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How Long Is Apple’s Warranty?

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:42:30 +0000

Apple is one of the most popular technology companies in the world, and its products are known for their high quality and reliability. However, even the best products can break down, and that’s where warranties come in.

In this article, we will discuss how long Apple’s warranties last, what they cover, and what you can do if your product is not covered by warranty.

Apple’s Basic Warranty

Apple offers a one-year limited warranty on all of its products. This warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship. If your product breaks down within the first year, you can take it to an Apple Store or authorized service provider for free repair or replacement.

Apple Care

In addition to the basic warranty, Apple also offers Apple Care, which is an extended warranty that provides additional coverage for up to two years. Apple Care covers accidental damage, such as drops and spills, as well as other issues that are not covered by the basic warranty.

What Is Covered by Apple’s Warranty?

Apple’s warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship. This means that if your product breaks down due to a manufacturing defect, it is covered by warranty. However, there are some things that are not covered by warranty, such as:

Damage caused by accident, abuse, or neglect
Damage caused by unauthorized modifications or repairs
Damage caused by natural disasters or other acts of God

What to Do If Your Product Is Not Covered by Warranty

If your product is not covered by warranty, you may still be able to get it repaired or replaced. However, you will be responsible for the cost of repairs.

You can take your product to an Apple Store or authorized service provider for an estimate. If the cost of repairs is more than the value of the product, you may want to consider buying a new one.

Conclusion

Apple’s warranties provide good coverage for most products. However, it is important to understand what is covered and what is not. If you have any questions about your warranty, you can contact Apple customer support.

The Apple Watch Ultra’s next-gen microLED screen might not launch until 2026

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 13:12:54 +0000

Macworld

Apple’s plan to launch a new Apple Watch Ultra model with a microLED display has taken another knock. It’s been reported this week that the device has hit manufacturing problems and is now unlikely to launch until 2026.

This isn’t the first setback to afflict the microLED Ultra. When it was first rumored (as recently as January), pundits predicted that the device would appear at the end of 2024. But by April (based on a subscribers-only tweet from reliable displays expert Ross Young) this had been pushed back to 2025.

Now research company TrendForce (via Korean-language site The Elec) says it won’t be here until the first quarter of 2026 at the earliest. In other words, within the space of six months, the expected launch has moved back by around 15.

TrendForce cites manufacturing problems for the more cautious estimate. Apple has yet to find a way to bring down manufacturing costs for mass production, despite having already invested more than $1 billion in this field. The Apple Watch Ultra would be the first Apple device to use a microLED display. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and 12.9-inch iPad use mini-LED tech and the upcoming Vision Pro has higher-end micro-OLED displays.

This doesn’t mean we will be waiting until 2026 for the second-generation Apple Watch Ultra. At one stage it was believed that microLED would be part of the package when Apple launched the second-gen version of the Ultra, back when that device was expected to follow the same biennial upgrade cadence as the Apple Watch SE. But just as microLED has been pushed back, the second Ultra has somehow come closer. It now seems certain that the second Ultra will arrive long before microLED does–perhaps as soon as this fall–and that this major screen upgrade will appear in the third- or even fourth-gen model.

All current Apple Watch models are based on OLED screens. Switching to microLED brings numerous advantages: the panels are thinner, brighter, and more power-efficient, and have faster response times. But they present technical difficulties, as we are seeing.

Apple Watch

Apple’s long-term prospects look bullish – Zacks

tigaman webdesign — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 22:00:02 +0000

Apple’s market cap surpassed $3 trillion on June 30th, making it the only publicly traded company to surpass this mileston twice. The stock has been on a big run this year, gaining some 49%. Though the stock may witness some rough trading in the near term due to rising rate worries, its long-term prospects look bullish, Zacks Equity Research believes.

Zacks Equity Research via Yahoo Finance:

According to Fairlead Strategies, Apple’s latest breakout confirms a likely upside in the coming years… Based on the breakout and analysis, Fairlead Strategies sets a price objective of $254 per share for Apple. This represents a significant 31% increase from the current stock price. Achieving this target will push Apple’s market valuation to approximately $4 trillion, considering the current number of outstanding shares.

Katie Stockton, the founder of Fairlead Strategies, detects the resumption of the uptrend that “preceded the 2021-2022 trading range.” This suggests continued positive momentum for Apple’s stock in the short term. The absence of counter-trend signals further supports the rally.

Per Stockton, the technical price objective of $254 per share can be reached by the end of 2024. This timeframe allows for gradual upward movement and aligns with the analysis of the stock’s historical performance…

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Apple’s earnings for the June-end quarter is pegged at $1.18 per share. The Most Accurate Estimate is pinned at $1.22 per share, leading to an Earnings ESP of +3.39%. This is a positive sign for the stock.

MacDailyNews Take: The future’s so bright, we gotta wear Apple Vision Pros!

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Microsoft should join Apple in the exclusive $3 trillion club by early 2024 – analyst

tigaman webdesign — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 21:15:54 +0000

Apple hit a new all-time high on June 30 of $192 per share, enough of a boost for the company to once again breach a $3 trillion market cap, but the company should get some company in the exclusive club by early next year, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives believes.

Ian Krietzberg for TheStreet:

Apple seems like the clear leader among its tech giant peers, Wedbush’s Dan Ives thinks there will soon be a second company around to breathe that rarified $3 trillion air: Microsoft.

“We estimate for every $100 of cloud Azure spend with there is an incremental $35-$40 of AI spend that now is on the table which changes the game,” Ives tweeted. “We believe on a sum-of-the-parts valuation that Microsoft should join Apple in the exclusive $3 trillion club by early 2024.”

Ives, predicting last week that Apple will be worth $4 trillion by 2025, believes that “the new bull market in tech has begun. We see tech stocks up another 15% second half of the year.”

MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads. Microsoft follows. As usual.

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Beats Studio Buds + review: Better than AirPods (but not AirPods Pro)

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 11:15:00 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Fun transparent design (other colors are available)
Improved ANC and sound quality
Good battery life
Priced well

Cons

Don’t sound as good as AirPods Pro
Missing a few Apple ecosystem features
No wireless charging

Our Verdict

Priced similarly to 3rd-gen AirPods, the Beats Studio Buds+ have a more usable design, ANC, and better sound quality. But they’re missing a few Apple ecosystem perks and 2nd-gen AirPods Pro have more features and sound better.

Best Prices Today: Beats Studio Buds+

$169.95

View Deal

In our review of the original Beats Studio Buds, we found they outclassed AirPods Pro in several ways but lacked some Apple-specific features. That, along with mediocre noise canceling, made them less desirable for Apple enthusiasts.

The revamped version, Beats Studio Buds +, improves on the original in many important ways. But Apple also has a new model—the second-generation AirPods Pro—that seriously raise the stakes. Again, I enjoyed the design and usability of these Beats earbuds but find the latest AirPods Pro easier to recommend.

These are earbuds made for both Apple and Android users and lack Apple’s homegrown H1 or H2 chip that enables certain features within the Apple ecosystem. I’d take them over AirPods any day, but they don’t quite match AirPods Pro.

Playful design

You can get AirPods in any color you want, as long as it’s white. Bo-ring! Apple’s Beats brand has always been unconstrained with its colorways, and the Studio Buds + is no exception with its retro frosted transparent plastic for both the buds and case.

If that’s not your thing, they’re available in black and ivory, too.

The tiny buds come in a fun frosted transparent enclosure, but ivory and black are also available.

Foundry

The charging case is a bit larger than that of AirPods or AirPods Pro but still easy to pocket. You’ll find a USB-C charge port on the bottom but there’s no wireless charging capability.

The buds themselves are of average size and fit…well…like most in-ear buds do. With the right eartips (four sizes are included) it’s easy to get a good seal and they stay in even through a fair bit of jostling around. While they don’t fall out, I lost the seal a couple of times on almost any trip to the gym, though, while I didn’t have that issue with the Beats Fit Pro thanks to the little wingtips.

Still, they stay in my ears at least as well as AirPods Pro, and the actual physical buttons on the side of each earbud are far more usable than Apple’s foolish “squeeze the stem” control scheme for AirPods.

Improved audio all around

Sound quality is improved over the original Beats Studio Buds, thanks to almost completely reworked internal components. There are new microphones, redesigned ventilation, new transducers, and bigger batteries. You can notice the difference immediately.

While the sound quality is better, I do notice slightly more detail when I listen to music with the second-gen AirPods Pro.

Improved sound quality, ANC, and transparency handily beat AirPods but not AirPods Pro.

Foundry

Beats claims 1.6x better noise canceling and 2x better transparency than before, and I immediately noticed a big improvement over the prior version. But neither feature quite holds a candle to the fantastic AirPods Pro in that regard. The transparency feature isn’t adaptive, either; it can’t suddenly ramp up to dull an extra-loud sound like AirPods Pro can. Still, these are priced closer to the 3rd-gen AirPods, which don’t have ANC/transparency at all.

Battery life is rated at 6 hours with ANC enabled or 9 with it off and the case will recharge the buds three times. In my experience, that estimate seems about right.

Anyone would be pleased with the sound performance of these sub-$200 earbuds. They sound better than 3rd-gen AirPods, but the 2nd-gen AirPods Pro deliver an overall superior audio experience all around.

Not quite AirPods

Some Beats products use Apple’s own headphone chips, but the Beats Studio Buds + do not. That means you get some Apple ecosystem features, but not everything AirPods gives you. Hands-free “Hey Siri” is there, as is instant pairing with your iPhone and support for the Find My app.

But you don’t get instant switching between Apple devices, support for spatial audio with video (any headphones can use Spatial Audio in Apple Music), personalized spatial audio, Conversation Boost, or the in-ear detection that automatically pauses playback when you take an earbud out.

I prefer tapping the button on this little bulb to trying to squeeze an AirPods stem.

Foundry

On the other hand, stepping away from the Apple-designed H1 or H2 chips means that these earbuds can support a bunch of useful Android features. They support Google Fast Pair, Audio Switch, and Find My Device, and there’s a Beats App for Android that lets you do things like name your device, see battery levels, or toggle noise canceling and transparency settings. You definitely won’t get any of that with AirPods!

Great for the not-Apple-only crowd

If you need earbuds to use with both Apple and non-Apple devices, these are a great choice. If you’re going to use them with just an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch, you’re better off with the latest AirPods Pro despite the slightly superior design of these ‘buds.

Priced about the same as third-generation AirPods, you’ll get overall superior sound quality and the addition of active noise cancellation with Beats Studio Buds +. These are easy to recommend over regular AirPods.

However, if you want the best in-ear buds to use within the Apple ecosystem, you’ll find second-gen AirPods Pro offer more features and better sound for just a bit more cash.

Headphones

How to start a smart home using Apple Home

tigaman webdesign — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 12:45:00 +0000

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge

My smart home journey began, like so many others, with a poorly placed light switch. My partner and I had just bought our first house, and the switch that illuminated the kitchen was in the laundry room all the way on the other side, meaning we had to wander through darkness to get to it. I hated that light switch.

So what to do? Well, I could spend a bunch of money I didn’t have to hire someone to move it, try to do it myself and accidentally burn my house down with a bad wiring job, or take the plunge on a smart home. I took the path of least resistance (that’s an electricity joke) and got started on smartening up my house.

I started out with an Amazon Echo Dot and quickly found that I hated the skills system Amazon uses; plus, the sound quality of its little black puck was terrible. So I got a Google Home Mini. It looked nicer but had invisible touch controls, and the app felt half-finished. I could’ve stopped there, but driven by the sunk cost fallacy, I gave Apple Home a shot.

After you start your Apple-centric smart home, the HomePod Mini can add more convenient voice controls.

Apple Home, formerly known as HomeKit (which still refers to its smart home APIs), is Apple’s nine-year-old smart home platform, started in 2014 as a Siri-driven experience. Amazingly, it had no app until two years later and no smart speaker until the company finally released the first HomePod in 2018. The Verge’s Nilay Patel loved the HomePod’s audio chops but said it suffered in many other ways, not least of which is its place in Apple’s infamous walled garden, making it a “lonely” device. It couldn’t distinguish between voices, couldn’t operate your TV, and could only handle one timer at a time. But I just wanted my lights to turn on and off, and for me, it seemed to do that better than the others, so I stuck with it. Apple has closed the gap since then in all of the big, meaningful ways, but it’s been a slow process.

Today, Apple Home’s advantages are mostly two-fold. First, there’s Apple’s easy-to-use, attractive Home app. I found Apple Home to be a breath of fresh air after using Amazon’s Alexa smart home app, which perplexingly hides most of its actual smart home controls in a tab.

Second is being so locked into the company’s ecosystem that you benefit from its strict requirements for Apple Home-compatible devices. Those requirements include the ability to control devices locally — which means you still get basic control from your phone if your internet service goes out — and features like HomeKit Secure Video (HKSV), which gives users encrypted cloud video storage and facial recognition based on users’ Apple Photos library, among other things (more on this later). Admittedly, though, this is a double-edged sword since compliance with Apple strictures has resulted in a more limited, spendy product choice.

Apple’s system has, among the big smart home platforms, also seen perhaps the most enthusiastic support for the new Matter protocol, which is partially based on Apple’s platform and still in its early days. If you’ve invested in almost any recent Apple Home Hub — that is, an Apple TV or a HomePod — you’ll find that device is also a Thread border router. That’s important because Thread is the wireless standard to be used in many inexpensive smart home devices going forward. For more, our own Jennifer Tuohy has a great introductory guide on the subject.

Starting your smart home

If you’re going to go with Apple Home, you may want to start with an Apple Home Hub — as mentioned above, either an Apple TV (ideally from 2021 or newer) or a HomePod. If you’re planning to purchase a HomePod, be aware that If you get the newest version, you’re essentially only paying for better sound (which, again, is stellar) because the $99 HomePod Mini, at only a third of the price, brings all of the same functionality. The 2022 Apple TV 4K, starting at $129, is a powerful TV streaming box and probably the best such product for most people to buy anyway, though you won’t get Thread support, as it’s reserved for the 128GB version.

Whichever you choose, buying an Apple Home Hub enables you to control your smart home when you’re away and lets you share access with others, provided they have an iPhone. Without a Home Hub, things get less convenient, but you can still add and control smart home products with your Apple devices.

Smart light bulbs are a great way to add to expand your repertoire.

As for smart devices, start small. Smart light bulbs are a great jumping-off point, and I’ve generally had the best experience with Philips Hue, though setup is a little more involved for Hue bulbs than for, say, Nanoleaf’s Essentials A19. Both brands offer bulbs compatible with Apple’s Adaptive Lighting feature, which gradually tunes the warmth of the bulb throughout your day to be cooler or warmer, depending on the time.

For smart plugs, I’ve tried a few, and all have been iffy at one time or another. The best, though, have been my Eve Energy smart plugs. Eve’s plugs are not cheap but feel worth it, as they offer a built-in power meter function that tracks how much power is flowing through them, even offering an estimate of what that’ll cost you based on the last week, day, or minute of usage. The Eve app also succeeds where Apple’s Home app fails by showing how your Thread network is structured, which helped immensely when I had to troubleshoot responsiveness issues with my Thread devices a few weeks ago.

Smart home security cameras can be a good go-to next, though picking the right one is tricky. Go for one that supports HKSV if you have an iCloud Plus subscription, as that gets you 10 days of video history, the ability to set detection zones, and object recognition for people, animals, vehicles, and even packages. In addition to being able to view camera notifications on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, an Apple TV can show picture-in-picture streams from your cameras, which comes in handy when I’m watching TV in my basement and can’t hear knocks on my front door (of course, notifications can be turned off as well).

I use a pair of EufyCam 2C cameras, though there are reasons to be cautious about Eufy’s security practices. Otherwise, Netatmo and Logitech both make well-liked alternatives, as do Eve and Aqara. Be careful not to confuse Apple Home compatibility with HKSV support, though. Arlo makes fantastic cameras, for instance, but their support is limited to live video streaming and basic motion detection in the Apple Home app.

Motion sensors like this Aqara motion sensor P1 can offer peace of mind.

If you want to add peace of mind beyond what cameras offer, you can look for door and window sensors like those for Ecobee thermostats. The Aqara water leak detector actually saved my bacon once when a leak I’d patched in my basement sprung open in the middle of the night — my iPhone alerted me to it, waking me up so I could stop the leak before it got to anything important. Door / window and motion sensors can also be great for setting up automation, so your lights are on right after you walk in the room.

Finally, with enough HomePods (Mini and above) in your home, you actually may not need separate humidity or temperature sensors, as those are built in, though in my experience, they’re not as accurate as dedicated sensors. In addition, their built-in alarm recognition means you can be notified if your smoke detector goes off when you’re out of the house. Those features aren’t unique to HomePods, but having all of them in one device is. Some Amazon Echo speakers have temperature sensors and can detect sounds like smoke alarms but lack humidity sensors, while Google’s Nest speakers can detect alarms, but only if you pay for its Nest Aware subscription, and lack built-in temperature and humidity sensors.

Ecobee thermostats can work with door and window sensors.

I set up my own Apple Home system by slowly identifying pain points in my house that I thought a smart device would make better. I now have a mix of smart lights and smart dimmers; various environmental, motion, and leak sensors; outdoor smart security cameras; a smart garage door opener module (that is, shockingly, compatible with my ancient Automatic Doorman opener); and more. I don’t even know how many devices I own at this point because many of them are Zigbee devices that rely on various hubs, like my Aqara and Hue hubs, to connect to Apple Home.

I collect information like I once did Pogs, and I love being able to find out the conditions in every part of my house — and being able to check on things there when I’m away. Various sensors have also allowed me to adjust my dampers for the best air distribution and helped me know where to place humidifiers and dehumidifiers for the best result.

Making it better

As I said earlier, Apple’s onerous certification program has resulted in a more limited selection and higher prices, which can be a big pain in the butt when you’re looking for smart home devices. But as Matter is rolled out more, we should see a lot of those limitations fall away as basic smart devices like light bulbs, switches, plugs, and sensors become more commoditized. It also means no more looking for HomeKit certification for device makers, as Matter is intrinsically cross-platform.

But there are other things Apple could do better. Improvements to Siri are always welcome, as right now, it often refers me to my phone for certain queries, such as web searches or business information (though other times it gives me the answers I’m seeking through the speaker), and my phone never seems to be aware it’s supposed to be showing me something. It would also be great to see more third-party support for Apple’s assistant — two years after opening Siri to other developers for use, Ecobee is still the only company actually taking Apple up on the offer.

There are ways to get around Apple’s lack of third-party support, such as Home Assistant, an open-source project that adds customizable HomeKit support to far more devices than do so natively. I’ve never tried this myself, partially because I haven’t had a need and partially because it’s time-consuming and I’ve just never gotten around to it.

I’d also love to see some fun or more granular automations injected into Apple Home. There are hacky ways to get this to happen, but they’re obscure and require more technical know-how than many people possess. For instance, I have a scene that flashes green and yellow lights on a pair of Nanoleafs and plays Todd Rundgren’s “Bang on the Drum All Day’’ whenever I yell “Go pack!” at Siri — but frankly, I won’t touch that scene ever again because I still have no idea how I got the lights to actually do what I wanted them to.

Should you use Apple Home?

If you want more choice and don’t want to wait for Matter to truly take over (assuming it really does), Google and Alexa are your options — that is, unless you’re willing to invest your time, energy, and brain power into Home Assistant integration, an open-source project that adds customizable HomeKit support to far more devices than do so natively.

But if you want to have a smart home and you’re concerned about privacy and security, then Apple has the best track record for those things. And as the Matter protocol matures, choice and affordability limits will fall away. If you’re already in the Apple ecosystem, it’s almost no contest, as the company’s famous interoperability extends to its smart home platform, making for a much more synchronous experience.

Photography by Wes Davis / The Verge

Wedbush raises Apple stock target to $220 after Vision Pro launch

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:04:19 +0000

Analysts at investment firm Wedbush have raised their Apple target price by $15, based on predictions of success for the Vision Pro headset, iPhone 15 range, and Apple services.

In April 2023, Wedbush raised its target price from $190 to $205, based on expectations of strong iPhone 15 demand later in the year. Now it has made another $15 jump to $220, again because of the next iPhone but also specifically because of Vision Pro, services, and what it sees as Apple’s longterm planning.”Apple playing chess while others play checkers,” is the analysts’ summary in a note to investors seen by AppleInsider. “Based on our current analysis we estimate roughly 250 million iPhones have not been upgraded in over 4 years and sets Apple up for a major installed base upgrade cycle heading into this anniversary 15 year release.”

Wedbush raises Apple stock target to $220 after Vision Pro launch

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:04:19 +0000

Analysts at investment firm Wedbush have raised their Apple target price by $15, based on predictions of success for the Vision Pro headset, iPhone 15 range, and Apple services.

Wedbush raises Apple stock target to $220 after Vision Pro launch

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:04:19 +0000

Analysts at investment firm Wedbush have raised their Apple target price by $15, based on predictions of success for the Vision Pro headset, iPhone 15 range, and Apple services.

Wedbush raises Apple stock target to $220 after Vision Pro launch

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:04:19 +0000

Analysts at investment firm Wedbush have raised their Apple target price by $15, based on predictions of success for the Vision Pro headset, iPhone 15 range, and Apple services.