0:53 Apple Watch saves kidnap victim
1:41 No FaceID for iMac until 2022
4:18 MacBook Air likely to get a full redesign in 2021
6:15 My No-Tification Squad & iCave Answers
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Thumbnail iMac Render via https://twitter.com/apple_tomorrow?s=21
Apple Watch saves kidnap victim
Source: https://foxsanantonio.com/news/local/selma-police-ping-apple-watch-to-find-kidnapped-woman
Via Fox 29 San Antonio, A man who allegedly kidnapped a woman was later caught after police used cellular pings and triangulation to locate the Apple Watch she was wearing and had attempted to use to call for help.
The kidnapee’s daughter raised the alarm after her mother was taken in the flatbed of a truck and had attempted to call for help using her watch before being cut off, at which point law enforcement used its cellular capabilities to locate it, and the suspect has since been arrested.
This just adds to the ways Apple Watch might save your life, alongside high heart rate warnings, low heart rate, fall detection and much more. Seems like a pretty decent buy now!
No FaceID for iMac until 2022
This coming Via bloomberg, It seems that the redesigned iMac that is expected to land by the middle of this year, but I have my money on March or April, will not have FaceID built in, a feature that is likely to be held for the second generation.
Now I have to say I find this news confusing. Apple is clearly planning to bring the feature to the device and must be leaving space within the design to accommodate it in future. That in turn means they must know what hardware is required, along with the fact that, you know, we’ve had said technology in our pockets since 2017’s iPhone X.
So I have to say I’m confused about this report – Apple has the hardware and software, and the silicon for secure enclaves to make all of this work… so why wouldn’t they just do it? Now the sensors could be expensive, but its included in all the modern style iPhones including the $500 iPhone XR, so surely it’s not that pricey, and Apple will be saving a substantial amount by moving from buying Intel chips to making their own silicon.
My only thought is that there could be more challenges with multi user support than you’d expect – an iMac tends to be a family computer when its in the home so would likely need to recognise multiple people. This could be one of the things that Apple’s engineers have found difficult to execute, we currently don’t have anything with FaceID that supports multiple users.
I have no idea why it would be the issue, but maybe it is. Or maybe its something else. Maybe there’s another feature that Apple’s focusing on bringing to the new iMacs that has simply been prioritised over the FaceID on iMac for now. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the iMac is stuck on potato quality cameras though, let’s get 4k built in just like the iPhone.
Beyond this, the new iMac is expected to come in two sizes as before, but with both larger than the last generation. They’re expected to have a flat side and back design, thinner bezels with rounded corners and are hoped to arrive in Late March or April 2021, powered by the more performant M1 variant, the M1X most likely.
MacBook Air likely to get a full redesign
Speaking of 2021, the MacBook Air, previously thought to be keeping its form factor until 2022 is looking to be re-designed this year too. Radically thinner, and possibly with smaller bezels to boot the 13ish inch display could perhaps be squeezed into a smaller footprint… sounds familiar? Could this be the return of the super thin “MacBook” that was rumoured at the start of the Apple Silicon rumour mill?
Now I’m not 100% sure of this, and the report also suggests this system would also get MagSafe, just like the re-designed MacBook Pros that we talked about last week. Beyond the addition of MagSafe however, the MacBook Air isn’t reported to add any other IO compared to last generation, so may will be limited to just USB-C.
Fingers crossed if it based on the old MacBook chassis that they have also found a way to squeeze in the Magic Keyboard, as the Butterfly keyboard, while clever, is almost universally disliked, as well as very un-reliable. The redesigned MacBook Air is expected to have M2 power at its heart, based on the core deigns of Apple’s A15 architecture.
I do have to say though that bringing a redesigned MacBook Air this year does add to my expectation that the current MacBook Air may stick around with a price cut as a MacBook Air SE entry level product to push Apple even more into the mid-range pricing, maybe starting around $800 when the M2 takes its old price point at $999.
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