple's own apps let users provide feedback on pre-installed apps, and there are reviews available in addition to the one to five star options. Some Apple apps that have had reviews available for some time, such as Podcasts and Mail, have garnered negative reviews.

Phone, Messages, ‌Photos‌, Safari, and others have only been ratable since October 25, so there are few ratings to analyze at this time. Eleftheriou pointed out a curiosity with Safari -- it has an age rating of 4+, but other browsers are listed at 17+.

Apple may use these ratings to gather more targeted feedback for app improvements going forward, but many of these apps are only updated and tweaked as part of major software updates as they do not function like standard third-party apps.

At its "Unleashed" event last week, Apple announced that the HomePod mini will be available in three new colors starting in November, including yellow, orange, and blue. The new colors will be sold alongside the existing space gray and white options.

Apple has yet to provide a specific release date for the new colors, but in Europe and India, the timeframe is slightly narrowed down. Specifically, Apple's online store says the HomePod mini will be available in yellow, orange, and blue in "late November" in the U.K., Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and India.

In other countries where the new HomePod mini colors will be available, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Taiwan, Apple's online store simply mentions "November" availability.

AppleTrack's Sam Kohl today reported that he is "hearing" that the new HomePod mini colors will be available to order starting Monday, November 1, which is the same day that the Beats Fit Pro are rumored to launch. If this date is accurate, it would suggest that the new colors will be released first in countries like the U.S. and Canada, followed by European countries and India. We'll find out if this rumor is true in just five days.

Beyond the new colors, there are no hardware-related changes to the HomePod mini, and pricing will remain at $99 in the United States.