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Ming Chi-Kuo: AirPods Pro Two Coming 2022

Charlotte Henry ·

New AirPods Pro 2 will debut in 2022, according to a note from analyst Ming -Chi-Kuo seen by iMore. Indeed, he expects Apple’s earbuds to ship 100 million units overall that year.

Kuo says that while Apple’s AirPods business will “decline in the short term (2H21–1H22)” he expects that to be rectified by the second half of the year. Short term, however, lower than expected demand is thought to mean Apple will ship up to 75 million units which is 10 million down on the previous prediction. In terms of AirPods as a whole, Kuo says that he expects Apple to ship more than 100 million units in 2022, even if the new products don’t feature an “innovative experience.” Such an experience has been talked about before — previous reports have suggested some form of health tracking could be added to AirPods Pro specifically.

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Apple Offers Free Downloads of OS X Lion, OS X Mountain Lion

Andrew Orr ·

Until now Apple charged US$19.99 to download codes for OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion. But now they’re free from Apple’s website.

Lion runs on Macs that came prior to the launch of Mountain Lion in 2012. Mountain Lion runs on the Macs below, but you may not be able to downgrade to it unless you completely reformat the drive. You can’t install an old OS on top of a newer one. Also, the oldest OS an M1 Mac can run is Big Sur.

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Parts of AT&T’s 5G Network Will Run on Microsoft Azure Cloud

Andrew Orr ·

Microsoft and AT&T announced a joint venture on Wednesday that will have the carrier run core parts of its 5G network using Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

The newer generation of networks, which AT&T began rolling out in 2018, is designed to rely more heavily on software and data centers for routing traffic rather than telecommunications specific gear.

Microsoft intends to use the newly acquired technology – plus the experience gained helping AT&T run the network – to build out a product it calls Azure for Operators, which it will use to go after core network business from telecommunications companies in the 60 regions of the world where it operates.

That sounds really cool to me that some phone traffic can run through data centers. I wonder if this move would make it easier for harder for government surveillance.

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New Slack Features Reflect the Changing Nature of Work

Charlotte Henry ·

Slack has unveiled some new features to helps businesses as some workers start to return to offices, some prepare to, and others stay working remotely. Techcrunch took a look at the new tools and how they reflect the changing nature of work. It all comes ahead of the messaging service’s acquisition by Salesforce.

Let’s start with Slack Huddles, the audio tool that lets you have a real-time conversation with someone in Slack instead of typing out all of your thoughts. This will be much easier for people who find typing challenging, but the company also believes it will allow more spontaneous discussion, which mimics being in the office, at least to some degree. “Huddles is a light-weight, audio-first way of communicating right in Slack. [It] recreates the spontaneous and serendipitous interactions that happen outside of scheduled meetings,” Tamar Yehoshua, chief product officer at Slack explained in a press briefing yesterday.

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How Apple Arcade Shows an OS Merger Isn’t Wise

Andrew Orr ·

Alex Blake of Digital Trends writes how the nature of Apple Arcade shows the pitfalls of merging iOS and macOS.

You see, Apple Arcade is a showcase for all that’s wrong with taking two very different operating systems and mashing them together into a mixed-up medley where no one wins. Because developers have to make games that work on the tiniest iPhone and the largest iMac, they are forced into compromises that weaken the games on both platforms.

I see his point and I think I agree with him. No one wins except maybe the lowest common denominator. Maybe the more powerful M1 chip would change that, but probably not. iPadOS apps haven’t yet taken full advantage of the chip, as one example.

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Windows 11: What Apple Can Learn From Microsoft's Upcoming OS

Charlotte Henry ·

Microsoft recently unveiled Windows 11. With the first test builds now available, Mac user Parker Ortolani decided to give it try for 9to5Mac and see if there is anything Apple can learn from it.

Windows has never looked “beautiful.” It’s always been a mashup of different eras going back to the ’90s with some paint on the surface. Windows 10 did a nice job of covering up some of the mess and it made the OS more usable. But Windows 11’s biggest feature by far is its new design language that extends across the system. It’s still familiar and recognizable as Windows, but it feels like they really care about the way this operating system looks and feels in a way they haven’t before. The company has implemented a fresh new look for the task bar and the start menu. Icons have fun new playful animations, and many also have a new look with more personality and depth. The default wallpapers included in Windows 11 complement the new taskbar really nicely as well.

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Hackers Sell Personal LinkedIn Data From Leak Affecting 700M Users

Andrew Orr ·

Hackers are selling the personal information of over 700 million LinkedIn users. Here are the data types that were leaked:

Email Addresses; Full names; Phone numbers; Physical addresses; Geolocation records; LinkedIn username and profile URL; Personal and professional experience/background; Genders; Other social media accounts and usernames

On June 22nd, a user of a popular hacker forum advertised data from 700 Million LinkedIn users for sale. The user of the forum posted a sample of the data that includes 1 million LinkedIn users.

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VSCO Releases Set of Three Infrared Photography Presets

Andrew Orr ·

VSCO announced on Tuesday the release of three presets designed to emulate infrared photography.

The first filter is built for landscape images to ensure that plants whose color so often spills past green into yellow still turn to red and pink with the filter. However, people may turn odd colors in some situations with this look, and for that reason, we’ve created a second filter that is similar to the first but with more consideration for skin tones remaining natural colors.