Apple to Phase Out 32-Bit Mac Apps Starting in January 2018

Apple is already putting an end to 32-bit apps on iOS devices with iOS 11, and soon the company will make the same changes on its macOS operating system.

During its Platform State of the Union keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple told developers that macOS High Sierra will be the “last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromises.”

Starting in January of 2018, all new apps submitted to the Mac App Store must be 64-bit, and all apps and app updates submitted must be 64-bit by June 2018. With the next version of macOS after High Sierra, Apple will begin “aggressively” warning users about 32-bit apps before eventually phasing them out all together.

In iOS 11, 32-bit apps cannot be installed or launched. Attempting to open a non-supported 32-bit app gives a message notifying users that the app needs to be updated before it can run on iOS 11.

Prior to phasing out 32-bit apps on iOS 11, Apple gave both end users and developers several warnings, and the company says it will follow the same path for the macOS operating system.

(Thanks, Cameron!)

Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
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With lasers and hot nylon, Formlabs just took 3D printing to a whole new level

Yesterday, while the world was fixated on Apple’s WWDC kickoff, Boston-based 3D printing startup Formlabs quietly unveiled a revolutionary new laser sintering printer called the Fuse 1 — and it’s kind of a big deal.

Truth be told, you’re probably never going to use it. It’s about the size of a mini-fridge, it’s designed for professionals, and it costs $10,000 dollars. But even if you never see one, the Fuse 1 has some huge implications for the future of 3D printing. Here’s why you should be excited about it.

The slow march of 3D printing progress

Back when 3D printing was just beginning to make its way into the mainstream, the only printers available to consumers relied on more or less the same technique to create parts — a process known as filament deposition modeling, or FDM. It’s the type of 3D printing you’ve probably seen before: A printer feeds a strand of plastic filament through a hot nozzle, then carefully deposits the molten goo onto a build plate, layer by layer, to create a 3D object. It’s what most people envision when they hear the phrase “3D printing.”

Most 3D printers available to consumers relied on more or less the same technique to create parts — a process known as filament deposition modeling, or FDM.

Thing is, FDM is just one small chunk on the broader spectrum of 3D printing technologies. There are tons of other additive manufacturing techniques out there, like stereolithography, polyjet, and laser sintering — all of which are vastly superior to FDM printers in terms of print quality. But unfortunately, despite the fact that 3D printing has become increasingly mainstream over the past few years, most of these awesome additive manufacturing techniques still aren’t available at a consumer level. The machines are just so ridiculously expensive that you’ll only ever find them in industrial manufacturing facilities.

But that’s starting to change. As 3D printing has entered the consumer space and become more competitive, companies like Formlabs have started to figure out ways to reengineer those high-end industrial technologies and make them more affordable and accessible.

The resin revolution

It all started with stereolithography (SLA). This technique — in which a UV laser is used to ‘grow’ high resolution objects out of a puddle of light-reactive resin — has been around for decades, but up until a few years ago, SLA machines were too expensive for individual consumers to use. But then, in 2012, Formlabs unveiled the Form 1, the world’s first consumer-level SLA printer, in a Kickstarter campaign.

Form Labs

Form Labs

Form Labs

Form Labs

Almost instantly, this sparked a revolution. Shortly after Formlabs wrapped up its hugely successful crowdfunding campaign, other startups followed suit and began releasing SLA printers of their own. Fast forward five years, and now they’re more common and affordable than ever before. Whereas SLA machines used to cost upwards of $100,000, you can get your hands on one for as little as $1,200 online. Of course, they’re still not quite as cheap or ubiquitous as FDM printers, but SLA machines have steadily become more popular, affordable, and accessible in a relatively short amount of time. And all it took was one company hitting it big and proving that better 3D printing tech has mass appeal. 

Bold new territory

Now, with the Fuse 1, Formlabs might just do the same thing for selective laser sintering technology — and that’s a pretty exciting prospect.

SLS printing works very differently than FDM and SLA. To create an object, the machine flashes a laser over a bed of superfine powder, fusing the particles together to form a thin, solidified layer. The machine then sweeps more powder over the top of that layer, and repeats the process until the print is complete.

SLS printers can make objects that are nearly as good as parts created through injection molding, milling, and other traditional manufacturing processes.

Printing objects in this fashion has a number of distinct advantages. It works with a broad range of materials, can print large overhangs and spans without using support material, and the parts it produces are extremely high quality. Nylon parts printed with the Fuse 1 are actually durable enough and detailed enough to be sold as end-use parts.

That’s what makes this technology so special. Whereas FDM and SLA printers are good for prototyping, SLS printers can make objects that are nearly as good as parts created through injection molding, milling, and other traditional manufacturing processes. In other words, they can make high-quality stuff that’s ready to use straight out of the printer. Need a new bike pedal, hair-dryer, or smartphone case? Just print one and save yourself a trip to the store.

That’s the road we’re headed down, but we’re not quite there yet. This kind of printing tech still isn’t cheap. Regardless of the fact that the Fuse 1 is 20 times cheaper than most industrial SLS printers, it still costs $10,000 — which puts it out of reach for most of us.  But it’s important to remember that this is just the beginning.

If SLS printers can come down from $200K to just $10K, it stands to reason that, in another 5 or 10 years, the technology might just trickle down to an attainable level for non-commercial users.

This kind of democratization is exactly what 3D printing needs in order to become ubiquitous. If we’re ever going to realize a future in which 3D printers are a household staple akin to dishwashers and microwaves, where we can print high-quality products on-demand instead of buying them at a store, then driving down the cost of new printing technologies is the first step.

Here’s everything you need to know about the latest iMac and iMac Pro

After much anticipation, Apple unveiled its newest additions to the iMac lineup during its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), giving us a closer look at the company’s high-end iMac Pro and the newly-revamped iMac. How does the new iMac differ from the previous generation when it comes to hardware, software, and other extraneous features. Let’s take a look at the latest hardware upgrades.

Hardware

21.5-inch
27-inch
Dimensions
17.7 inches X 20.8 inches X 6.9 inches
20.3 inches X 25.6 inches X 8 inches
Processor
3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz)Configurable to 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz)
3.8GHz quad‑core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz)

Configurable to 4.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz)

RAM
Configurable up to 16GB or 32GB
 Configurable up to 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB
Display
1080p or Retina 4K display
Retina 5K display
Resolution
Up to 4,096 X 2,304
 Up to 5,120 X 2,880
Storage
 1TB Fusion Drive (Configurable to 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB SSD)
2TB Fusion Drive (Configurable to 3TB Fusion Drive or 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB SSD)
Graphics
Radeon Pro 560 with 4GB of VRAM
Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB of VRAM
Wireless
 Wi-Fi: 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless networkingIEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.2 wireless technology

 Wi-Fi: 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless networking

IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.2 wireless technology

Operating System
 MacOS High Sierra
 MacOS High Sierra
Price
 $1,099 – $1,499+
 $1,799 – $2,299+

The iMac lineup had been languishing for almost two years, and its discrete GPU options were definitely starting to show their age. Given Apple opted to include mobile-grade graphics chips in the last iteration of the iMac, they didn’t exactly stand the test of time. Thankfully, this has changed with the latest generation of the all-in-one machine. At the WWDC 2017 reveal, Apple chose to focus on GPU hardware updates, and a modest albeit welcome CPU upgrade.

The 21.5-inch iMac now comes standard with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 GPU with 64MB graphics cache. The 4K 21.5-inch iMac boasts the new AMD Radeon Pro 555 and 560 options with up to 4GB VRAM. The high-end 5K 27-inch iMac has added AMD Radeon Pro 570, 575, and 580 options with up to 8GB VRAM. The 21.5-inch model has up to Up to 32GB RAM, and the 27-inch model will have up to 64GB.

The Radeon RX 580 is AMD’s best graphics card for the mainstream market. The card is in essence a tweaked version of AMD’s 2016 Polaris chip. With a base speed of 1,257MHz and a boost speed of 1,340MHz, this card is an economical way of supporting high-end VR headsets on the iMac.

However, after the SIGGRAPH convention in July, the RX580 will no longer be the fastest AMD graphics card available, as AMD is set to unveil its new Radeon RX Vega cards.

In addition to nimble new GPUs, Apple has now finally implemented Intel’s 7th-gen Core processors across the board. The iMac update features up to a 4.2 GHz clock speed, up to 4.5 GHz with Turbo Boost. It will also latest support twice the memory of its predecessor.

Apple’s Fusion Drive will also now come standard on all 27-inch configurations, as well as the 21.5-inch iMac. Finally, the new iMac will come with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, meaning the latest iteration will support both an external display and drive enclosure.

VR

One of the highlights from the WWDC unveiling, was the news that the latest iMac line will support virtual reality systems. This was handled in true Apple keynote fashion, complete with a casual real-time movie scene composition in the Star Wars universe featuring a Darth Vader vignette.

Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, announced a Thunderbolt 3-based external graphics card enclosure supported by the latest macOS update High Sierra. With the latest moves and upgrades, the full line of all-in-ones will finally support virtual reality through the HTC Vive. Oculus Rift support is not available yet.

Apple also announced an update to Metal, Apple’s advanced graphics technology. This optimized version, Metal 2, will work alongside latest macOS upgrade and utilize machine learning, as well as Apple’s language comprehension and facial recognition tools to improve overall performance, and aid developers in pushing existing hardware to its limits.

Apple stated that High Sierra will receive software packages geared toward encouraging VR development on MacOS. A preview of High Sierra was released to developers at WWDC 2017, and the public beta version is planned for June. The free update will be launched later this fall.

Display

The latest iMac will feature the most vivid iMac display to date. Apple has greatly improved both the brightness of both its 4K and 5K displays. This overhaul has improved color support with 10-bit dithering, and increased color gamut support, allowing the iMac to display up to one billion colors. These upgrades make the latest display 42 percent brighter than the previous iMac. This enhanced display, alongside the GPU upgrades, will give users the most “true-to-life” viewing experience on the iMac to date.

MacOS High Sierra

At Apple’s annual developer conference, the company also announced general additions and upgrades to latest macOS, High Sierra.

Check out our full overview of the new operating system for all the details.

iMac Pro

One of the juicier moments from the iMac segment was the surprising iMac Pro announcement.  This model will be available with a vibrant Retina 5K display combined with a stabdard 8-Core processor, upgrade to a 18-Core Intel Xeon processor. It will also support latest AMD Vega graphics hardware, 10-gigabit Ethernet connectivity, and up to 128GB of memory, making the unit the most powerful and capable Apple desktop to date.

The company even drew up a fancy graphic just for the occasion, to depict the new thermal design and dual centrifugal fan system aimed at keeping all of this added power in check. The general exterior design isn’t too dissimilar from the previous generation, but the iMac Pro will come in Space Gray.

The iMac Pro is slatted to go on sale in December. The announcement handled the iMac Pro with rather broad brush strokes, but we expect to find out more about the device in the coming months.

Availability and pricing

For the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac, pricing starts at $1,099, $1,239 for the 4K 21.5-inch iMac, and $1,799 for the 5K 27.5-inch iMac. At WWDC 2017, Apple announced that the iMacs will be available starting June 5. The entry-level iMac Pro will start at $4,999, and will be available starting in December.

Registered Apple Developer Program members can purchase the External Graphics Developer Kit for $599. This kit includes a Thunderbolt 3 external PCI expansion chassis, AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card with 8GB VRAM, and USB-C hub.

Startup Pixsweet will 3D print a popsicle in any shape you can imagine

Why it matters to you

Custom-printed popsicles show just how widespread the uses of 3D printing are getting.

What do you get when you cross candy with cutting-edge technology? Probably something a bit like Pixsweet, an innovative tech-savvy foodie startup that lets users design their own 3D-printed frozen popsicles.

That is a whole new take on the term “cool tech!”

“Pixsweet is the first 3D food customization platform and production facility that empowers everyone to create custom-shaped ice pops, and has emerged to disrupt the typical way we communicate with food,” co-founder Laura Kyttanen told Digital Trends. “The platform provides a unique offering to businesses and consumers for special occasions or events, such as conventions, weddings, birthdays, graduation, baseball games, corporate bashes, and even product launches. Basically, anything you want to communicate can be transformed into frozen flair.”

Pixsweet does not actually print ice, of course. What the company instead offers is a service that lets users pick an image through its custom image search engine, or by uploading their own photo. Object recognition algorithms then use edge-detection technology to turn the two-dimensional image into a 3D one, before it’s 3D-printed as a mold, filled with your chosen flavoring, and shipped out.

Once you receive your finished piece in the mail, simply freeze it, and then enjoy at your leisure — all while feeling slightly smug as other less techie types enjoy their boring regular-shaped popsicles.

The options for what you can create are limitless: From printing Pokémon-themed ice pops for your kids to enjoy on a hot day, to designing a frozen likeness of your colleague Jacob May and then slowly eating it while staring menacingly at him from across the office. (This latter use is, admittedly, somewhat niche.)

“Currently, Pixsweet is focused on [business-to-business] clients and requires a minimum order quantity of 100,” Kyttanen said. “However we have opened up our online ecommerce site to consumers within the Los Angeles area.” Hopefully, it won’t be too long before it rolls out to further afield.

HTC finally starts selling Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, and it immediately sells out

Why it matters to you

You’re going to have to wait a little while to make adding audio to your HTC Vive VR setup a little easier.

Many owners of HTC Vive virtual reality (VR) systems have been yearning for an easier way to manage the audio portion of the VR experience. HTC delivered on its promise of creating a new product aimed specifically at meeting that need when it introduced the new Deluxe Audio Strap at CES 2017 in January.

HTC announced a release date of June 6, 2017, for the product at the beginning of May, and that date has finally arrived. Unfortunately, as Tom’s Hardware reports, HTC is having a particularly difficult time keeping the hot new item in stock, and it’s presently completely sold out.

In addition to general inventory shortages, HTC is aware of a minor issue with a Torx screw coming loose on early production models. The company has promised a fix but hasn’t said anything about the lack of Deluxe Audio Strap inventory.

We took a look at the Deluxe Audio Strap recently, and we found it to be a must-have for the HTC Vive system. The root of the problem lies in HTC’s decision to break audio out separately from the rest of the VR headset wiring, something that Oculus avoided by bundling audio into the Rift’s cabling. That means that without an alternative, hooking up audio takes an already complex process and makes it even trickier.

The HTC Deluxe Audio Strap, however, clips directly onto the side of the HTC Vive headset, making it easier to get the whole thing strapped on and ready to play. We found the cranial strap and adjustable headphones extremely comfortable, with excellent build quality. Setting things up was easy, with clear instructions and a simple step-by-step process that only needs to be implemented once.

When the Deluxe Audio Strap is installed, it’s easy to put the headset on and get it adjusted. And, just as important, we thought audio quality was just fine for a $100 device. It provides a good experience for VR generally but falls short of higher-end dedicated headphones for directional audio and bass response.

You’ll have to wait a little while for stock to show up at Vive.com, Amazon, and other retailers. Right now, there’s no word on when you’ll be able to get the product set up with your HTC Vive, but at least you know it’s on its way.

Amazon Vive.com

U.S. climbs in global 4G availability but lags in speed, report says

Why it matters to you

Notice better 4G coverage on your phone? The U.S. has jumped to fourth place in 4G availability rankings since last quarter.

Which country has the best 4G availability? Unsurprisingly, it’s South Korea. The U.S. takes fourth place, according to the OpenSignal‘s latest State of LTE report. The U.S. moved up six spots from last quarter’s report, where it was ranked 10th.

OpenSignal is a company that monitors the performance of mobile networks through crowdsourced data with the OpenSignal app. The app compares the performance of networks in surrounding areas, and tests the speed of mobile connections. The report collected 19 billion measurements from more than half a million mobile devices this year from January 1 to March 31. The analysis highlights 4G availability, 4G LTE speed, and how other countries ranked in comparison.

While mobile industries have been hinting toward moving over to 5G, 4G is still seeing a large amount of activity all across the globe, with countries like South Korea scoring the highest in 4G availability, and India seeing a significant surge in ranking with the launch of the 4G data plan Jio nationwide.

The U.S. has jumped considerably in 4G availability — which measures the consistency of how accessible 4G networks are throughout the country — with T-Mobile having expanded its coverage to 81.2 percent, and other operators like AT&T and Verizon ranging from 82 to 86 percent.

Even though the U.S. ranks high in availability, it ranks extremely low for 4G speed — coming in at number 59. A country’s 4G speed depends on a variety of factors — new 4G technologies, how the networks are built, and the amount of congestion on those networks — and the U.S. is trailing behind developing countries.

The best performers in speed are Singapore, South Korea, and Hungary, and they’re continuing to push LTE to its technological limits. Typical download speeds in these countries range from 38 to 45 Mbps. The U.S. comes in at a mere 15 Mbps, which is lower than last quarter’s 16.2 Mbps.

Although the U.S. was among the first countries to adopt 4G, progress in improving speed is extremely reliant upon the economy, regulations, and technology that vary from country to country.

MacOS High Sierra: Our first take

Unlike the lush, verdant High Sierra mountains, the new version of MacOS is surprisingly desolate.

Another year, another MacOS update – and this new one is more of a refinement than an overhaul of Apple’s desktop operating system. Its predecessor, Sierra, introduced several quality-of-life improvements like Siri integration, Touch Bar support, and better disk management. High Sierra, on the other hand, focuses on improvements that you might miss at first (or second) glance.

Let’s get high

Yeah, it’s called “High Sierra.” The name is a reference to the scenic and ecologically diverse biome in California’s Sierra mountains, a combination of foothill woodlands, scrubland, and subalpine forest. But unlike its namesake, the new version of MacOS is a little desolate in attractive features.

The big changes are behind the scenes, and the biggest change comes to the file system itself.

Safari has been tweaked to improve performance. Mail compresses data better. And the Photos app synchronizes categories between devices, in addition to the photos themselves. These tweaks are fine, but they’re minor. We’d never notice they exist if Apple didn’t point them out.

Yet most of the cool stuff High Sierra is even harder to see. Deep in the darkest corners of your Mac, High Sierra begins its work, disassembling and re-assembling your files in its own image, optimizing and toiling away in obscurity. Let’s descend into the weird and arcane world of file systems.

HFS Plus Plus… Plus

The big new feature in High Sierra comes to the way your Mac stores and retrieves data. Since time immemorial, Macs have used the hierarchical file system (HFS). Over the years Apple iterated on its original file system with HFS+, which is what was in use right up until MacOS High Sierra.

The new file system, aptly named the Apple File System (APFS), aims to get MacOS ready for the future by addressing several the issues plaguing HFS and HFS+. Naturally, none of these are issues that most users would ever notice. Still, the changes introduced by APFS are a big deal, even if they’re not exactly going to revolutionize the way you use your Mac.

For the most part, APFS is designed with SSDs in mind, so it’s able to handle a larger number of individual files. As the storage experts at Backblaze report, HFS+ is only capable of keeping track of about four billion individual files. That’s a lot, but given the ever-increasing size of the hard drives we have available to us, it’s an uncomfortable ceiling.

APFS remedies that by using 64-bit inodes, or file IDs, instead of 32-bit file IDs like HFS+. Because of that, APFS is capable of managing up to nine quintillion files on a single volume. Additionally, APFS now supports native single and multi-key encryption, which means you’ll be able to encrypt or decrypt individual files and folders without locking or unlocking your entire hard drive through FileVault.

That’s a lot of behind the scenes engineering, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. APFS does a lot of cool stuff with your data, from modernizing file indexes, to lowering overall latency. Spotlight searches are a bit quicker than before, but that will vary based on what you’re searching for and how large your hard drive is. For most end-users, the biggest takeaways are pretty straightforward – with APFS your Mac will be faster, more secure, and ready to handle nine quintillion pictures of your cats.

On Safari

Safari is still Safari. Apple has upped the ante with a couple new privacy and security features designed to improve your browsing experience, but the overall look and feel hasn’t changed.

Safari will now automatically stop autoplay videos from playing, if they have sound. Some sites slip through the cracks, but Safari now has a new options pane for manually disabling autoplay videos and content entirely, regardless of whether or not it has sound. Gone are the days of hunting for which tab is playing that irritating ad music. Safari will automatically take care of it.

Similarly, Safari now features “intelligent tracking prevention” which will keep advertisers from harvesting your information to target ads based on your browsing history. It doesn’t block ads, but it keeps advertisers from tracking your every move online, so those adorable cat vests you look at every day won’t keep showing up at every single site you visit. Even if you secretly really like seeing cats in vests. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not weird. It’s not.

But as we said, Safari is still Safari. It works as it always has. If you like it, then you’ll continue to, and if you prefer Chrome, we don’t think these tweaks will change your mind.

Bringing photos to life

High Sierra also features a revamped Photos app, which is now even better at recognizing your human friends and family, but still neglects your feline friends and family. Despite a notable lack of cat facial recognition, the new Photos app does have a few interesting new features to make editing your photos and managing your photo library a little easier.

The High Sierra version of the Photos app includes advanced editing options like selective color, and many easily applied filters, as well as expanding the existing Memories options. Now, you can create Memories slideshows for all kinds of activities and special events.

It’s not a groundbreaking feature, given you can just as easily to the same thing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, but it’s nice you can do it right in the photos app.

There’s also many new organizational tools. Yes, at this point, we’re talking about sorting your photos like it’s a big new feature for the latest version of MacOS. That’s how sparse this update is. Tagging photos is literally a headline feature.

Wait, there’s more! You’ll be able to not only tag and organize your photos in the new Photos app, but also manipulate Live Photos from your compatible iOS device.

Try not to faint from excitement.

More human than human

As Apple pushes deeper into the AI assistant market with its new HomePod speaker, Siri is receiving a number of upgrades to make her a little more competitive and, well, human. She still doesn’t respond to “Hey, Siri,” on Macs or MacBooks, but when you do click the new Siri icon, she springs to life with characteristic glee and uncharacteristically human vocals.

Her stilted and slightly staccato speaking style has been replaced with something a lot smoother, and a lot less recognizably artificial. It’s still clear Siri is a computer-generated voice, but smoothing out her vocal gait goes a long way toward making her a sound more companionable.

She also spies on you now. More than she used to. With deeper Apple Music integration, Siri will monitor your listening habits and try to predict what music you’d like to hear next. She’ll also respond to requests for particular kinds of music, and suggest music based on your preferences. Thankfully, she won’t automatically download music and store them on your devices forever without any way of removing them. Like that U2 album nobody wanted.

Conclusion

MacOS High Sierra has a revamped file system that will help future-proof your Mac, but for the everyday end user, there’s just not much here. At its WWDC keynote, Apple promised all kinds of new tools for VR development, video compression, and a new graphics engine — Metal 2 — but time with the developer preview of High Sierra, we didn’t see much that will make a difference for the average user.

Of course, Mac fans should still download it when it comes out. It’s free, after all, and it has a ton of behind the scenes features. Just don’t be disappointed when you realize that High Sierra is just Sierra with an extra adjective.

Oh, and Siri has a new icon.

Highs

• New future-ready file system
• Improved Siri functionality
• A few ease-of-use improvements

Lows

• Not very feature-rich
• Most updates are behind-the-scenes

U.S. has some of the best LTE coverage in the world, but still lags behind in speed

The U.S. has made strides in LTE, but still isn’t close to the top in many metrics.

OpenSignal has released the latest version of its “State of LTE” report, which combines data on LTE networks in 75 countries around the world to give us insightful metrics into how countries are performing and compare to one another. OpenSignal compiles this data from over 550,000 users of its mobile app, which calculates network speed and availability in real-world settings rather than theoretical or controlled tests — this report is based on nearly 20 billion data points collected in the first three months of 2017.

In order to rank countries, OpenSignal focuses on two metrics that are important to the way we use devices: LTE network availability across the country (not just geography covered, but actual real-world data availability), and the average speeds you can get when connected.

A plot of network availability and speed.

LTE availability worldwide has taken a solid jump thanks to Jio’s emergence in India — 16 monitored countries now have 80%+ LTE availability, and just 19 have less than 60%. When it comes to speed, some of the top performers continue to impress: Singapore, South Korea, Hungary and Norway all average over 40 mbps download speeds, while 15 countries average over 30 mbps.

Network speeds around the world.

U.S. average network speeds continue to be weak on the world stage.

Looking at the U.S. in particular, improvements have been made but the country is still behind many. Since the November 2016 report, the U.S. has moved up six spots in LTE availability across the country, landing in 4th place with LTE being available to users 86.5% of the time — that’s just barely above Hong Kong, but underneath Norway (86.96%), Japan (93.48%) and South Korea (96.38%). The biggest gulf remains in LTE download speeds, where the U.S. averages just 15 mbps — that’s in the bottom quarter of the list, and just one-third the speed of the leader, Singapore.

The U.S. (86.5%) bests its neighbors Canada (81.1%) and Mexico (69.04%) in terms of LTE availability, but comes in well behind both countries in terms of average LTE speeds: Canada averages 30.58 mbps, while Mexico averages 22.36 mbps, on the download.

If you’re at all interested in how these networks operate around the world, be sure to read the full State of LTE report from OpenSignal — it’s filled with troves of great insight into how people around the world are staying connected using LTE.

MacOS High Sierra: What’s in the new software for your Mac?

The next version of MacOS is official.

While at its mostly-annual developers conference, Apple announced and previewed MacOS High Sierra, a major update to the MacOS Sierra operating system, which released last year for Macs. Although the update is not yet available for consumers to download and use, developers have access to a beta version now, and the public beta will be available for anyone to try next month.

To help you get acquainted with the software now, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about it, including its biggest features.

• Apple iOS 11: 11 new features coming to your iPhone and iPad
• Apple WWDC 2017: All the announcements that matter

What is MacOS High Sierra?

On 5 June, Apple previewed the next version of MacOS. It’s called High Sierra. Many of the new features include behind-the-scene updates that will make your Mac seem faster and more secure. For instance, the new OS will allow for VR and AR content. Safari also got a number of improvements, including the ability block autoplay videos and stop advertisers from tracking you, among other things.

What does MacOS High Sierra feature?

VR and AR

High Sierra will support virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

More specifically, High Sierra will support Mac hardware aimed at creative professionals who create VR and AR content. Apple even announced a new platform for developers, called ARkit, which will allow developers to create AR experiences for iOS devices. Furthermore, Apple’s API for high-performance graphics, Metal, has been updated to Metal 2, which will give MacOS gaming a big boost.

Metal 2 was described by Apple at WWDC 2017 as “tremendously fast” with “great optimisations and tremendous APIs”. It offers up to 10X better draw call throughput. Remember, VR and AR apps need heavy GPU power. So, we’re not surprised to hear that Apple is doubling down and also introducing Metal for VR. The Unity and Unreal engines are coming to the Mac as well, Apple said.

And lastly, to complement all these new improvements, Apple confirmed that the HTC Vive will soon be compatible with Mac. The company is adding Steam VR support to High Sierra, making it possible to use a Mac to control virtual reality experiences – something that has been a PC exclusive so far. Now that the HTC Vive is compatible with Mac, we wonder if Oculus will follow suit.

Safari

Safari got a number of improvements, including the ability to block autoplay videos. Safari lets you customise preferences for specific websites, so going forward, it will let you turn off autoplay videos for a site. You’ll also have the ability to give a site access to your location and set a default page zoom to a level of your choosing. But that’s not all: you can stop advertisers from tacking you.

Apple is basically going after the Google Chrome browser and its upcoming ad-blocking features. Apple’s browser will have a new feature called Intelligent Tracking Prevention. It uses machine learning to find advertisers that track you, and then it deletes the tracking data they leave behind. So, if you buy a leather couch for your house on a site, you won’t see ads for the couch on other sites.

Safari in High Sierra will become the world’s fastest desktop browser, Apple also explained. It features 80-per cent faster JavaScript performance when compared to Chrome, which should help you surf the web in a much more speedy and efficient way.

Photos

The Photos app on Mac will offer the ability to edit Live photos with new effects that include Loop, Bounce, and Long Exposure. Loop is essentially GIFs. With it, you can edit Live photos into a repetitive loop. Long Exposure is a DSLR-like effect for motion blur, while Bounce reminds us of Instagram Boomerange. It lets you edit the action in your Live photos to play it forward and backward in a loop.

Apple said its biggest area of refinement in High Sierra is in Photos. There’s now a persistent sidebar and a view that has all of your imports in chronological order. Apple has also improved Faces, so when you put effort into categorising and naming people, that’s now synchronised automatically across your devices. You can now open a picture in third-party apps from Photos.

So, you can open a picture in Adobe Photoshop directly from Photos, and your edits save automatically as you go back-and-forth between the apps. But the coolest features are the new built-in editing tools. Photos already lets us make adjustments, but now we get pro-level tools such as a a curves palette for fine-tuning coloyr and contrast, a selective colour dropper, and new filters.

iMessage and iCloud

If you’ve ever set up a new Mac, you know some steps always have a few kinks. For one, if you don’t restore from a backup, your Messages app will be bare. But not anymore. High Sierra is using iCloud to restore your message history so that all your old Messages will be available on your new Mac, meaning conversations sync across devices and only recent ones need to be stored locally.

Speaking of iCloud, in a slide Apple quietly kept in the background of its keynote, we spotted the phrase “iCloud file sharing”, which means we may also get Dropbox-type document sharing tool. With it, we could quickly chuck a link to someone. But that’s not confirmed.

Apple File System

High Sierra will run Apple File System (APFS), which offers better performance and security than before. First unveiled at WWDC 2016, Apple said it would arrive to all of its products, from Apple TV to iOS. It supports far more files than ever, letting you put nine quintillion of them on a single volume. It also includes multikey encryption, which will also work in a unified way across all of Apple’s devices.

APFS is backwardly compatible with all of your HFS formatted drives. It also offers better throughput and faster latency, which is important if you’re handling lots of files. The new advanced file system is “optimized for modern storage”, Apple said, which includes fast SSDs and flash, Lightning, and USB drives. It will also easily adapt to future types of storage, Apple explained.

APFS matters if you care about data. A file system is what organises all your data into files and folders you can access with a click.

Video

And finally, High Sierra supports a high-efficiency video coding (H.265 for short). So, newer devices will let you capture HD and 4K videos — without taking up as much room on the device. The new system compresses video up to 40 per cent more the H.264, and it will stream video smoother, which will make the video-binging experience much more enjoyable on a Mac.

When can you get MacOS High Sierra?

A beta of macOS High Sierra is available now for developers. A public beta will be available in late June. Sign up here if you’d like to join and test out the latest features. The finished, consumer version of MacOS High Sierra is due to roll out sometime this autumn.

Which Macs will run MacOS High Sierra?

Check out Pocket-lint’s separate guide on that for more information. But, in a nut shell, MacOS High Sierra will run on any Mac that currently runs Sierra, while any Mac made more than seven years ago is obsolete and will no longer be supported.

Want to know more?

Check out Pocket-lint’s WWDC 2017 round-up for other recent Apple news. Also, make sure to visit Apple’s High Sierra site.

Microsoft’s new Surface Pen will set you back $99

Microsoft’s new Surface Pen, announced at the same time as a new Surface Pro tablet, is supposed to feel like writing on paper. The company also claims its the “fastest pen ever” on any platform and it has a staggering 4,096 pressure points (up from 1,024), reduced parallax and a new Apple Pencil-like tilt feature that lets you use the side of its writing tip for things like shading. This new stylus is available for pre-order now for $99. Only the platinum color is available for pre-order, so far, but there are also black, cobalt blue and burgundy colors on Microsoft’s pre-order page.

While some folks may bemoan that the new pen is $40 more than the previous version and doesn’t seem to be bundled with Surface Pros, the new price point is absolutely in line with the Apple Pencil. It makes sense that a new stylus, stuffed with high-end features that also work with older Surface devices would be a bit more pricey.

Via: The Verge

Source: Microsoft