Newly iPhone X Plus Gold Color Scheme Video Concept

Word on the street is that Apple is working on launching a gold color scheme this year, in line with the new iPhone X, the iPhone X Plus, and the 6.1-inch iPhone.

We are likely going to see a lot of concept imaginings of what that will look like, as we have already seen a few renderings of what the iPhone X will look like in a gold color scheme. And now, we’ve got a concept video from the folks over at ConceptiPhones, which have put together a video that’s over 45 seconds long, showcasing what they think a gold iPhone X Plus will look like.

The video actually inserts another rumored new addition to the iPhone lineup: Dual SIM support. We also get to see what the current iPhone X looks like next to the iPhone X Plus, which does a nice job of showing the size differences between the two handsets. Of course, there isn’t any reason to expect any major changes between the two, which this concept video does a nice job of showcasing. We’ll likely just get a bigger version of the iPhone X — notch and all.

Here’s the video:

This is one of the better concepts out there, as is par for the course with the publication sharing it. There’s no doubt that Apple is going to bring the gold color scheme back into its flagship lineup fold, but the question is when? Reports are that we could see it later this year, but, at the same time, Apple’s plans may change.

How to Fix Frozen and Unresponsive iPhone X Screen

Sometimes, the iPhone X screen freezes completely, becoming entirely unresponsive to any engagement with the device at all.

These are rare issues but when and if they do happen to a user, it’s understandably annoying. Fortunately there’s a simple solution available, so if you discover that your iPhone X is randomly unresponsive and the screen does not appear to be working, you can fix the problem fairly quickly.

Before anything else, make sure your iPhone X display is clean, and there isn’t any poorly fitting screen protector or case on the device that could prevent the screen from being touch responsive. Assuming the iPhone X screen is clean and there isn’t any obstruction, you’re in the realm of the unresponsive display troubleshooting that we’ll cover here.

So, what’s the best way to resolve an unresponsive iPhone X with a frozen display? The good old fashioned hard reboot! Yes indeed, forcibly restarting iPhone X will cause the iPhone to reboot and once it has booted back up again, the devices display and touch interactions should respond to all input as expected.

How to Fix Frozen / Unresponsive iPhone X Screen

Here is how you can quickly fix an unresponsive iPhone X by forcibly rebooting the device, be sure you follow the sequence exactly to properly initiate the forced reboot:

1. Press down the Volume Up button and release


2. Press down the Volume Down button and release


3. Hold down the side Power / Lock button until you see the  Apple logo appear on screen, this can take about 10 seconds or so


4. Once you see the  Apple logo on the display, release the Power button and the device will boot up as usual

Once the iPhone X boots back up, the screen should instantly work as you’d expect it to. All touch should be immediately recognized, and touch gestures and swipes should be recognized fluidly as usual.

Admittedly force rebooting a device is not the most elegant solution, but since it works (and since there is no known other solution) and it doesn’t take too long, it’s perhaps the best option available at the moment.

Next: Update iOS on the iPhone X

After you have forced your iPhone X to reboot, you should take a moment to update iOS to the latest version, or at least be sure your device is on the latest version available.

1. Back up the iPhone X, backing up to iCloud is easy or you can backup to iTunes


2. Open the “Settings” app and go to “General” and then to “Software Update”


3. If an iOS software update is available, download and install it as usual

Installing the latest version of iOS to iPhone X is important because each software update release tends to include bug fixes, some of which may remedy the unresponsive screen issue.

Why does the iPhone X screen freeze or become unresponsive?

It’s not entirely clear why the iPhone screen can become unresponsive to touch, swipes, gestures, and other touch input seemingly at random. Presumably the unresponsive screen issue is software related, however.

Interestingly, some time ago Apple had released an update to iOS for iPhone X versioned as iOS 11.1.2 that specifically mentioned in the release notes the following:

“Fixes an issue where the iPhone X screen becomes temporarily unresponsive to touch after a rapid temperature drop”

There are also various reports online that the iPhone X screen can become unresponsive or frozen when the device is in a cold environment. In these situations, installing the iOS updates may resolve the problem.

But skepticism of temperature being the only cause of an unresponsive screen is warranted, because I have personally experienced the unresponsive screen issue on my own iPhone X in an indoors temperature controlled environment at a pleasant 72 degrees, and while running iOS 11.2.6.

It’s reasonably likely that the iPhone X screen occasionally freezes or becomes unresponsive due to some particular software issue, whether it’s a bug in a particular app, or iOS itself, or whether some daemon is running in the background and suddenly consuming excessive resources leading the device to become so slow that it appears unresponsive of frozen. Because the screen becomes responsive again after a hard reboot, this makes sense.

Finally it’s worth mentioning that because the iPhone X is fairly new, the device is covered under the regular Apple Warranty, and so if you’re experiencing constant freezing or unresponsive screen issues and the above tips of updating iOS and forced rebooting are not resolving the problem for you, you might want to consider reaching out directly to an official Apple Support channel. Unresponsive screens are not common but they’re also not entirely rare, and a similar issue happened with iPhone 6s models a while back, as well as occasionally on iPhone 7 and other iPhones too, often also requiring a hard reboot, software update, or even a system restore.

Did these tips help you fix your unresponsive iPhone X screen? Do you have another solution for this issue? Let us know your experience in the comments below.

Steps on How to Rip a CD with iTunes and Import MP3s on Mac and Windows

Do you have some audio CDs laying around that you’d like to digitize and convert to mp3? Ripping a CD and turning the audio into MP3 or M4A tracks is remarkably simple with iTunes, and the process its he same on both a Mac and Windows PC.

This is a great approach if you want to digitize a CD music collection to bring onto a computer for archival purposes, listening through iTunes, or even for later copying to an iPhone or iPad.

Now I know what you’re thinking, not many modern Macs and PCs have CD or DVD drives anymore, right? But that shouldn’t stop you from ripping a CD if your really want to, because you can use any external CD / DVD drive, a SuperDrive (you can also use an Apple SuperDrive with Windows), or even use Remote Disc to share a CD/DVD drive from another Mac.

To use this tutorial to convert a regular audio CD into MP3s, you will need the following:

• iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC


• CD drive (or you can get an external CD / DVD drive)


• A standard audio CD, like a music album

Assuming you meet those simple requirements, you’re ready to convert the audio CD into MP3 files on the computer. Let’s get started.

How to Rip a CD with iTunes

The process of ripping a CD and turning the audio into MP3 files is the same whether iTunes is on a Mac or Windows, here’s how it works:

1. 
   
   
   
   1. Open iTunes on the computer you want to import the songs to
   
   
   2. Insert the CD you want to rip and turn into MP3s
   
   
   3. When iTunes recognizes the disc and shows the “Audio CD” screen, click on the “Import CD” button
   
   
   
   

1. 
   
   
   
   1. A progress bar will appear in the top of the iTunes screen, just wait for this to finish after iTunes is finished importing the CD
   
   
   
   

When completed, the progress bar will vanish from iTunes and the audio tracks will have a little green checkmark next to them in iTunes.

You’re done, you now have MP3s of your songs from the CD! Now you can eject the CD from iTunes and you’ll find the mp3 tracks in your regular iTunes music library. If you’re ripping a large collection of CDs repeatedly, once you’re done you might want to get album art for iTunes too so that the iTunes library looks like it’s supposed to.

As a quick side note, iTunes will default to import an audio CD using an MP3 encoder with high quality settings at 160 kbps. Those iTunes import settings can be changed if necessary, to either raise or lower the quality and bitrate, or to change the import format from MP3 to M4A if desired.

Once the songs are stored in your iTunes library, you can do whatever you want with them. Listen and enjoy, copy them to your iPhone or iPad, make them into ringtones for an iPhone (just remember that copying iTunes to an iPhone has changed in new iTunes versions and it’s a little different), whatever you want.

Enjoy your freshly ripped music! And if you have any questions or comments about using iTunes to rip CDs into mp3 format, let us know in the comments below.

Apple iOS 11.3 Previews With ARKit 1.5, New

Apple today previewed iOS 11.3 ahead of its release in spring this year. The upcoming update to iOS 11 will introduce new augmented reality features along with a new set of Animoji on the iPhone X, and more.

Apple first introduced ARKit with iOS 11 last year and with iOS 11.3, it is releasing ARKit 1.5 to developers. The company says that the upcoming version of ARKit will allow developers to create “even more immersive AR experiences” by recognizing and placing virtual objects on vertical surfaces. It would also be able to track irregular surfaces like circular tables more accurately.

ARKit 1.5 will also be able to recognize 2D images like signs, posters, and artwork and integrate them into AR experiences.

iOS 11.3 will also introduce a four new Animoji on the iPhone X. This includes a lion, bear, dragon, and a skull.

With iOS 11.3, Apple will be introducing a beta version of Business Chat that will allow businesses to communicate directly with customers within Messages. Initially, businesses like Discover, Hilton, Lowe’s, and Wells Fargo will support Business Chat and allow customers to make payments using Apple Pay, schedule an appointment, and more.

The Health app in iOS 11 is also getting an update with the introduction of Health Records. It will allow a patient to see their data from multiple health institutions at a glance.

Patients from participating medical institutions will have information from various institutions organised into one view and receive regular notifications for their lab results, medications, conditions and more. Health Records data is encrypted and protected with a passcode.

iOS 11.3 will show the battery health and recommend if the battery needs to be serviced/replaced for iPhone 6 and later. iPhone 6 and higher owners will also be able to turn off the controversial power management feature that slows down older iPhones due to their aging batteries. Apple will be adding these features in a beta iOS 11.3 release later.

Other new features that will be a part of iOS 11.3 are as follows:

• Apple Music will soon be the home for music videos. Users can stream all the music videos they want without being interrupted by ads. They can also watch the hottest new videos, the classics or ones from their favourite artists back-to-back in new music video playlists.

• HomeKit software authentication provides a great new way for developers to add HomeKit support to existing accessories while protecting privacy and security.

• Support for Advanced Mobile Location (AML) to automatically send a user’s current location when making a call to emergency services in countries where AML is supported.

Apple will be releasing the first beta of iOS 11.3 later today for developers and public beta testers. The final version of the OS is expected to be available in spring this year.

iPhone Battery Health and Ability to Turn on and off Power Management Feature Coming in iOS 11.3

Apple today previewed iOS 11.3 ahead of its release in spring this year. The upcoming point release of iOS 11 will come with plenty of new features which includes a detailed battery health menu.

The new Battery health menu option would be available for iPhone 6 and later and show the battery health of the phone. It would also recommend a battery replacement/service if the performance of the installed battery on your iPhone has deteriorated considerably.

Additionally, iOS 11.3 will also allow iPhone 6 and higher users to turn off the controversial power management feature that slows down iPhones with sub-par batteries. Apple had first debuted this feature with iOS 10.2.1. Do note that while disabling this power management feature could help restore your iPhone back to its original performance, it could also lead to some side effects like your iPhone rebooting randomly or significantly shorter battery life.

The revelation of this controversial power management feature in recent times has led Apple to receive a lot of criticism from its customers. It has also subjected the company to over 30+ lawsuits and regulatory investigations across the world. Apple never informed users that it was crippling the performance of their iPhone due to the aging battery inside it. Instead, it only confirmed this fact after it was caught red-handed by data collected from the benchmarking app Geekbench. Since then, Apple has gone ahead and apologized to its customers for poor communication and dropped the battery replacement price for older iPhones to $29 throughout 2018.

iOS 11.3 also comes with a number of new features like four new Animoji for the iPhone X, Health Records, Business Chat, and more.

[Via Apple]

Apple is Likely to Replace the MacBook Air

It is believed that this new 13-inch MacBook will replace the 13-inch MacBook Air, which is immensely popular in the markets due to its cost. The MacBook Air has been around for quite some time now, and while Apple tried to replace it to some extent with the 12-inch MacBook, the Air continued to be popular in the markets.

Perhaps a sub-$1000 MacBook Air replacement is just what Apple needs right now. It seems like the company has been planning this for quite a while, with the MacBook Air models featuring more or less the same features since 2015, which is when the lineup was last upgraded. The company increased the CPU speed of MacBook Air models last year, although this cannot be considered a major upgrade.

Separate reports have suggested that Apple could look towards custom designed ARM based processors for Macs in an effort to reduce its dependency on Intel. This move could also allow Apple to have better control over display tech and other features pertaining to Macs.

Details on this new entry level 13-inch MacBook are relatively scarce at the moment, but all signs point towards a new mid-tier MacBook with possibly the same price tag as the 13-inch MacBook Air. We’re taking this new report with a pinch of salt, though, and suggest you to do the same.

[Source Digitimes]

2018 iPhone X

Apple is not really expected to make any improvements to the Face ID components for the 2018 iPhone X so its unlikely that we will see the handset ship with a smaller notch. That will probably happen with the 2019 iPhone X when Apple is expected to merge the functionality of the front camera and Face ID components into one. This should lead to a reduction in the overall size of the notch.

The render also envisions the 2018 iPhone X, dubbed the iPhone XI, coming with even smaller bezels than what is found on the existing variant. While it does help in giving the device an even more futuristic look, Apple is unlikely to reduce the already minimal bezels surrounding the iPhone X’s display. A minimum amount of bezel space is required to protect the display against dings and drops and a further reduction in their size on an upcoming iPhone X variant could possibly lead to some reliability issues.

Finally, iDrop Newz envisions the 2018 iPhone XI to feature a dual-SIM card tray. This could be a possibility as there have been reports of Apple considering adding dual-SIM functionality to its upcoming iPhone models. Dual-SIM functionality has become extremely popular in Asia especially in China and India, with almost every major flagship phone launching their featuring dual-SIM capabilities.

While the iPhone XI in the above renders looks pretty stunning, remember that they are just that: renders. While Apple will make some design improvements to the 2018 iPhone X, I don’t expect the company to make any major change in its design language until 2019 or later. At best, we are looking at the use of a more strengthened chassis and glass on the 2018 iPhones to make them more reliable.

[Source iDrop News]