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News bites – the stories you may have missed (1 October 2021)

Plenty of Apple, iPhone, and iPad news gets released every single day – but we know you’re busy, so we’ve got your back. Here, we’ve picked out some of the most important stories from the past week or so and summarized them for easy digestion. You’re welcome.

Let’s take a quickfire look at some of the most interesting recent headlines of late. As ever, click through to read the full stories if you want to know more!

iPhone 13 Pro Max can go faster than stated

The iPhone 13 Pro Max, like every other iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 device before it, supports 20W wired charging. That’s the official Apple line, at least. In practice, Apple’s current super-sized flagship phone can go up to 27W with an appropriately meaty charger. That’s the finding of the ChargerLAB YouTube channel, which put the iPhone 13 Pro Max through its paces with a range of chargers from 20W right up to 100W. It turns out that if you have a 30W or above charger, your iPhone 12 Pro Max will juice up just that little bit more speedily than any of its brothers.

Apple: iPad Mini 6 doesn’t have a ‘jelly scrolling’ issue

The iPad Mini 6 has arrived to almost universal praise. Some early users, however, are reporting a so-called ‘jelly scroll’ issue. This is where text on one side of the screen scrolls at a slightly different rate to the other side, with somewhat bendy results. Apple has had its say on this so-called issue, and reckons that it’s not a problem at all. Rather, the company claims that this is a known behaviour of LCD display panels. It’s all down to the way that LCD technology refreshes line by line, apparently.

Researchers find Apple Pay contactless hack

Researchers in the UK have uncovered a way to make huge charges through Apple Pay on locked iPhones. The measure lets those with Visa cards set up in ‘Express Transit’ mode in the Wallet app to make payments of up to £1,000 without authentication. It’s a system that’s typically used to enable users to make quick approval-free payments for things like the London Underground. So far the hack is confined to the lab, and there’s no evidence that it has been exploited in the real world. Apple said: “This is a concern with a Visa system but Visa does not believe this kind of fraud is likely to take place in the real world given the multiple layers of security in place”.

You can now rate and review Apple’s preinstalled apps

Apple has made it possible for its users to rate and review the preinstalled apps on the App Store. Applications such as Mail, Podcasts, and Maps have always been immune from user criticism through Apple’s store front – until now. It’s now possible to leave a star rating from zero to five stars for those familiar apps. Ever had a burning problem with the way Podcasts handles your favourite audio series? Now you can vent your frustrations. Indeed, with a current average rating of 2-stars, plenty of people already have.

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