Powerbeats Pro, Apple's sporty, Beats-branded, sweat-resistant headphones with the H1 headphone chip, longer battery life, Hey Siri, seamless pairing and other perks, are now available to purchase in the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Satechi yesterday unveiled a stylish new wireless Bluetooth mouse for Mac and Windows PCs that features a convenient USB-C port for charging, along with a faux leather desktop pad.
Your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios are always searching for new devices and networks, even when they aren’t being used. That said, both can have an impact on your device’s battery life, and a new free jailbreak tweak called AutoBlue by iOS developer Karimo299 attempts to help you find that ideal sweet spot in between performance and battery savings.
AutoBlue works by automatically disabling Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi after a certain amount of time of being unused. The timers are fully configurable by the end user, and you can even configure the triggers that will re-enable Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi whenever they become disabled by the tweak.
Your iPhone uses an assortment of cellular and Wi-Fi-based networks to keep you connected to the internet throughout the day, but as you might come to expect, your iPhone uses more battery and data when it stays connected to both.
WiCellSwitcher is a new free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Bruno Andrade that automatically disables your iPhone’s cellular radio whenever you connect to a Wi-Fi network, and as you might come to expect, it automatically turns the cellular radio back on again after your handset drops its Wi-Fi connection.
It’s normal for your iPhone or iPad to automatically bounce from one Wi-Fi network to another as you migrate from one location to the next, and sometimes that involves unsecured public Wi-Fi networks. With that in mind, wouldn’t it be nice if iOS notified you whenever it connects to a new Wi-Fi network?
If you’re thinking along the same lines that I am, then you might take a liking to a newly-released jailbreak tweak dubbed NotifyWiFi X by iOS developer ichitaso. Much like the name implies, NotifyWiFi X promises to let you know whenever your handset connects to a different Wi-Fi network, and it even provides a plethora of options beyond that.
Wireless charging in the second-generation Apple Pencil may interfere with your car's key fob and cause intermittent issues when attempting to unlock the vehicle, Apple has acknowledged.
As first noted by French blog iGeneration.fr (Google Translate), a recent update to Apple's support document covering using Apple Pencil with iPad or iPad Pro explains that the wireless charging feature of Apple Pencil 2, when being used, tends to clash with key fobs.
Should that happen to you, store the stylus separately so it doesn't charge wirelessly when attempting to unlock the car or simply move the tablet away from the key fob.
If you're charging your Apple Pencil (2nd generation) with your iPad Pro and your car's keyless entry device (key fob) is nearby, signal interference might prevent you from unlocking your car with your key fob.
If this happens, you can simply move your iPad Pro away from the key fob or remove your Apple Pencil from your iPad Pro and store it separately. When Apple Pencil is finished charging, any resulting signal interference will cease.
I own both the latest iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, but have yet to experience this issue (for context, I drive my car every day and my iPad goes with me everywhere I go). Aside from Apple's advice, I'd also recommend trying holding your fob closer to the antenna, usually located near the radio antenna, that communicates with the door locks.
In one example, a DJ’s light-control panel was designed to send out intermittent signals but somehow transmitted a continuous stream of data on the same frequency used by some vehicle remote controls, as explained in a recent WardsAuto article:
Since the beginning of the year motorists in a section of Yonkers, 15 miles (24 km) north of Times Square, were unable to unlock their cars with remote-control fobs. Some drivers of cars without keys simply were unable to enter their vehicles because of unexplained electronic interference.
Due to poor shielding or wiring, some key fobs can generate harmonic interference and even unintentional interference. The same goes for a whole host of other wireless devices, including your iPad Pro's Wi-Fi and the tiny wireless charging coils in the new Apple Pencil.
Key fobs generally trigger signals on two bandwidths: 315 mHz and 434 mHz.
Photo: A Tesla key fob has an option to pull the car forward and backward remotely
The original charging disk that came with your Apple Watch gets the job done, but its poor design leaves a lot to be desired. It's just a magnetic wireless charging module with a 0.3-meter cable that's impractical to carry around and very inconvenient to use.
If you're as disappointed as we are that Apple has not added a black color option to the new AirPods (in spite of the rumors), you can now order custom-painted earbuds from ColorWare.
In the latest attempt to take the Alexa assistant mobile after the flopped Fire phone, Amazon is reportedly working on an AirPods-like wireless earbuds that will "look and act" similar to Apple's earphones while offering built-in Alexa access and beating AirPods on sound quality.
Apple has yet to unveil the specific processes used to manufacture their magical earbuds at scale, but maybe it doesn't need to. According to a new video, the iPhone maker's been growing AirPods like plants. I've always wondered where they came from!
Apple yesterday announced Powerbeats Pro, a cord-free version of the Beats-branded Powerbeats fitness earbuds coming in May for $250, featuring the new Apple H1 headphone chip tap brings benefits like Hey Siri, faster device switching, a better fit and longer battery life.
In an effort to boost sales, Apple's decided to do something it rarely does by cutting the HomePod price by $50 to bring the Siri-powered speaker to $299, down from $349.