2025-04-15 06:54:00
Apple is canceling popular comedy series Mythic Quest after a four season run, with the show to wrap up after a re-released season 4 finale that's coming later this week.
Mythic Quest starred Rob McElhenney, Charlotte Nicdao, Danny Pudi, and David Hornsby, all of whom played characters that worked at the fictional Mythic Quest Studios creating, designing, and running a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. The show provided a satirical and humorous look at the inner workings of video game development.
Season four was not initially meant to be the show's final season, so the season four finale has been updated with a new ending that will provide Mythic Quest fans with closure. In a statement to Deadline, series producers Megan Ganz, David Hornsby and Rob McElhenney said they wanted to be able to say goodbye.
Endings are hard. But after four incredible seasons, Mythic Quest is coming to a close. We're so proud of the show and the world we got to build -- and deeply grateful to every cast and crew member who poured their heart into it. To all our fans, thank you for playing with us. To our partners at Apple, thank you for believing in the vision from the very beginning. Because endings are hard, with Apple's blessing we made one final update to our last episode -- so we could say goodbye, instead of just game over.
2025-04-15 06:22:00
Apple will not be exempt from tariffs after all, with U.S. President Donald Trump working on new semiconductor levies that will likely impact Apple devices, chips from companies like Nvidia, and other electronics.
Over the weekend, the U.S. Customers and Border Protection agency shared a long list of electronic devices excluded from the current tariffs, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, the Apple Watch, and more. Apple scored a reprieve from the 145 percent tariff impacting goods imported from China and the 10 percent tariff on goods imported from other countries, but it doesn't sound like it's going to last.
On his Truth Social network, Trump said that no one is "getting off the hook" and there "was no tariff exception." Apple and other tech companies are "just moving to a different tariff bucket," with the 20 percent "Fentanyl Tariffs" still in place, and additional tariffs coming.
Trump said that his administration will be "taking a look" at semiconductors and the electronics supply chain in the National Security Tariff Investigations. He also reiterated that "we need to make products in the United States." Trump is expected to announce some kind of semiconductor tariff in the coming days.
Trump has suggested that Apple could manufacture the iPhone and other products in the United States, but even if such a move were not wildly expensive, Apple would not be able to find enough people with the necessary skillset to assemble devices in the quantities needed. U.S. manufacturing would also drive the cost of the iPhone up significantly.
This article, "Trump Planning Semiconductor Tariffs That Will Impact Apple, No One 'Getting Off the Hook'" first appeared on MacRumors.com
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2025-04-15 05:53:03
Chipolo today introduced a series of new Bluetooth-enabled item trackers that are compatible with Apple's Find My network. Called the Pop, these trackers come in a range of bright colors, including blue, yellow, red, and green, along with black and white.
The Chipolo Pop item trackers work with Apple Find My, so you can use them just like AirTags. The Pop can be added to your Items tab in the Find My app, and once added, it is trackable over Bluetooth and can be placed on an item like a bag or a suitcase for tracking purposes.
When the item is out of range, the Pop is able to connect to the Find My network to leverage the iPhones of other people to locate your item and relay its location.
Like an AirTag, the Chipolo Pop is equipped with a CR2032 battery that lasts for up to a year before it needs to be replaced. The Pop is 6.6mm thick (so a little thinner than an AirTag) and it has a 300 ft range, plus it comes with a loop at the top for attaching a keyring or strap.
Compared to prior-generation Chipolo trackers, the Pop has a louder sound when the Play Sound option is selected in Find My, a longer range, and IP55 dust and water resistance.
Chipolo is selling the Pop for $29, and it can be purchased from the Chipolo website. Four Pops are priced at $89, and six Pops are priced at $121, or a little over $20 per tracker.
This article, "Chipolo Launches Colorful New 'Pop' Trackers Compatible With Find My" first appeared on MacRumors.com
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2025-04-15 04:46:46
OpenAI today announced the launch of three new GPT models that are available through the OpenAI API. Called GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano, the models are not available for ChatGPT at the current time.
GPT-4.1 includes major improvements in coding, instruction following, and long context, according to OpenAI. The models outperform GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini in all tasks, especially coding tasks. The new models support up to one million tokens of context, and can use that for better long-context comprehension.
On SWE-bench Verified, GPT-4.1 showed a 21.4 percent improvement over GPT-4o for coding, and a 26.6 percent improvement over GPT-4.5. The slimmed down GPT-4.1 mini matches or exceeds GPT-4o with reduced latency and an 83 percent lower cost. GPT-4.1 nano is OpenAI's fastest and cheapest model, ideal for classification, autocompletion, and similar tasks.
OpenAI says that many of the improvements in GPT-4.1 have already been incorporated into the ChatGPT version of GPT-4o, with more functionality to be added in the future. All GPT-4.1 models have a cutoff date of June 2024, which means they are up to date on events that took place before then.
With the introduction of GPT-4.1, OpenAI is deprecating GPT-4.5 in the API, as GPT-4.1 offers much of the same functionality at a lower cost.
GPT-4.1 costs $2 per million input tokens and $8 per million output tokens, while GPT-4.1 mini costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens. GPT-4.1 nano is just $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens. Customized models are available at a higher price.
2025-04-15 04:25:52
Dio is a small company focused on delivering a single product for the Apple ecosystem: a low-cost AirPlay speaker system known as Dio Node. Initially launched as a crowdfunded Indiegogo campaign back in 2022, the Dio Node began shipping to backers later that year before later opening up to all customers.
The Dio Node is intended to be a low-cost option for users looking to develop a network of AirPlay speakers scattered throughout their homes, with a single speaker priced at $89.95 and 3-pack and 5-pack options bringing the per-speaker cost down to just under $80. That's just a bit cheaper than a HomePod mini, and I've spent some time with a 3-pack of the Dio Node to understand how the two small speakers compare and what the value proposition of the Dio Node is for users deep in the Apple ecosystem.
From a design perspective, the Dio Node is a pretty simple unidirectional speaker made of dark gray plastic with a light gray or silver speaker grille covering the entire front of the device. It measures around 4 inches (102 mm) square by 1.5 inches (38 mm) deep with a slight taper from front to back, and it weighs just under half a pound (222 grams). The rear of the Node has some very large Dio branding in white, but fortunately this shouldn't be visible in most setups. A soft pad on the bottom edge of the Node helps protect surfaces from potential scratches.
The top of the Node features three subtle rectangular buttons, with the left and right buttons serving to decrease and increase the volume respectively, while the middle one serves as a play/pause button for audio being AirPlayed to the speaker. Holding down multiple buttons in various combinations performs functions such as updating the speaker's firmware, resetting the Wi-Fi connection of the speaker, and conducting a full factory reset.
The speaker is powered through a small 5V2A power adapter with a barrel connector that plugs into the back of the speaker. The integrated cord on the adapter measures about 1.5 meters (59 inches) long, so it does give you some flexibility in terms of placement with respect to an electrical outlet.
Setup is dead simple, with the Node entering a pairing mode as soon as you plug it in for the first time. Once the small LED on the rear of the Node is flashing red, head to the Wi-Fi section of the Settings app on your iOS device, where the Node will appear in a "Set Up New AirPlay Speaker" section.
Tap the Node, select the Wi-Fi network you want to add it to, and give it a useful name to help you identify it in your list of AirPlay destinations. All-in-all, it takes about a minute to get the Node up and running on your network and you can use it just like any other AirPlay destination including accessing it from Control Center or from within compatible apps, using it in combination with additional Dio Nodes or other AirPlay speakers for multi-room audio, and more.
If you want to take your integration a bit further, you can also add your Dio Node to your Apple Home setup. That's also a simple process, requiring you to simply tap the "+" button in the Home app and select "Add an Accessory," choose the "more options" text to see the Node pop up as an available device on your network, tap it, and select which room in your home you want to add it to. The Home app will suggest an automation to automatically pause audio playing to the speaker when you leave your home, but the automation is turned off by default and you can quickly skip past that step to finalize setup.
Once the speaker is set up in the Home app, you can use it as a speaker for the Intercom feature in Apple Home, include the speaker in various other automations and shortcuts, and use Siri to control playback on the Node via the device you're playing from. You can also set up speaker group presets that include the Node.
There's no limit to the number of Dio Nodes that you can link together, which means you can easily scatter them all over your house for a whole-home audio experience, and once they're set up anyone on your network can stream audio to them. The Node offers mono sound rated to 85 dB, so it can get fairly loud for most room sizes, and I would describe its sound quality as adequate but not outstanding.
Compared to the HomePod mini, the Dio Node doesn't have as much bass punchiness, and overall I do prefer the HomePod mini sound. Stepping up to a full-size HomePod obviously offers even better sound, but that's a separate class of speaker.
Dio says the equalization of the Node is tuned to accentuate voices, making it ideal for playing podcasts or audiobooks throughout your home as you move from room to room. It can also certainly handle a decent range of music, but it does lack some of the fullness of sound you get with a few other speaker options. The AirPlay protocol running over Wi-Fi delivers improved sound quality including support for Lossless compared to wireless speakers running over Bluetooth, but you won't be able to capture that full quality here due to the small size of the speaker.
The buttons on the Node are simple but work relatively well, with the play/pause commands taking effect almost immediately across all speakers when the middle button on any of the Nodes is pressed. The buttons are on the clicky side, which makes it obvious when they've triggered but potentially a bit disruptive if being used in a quiet environment. Adjusting volume from iOS or within an app on your source device does incur a bit of lag before it changes on the speaker, more so than I see with a HomePod mini in the same setup.
With its singular focus on AirPlay to keep things simple, the Dio Node lacks several features seen on the HomePod mini and a number of other lower-cost speakers, with the most obvious being a microphone. With no microphone on board the Dio Node, it's not able to directly support Siri requests, for example, and it can't support phone calls and other types of two-way communication.
Apps that classify their sound output as audio calls won't be able to send their audio to the Node at all, but you shouldn't have any trouble with playback-focused audio sources. Dio unsurprisingly markets the lack of a microphone as a privacy feature, given concerns about voice-enabled devices potentially being able to listen in on conversations.
While you can pair the Dio Node to an Apple TV, it's not intended to be used as a stereo or home theater system as it can't pair directly to a TV and doesn't support stereo pairing. There is limited support on Mac and iTunes for Windows, though you can expand its Mac capabilities by using something like Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil app. But even without that, I had no problem sending audio from the Music app on a Mac to multiple Dio Nodes, and I experienced no issues with audio sync.
Range appeared to be solid in my testing, with no audio dropouts on any of the Nodes regardless of where in my 1,800-square-foot house my source devices were in relation to the speakers.
Overall, the Dio Node is a reasonable option if you're looking to set up multi-room AirPlay audio across your home and aren't looking to spend a ton of money. It's hard to recommend a single Dio Node over the HomePod mini for a cost savings of only around $10 given the HomePod mini's better overall sound, larger feature set, and tighter ecosystem integration with things like audio handoff. But if you're looking deploy to something like five or even ten or more of these all around your house, the savings becomes more substantial, and if AirPlay to a set of Dio Nodes is sufficient for your needs, then it's a product worth considering.
Dio offers free shipping anywhere in the U.S. and offers 60-day free returns, so you have ample opportunity to give them a try to see if they'll work for your situation. The Node has also been certified for use in Canada and Europe, and Dio is hoping to expand distribution to those regions in the near future.
The Dio Node can be ordered from the Dio website or via Amazon (which still ships from direct from Dio), with a 1-pack priced at $89.95, a 3-pack priced at $239.00 ($79.66 per unit), or a 5-pack priced at $395.00 ($79.00 per unit).
Note: Dio provided MacRumors with a 3-pack of Dio Nodes for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received. MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
2025-04-15 03:59:32
With its uncompromising focus on user privacy, Apple has faced challenges collecting enough data to train the large language models that power Apple Intelligence features and that will ultimately improve Siri.
To improve Apple Intelligence, Apple has to come up with privacy preserving options for AI training, and some of the methods the company is using have been outlined in a new Machine Learning Research blog post.
Basically, Apple needs user data to improve summarization, writing tools, and other Apple Intelligence features, but it doesn't want to collect data from individual users. So instead, Apple has worked out a way to understand usage trends using differential privacy and data that's not linked to any one person. Apple is creating synthetic data that is representative of aggregate trends in real user data, and it is using on-device detection to make comparisons, providing the company with insight without the need to access sensitive information.
It works like this: Apple generates multiple synthetic emails on topics that are common in user emails, such as an invitation to play a game of tennis at 3:00 p.m. Apple then creates an "embedding" from that email with specific language, topic, and length info. Apple might create several embeddings with varying email length and information.
Those embeddings are sent to a small number of iPhone users who have Device Analytics turned on, and the iPhones that receive the embeddings select a sample of actual user emails and compute embeddings for those actual emails. The synthetic embeddings that Apple created are compared to the embedding for the real email, and the user's iPhone decides which of the synthetic embeddings is closest to the actual sample.
Apple then uses differential privacy to determine which of the synthetic embeddings are most commonly selected across all devices, so it knows how emails are most commonly worded without ever seeing user emails and without knowing which specific devices selected which embeddings as the most similar.
Apple says that the most frequently selected synthetic embeddings it collects can be used to generate training or testing data, or can be used as examples for further data refinement. The process provides Apple with a way to improve the topics and language of synthetic emails, which in turn trains models to create better text outputs for email summaries and other features, all without violating user privacy.
Apple does something similar for Genmoji, using differential privacy to identify popular prompts and prompt patterns that can be used to improve the image generation feature. Apple uses a technique to ensure that it only receives Genmoji prompts that have been used by hundreds of people, and nothing specific or unique that could identify an individual person.
Apple can't see Genmoji associated with a personal device, and all signals that are relayed are anonymized and include random noise to hide user identity. Apple also doesn't link any data with an IP address or ID that could be associated with an Apple Account.
With both of these methods, only users that have opted-in to send Device Analytics to Apple participate in the testing, so if you don't want to have your data used in this way, you can turn that option off.
Apple plans to expand its use of differential privacy techniques for improving Image Playground, Memories Creation, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence in iOS 18.5, iPadOS 18.5, and macOS Sequoia 15.5.
