iFixit Tears Down Battery, Improved Keyboard, and Removable SSD of MacBook Pro Without Touch Bar

iFixit has published a teardown of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar, which the site calls the “Escape Edition” because of its adherence to the traditional row of function keys, along with a tangible Escape key. In the teardown, iFixit delves deeper into the MacBook Pro, uncovering a battery that is 27 percent less powerful than last year’s model, along with the Butterfly 2.0 keyboard that’s been slightly updated since the 2015 MacBook.

After removing the extra-large new trackpad from the body of the laptop, iFixit gets a better look at the MacBook’s battery. Rated for 54.5 watt hours, the 13-inch MacBook might include less battery life than last year’s generation, but it does come in above the Touch Bar MacBook Pro model, which clocks in at 49.2 watt hours. In a recent performance comparison provided by Geekbench, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar’s 15-watt chip was proven to be more energy efficient than the 28-watt chip in last year’s entry-level model.

A new spring mechanism is discovered housed next to the MacBook Pro’s hinge protector, which “rolls a flat cable up when the display is closed, and unravels when the display opens.” This not only seems to make it easier to close the lid of the MacBook, but suggests the overall lighter body of the MacBook Pro needed extra help and couldn’t “rely on gravity to close nicely as much as previous models have.”

One of the last points iFixit focuses on is the updated Butterfly 2.0 keys on the MacBook Pro’s keyboard. Comparing it with the 2015 MacBook, iFixit describes the new MacBook Pro’s keys as “a little taller at the edges,” so it’s slightly easier to find each key with your fingers without looking directly at the board. The dome switches hiding under each key also appear to have more heft than the 2015 MacBook’s, further supporting the overall better feel and increased travel on the MacBook Pro.

iFixit also looked at the MacBook’s removable SSD, powered by SanDisk 64GB NAND flash memory and Apple’s custom SSD controller. Then, the site dove into the logic board to hunt for the “advanced thermal architecture” described in the MacBook’s press release. The board appeared mostly the same as previous MacBooks, with Apple’s new architecture apparently describing the “relocation of the heat sink screws to the backside of the logic board.”

Other interesting tidbits from the teardown include the MacBook Pro’s fans, and the single modular unit taped to the bottom of the notebook’s fan, which houses the 3.5mm headphone port. Its location, and Apple’s removal of the same port on the iPhone 7, means it “could easily be dropped in favor of a Lightning or USB-C connector” in future MacBook Pro generations. Ultimately, iFixit gave the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar a repairability score of 2, with a 10 being the easiest to repair.

Check out the full teardown on iFixit’s website.

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tag: iFixit
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

Star Ratings Make a Return to Apple Music on iOS 10.2 Beta

In iOS 10, Apple Music lost the star rating system that allowed users to personally rate a song on a scale of 1-5, which was then saved in their library so they could remember and later sort tracks via the ranking system. Following the release of the iOS 10.2 beta yesterday, iTunes expert Kirk McElhearn discovered that star ratings have returned to the Apple Music app on iOS, now appearing as a toggle option in Settings > Music.

After turning on “Show Star Ratings,” users will be able to once more give each track a personal rating, through a few added steps, however. The process required to get to the “Rate Song” menu is as follows: tap the ellipsis menu at the bottom right of the screen when a song is playing to bring up its action sheet, scroll down to “Rate Song,” choose the star rating, then tap “Done.” In prior versions of iOS, users simply tapped on the artwork of a song to bring up the star rating menu.

As the Settings submenu clarifies, “Star Ratings do not affect For You recommendations,” so Apple Music’s binary like/dislike system is still the only resource for subscribers to teach the streaming service which songs they enjoy, and which they don’t. Besides Star Ratings, it was also discovered that within the beta of iOS 10.2, there’s a new option to sort playlists by type, title, and recently added, as well as new options for sorting songs and albums by title or artist.

Tag: Apple Music
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Pay Expands Widely in Russia

Apple Pay launched in Russia last month in partnership with Sberbank for MasterCard cardholders, and today the mobile payments service has expanded to nine additional financial institutions in the country.

Today’s additions include Tinkoff Bank, Bank Saint Petersburg, Raiffeisenbank, Yandex.Money, Alfa-Bank, MTS Bank, VTB 24, Rocketbank, and MDM Bank. Russian Standard Bank is listed as coming soon. The banks, just added to the regional Apple Pay website in Russia, support Apple Pay as of November 1.

Eligible cards can be added to Apple Pay by tapping “Add Credit or Debit Card” in the Wallet app on iPhone 5 and later running at least iOS 8.1.

Participating retailers include ATAK, Magnit, Media Markt, Auchan, Azbuka Vkusa, bp, M.Video, TsUM, authorized Apple reseller re:Store, and elsewhere contactless payments are accepted. Burger King is also listed as a future partner once it implements contactless payments infrastructure in the country.

Apple Pay is currently available in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey has said Apple is “working rapidly” to expand the service to additional countries in Asia and Europe.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Russia
Discuss this article in our forums

How to free up extra storage on the Google Pixel

How do I free up storage on the Google Pixel?

The Google Pixel doesn’t come with expandable storage, so you’ll want to make sure there’s lots of free space for your apps, games and other content. Luckily, Google makes it easy to free storage with these built-in tools.

We’re outlining two of those tools in this guide, one built into the phone’s storage settings, and one built into Google Photos itself.

How to free up storage by deleting photos and videos that have been uploaded to the cloud

Google makes it easy to free up phone storage by purging photos and videos that are already stored, for free and in full quality, on Google Photos.

Open Google Photos from the home screen or app drawer.
Open up side menu by tapping on three-line menu bar or swiping in from the left.

Tap “Free up space” in the side menu.

Wait for app to tabulate photos stored in the cloud.
Tap Remove to delete them from your phone.

Note: These photos and videos will still be available, in their full quality, Google Photos. If you want to download them again to access them locally, just tap on the greyed-out version in Google Photos and tap Download.

How to free up storage by deleting unused apps and old downloads

The Pixel comes with a useful tool hidden in the settings that frees up content that hasn’t been touched in a while. The phone calculates which files have been untouched in over 30 days, and lets you delete them, safely, with one tap.

Swipe down on the notification shade to open the notification drawer.
Tap on the Settings icon (circular cog).

Scroll down and tap on Storage.

Tap on three-dot menu button in the top right.
Tap on Free up space.
Choose items to remove (Photos, Downloads, Apps) and tap Free up in the bottom right.

That’s it! The phone will remove those items and you’ll be able to press the back button to see how much extra space you have. While the 32GB of minimum storage should be enough for most people with a Pixel, it’s always nice to know you have easy ways to free up more.

Google Pixel + Pixel XL

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
• Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
• Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
• Pixel + Pixel XL specs
• Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
• Join the discussion in the forums!

Google Store
Verizon

Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro offers a glimpse at augmented reality in the real world

Here’s a look at some of the new apps accompanying the Phab 2 Pro on launch day.

The first consumer-centric Tango-enabled smartphone is on sale today. Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro is officially available for $500 and there are already a number of compatible apps available in the Play Store. Here’s a quick glimpse at what you can do with this giant augmented reality-enabled phablet device.

Realistic gaming — sort of

Over the last few months, Google has worked closely with a number of developers to put together a library of apps that show off Tango’s capabilities. Many of those apps are game titles, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, there was plenty of skepticism around virtual reality when it first hit the scene. The upside is that Tango’s mobility lets you take the fantasy world inside your smartphone and experience it outside wherever you are — even on the train ride to work.

Ghostly Mansion is a great example of this. Your objective in the game is to scour the room you’re physically in to search for objects that might help you figure out why you’re dead. The room is merely projected through the Phab 2 Pro’s 6-inch display, but because of its motion tracking mechanisms, I was able to keep my head inside the game despite not having the phone physically strapped to my face. In fact, I was so engrossed into following what was on the screen, that I had to remember to look ahead not to run into something or someone. I now understand all those Pokemon Go-related injuries.

I had just as much fun with Slingshot Island, which plays more like a sophisticated version of Angry Birds. After you choose the real-life placement of the fantasy island, you’ll have to launch boulders, cluster bombs, and other sorts of artillery towards the giant fortresses erected on the land. And to do so, you have to physically pull-back with the Phab 2 Pro to fire off the slingshot.

The result is a game that smartly exemplifies Tango’s interactive abilities while illustrating how immersive augmented reality can be in the real world. For instance, I could “freeze” the angle of the slingshot and then walk around to see what exactly the projectiles would hit. This particular game mechanic becomes a requirement in later levels of Slightshot Island as the fortresses become harder to penetrate with just the standard weaponry.

Not all of the applications will whisk you away to another world, however. I played around with the Phab 2 Pro’s built-in augmented reality “pets” but they’re a bit disappointing. Both the cat and dog, which are available in the camera app as an AR prop of sorts, do not interact with your environment too well. I enjoyed the AR scenery a bit more since it didn’t require me to actively interact with a virtual object.

Tango is not a one-trick pony

Games are not Tango’s only trick, though they’re certainly a great example of what’s possible with the underlying technology. The team behind Tango hope that the Phab 2 Pro will show the technology’s educational abilities too. “If you really want to understand the scale of the dinosaur, today you have to go to the American Museum of Natural History and you have to stand next to a [dinosaur’s bones] to get a sense for how big they were,” said Nikhil Chandhok, Director of Product, a few days ago at a media roundtable at Google’s offices in San Francisco. “But [the Dinosaurs among us app] actually gives you a sense of scale… and that is a very practical teaching tool.”

There will be more communication apps that will take advantage of Tango

Chandhok also sees Tango’s effectiveness in connecting emerging markets. “I think there will be more communication apps that will take advantage of the Point Cloud to build new communication experiences.”

Johnny Lee, Director of Engineering, hopes to see Tango bring experiences to other parts of the world that might otherwise feel isolated. “Part of the appeal of [AR] is that it’s something that makes the transaction more efficient,” added Lee. “You have a greater chance of buying something you really want without actually having to have a retail presence nearby. [Retailers can bring] larger scale shopping to places where physical retail stores are much more difficult to reach.”

Is AR the future of smartphones?

Augmented reality is nothing new. We’ve seen it utilized in plenty of industries and mobile apps, and it’s one of the underlying technologies making headway in the game industry. However, that doesn’t mean that Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro phablet doesn’t have its challenges ahead. There may be more than a few dozen apps currently leveraging Tango’s technology, but that doesn’t prove its effectiveness in the long term. For Tango’s technology to have the pervasiveness of GPS and cameras in smartphones, there has to be a legitimate use for it.

Fortunately, Tango is taking its chances months after the relative success of other augmented reality apps like Pokémon Go. That helped show that the market is there; It’s merely the implementation that will reel consumers in. The Phab 2 Pro might have trouble proving its worthiness as a 6-inch smartphone, but its existence will also help regular users and developers alike acclimate to the idea of using a phone in this interactive manner.

This Tag Heuer Connected Android smartwatch will set you back almost $10K

When we reviewed the Tag Heuer Connected smartwatch at the end of last year we were impressed with its abilities but highlighted its £1,100 price as a sticking point for many. Just imagine what we’d have said if we’d seen the rose gold version – the original is pound shop fare in comparison.

The latest addition to the family is a whopping $9,900, that’s around £8,080 in today’s post-Brexit exchange rate.

Of course, Tag Heuer is a luxury brand, and the Connected is a luxury smartwatch. And let us not forget that the original Apple Watch Edition cost approximately the same price in 2015. However, considering the amount of rose gold on show and the similar design aesthetics to the standard version, you have to wonder why anybody would plump for the pricier model.

Give us a win on the Lottery and we might change our minds though.

• Tag Heuer Connected review: Android Wear gets its luxury tag

Rose gold or otherwise, the Tag Heuer Connected smartwatch is an Android Wear device  with a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z34XX processor and 1GB of RAM. It also has 4GB of storage and we found the experience snappy and responsive in our tests.

Its 1.5-inch display has a 360 x 360 pixel resolution and it thankfully fills the whole watch face rather than give you the flat tire design many round watches favour.

The ‘dark web’ isn’t all guns and drugs

Whenever you hear the phrase “dark web,” you instantly imagine stern-faced CNN anchors talking about terrorists, sex criminals and drug dealers. A study from Terbium Labs is looking to dispel those dearly-held notions of what the dark web actually is. According to researchers Dr. Clare Gollnick and Emily Wilson, the dark web is less of a science fair filled with the world’s worst people and more like your average teenager’s bedroom.

Terbium Labs is a data intelligence firm that says it specializes in the dark web, and claims that its produced the first legitimate analysis of the Tor network. The study — which scraped a selection of sites — reports that more than half of all traffic is legitimate, and that the amount of truly scary stuff is negligible. Much like that teenager’s bedroom, there are lot of drugs and a significant amount of porn, but you don’t need to worry about calling the FBI just yet.

For instance, the study claims that porn makes up just 6.8 percent of all Tor traffic. Illegal pornography (listed under the umbrella term of “exploitation”) accounted for one percent of traffic. That, unfortunately, is still one percent too much. Drugs, meanwhile, cover 12.3 percent of all traffic, while non-prescription pharmaceutical sales makes up another 3.2 percent. For the purposes of the study, marijuana was included as a drug given its inconsistent definition across the United States.

There’s often talk about how shadowy bodies use the dark web to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction, but the researchers didn’t find much evidence of that. In fact, the pair only found one example of extremism and precisely zero weapons sales sites. This conclusion, however, could be an indictment of the methodology used to prepare this study, which may not reflect the breadth and depth of the Tor network.

The team only sampled 400 URLs that Terbium Labs’ crawler accessed on a single day (August 5th, 2016) and there are several caveats. For instance, researchers blacklisted URLs that they believed to include illegal materials and didn’t analyze them directly. Those sites were still included in the data selections, so the conclusions it draws may not be entirely reliable. In fact, a page in the report even ends with the slightly blasé point that “Research is hard.”

That said, it appears that more rigorous analysis of the dark web is revealing that it’s far less intimidating than it was believed to be. A study from 2015 found that there were just 7,100 .onion sites available to crawl, meaning that one scan took less than three hours.

It’s certainly not conclusive, and there are plenty of reasons to want to inspect this data far more thoroughly. But it does look as if the notion of the dark web as this big, unassailable beast lurking in the bowels of the internet doesn’t match reality.

Source: Terbium Labs

‘Deadpool’ director hired for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ movie

Deadpool and Sonic have a fair amount in common. They vanquish bad guys, protect innocent bystanders and talk with spades of attitude. With this in mind, it’s no surprise to hear that Tim Miller, the director of the (good) Ryan Reynolds superhero movie, is turning his attention to the blue blur next. That’s right, the out-of-nowhere “live-action and animation hybrid” movie that was announced back in February. He’s stepping on as executive producer to help director Jeff Fowler and executive producer Neal H. Moritiz, who also works on the Fast and Furious franchise.

Miller and Fowler are part of Blur Studios, a visual effects, design and animation company in California. The team has produced CG trailers and commercials for Titanfall 2, Doom, Dishonored 2 and Mafia III, among others. Most notably, it worked with Microsoft to give Halo 2’s cinematics a face lift for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Miller and Fowler have collaborated before, developing the Oscar nominated Gopher Broke short in 2005. For Sonic the Hedgehog, they’ll be working with Sony Pictures and Marza Animation Planet, a CG animation studio owned by Sega. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance this movie won’t be complete rubbish?

Sonos speakers can now be controlled through Spotify

While Sonos makes some decent speakers, many feel that its apps are lacklustre at best. If you fall into this camp, you’ll be pleased to hear that Sonos hardware is now starting to play nice with Spotify Connect. If you sign up for the Sonos public beta, you’ll be able to control your speakers from inside the Spotify app. That includes multi-speaker and multi-room setups — change one or change the lot, it’s your choice. If you have friends over that want to play DJ, they can also queue up songs and playlists from their own Spotify app, instead of downloading the Sonos equivalent.

The Sonos app isn’t going anywhere, so if you prefer the company’s own software you can continue as normal. Teaming up with Spotify, however, is a smart way to make its speakers more flexible. The company is fighting on two fronts; in the hardware game, it’s up against a deluge of home speakers, including the Assistant-powered Google Home and Alexa-integrated Amazon Echo. On the software side, it’s tackling Google Cast and the oft-forgotten AirPlay. To keep its speakers attractive, Sonos needs to work with dominant and emerging services — if doesn’t, the company’s hardware will feel uncooperative, rather than seamless in the home.

Smart pen measures the dimensions of virtually any object

Despite all the technological advances over the years, measuring items in your home still tends to involve old-school rulers and tape measures… and they can be inaccurate if there are curves. Instrumments thinks it has a better way. The team of former Misfit creators is launching the 01, a hybrid measuring device and pen (there are also pencil and stylus versions) that gauges the dimensions of objects simply by pointing at them. It works on 3D surfaces, too, so curves and contours aren’t off-limits.

As you’d expect in this day and age, the 01 takes advantage of its link to your Android phone or iPhone. You can automatically log measurements and share them, and even adjust to scale if you’re looking for dimensions in drawings and maps. If you’re without your phone, you can still use blinking light intervals for grids and rough measurements.

Instrumments is taking orders for its gadget now through its own site and Indiegogo for $149, with a leather case available for $29 if you don’t order quickly enough to get one for free. This isn’t a conventional crowdfunding project with months to go before launch, though — certain retail stores worldwide will carry the 01 as of December 1st. It’s an expensive device however you shop, but the cost might be justifiable if you’re an architect, designer or home improvement fan.

Source: Instrumments