The AWT News Update is on hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a road trip. In its place, I’ll offer a text-only (no podcast) summary of breaking stories with a tip o’ my hat to my former website, Apple Daily Report.
As of Dec. 21, the MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011) will become “vintage and obsolete” in all markets where applicable, while the Mac mini (Early 2009) and MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2009) will become obsolete worldwide on the same date. This means they’ll lose official Apple repair support through the company’s retail stores and authorized resellers.
YunOS, the mobile operating system developed by Alibaba Group, is on track to corner a 14% share of smartphone shipments in mainland China by the end of this year, pulling ahead of Apple’s iOS to become the second-largest operating system for that device in the market, according to analysts.
A poll of 9to5Mac readers show that significant numbers of owners of the latest MacBook Pro models have experienced the GPU glitches reported last week. Problems were reported with all of the new models, ranging from 40% of owners of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 460, down to 11% of those with the mid-tier 455 variant.
Citing people familiar with the company’s plans, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Apple has asked its suppliers to increase their output of organic light emitting displays, in anticipation of an OLED-equipped iPhone next year. In addition, Apple is also said to have asked suppliers to offer up screens with higher resolutions than Samsung handsets.
A report from Makotakara says that a new 10.9-inch iPad rumored for release early next year will have the same footprint as the current 9.7-inch iPad Pro, despite the larger screen size.
Apple has served up new pre-release builds of iOS 10.2, macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and watchOS 3.1.1 to registered developers. The betas can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.
