Another day, another Apple repair program. This time around it’s the Late 2013 Mac Pro that has been targeted for repairs, claiming that the discrete graphics cards may cause video issues such as distorted video, no video, freezing, restarts, or other shut down/start up issues. Mac Pros with D500 and D700 graphics cards are said to be affected by the issues and can be repaired free of charge at any Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider until May 30, 2018, although there’s no official word on the repair program itself on any of Apple’s support pages.
Over the weekend it surfaced some iPhones were being bricked or disabled thanks to a mysterious “Error 53”. It was soon revealed the cause of the issue was a replaced Touch ID sensor, which in turn compromises the secure element of the chip and by Apple’s reasoning, the remainder of the content on the device itself. It’s kind of why getting your iPhone repaired at a third-party is a risky proposition, even if it is cheaper than Apple’s own out-of-warranty repair options.
Apple’s own support article on Error 53 says that if you’re getting the error, the first thing you should do is try restoring the device via iTunes. If that fails, then your only real option is to get the device repaired by an authorised service rep, which will incur an out-of-warranty repair cost — if Apple touch the device at all, given that it may have non-genuine parts installed.
MacRumors claims the iPhone 5se will come in a bright pink colour option, much like some iPod nano and iPod touch models. According to one vendor, the colour isn’t the same as the current iPhone, suggesting it’s not going to be the champagne-coloured rose gold we currently have.
9to5Mac debunks the bright pink theory, saying that the colour will, in fact, be a rose gold. I wonder if this is one of those cases where Apple leaks specific information in order to track down sources of leaks in the supply chain — tell one company that there will be a certain colour option, and then tell another that there will be another colour option entirely to see what makes headlines.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently held a Town Hall meeting, discussing Apple’s recent financial results, putting the numbers into context of Apple’s roadmap for this year and into the future. Alas, no confirmation on either of Apple’s moonshots.
In the US, Apple is now accepting broken iPhones for its iPhone trade-in program. Apple’s recycling partner in Australia, BrightStar, already appears to accept broken iPhones for trade-in purposes, although the website doesn’t appear to go down to specifics such as broken buttons or cameras.
Apple has filed for a mistrial in the VirnetX court case, saying lawyers used “arguments outside the evidence and blatantly misrepresented the testimony of Apple’s witnesses” in their closing statements.
Over at Macworld, Dan Moren says the Mac has staying power because it’s the one model of machine that’s been around for the longest.
Gabe from MacDrifter talks to his Apple Watch, using it to record minor snippets in Drafts which can then be reordered on the iPhone to put together cohesive pieces.
Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/02/monday-morning-news080216/