By news@appleinsider.com (Charles Martin) How to make the most of your Mac menubar by rearranging, deleting and adding app icons — with or without third party utilities.If you find yourself with an ever-increasing number of small icons on the right side of your Mac’s menubar, you can take control and manage these easily. There is a built-in facility to do this, or you can upsize your menubar mastery with third-party utilities.Typically, menubar icons add themselves to the menubar when a third-party program that uses them is installed. There are also a handful of Apple default icons that appear on startup automatically.Apple’s menubar icons include the time and date, where clicking it will bring up notifications; Siri; Control Center; Search, and a “User” icon which, when clicked on, will show the account you are presently in. A Wi-Fi signal strength indicator, battery status, Bluetooth control, volume and sound control, display options, Time Machine status, and a focus mode indicator are all available as well. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Wesley Hilliard) Initial reviews of the new iPad Pro models have arrived, and so has news of an OLED bug causing some colors not to display correctly. A fix is on the way.iPad Pro uses tandem OLED for a brighter outputApple lifted the news embargo so initial reviews of the 13-inch iPad Pro and 11-inch iPad Pro could be published. However, some bad news has arrived with the good as a significant OLED bug has appeared.According to iMore, which discovered the issue, specific HDR content causes blown out colors that show up as blobs or white streaks. It occurs with particular shades of blue, like navy or indigo. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Malcolm Owen) The initial reviews of Apple’s new iPad Pro have arrived, with the impressive Tandem OLED screen and the upgrade to M4 catching the most attention from reviewers.The 13-inch and 11-inch iPad Pro with M4Before the release of many major products, Apple offers select numbers of reviewers some pre-release access. With the release to the public imminent, those hands-on opinion pieces are starting to get published.The update to the iPad Pro is an important one for Apple. It’s been well over a year since there have been any real iPad range updates, making any changes to the iPad Pro crucial to the product line. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Mike Wuerthele) The first reviews of the iPad Air are in, and while there is a lot of focus on how there’s now a larger-screen version, all also wonder how this will affect sales of the iPad Pro.The 11-inch and 13-inch iPad AirIt doesn’t seem possible to review any iPad without reference to others, so every review also talks about where the iPad Air fits into the lineup. That’s particularly since Apple’s new range smooths out some of its previous overlaps and tries to make clear distinctions between the iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Amber Neely) You can now use Siri on select Denon Home Series speakers — provided you already have a HomePod in your house.The Denon Home Sound Bar 550Denon, a company known for its wireless receivers and smart speakers, has quietly rolled out a feature that allows you to control Siri on select smart speakers. This includes the Denon Home Soundbar 550, which also features support for Dolby Atmos.Like the EcoBee Smart Thermostat lineup, you still need to have a HomePod or HomePod mini added to your Home network. Because Siri is only available on first-party Apple devices, Denon’s speakers are only relaying the information to the Apple speakers. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Malcolm Owen) Apple and Google have finally implemented their industry specification for detecting AirTags and other trackers hidden on a person, to help minimize the instances of stalking.AirTag, a tracker that will support Apple and Google’s industry standard. Initially announced in May 2023, the industry standard between Apple and Google is titled “Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers.” After a year of waiting, it’s finally becoming a reality on consumer devices.The new standard will alert users on iOS and Android if a Bluetooth tracking device owned by someone else is being used to track them. Users will get new alerts on their smartphones if an unknown Bluetooth tracking device is found to be moving with the user over time, regardless of platform. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Mike Wuerthele) While a release date isn’t clear, OpenAI is debuting its own app for ChatGPT generative text for macOS users.ChatGPT is in the App Store nowTo date, ChatGPT has been available for Mac through third party apps. That is about to change.In its series of Monday announcements, the company declared that it will soon release a first-party Mac app, so the service is constantly available to macOS users. A timetable for release isn’t clear, and neither are costs associated with text generation or other features. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Amber Neely) On Monday, Apple announced that Apple News+ subscribers get a new, original spelling game called “Quartiles,” and support for offline mode.Image Credit: AppleQuartiles plays similarly to Boggle, though it requires players to form words by connecting tiles that contain two to four letters. Users score points based on word length.New puzzles are released daily, and players can share Quartiles puzzles with other News+ subscribers. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (William Gallagher) Following AppleInsider’s discovery that Safari will add the ability to selectively turn off online ads, UK newspaper groups have complained to Apple.Safari getting new AI tools in iOS 18The Safari feature AppleInsider uncovered in April 2024 will mean users can elect to automatically remove certain parts of web pages, most likely adverts. It’s expected that the feature will be released as part of iOS 18, and it will be part of Apple’s AI announcements at WWDC.According to the Financial Times, news of this feature has prompted the UK’s News Media Association to complain. While the Financial Times says that a letter has been sent to Apple’s government affairs chief in the UK, about this feature’s threat to the future of journalism. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (William Gallagher) Apple has released macOS Sonoma 14.5, but it comes with very few visible updates.Following a round of beta test releases, which began in early April 2024, Apple has now publicly released macOS 14.5. AppleInsider always recommends waiting at least a few days before updating, to give time for other users to discover bugs — as they did with macOS 14.4.After that, it’s best to install the new version in order to be sure of having the latest security updates.As with that last macOS 14.4 update, though, there are close to no visible differences in the new version. While macOS Sonoma 14.4 added new emoji, Apple has said only that this macOS 14.5 has bug fixes. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
