Apple will reopen all four retail stores in Switzerland from May 12 at 11:00 a.m., according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Following the planned reopening of all 15 Apple Stores in Germany on May 11, Switzerland is set to follow one day later, reopening all stores in the country. Apple operates four Swiss stores in Zurich, Wallisellen, Geneva, and Basel.
Apple Stores in Switzerland will follow similar health and safety guidelines used for reopenings in South Korea, Austria, and Australia. Reopened Apple Stores will operate on reduced hours and mainly focus on repairs, with customers encouraged to make purchases online where possible.
The news comes after the announcement that Apple will begin reopening United States retail stores next week, beginning in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama, and Alaska. Apple has been announcing reopening dates for stores across the globe almost every day for the past week.
DxOMark this week published the results of its in-depth review of the iPhone 11's 12MP front-facing camera. The device delivered "decent performance" and achieved an overall score of 91 points, but failed to make the overall top 10.
iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro share the same front-facing camera specifications, so the results are similar but with a number of key differences, such as focus distance. The fixed-focus lens of iPhone 11 was found to focus slightly closer than the lens on the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which resulted in subjects that are further away being out of focus. Another difference was that iPhone 11 failed to maintain sharpness as well as iPhone 11 Pro Max as the subject moved further away from the camera. Otherwise, most images taken with the two devices were extremely similar.
Video on the iPhone 11 front-facing camera was, however, found to be "slightly better" in color accuracy and noise-management than Apple's top-end smartphone. This advantage is, however, diminished by the focus issues, which are said to pose a potential problem for "users who work with longer selfie sticks or who shoot a lot of group selfies". The review concludes that iPhone 11 offers a "good option for selfie video capture, but not among the best we have seen."
The iPhone 11's overall DxOMark score of 91 was just one point lower than that of the iPhone 11 Pro Max at 92. The Huawei P40 Pro has performed best in DxOMark testing, with a score of 103. iPhone 11's front-facing camera is surpassed by 12 other smartphones. Overall, iPhone 11 is praised as "a capable option for selfie shooters, with its front camera delivering nice colors and good exposure in most situations," but "image output can be quite noisy and the fixed-focus lens, which is geared towards closer focusing distances."
DxO is a well-known French image lab that is noted for its attempts at assigning objective scores of smartphone camera quality, although they have been subject to some criticism from those who argue that camera quality is inherently subjective and thus can't be quantified with a score.
In keeping with the successful AirPods brand, the rumored "Studio" over-ear headphones would significantly diversify Apple's AirPods lineup, which last added the in-ear AirPods Pro in October 2019. The supposed price of $349 would place "AirPods Studio" as a direct competitor to high-end noise-canceling over-ear headphones from Bose and Sony.
Looks like Apple is sticking with the “AirPods” branding for their new over-ear headphones.
Apple recently updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the $1,299 base model remains a popular alternative to the $999 MacBook Air. To help with your buying decision, read our comparison of the notebooks below.
The differences between the base 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air are quite nuanced, with each notebook possessing some unique features.
What's the Same
13-inch Retina display with 227 pixels per inch and True Tone support
Magic Keyboard with reliable scissor switch design
Force Touch trackpad
2 × Thunderbolt 3 ports
3.5mm headphone jack
256GB of SSD storage standard, configurable up to 2TB
Touch ID
T2 security chip
720p webcam
802.11ac Wi-Fi, also known as Wi-Fi 5
Bluetooth 5.0
Three-microphone array with directional beamforming
Dolby Atmos surround sound
Advantages of Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro
The display supports the P3 wide color gamut for more vibrant and lifelike colors
The display is brighter at up to 500 nits vs. 400 nits on MacBook Air
Touch Bar
Slightly better sounding speakers
Advantages of MacBook Air
Up to 11 hours of battery life vs. 10 hours on base 13-inch MacBook Pro
Weighs slightly less at 2.8 pounds vs. 3.1 pounds for base 13-inch MacBook Pro
Faster RAM: 3733MHz LPDDR4X vs. 2133MHz LPDDR3 for base 13-inch MacBook Pro
6K display support vs. 5K on base 13-inch MacBook Pro
Unlike the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air also has a gold color option.
Performance
Generally speaking, the MacBook Air remains best suited for lightweight day-to-day tasks like web browsing and creating spreadsheets, while the MacBook Pro is better equipped to handle more intensive tasks like rendering large video files. This is not only because the MacBook Pro has faster processors than the Air, but also because it has a more advanced thermal design for dissipating heat inside the computer.
While the MacBook Air has been updated with Intel's latest 10th-generation processors, the base 13-inch MacBook Pro continues to use older 8th-generation processors. However, the Air uses lower-wattage Y-series chips with lower clock speeds, so the Pro still has faster overall performance, as confirmed by benchmarks.
Geekbench 5 scores for the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air configurations:
MacBook Air / 1.1GHz dual-core Core i3: 1,002 single-core and 1,998 multi-core
MacBook Air / 1.1GHz quad-core Core i5: 1,055 single-core and 2,645 multi-core
MacBook Air / 1.2GHz quad-core Core i7: 1,102 single-core and 2,843 multi-core
MacBook Pro / 1.4GHz quad-core Core i5: 927 single-core and 3,822 multi-core
MacBook Pro / 1.7GHz quad-core Core i7: 1,036 single-core and 3,909 multi-core
Takeaways:
The base model 13-inch MacBook Pro for $1,299 has up to 91 percent faster multi-core performance than the base model MacBook Air for $999
If considering the MacBook Air, upgrading to the quad-core Core i5 option is well worth the extra $100, as it is up to 32 percent faster than the base model and more closely rivals the base 13-inch MacBook Pro
Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1,000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100. Higher scores are better, with double the score indicating double the performance. Compare with other Mac benchmarks here.
Bottom Line
If you value portability and up to an extra hour of battery life, and are willing to sacrifice some performance, the MacBook Air is a relatively good value. Just remember to consider spending an extra $100 on the quad-core Core i5 processor option, as the $999 base model is equipped with a particularly sluggish dual-core processor.
For more intensive tasks, the 13-inch MacBook Pro's faster processors and more advanced thermal design will allow you to push the limits more without the fans running obnoxiously. You'll also get the Touch Bar, a brighter and more vibrant display, and slightly better sounding speakers with high dynamic range.
This week saw a couple of big announcements, led by the launch of an update for the 13-inch MacBook Pro line. Most notably, the update brought the improved Magic Keyboard previously introduced on its 16-inch sibling and the MacBook Air, with high-end models also receiving updated processors.
The second significant announcement this week was that Apple's first all-digital Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off on June 22. Other news this week included a firmware update for the AirPods Pro, an update on Apple's Mini-LED efforts, and more.
Read on below and check out our video above for recaps of all of this week's most important stories!
New 13-Inch MacBook Pro Announced With Magic Keyboard, 10th-Gen Processors, Up to 32GB RAM and 4TB SSD, and More
Apple this week refreshed its 13-inch MacBook Pro lineup, with key features including the same Magic Keyboard as the 16-inch MacBook Pro, up to 80 percent faster Intel graphics than the previous generation, up to 32GB of RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, and 6K display support.
First introduced on the 16-inch MacBook Pro last year, the Magic Keyboard features a far more reliable scissor mechanism with 1mm of key travel. After five years, Apple has finally transitioned its entire notebook lineup away from its issue-prone butterfly keyboard.
Apple has announced that its first-ever online-only WWDC will begin Monday, June 22 via the Apple Developer app and website. The weeklong event will include a virtual keynote, sessions, and labs, with more details to be shared in June. And it's free!
Apple is expected to introduce iOS 14, iPadOS 14, macOS 10.16, tvOS 14, and watchOS 7 at WWDC 2020, with beta testing to take place over the summer.
Student developers from all over the world can enter Apple's Swift Student Challenge by creating an interactive scene in Swift Playgrounds that can be experienced in three minutes. Winners will receive an exclusive WWDC20 jacket and pin set. Submissions are open through May 17.
Apple Updates AirPods Pro Firmware to Version 2D15
In recent months, some AirPods Pro owners have been complaining about reduced noise cancellation and crackling or static sounds, so users have listened for any improvements following the update.
Perhaps proving how subjective sound quality can be, feedback has been decidedly mixed, with some users noticing an improvement, some noticing no change, and some noticing further degradation to noise cancellation.
Apple has offered some help in the form of two new support documents for users to troubleshoot noise cancellation or crackling sound issues.
10 Tips and Tricks for the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard
The tips and tricks relate to adjusting the backlight brightness, customizing the cursor's behavior, enabling tap-to-click on the trackpad, other trackpad gestures, accessing the Emoji keyboard, and more.
Apple's Mini-LED Product Roadmap May Have Been Pushed Back to 2021
Disappointed that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro was not the rumored 14-inch model? That may be due to a slight delay in Apple's plans to release a range of new products with Mini-LED backlit displays.
Kuo has previously said that Mini-LED displays will allow for thinner and lighter product designs, while offering many of the same benefits of OLED displays used on the latest iPhones, including good wide color gamut performance, high contrast and dynamic range, and local dimming for truer blacks.
NFC-Based Digital Key Specification Released Ahead of Apple's Rumored CarKey Feature on iPhone
"CarKey" will allow an iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock, lock, and start an NFC-compatible vehicle. Just like credit cards and boarding passes, users will be able to add a digital car key to the Wallet app, eliminating the need to use a physical car key or key fob.
MacRumors Newsletter
Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we've covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.
