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Developer Charlie Monroe, creator of the Downie video downloader, among other apps, said that Apple didn’t even send him a message saying it had happened, and for several hours he didn’t know whether he still had a business or not…
Monroe described the experience in a blog post:
On Aug 4, 2023, I woke up to a slightly different world — I had lost my business as it seemed. Full inbox of reports of my apps not launching (crashing on launch) and after not too long I found out that when I sign into my Apple developer account I can no longer see that I would be enrolled into Apple’s developer program […]
After more investigation, I found out that the distribution certificates were revoked — evidently by Apple as no one else has access to them and I was sound asleep when all this happened. Each macOS app these days needs to be co-designed using an Apple-issued certificate so that the app will flawlessly work on all computers. When Apple revokes the certificate, it’s generally a remove kill-switch for the apps.
I got really frightened as all of sudden, no user was able to use my apps anymore […] As it was 7 a.m. (all times are CET), Apple’s contact form only showed the option to send them an email — so I did. At 9 a.m. with my teeth grinding, I went for the phone option where you leave a number and they call you back. Didn’t.
At this point you no longer know whether you have a business or not. Should I quickly go and apply for a job? Or should I try to found another company and distribute the apps under it? What should I do?
He said one of the most alarming aspects of it was the damage to his reputation.
The most damaging to me is the message shown to user:
I really find the above borderlining on slander.
This was echoed by a Downie user.
Hi. I want to let you know that I spent two and a half hours on the phone with @Apple trying to get them to say exactly how Downie (change the name) will harm my computer. They said it was malicious code detected. If that was an error, your reputation has absolutely been harmed.
— chúng tôi (@JTWilliams_me) August 5, 2023
He said that it took Apple 24 hours to partly fix the problem, removing the flags, though that still left him having to recompile, re-sign, and redistribute everything. This was initially done without any contact from Apple.
Apple did later call back, explaining that his account was “erroneously flagged by automated processes as malicious and was put on hold.”
It seems incredible that all this could happen without human intervention. Apple does, of course, have to act swiftly when there is a chance of malware in the Mac App Store, but you would have thought it would have pinged a human being to verify the situation before inconveniencing significant number of Mac users, and potentially doing permanent damage to a developer’s reputation. Most app users will never know the story behind this, only that they bought an app, Apple told them it was malware, and they deleted it as instructed.
It also seems unlikely to help Apple’s antitrust battles, where many are arguing that the company holds too much power over users and developers alike.
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Apple Patents Designs For All
Jony Ive has long talked about the idea of an all-glass iPhone, dubbed “a single slab of glass” – and the company has now been granted a patent for a potential design, along with a glass Apple Watch and Mac Pro tower.
The illustration of the all-glass iPhone is the most detailed, showing displays on both sides, as well as functional touchscreen buttons on the edges …
Patents are generally written in the most general of terms, which makes Apple’s abstract (spotted by Patently Apple) sound a little like it’s claiming to have invented the concept of a glass box.
An electronic device includes a six-sided glass enclosure defining an interior volume and comprising a first glass member and a second glass member. The first glass member defines at least a portion of a first major side of the six-sided glass enclosure, at least a portion of a peripheral side of the six-sided glass enclosure, a first region along the peripheral side and having a first thickness, and a second region along the peripheral side and having a second thickness different from the first thickness. The second glass member is attached to the first glass member and defines at least a portion of a second major side of the six-sided glass enclosure. The electronic device further includes a touchscreen display within the interior volume and positioned adjacent at least a portion of each of the six sides of the six-sided glass enclosure.
Similarly, the potential applications are described in broad terms, also including both laptops and tablets.
Modern consumer electronic devices take many shapes and forms, and have numerous uses and functions. Smartphones, notebook computers, and tablet computers, for example, provide various ways for users to interact with other people, as well as access information, work, play games, and so forth. Such devices use enclosures to house delicate electrical components, to allow a user to easily interact with and use the device, and to provide a desired shape, form factor, and overall appearance of the device. Enclosures for electronic devices may be formed in various ways and using various materials. For example, enclosures may be formed of plastic or metal […]
An electronic device includes an enclosure comprising a monolithic glass member defining at least a portion of each of a first wall defining a first major surface of the enclosure, a second wall defining a second major surface of the enclosure, and four peripheral walls defining four peripheral surfaces of the enclosure. The electronic device may also include a display within the enclosure and adjacent at least a portion of the first wall and at least a portion of a first peripheral wall of the four peripheral walls, and a touch sensing system within the enclosure and configured to detect touch inputs applied to the enclosure.
The idea of multiple and extendable displays isn’t new, of course. There are folding phones, dual-display phones, and phones that extend touchscreen functionality to the edges.
But Apple’s patent takes this to a whole new level, envisaging the possibility of the device essentially compromising displays on all sides – something which would require rather sophisticated palm-rejection to avoid accidental touches!
Apple’s illustrations of Apple Watch and Mac Pro tower don’t have the same level of detail.
We often remind that Apple patents many things that never come to market, and this one seems especially conceptual in nature rather than a steer toward actual products. A real all-glass iPhone seems a stretch, but it’s certainly interesting to see the company exploring these sorts of ideas.
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Apple Investors Frustrated By Jobs
CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs wasn’t even there, but at times it seemed like it was all anyone talked about at the firm’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday.
In a lively, one-hour gathering at the firm’s headquarters in Cupertino, shareholders asked about the absent executive, serenaded the charismatic corporate chieftain, and spoke privately about the continued mystery surrounding his health.
Jobs — who co-founded Apple and is credited with transforming it into a consumer juggernaut after returning as CEO a decade ago — announced in January he would take a five-month leave of absence, handing over the reins of the firm and saying his health problems were “more complex” than originally thought.
All executives would say was that Jobs remained deeply involved in decision-making despite ceding control over day-to-day operations — adhering almost verbatim to previous statements on a subject of persistent market speculation.
“If there’s new information that we deem important to disclose, that will happen,” said co-lead director Arthur Levinson, CEO of Genentech, adding that the board has met all its disclosure responsibilities.
The company also declined to answer questions about reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was examining Apple’s conduct in disclosing Jobs’ health problems, which will keep the widely respected executive sidelined till at least June.
Some bristled at the board’s continued reticence on Jobs’ status. AFL-CIO representative Brandon Rees, who pinpointed on the company’s disclosures during a question-and-answer session, said he was not satisfied after the meeting.
“I was disappointed that the board was not more forthcoming … It’s an important shareholder question, as to who will lead this company.”
But it was clear Jobs continued to command the loyal support and affection of attendees. Shareholders even launched into an impromptu chorus of “Happy Birthday” for Jobs, who turned 54 Tuesday.
JUST WASN’T THE SAME
Shareholders noted that the meeting just wasn’t the same without the charismatic Jobs.
Neal Pann said he believed in both the company’s executive team and its prospects, but sounded a note of pessimism around the lack of information about Jobs’ health.
“I got the response I expected, which was no response.”
Getting down to more mundane business, shareholders voted to re-elect the company’s eight-member board, which included Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who attended the meeting.
And four proposals — all opposed by the company, including a so-called “say-on-pay” resolution — failed to garner shareholder approval.
Proposals related to a company environmental sustainability report, political contributions and health care also failed to pass.
During his presentation, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said the company’s annual revenue has nearly quadrupled over the past four years on surging sales of Macintosh computers, iPods and iPhones. Apple is widely acknowledged as one of the most powerful brands in the world.
But the issue of Jobs himself — often portrayed as a tech visionary and the main thrust behind Apple’s current market prowess — was never far from investors’ minds.
In 2004, Jobs was treated for a rare type of pancreatic cancer. He appeared gaunt at an Apple event in June 2008, touching off rumors that his cancer had returned. The company has not managed to completely quash that speculation.
Facing a prolonged recession and drought in consumer spending, Apple has been unable to shake questions regarding the future of its charismatic CEO, who has been out of public view for more than a month.
Legal experts say Apple could face lawsuits over its health-related disclosures — or lack thereof — although that part of the law is seen as something of a gray area.
Apple Mac Mini (M2, 2023) Review: Little Mac, Big Bargain
Best Prices Today: Apple Mac mini (M2, 2023)
A new Mac Mini isn’t often greeted with too much fanfare – after all the design has hardly changed in years, it doesn’t have any natural rivals on the Windows side to compare against, and Apple mostly just updates the CPU and calls it a day.
This time is a little different. All of the above is still true, of course, but by throwing in its new M2 and M2 Pro processors and dropping the starting price to a mere $599/£649, Apple has made its mini Mac a value proposition that’s hard to beat – and how many Apple products can you say that about?
Design & build
Iconic, compact design
Plenty of ports
The Mac Mini looks much as it ever has: a small, silver box, tinier than a computer has any right to be, with a large Apple logo front and centre.
It is, as my girlfriend put it, ‘chic’.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
There are, for what it’s worth, a few mini PC rivals that run Windows, though they rarely look this sleek, and your favourite influencer wouldn’t use one. Apple has cornered the market on compact desktops that are aesthetic, so you can’t blame the company for sticking to its guns.
It is, as my girlfriend put it, ‘chic’
Where it has had to work to keep things up to date are the ports round the back.
On this current iteration of the Mini, you get two USB-C ports with support for Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, along with DisplayPort. Opt for the more powerful M2 Pro processor, and Apple throws in an extra two of these for four in total.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Either way, you also get a further two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HDMI output, Ethernet (Gigabit by default, upgradable to 10 Gigabit), and the power socket. Unlike its MacBook Pro laptops there’s no SD card reader sadly, but the old-fashioned USB ports more than make up for it.
Specs & performance
Exceptional M2 performance
Up to 32GB RAM
Up to 8TB storage
The Mac Mini can currently be equipped with your choice of an M2 or M2 Pro chip – though not the higher tier M2 Max, which is currently limited to the MacBook Pro.
That shouldn’t be an issue though, as the two available chips offer plenty of performance. I’ve been reviewing the Mini with a regular M2 chip, which includes an eight-core CPU and a 10-core GPU.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Upgrade to the Pro and you get 10 CPU cores and 16 for the GPU, with the option to go one step further for 12 CPU cores and 19 GPU.
That means every step up delivers an increase in overall performance, though with a particular focus on added graphical oomph – so if the GPU isn’t your main concern, you might well be just as happy with the default spec.
One thing you can’t do is take all that power and put it to use on games
This is certainly more than enough power for most day-to-day computing, handling my horde of Chrome tabs, Slack, Spotify, video calls, and Photoshop with ease.
Comparing Macs to Windows devices is tricky over benchmarks – insert your own variant on the Apple/oranges joke here – but it’s clear that even the basic M2 Mini is plenty powerful. The MacBook Pro we reviewed is equipped with the same 12-core M2 Pro chip that’s an option here, so is a good indicator of the performance jump available to you if you upgrade – or you can check out our sister site Macworld’s more technical deep dive into the performance of an M2 Pro Mac Mini.
Part of the power on offer comes down to RAM configurations too, of course. By default, the new Mini ships with 8GB RAM, but if you want you can bump that way up to 32GB with the M2 Pro chip.
Storage is even sillier – the 256GB initial allocation is probably plenty if you’re an avid cloud user, but for those who aren’t this goes all the way up to 8TB. At that point, it’s not quite so much of a value proposition though.
Display options are also impressive thanks to the combination of Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI ports. Pro models can drive a 8K@60Hz display over HDMI plus up to two 6K panels over DisplayPort, while cheaper M2 models cap at 4K@60Hz on HDMI with a single added 6K screen on DisplayPort.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Of course, this being a Mac, one thing you can’t do is take all that power and put it to use on games – pretty much the major reason someone might opt for a Windows desktop instead. Apple says this is improving, but Mac-compatible games remain thin on the ground, so don’t buy this expecting to play much.
Finally, connectivity is handled by the latest Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 standards, plus that Ethernet port – which delivers Gigabit speeds by default, but as mentioned earlier can be upgraded.
Software & apps
Ships with macOS Ventura
Stage Manager improves multi-tasking
Likely long-term software support
You won’t be shocked to hear that this Mac ships with macOS.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The latest version, Ventura, delivers enhancements to multi-tasking and productivity that help elevate the Mini’s potential as a work device though, letting you make the most of all that power under the hood.
It’s a pretty safe bet that Apple will be issuing updates to this Mac Mini for years to come
The heart of that is the new Stage Manager feature, which allows you to group open apps while keeping them running and visible along the left-hand side of the screen, ready to switch to in a minute.
Together with the taskbar along the bottom, it does tend to make your display a little cluttered by default but makes it far easier to switch between different combinations of apps that work in synergy. I’ll admit to still preferring the simpler way Windows allows you to snap apps into various grids and configurations, but Apple is getting there.
Elsewhere this is mostly macOS as you know it, for good and bad. Its other key strength is interactions with the rest of the Apple ecosystem – it’s a doddle to pair AirPods for audio, to share files from your iPhone, or even use an iPad as a second screen. If you’re all-in on Apple, this stuff is a great extra.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Finally, while there’s no specific promise of years of software support, it’s a pretty safe bet that Apple will be issuing updates to this Mac Mini for years to come. Ventura still supports Mac models released in 2023, so this could still be getting macOS updates come 2029.
Price & availabilityThe starting price of $599/£649 is the Mac Mini’s secret weapon – it’s $100/£50 cheaper than its M1-powered predecessor. To get the power of even the most basic M2 chip at that price is pretty exceptional value, and hard to find replicated elsewhere.
The $4,499/£4,599 maxed out configuration – with the Pro chip, 32GB RAM, 8TB storage, and upgraded Ethernet – is rather less of an impulse buy, but few people will need to go anywhere near that spec. Perhaps the biggest issue is that any upgrade to the M2 Pro comes at a price – even a basic version starts from $1,299/£1,399 – at which point this stops feeling like quite such a steal.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The caveat of course is that this is only a desktop – all you get is the computer itself, and a power lead. If you don’t own them already that means you’ll also have to splash out on a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, all of which are sold separately. That’s par for the course, but worth remembering when comparing this price to an iMac or MacBook.
To find the new Mac even cheaper, check out our guide to where to buy the Mac Mini, including the best deals.
For Mac mini accessory options, read Macworld’s feature on How to upgrade the M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini.
VerdictApple hasn’t changed much in the latest Mac Mini, except for those astonishing chips, but then it didn’t really need to.
The previous M1 model impressed, but with the M2 inside and a start price that’s closer to $500 than $1,000, the Mini is now an unexpected value-for-money prospect, an affordable desktop PC with all the power you need for, well, just about anything with gaming being the main caveat.
Even demanding creative users can probably spec up an M2 Pro configuration to meet their needs, and few will find this Mini short of power – which is impressive in its own right. That makes the Mini much more expensive though, so upgraded models are definitely less appealing.
Still, this makes the Mini the ideal everyday Mac. It’s the Mac for almost anyone – or at least those of us still working from desktops.
Specs
Apple M2 or M2 Pro chipset
Up to 32GB RAM
Up to 8TB storage
2x/4x USB-C 4 & Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort
2x USB-A
HDMI port
Gigabit/10Gb Ethernet
3.5mm headphone jack
Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth 5.3
3.6 x 19.7 x 19.7cm
1.18/1.28kg
Comment: Apple Will Be Making A Mistake If It No Longer Offers A Low
One of the oft-heard criticisms of Apple is that it no longer cares about the Mac now that the bulk of its income comes from the iPhone.
Apple does gradually seem to be trying to dispel that idea. The complete redesign of the MacBook Pro in 2023 demonstrated a continuing interest in the company’s top-of-the-range laptop, even if not all pro users were happy with the direction it took. The iMac got a shot in the arm with a Pro model. The Mac Pro is now elderly, but Apple has at least promised an all-new model. A rejigging of the MacBook range could finally see the death of the ancient MacBook Air.
All of which leaves the Mac mini …
Apple is still selling a four-year-old version of the machine, with frankly embarrassing specs. The company hasn’t exactly offered much hope to Mac mini fans either. Asked about it last year, Phil Schiller said that it was ‘an important product’ but that the company had nothing to say about it as yet. Tim Cook later said only that Apple planned to keep the machine in the lineup – with no mention of an update.
A Bloomberg report yesterday appeared to offer both good and bad news. The good news is that there is apparently a refresh on the way at some point this year. The bad news is that it is expected to focus on the pro market – and be priced accordingly.
For this year’s model, Apple is focusing primarily on these pro users, and new storage and processor options are likely to make it more expensive than previous versions, the people said.
Apple is right to target pro users of the mini. But it would be wrong to ignore the more budget end of the market.
It’s true that Apple’s original target market for the budget machine when it was first launched back in 2005 no longer exists.
The Mac mini was launched at a time when most people had desktop PCs. Apple’s thinking was that it would be hard to persuade a Windows PC owner to abandon their entire investment in order to switch to a Mac. But if it could tell people that they could keep their existing monitor, keyboard and mouse, and buy an ultra-compact box to replace their lumbering great tower, it would have a better chance. And if it could make that switch affordable, then it would have a winning product.
Today, almost nobody in the budget computer demographic owns a desktop. Ancient models aside, today’s desktop PC buyers are those who need power and are prepared to pay for it. Indeed, Apple is almost unique in offering a desktop computer that ordinary people want to buy: the iMac.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a budget market for the Mac mini. It’s a different market, sure, but it’s arguably an even more important one.
Many people run a Mac mini as a home media server, for example. It’s small, near-silent and … inexpensive. Especially if you’re running it as a headless unit, as many do, using Screen Sharing or ssh to access it.
That ‘inexpensive’ part is an essential piece of the home server equation. A home server doesn’t require much processing power, so there’s no point splashing out cash on a higher spec than you need. If Apple were to offer only a high-powered model with a price-tag to match, many would simply buy a competitor box.
Most people running a Mac mini as a home server have another Mac; the mini is a secondary machine. Pushing them off the platform is potentially a dangerous thing to do. If they find they get on fine with Windows or Linux on their home server, they may well be tempted to switch away from Apple altogether when it’s time to upgrade their main machine.
There are developers, too, who do most of their work on a Windows PC but have a Mac mini for iOS and Mac development. If you already have the Windows setup, then you can simply connect to the Mac mini as required. Most developers are not wealthy, and cost will be a key consideration for many here. Losing the Mac mini as an affordable development machine could result in losing developers.
Then there are the tinkerers. The people who do have serious budget to spend on their computer kit but are currently happy with their Windows setup. I know several such who bought a Mac mini purely to have a play around with Mac, to see what it’s like – and found themselves converted. They later replaced their high-end Windows PC with a high-end Mac. But that initial prompt to experiment? That was because the Mac mini made it relatively cheap to do so.
For all these reasons, I think it would be a mistake on Apple’s part to neglect the $500 Mac mini market. The company should absolutely offer more powerful models for those using them in server farms – there’s a tonne of money to be made there.
But the budget market is also more important than I think Apple may realize. So I think it should also update the $500 model to today’s spec. No need to go overboard, just fit a modern processor and a modest SSD for silent operation and zippy performance. That’s all most budget buyers need – well, that and the wallet-friendly price-tag.
Photos: TrustMacintosh; Apple; Tradera
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Mac App Frozen? 9 Tips For How To Handle Freezing Mac Apps
Did one of your apps stop responding while you were working on a Mac? Perhaps you tried closing or quitting the app but to no avail? This can happen from time to time where an app freezes up or becomes unresponsive, and while it’s frustrating, there are multiple ways to fix frozen apps easily on the Mac.
MacOS works seamlessly without any hiccups for the most part, but sometimes apps may completely freeze and stop responding to user input or your actions. This can happen for any number of reasons where an app stops responding, whether the app is buggy, it’s overloaded, some component of the app isn’t functioning, the app is running on beta system software, or for no apparent reason at all. Regardless, there are some things that you can try to get the app to function properly again.
If you’re unable to get a frozen app working properly on your Mac, read on to learn some tips to troubleshoot and handle frozen apps on macOS machines.
Troubleshooting Frozen & Unresponsive Apps on MacLet’s take a look at the basic troubleshooting steps you can follow whenever one of the apps installed on your Mac becomes stuck, frozen, or unresponsive.
1. Force Quit the AppYou may have tried closing the app window but that doesn’t really quit the app on your Mac, and the app itself may still be running, and of course if it’s frozen then attempting to do anything with the app may be unresponsive anyway. You can confirm this by looking for a tiny dot right below the app icon on your Mac’s Dock. Therefore, you’ll need to force quit the app and there’s more than one way to get this done. Note that by force quitting an app, any unsaved data in that app may be lost.
An easier way to access the same would be by using the keyboard shortcut Option + Command + Esc.
There are actually a number of different ways to force quit Mac apps, so if these approaches don’t work for you or you just want to learn more, check that out too.
2. Relaunch the AppNow that you’ve managed to force close the app, you can try relaunching the app and see if it’s working fine as it’s supposed to (usually it does).
The app should be running normally at this point, but if it doesn’t, there could be other issues, or perhaps the app itself needs to be updated..
3. Update the AppIf you recently updated macOS to the latest version available, it’s possible that some apps haven’t been updated for that macOS version, or optimized to run properly on the new firmware or hardware (for example, an older app running on an Apple Silicon Mac). In such cases, you can check if there are any available updates for your apps.
Note if the app was downloaded directly from a third party developer website rather than the App Store, updating the Mac app may be different. This is common with some apps from Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and smaller developers and vendors too. Some apps have built-in update mechanisms, while others require you to visit their website to install the latest version (VirtualBox, for example).
4. Reboot Your MacIf the app is still unresponsive, even after you have quit and relaunched it, don’t give up just yet. Another thing to try is simply restarting your Mac. You may find this step silly, but most minor software-related bugs and glitches can be resolved by rebooting your device. There’s more than one way to reboot your Mac, but perhaps the simplest is with the Apple menu option.
Or, you can hold the power button on your Mac to bring up the shutdown menu where you’ll find the option to restart your device as well.
5. Check for Mac System Software UpdatesIf none of the above troubleshooting steps worked in your favor, you can check if you have any available software updates for your Mac and install them.
6. Unenroll from BetasIf you’re on beta system software tracks for macOS, you might want to consider getting onto a stable public build instead. Beta system software is notoriously less stable than final versions, and it’s possible that is why the Mac app is freezing in the first place. You can unenroll your Mac from the beta and install the next final version whenever it’s available.
7. Contact the App DeveloperStill couldn’t find a solution to the app freezing? You might need to get in touch with the app developer. If the app is unresponsive due to issues with a certain version of the app or incompatibility with a current macOS version, then perhaps the developer needs to push out an update before you can get it to work again.
8. Are you alone? Research the App ProblemAlso, going through public forums for the app to see if others are facing similar issues can be a useful resource too, whether on Apple Support forums, or elsewhere.
9. Is it system related?If you feel like the issue is with macOS and not the app itself, you can contact Apple Support or talk to a live agent at Apple for further assistance.
Most app problems are not related to the Mac system software itself however, though it’s always a possibility.
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