Apple this evening shared a new trailer for its upcoming Apple TV+ show "Servant," which is set to come out in just over two weeks. This particular clip shows a doll maker creating Jericho, the lifelike fake baby that plays a starring role in the show. "Servant" is a thriller produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, known for movies like "Signs," "Glass," "Split," and more. The movie follows a Philadelphia couple who hire a nanny to look after their "child" following a tragedy. Based on the trailers that have been shown so far, including the newest trailer, a couple loses a child and then adopts Jericho, a rather real-looking fake baby. The nanny that's hired to look after Jericho turns out to be unusual herself, leading to a series of strange events. "Servant" will be the first major new series to come to ‌Apple TV‌+ following its November 1 launch, with the show set to debut on Thursday, November 28. "Servant" is a shorter form show that will feature 10 30 minute episodes. If you're interested in discussing Apple's new TV shows, make sure to head over to the new MacRumors ‌Apple TV‌+ forum.

Stanford Medicine today published results from the Apple Heart Study that kicked off in 2017, marking the third time data from the study has been shared (via Reuters and CNBC). The aim of the study, conducted by Stanford and Apple, was to determine whether the Apple Watch is able to detect atrial fibrillation, which can be an indicator of serious heart health problems. Researchers wanted to determine how well the ‌Apple Watch‌ worked and whether it was safe to use. A total of 419,297 people in the United States participated in the study, and 0.52 percent of participants (2,161 people) received an irregular heart rhythm notification over 117 days of monitoring. People who received a notification were sent ECG patches to further monitor for heart problems, but quite a few of those went unreturned. Of the 450 people who returned the patches with data that could be analyzed, atrial fibrillation was present in 34 percent overall and 35 percent of participants age 65 or older. Of those who had an irregular reading and returned a patch, 84 percent of subsequent notifications were determined to be atrial fibrillation.Among participants who were notified of an irregular pulse, the positive predictive value was 0.84 (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.92) for observing atrial fibrillation on the ECG simultaneously with a subsequent irregular pulse notification and 0.71 (97.5% CI, 0.69 to 0.74) for observing atrial fibrillation on the ECG simultaneously with a subsequent irregular tachogram. Of 1376 notified participants who returned a 90-day survey, 57% contacted health care providers

Apple CFO Luca Maestri is teaming up with auction site Charitybuzz to offer Apple fans the opportunity to bid on lunch with Maestri and a tour of the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. Maestri will have lunch with two people at the Apple Park campus, with the proceeds from the auction benefitting the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. The lunch, which also comes with a tour with an Apple employee, will last for approximately one hour. Luca Maestri is a senior vice president at Apple and the company's chief financial officer, reporting directly to Tim Cook. He oversees Apple's accounting, business support, financial planning and analysis, treasury, M&A, investor relations, internal audits, and tax functions at Apple. The Andrea Bocelli Foundation's goal is to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, distress due to illness, and social exclusion by promoting and supporting national and international projects that aim to overcome these barriers. The current bid on the lunch with Maestri is at $10,500, and its estimated value is $50,000. The auction will end on December 5 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ in past years has also done charity lunches facilitated by Charitybuzz to earn money for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, but the last one was held in 2017. That auction earned

Apple Music was today updated with a new feature called Replay, which is designed to allow Apple Music subscribers to take a look at the music that they listened to most in 2019. Available on the web, in the Mac Music app, and the Music app on iOS devices, the Replay feature aggregates top songs of the year, while also providing playlists for past years too. Playlists are available for every year that an ‌Apple Music‌ subscriber has had the service, dating back to 2015. Replay playlists can be added to the ‌Apple Music‌ Library so they can be streamed right alongside other playlists and shared with others. According to TechCrunch, Replay will continue to be updated throughout the year, changing and evolving as a person's musical tastes and interests shift. Apple plans to update the Replay playlist each Sunday with new songs and data insights to reflect each person's current listening activity. ‌Apple Music‌ has never offered an aggregated year-end playlist with song data, something that Spotify has provided for years with its Wrapped experience. Apple now has an equivalent feature, and one that is perhaps more useful given the fact that it's updated on an ongoing basis. ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers can access ‌Apple Music‌ Replay on the web and add the playlists to iOS or Mac devices. Replay should also be available in the iOS and Mac Music apps without the need to use the feature on the web, but it's still in the early stages of rolling out and not available on every platform

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.2 update to developers, one week after releasing the first beta and two weeks after the launch of the ‌macOS Catalina‌ 10.15.1 update. The new ‌macOS Catalina‌ beta can be downloaded using the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after installing the proper software from the Developer Center. There's no word yet on what improvements the second update to ‌macOS Catalina‌ will include, but it most likely focuses on performance improvements, security updates, and fixes for bugs that weren't able to be addressed in the macOS 10.15.1 update. We didn't find any major new features in the first beta, but we'll update this article if any changes are found in the second beta. ‌macOS Catalina‌ is a major update that eliminates iTunes in favor of new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps, nixes support for 32-bit apps, adds a new Find My app, brings a new Photos interface, and includes multiple privacy enhancements and other app refinements. For full details on what's new in ‌macOS Catalina‌, make sure to check out our ‌macOS Catalina‌ roundup.

Apple today announced its much-rumored high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is the largest MacBook Pro that's been offered for sale since the discontinuation of the 17-inch MacBook Pro back in 2012. The updated 16-inch MacBook Pro features a larger display with slimmer bezels than the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which it has replaced in Apple's notebook lineup. The display has a resolution of 3072x1920 pixels with up to 500 nits of brightness. The notebook features an updated "Magic Keyboard" that does away with the unpopular butterfly mechanism, returning instead to a more reliable scissor mechanism with 1mm key travel, along with Intel's latest 9th-generation processors with up to 8 cores. It also has up to 64GB of RAM and up to 8TB of SSD storage. Above the keyboard, the Touch Bar lives on, but the 16-inch MacBook Pro marks the return of a physical Esc key. In line with the latest MacBook Air, the Touch ID sensor has also been separated from the Touch Bar. Other features include AMD Radeon Pro 5000M graphics options paired with GDDR6 video memory and an 8GB VRAM option, a larger 100Wh battery for longer battery life, a redesigned six-speaker sound system, and upgraded microphones. Starting at $2,399 in the United States, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is available today through Apple.com and the Apple Store app. It will be in Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Resellers in the United States later this week and is "coming soon" to stores around the world, according to

Apple's AirPods Pro are normally priced at $249, but for those looking for a deal, Amazon has them at the discounted price of $235. That's a savings of $14, which isn't much, but it's better than full price. This deal could go quickly, and the last time it was available, Amazon only discounted the ‌AirPods Pro‌ for a few hours. Amazon says that the ‌AirPods Pro‌ have an extended delivery time due to shipping restrictions, with orders expected to arrive sometime next week. We're not expecting to see prices much lower than this on the upcoming Black Friday shopping holiday due to the fact that the ‌AirPods Pro‌ are newly released. 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.

Apple's new high-end modular Mac Pro is set to be released in December, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The launch timing of the ‌Mac Pro‌ was shared in a report on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is set to come out as soon as tomorrow. Apple unveiled the new 2019 ‌Mac Pro‌ in June at its Worldwide Developers Conference, but since then has not provided any details on its prospective release date. A December launch would be in line with the launch of the 2013 ‌Mac Pro‌, which came out on December 18, and the 2017 iMac Pro, which came out on December 14. The new ‌Mac Pro‌ is a designed for Apple's pro user base with a heavy focus on upgradeability and expansion. It features a traditional PC shape, but with an Apple-esque stainless steel frame with a lattice pattern that maximizes airflow. The ‌Mac Pro‌ uses workstation-class Xeon processors with up to 28 cores, and it supports up to 1.5TB of high-performance memory. Pricing on the new ‌Mac Pro‌ will start at $6,000. Alongside the ‌Mac Pro‌, Apple will likely launch the Pro Display XDR, which is a 32-inch 6K display with a resolution of 6016 x 3384 and more than 20 million pixels. Pricing on the Pro Display XDR will start at $5,000. While Bloomberg has disclosed a December launch month for the ‌Mac Pro‌, there's still no word on a specific date. Given past launch timelines, it could come on either the week of the 9th or the week of the

Apple's upcoming 16-inch MacBook Pro is set to replace the current 15-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, which is priced starting at $2,399, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The new 16-inch machine, which will be the largest laptop Apple has offered for sale since the 17-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ was discontinued, will "cost about the same" as the current 15-inch model. Prior reports suggested the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ would be sold alongside the 15-inch model as a higher-end, more expensive option, but it sounds like it won't be quite as pricey as first expected. The new ‌MacBook Pro‌ is said to feature a revamped keyboard that's designed to be "more reliable," and previous rumors have indicated that it will abandon the butterfly switch mechanism Apple has been using for a new scissor switch mechanism. The display of the upcoming machine will be brighter, and Bloomberg suggests it will appeal to video and photo editors, gamers, and software developers. As for launch timing, Bloomberg believes that the new ‌MacBook Pro‌ will come out as soon as Wednesday, with the Mac Pro to then follow at some point in December. Apple this week has been holding private press briefings at its luxury loft mansion in New York City, likely providing media sites with review units for first impressions. Apple will announce the new 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ via press release, as there are no more Apple events expected this

Apple CEO Tim Cook and United States President Donald Trump will soon tour facilities in Texas where Apple products are made, reports Reuters. The goal of the trip is to showcase companies that "keep jobs in America." Both Apple and the White House declined to comment on the upcoming tour. The planned journey comes as Apple is seeking tariff waivers on imports from China that include iPhone components, Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod, and more. Apple in September said that its newest Mac Pro will be manufactured in Texas at the same Austin facility where the existing ‌Mac Pro‌ has been made since 2013. According to Apple, the new ‌Mac Pro‌ includes components designed, developed, and manufactured by more than a dozen American companies. Suppliers span states that include Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont. Apple has pledged to invest $350 billion in the United States economy by 2023, and last year, spent more than $60 billion with 9,000 domestic suppliers across the country. 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.

Apple in late October released a new 13.2 software update for the HomePod with a bunch of new features, but it turned out the update was bricking some HomePods. Apple addressed the bug in an updated 13.2.1 software release a couple days later, making the new functionality available without the risk of ruining a ‌HomePod‌. In our newest YouTube video, we go over all of the new ‌HomePod‌ features for MacRumors readers who may have been put off by the bug reports. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Multi-User Support and Voice Detection With the new update, ‌HomePod‌ can distinguish between different users in the household, introducing multi-user support for the first time. Siri is able to tell who is speaking, allowing each person in the home to access their own selection of music, playlists, radio stations, and preferences. Setting up multi-user support requires a device running iOS 13.2 or later, and you need to invite your family members to be a member in the Home app. From there, open the Home app, choose Home Settings, tap on your user profile under people, and then turn on the "Recognize My Voice" option. Apple has more info on setup in a dedicated support document. Handoff Support If you're listening to a song on your iPhone and want to transfer it over to your ‌HomePod‌, you can do so with iOS 13.2.1's new Handoff feature. To use Handoff, have a song playing on the iPhone and then bring it over to the top of the ‌HomePod‌. The audio playing on the iPhone will swap over to the ‌HomePod‌, pausing audio on the iPhone. You'll get a

Walmart this week announced a new partnership with Apple, which allows the Walmart Voice Order feature to be used with Siri. With this option, Apple users can ask ‌Siri‌ to add items to their Walmart Online Grocery Cart through a new ‌Siri‌ Shortcut. After pairing an account, customers can create a shopping cart by saying "Add to Walmart" and then naming the product they want to purchase. Once finished shopping, customers can place the order with the Walmart app and then Walmart personal shoppers will gather the items. Customers can have their orders delivered or pick them up at a local Walmart store. Items can be added to the Walmart cart on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, and CarPlay. According to Walmart, the more customers use the feature, the better the experience will be. The app is designed to quickly and accurately identify desired items based on purchase history.For example, if a customer says, "add orange juice to my cart," we'll make sure to add the specific orange juice the customer buys regularly. Instead of saying "Great Value organic orange juice with no pulp," they'll simply say: "orange juice" and we'll add the right one.The voice ordering feature is aimed at letting customers add to a list of items over time as they realize what they need for a weekly shopping trip. Walmart customers interested in using the feature can go to the Walmart Grocery App and choose the "Voice Shopping" option on their account

Minecraft Earth, Microsoft's new augmented reality Minecraft game, is now available on iOS and Android devices in the United States. Microsoft has been testing Minecraft Earth in other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Sweden and South Korea, but now it is also available in an early access capacity in the U.S. Minecraft Earth is designed to let users access a tabletop mode that displays Minecraft creations in the real world at life size, bringing Minecraft designs to life. Gamers will be able to add a buildplate. creating an interactive Minecraft diorama. Tappables, which unlock in-game materials, will be able to be found in the real world, such as on a walk, and resources can be used for crafting and smelting. There are also monsters to encounter and other discoveries to make. Multiple players can team up with one another to create structures together, and in adventure mode, there's an option to battle against hostile mobs to survive. The app can be downloaded for free from the App Store, though it is a freemium title and "Minecoins" can be purchased in

Former HBO CEO and chairman Richard Plepler is in talks with Apple about an exclusive Apple TV+ production deal, reports Deadline. Plepler is planning to launch a production company and is currently negotiating a deal that would land him with Apple, producing content for Apple's streaming television service. Image credit: REX/Shutterstock Plepler, known for his showmanship, creative instincts and willingness to take risks, had been a key driving force behind HBO's success over the past couple of decades. He was elevated to HBO CEO in 2012. Before that he was co-president.Plepler left HBO in February after spending 30 years at the company and has reportedly spent the last several months exploring different opportunities. According to Deadline, Plepler was not interested in returning to TV as an executive, but was instead looking for opportunities as a producer. The talks are being conducted by Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, two former Sony executives who have been spearheading Apple's television efforts. Apple has already signed production deals with multiple companies, including A24, Imagine Documentaries, and Oprah Winfrey, plus it has established deals with producers and directors like Jason Katims, Alfonso Cuaron, and Justin

The iOS 13.3 update that is currently available to developers and public beta testers has a new Safari feature that supports NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys. This option was activated in the first beta of iOS 13.3, but in the second developer beta, Apple has added details about it in the release notes. Now supports NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in Safari, SFSafariViewController, and ASWebAuthenticationSession using the WebAuthn standard, on devices with the necessary hardware capabilities.With the iOS 13.3 update, Safari will support physical security keys like the Lightning-equipped YubiKey, which can be used for more secure two-factor authentication. Yubico announced the YubiKey 5Ci back in August, but at the time of launch, it was of limited usefulness because it did not work with Safari, Chrome, or other major browsers, though it was compatible with apps like 1Password. With Safari support, the YubiKey 5Ci is a legitimately useful tool that can be more convenient than software-based two-factor authentication because there's no need to enter a security code -- you simply plug it in to an iPhone or Mac (there's also a USB-C connector) to authenticate. Support for FIDO2-compliant USB security keys using WebAuthn was previously added to Safari 13 in macOS. Other NFC, USB, and Lightning-based security keys will also work with Safari following the iOS 13.3 update. There's no word yet on when iOS 13.3 will be released, but we may see it sometime in December after a few more weeks of beta

The Facebook for iOS app appears to be accessing the iPhone or iPad's camera in the background when the app is in use, according to multiple reports on Twitter. The sliver of brown in this demo photo is the Facebook app accessing the camera behind the timeline. When scrolling through the Facebook timeline, several users saw the camera activated in the background, as demonstrated in the tweets below. Found a @facebook #security & #privacy issue. When the app is open it actively uses the camera. I found a bug in the app that lets you see the camera open behind your feed. Note that I had the camera pointed at the carpet. pic.twitter.com/B8b9oE1nbl— Joshua Maddux (@JoshuaMaddux) November 10, 2019 Facebook app on iOS 13.2.2 opens my phone’s rear camera when I open a profile photo swipe down to return (look at the little slit on the left of the video). Is this an app bug or an iOS bug?? @facebook @AppleSupport pic.twitter.com/WlhSXZulqx— Daryl Lasafin (@dzlasafin) November 10, 2019 One Facebook user found it through an interface bug that shows a small sliver of the display when looking at a photo, while another found it when rotating a device. Both The Next Web and CNET were able to reproduce the issue and confirmed that the camera is activated in the background when using Facebook on iOS. The issue appears to impact iPhones running iOS 13, including the newest release version of ‌iOS 13‌, iOS 13.2.2. Devices running iOS 12 do not appear to be impacted. Facebook vice president of integrity Guy Rosen this morning said that it "sounds like a bug" and that Facebook

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 13.3 update to developers, one week after seeding the first beta and two weeks after releasing the tvOS 13.2 update. Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 13.3 developer beta can be downloaded onto the ‌‌Apple TV‌‌ via a profile that's installed using Xcode. tvOS updates (aside from major releases) have historically been minor in scale, focusing on under-the-hood bug fixes and improvements rather than major outward-facing changes. Apple provides little to no information on what's included in tvOS beta updates, so we may not discover any major changes after installing the software. The update does, however, include a useful new setting that's designed to let you change the main banner interface in the TV+ app from What to Watch to Up Next, which shows content from shows that you're already watching instead of show suggestions. The option can be accessed by going to the Settings app, choosing Apps, and selecting the TV app. From there, select Home Screen and choose "Up Next" in the "Top Shelf" section. While we don't often know full details about what's new in tvOS during the beta testing process, we let MacRumors readers know when new updates are available so those who are developers can download it upon

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 6.1.1 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the first beta and two weeks after releasing the watchOS 6.1 update. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated ‌‌Apple Watch‌‌ app on the iPhone by going to General > Software Update. To install the update, the ‌‌‌Apple Watch‌‌‌ needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone. watchOS 6.1.1 appears to be a minor update focusing on performance improvements and bug fixes that weren't able to be addressed in watchOS 6.1. No new features were found in the first beta of watchOS 6.1.1, but we'll update this article should new features be found in the second

Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 13.3 updates to developers, one week after seeding the first beta and two weeks after the release of iOS 13.2 with new emoji, Siri privacy controls, Deep Fusion, and more. iOS and ‌‌‌iPadOS‌‌‌ 13.3 can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or over the air after the proper developer profile has been installed. iOS 13.3 introduces Communication Limits for Screen Time, a feature that Apple promised would be coming in an iOS 13 update. Communication Limits allow parents to control who their children are able to contact both during downtime and during Screen Time. Communication Limits include FaceTime, Phone, and Messages, along with iCloud contacts. Calls to emergency numbers are always allowed and will turn off communication limits for 24 hours when placed. The iOS 13.3 update also appears to address a multitasking issue where iOS 13.2 users were seeing poor RAM management that caused apps like YouTube and Safari to reload more frequently than normal. After installing iOS 13.3, affected users are now seeing fewer refreshes when accessing these apps, doing another task, and then opening them again. In the Keyboards section of the Settings app (under General), there's a new toggle that prevents Animoji and Memoji stickers from being displayed as an option on the Emoji Keyboard, and when editing a video, there's an option to save the edited version as a new clip rather than saving over the original. Apple has also tweaked the Apple Watch app icon, changing the color of the Digital

Apple this morning shared a new "First Look" featurette covering "Ghostwriter," one of the TV shows that launched on Apple TV+ when it became available in early November. "Ghostwriter" on ‌Apple TV‌+ is a remake of the of the original "Ghostwriter" series that aired on PBS from 1992 to 1995. It follows the story of a group of kids who discover a ghost in a neighborhood bookstore, going on to solve fiction-related mysteries to learn more about it. When a ghost haunts a neighborhood bookstore and starts releasing fictional characters into the real world, four kids must team up to solve an exciting mystery surrounding the ghost's unfinished business.Andrew Orenstein, producer of "Ghostwriter," says that he hopes kids will watch each episode to see how the mystery plays out before going back to rewatch it to find all of the easter eggs. "Ghostwriter" is one of the ‌Apple TV‌+ shows aimed at children along with "Helpsters," a show from the makers of "Sesame Street" that's aimed at teaching young kids the basics of coding. Apple has other TV shows aimed at children in the works, but at the current time, "Ghostwriter" and "Helpsters" are the only two kids shows available. ‌Apple TV‌+ is available on multiple platforms for $4.99 per month. Separately, on its Apple YouTube channel, Apple today shared a trailer for "What the Golf," one of the games that's available on Apple Arcade. Apple has been sharing trailers for some of the more popular ‌Apple Arcade‌ games in recent weeks, presumably with the aim of luring in new subscribers. ‌Apple Arcade‌ offers access to over 90