Tim Hardwick
Tim is a Senior Editor at MacRumors and has been writing for the site since 2016. Formerly a magazine journalist, his work has appeared in over 30 newsstand print publications and online brands covering a range of topics, from the latest trends in technology to the mysteries of ancient history.
Based in the UK, Tim's current role at MacRumors involves editorial oversight and how tos, in addition to covering daily news and contributing occasional reviews. Tim can be reached at tim@macrumors.com, Telegram (@waxeditorial) or Twitter.
Based in the UK, Tim's current role at MacRumors involves editorial oversight and how tos, in addition to covering daily news and contributing occasional reviews. Tim can be reached at tim@macrumors.com, Telegram (@waxeditorial) or Twitter.
Tim Hardwick's Articles
U.K. Retailer John Lewis Offering Free Three-Year Guarantee on all Macs and iPads Until June 28
U.K. high street retailer John Lewis is currently offering three years' free guarantee on selected Apple gear including new MacBooks, iMacs, and iPads through its online store, potentially offering buyers £159 on equivalent AppleCare.
The offer extends to all listed Macs and iPads. For example, customers can today order a Space Grey 2017 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro with Intel Core i5, 8GBGB of...
Read Full Article • 42 comments
Report Reveals In-App Purchase Scams in the App Store
An investigation into App Store developer pay-outs has uncovered a scamming trend in which apps advertising fake services are making thousands of dollars a month from in-app purchases.
In a Medium article titled How to Make $80,000 Per Month on the Apple App Store, Johnny Lin describes how he discovered the practice, which works by manipulating search ads to promote dubious apps in the App...
Apple Offers Free Redeem Codes for AirPano's Virtual City Book App
The official Apple Store app is currently offering free redeem codes for AirPano's City Book app, which lets iOS users explore bird's-eye view panoramas of 10 famous cities from around the world.
Each high-resolution cityscape consists of multiple connected spherical photo panoramas that users can rotate and zoom 360 degrees via touch or by physically moving their iPhone or iPad in the...
Apple Announces Imminent Opening of Taiwan's First Apple Retail Store
Apple has posted a message on its regional Taiwan website to announce the imminent opening of its first official retail store in the country. The store is located in the Xinyi District, on the ground floor and basement level of Taipei 101, the fourth tallest skyscraper in the world.
A specific opening date for the store has not yet been provided by Apple, but Taiwanese site AppleDaily...
Apple Launches Business Chat in iOS 11 Developer Preview
Apple revealed more details of its new Business Chat feature for iMessage at a WWDC developer preview on Friday. Coming in iOS 11, Business Chat allows real customer service representatives to communicate directly with users, making the feature separate from existing AI chat bot systems.
Users send the first message to start a Business Chat conversation by tapping Message icons that appear...
Overhauled Podcast App in iOS 11 to Bring Richer User Experience and Listener Analytics
In a Friday session at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed some major updates to is native Podcasts app that will be coming in iOS 11. Some of the changes will affect podcast listeners, while others should make it easier for podcasters to learn more about their audience's listening habits.
As mentioned at Apple's WWDC Keynote earlier this week, the Podcasts app is getting an...
Teardowns Confirm 2nd-Gen Butterfly Keyboard on New MacBook, New MacBook Pro Designs Largely Unchanged
iFixit has posted its teardowns of Apple's new 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, revealing that apart from the advertised performance boosts the models are largely unchanged from the previous models.
The only really notable change comes in the 12-inch MacBook, which Apple has updated with a second-generation butterfly-mechanism keyboard, as found in the 2016 MacBook Pros, ...
Apple Music Loses Exclusive Streaming Deal With Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is making her entire back catalog of music available across all major streaming services, bringing Apple Music's exclusive content deal with the singer to an end (via TechCrunch).
Beginning today, rival services including Spotify, Amazon Music, and Tidal will all be able to list the artist's existing discography, including Swift's album "1989", which has sold 10 million copies...
iOS 11 Demo Highlights Potential for Drag and Drop on iPad
During this week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed a collection of iPad-specific abilities coming to iOS 11, including a new customizable dock that can be accessed from within any app, a Files app, a new app switcher, and support for drag and drop.
With the first beta of iOS 11 currently in the hands of developers, a few specific examples of what's possible with the...
Apple CEO Tim Cook to Attend White House for Kushner-Led Tech Summit
Apple CEO Tim Cook will visit the White House later this month for the first meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump's American Technology Council, a report revealed on Thursday. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are also expected to be in attendance, but Facebook has not yet responded to its invitation to the event.
The meeting, which was formed as part of an effort to...
Apple's Concern With User Privacy Reportedly Stifling Siri Development
Former Apple employees who worked on Siri believe the virtual assistant is struggling to catch up with its rivals because of a lack of ambitious goals stemming from the company's overarching concern with user privacy, a report by The Wall Street Journal revealed on Thursday.
Unlike Amazon and Google, which leverage and retain user data off-device to inform and enhance queries put to their...
Teardown of New 4K 21.5-inch iMac Reveals Removable RAM and Modular CPU
iFixit has published a teardown of the new 4K 21.5-inch iMac, which reveals that – surprisingly – Apple's smallest all-in-one desktop machine has both removable RAM and a Kaby Lake processor that's not soldered onto the logic board.
iFixit made the discovery by disassembling Apple's $1,299 mid-range 3.0GHz stock option, which includes 8GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory, a Radeon Pro 555 graphics card...
WhatsApp Gains Photo Filters and Automatic Albums, 'Recall' Feature Reportedly Imminent
WhatsApp gained a handful of new features this week, including photo filters, quick replies, and automatic albums in chat threads.
The photo filters in WhatsApp 2.17.30 are similar to those found in Snapchat and Instagram: users can now add one of five filters to photos, videos, and GIFs before sending, enabling them to enhance the look or correct poor lighting. Pop, black and white, cool,...
Apple Opens Up HomeKit Platform To Make Smart Product Development Easier
Apple has taken steps to make its HomeKit smart home platform more accessible to third parties in order to encourage faster adoption, the company announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Wednesday (via Forbes).
Apple told developers in session that they no longer need an MFi (Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad) license to test out HomeKit smart products before bringing them to market, and...
OWC Confirms New Low-End 27-inch iMac Can Be Fitted With 64GB RAM
Apple announced a refreshed range of iMacs during its keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference this week, offering three stock configurations of the new 27-inch model with Kaby Lake processors, Thunderbolt 3 ports, and faster graphics, with optional memory and storage upgrades at purchase.
While Apple offers a 64GB RAM upgrade option for its mid-range 3.5GHz and high-end 3.8GHz 27-inch...
iOS 11 Lets AirPods Users Change Tracks With a Double Tap
Owners of AirPods will soon be able to skip forwards and backwards between tracks with a simple double tap of either earpiece, thanks to an additional setting Apple is providing in iOS 11.
Currently, AirPods users can only change tracks from the buds by invoking Siri with a double tap and vocally commanding the virtual assistant to do so, an action some people find cumbersome or simply...
iOS 11 Users to Gain More Control Over Apps' Use of Location Services
Users of iOS 11 will be able to restrict the gathering of location data by any third-party app so that it can only access the device's location status when the app is in use.
Previously the security setting only applied to certain apps that chose to offer it – as well as to developers wanting to test their own app's use of location data – but it appears Apple is extending the setting for...
Developer Access to iPhone's NFC Chip Coming in iOS 11
Developers coding for iOS 11 will be able to create apps that can read NFC tags, opening the door for the wireless exchange of information between an iPhone and various connected devices in a user's environment.
The NFC chip in the iPhone is currently only used to handle contactless Apple Pay transactions and Passbook check-ins, but a new framework detailed in a developer resource published...
Apple Helped U.K. Investigate Terrorist Attacks, Says CEO Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed on Monday that the company has been helping the U.K. government investigate terror attacks in the country, despite being criticized by officials for its steadfast support of digital services that use end-to-end encryption.
"We have been cooperating with the U.K. government not only in law enforcement kind of matters but on some of the attacks," Cook said during a ...
Apple Offers External GPU Enclosure to Developers As Valve Opens Door to VR Mac Gaming
Apple announced a new version of its Metal graphics technology during Monday's keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference. As part of macOS High Sierra, Metal 2 will officially support external GPUs, allowing any Mac with a Thunderbolt 3 port to benefit from graphics hardware powerful enough to run demanding virtual reality applications and games.
The native VR support in macOS High...
