The next OS X El Capitan update, 10.11.4, will bring Live Photos to Messenger and a tool for migrating your Evernote backlog over to Apple’s own Notes app. The release is available now as a developer beta, for testing purposes, and is expected to be released to the public in March.
The updates are mostly bug fixes and performance improvements. According to 9 to 5 Mac, particular focus has been placed on improving Photos and iBooks for Mac as well as on solving an annoying Safari bug that affected Twitter URLs. Security patches and bug fixes have been the focus for recent OS X updates: 10.11.3 offered no new features to speak of.
This time there’s more than bug fixes. Fans of Live Photos will be happy to see them appear on the Mac in at least one form. Live Photos is a feature introduced with the iPhone 6S. These “photos” include 1.5 seconds of video footage before and after the still frame, which can only be seen on iPhones running iOS 9. Tap the icon at top-left and you can see the footage, but not if you’re on a Mac. That is, until now: Mac users running 10.11.4 will be able to watch the footage when Live Photos are shared in Messages.
And if you’re an unhappy Evernote user, Apple is now offering you an easy way to migrate over to their iCloud-syncing Notes app instead. Notes is far from a feature-to-feature alternative to Evernote, but users wanting something simpler might enjoy the option, and being able to move existing data into the application might make the transition easier for some. It will be interesting to see how Notes grows with future OS X and iOS releases.
The final release of OS X 10.11.4 will reportedly also coincide with a new version of iTunes. There’s a lot to fix there, certainly, and we’re looking forward to learning more. We’ll keep you posted.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.