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News bites – the stories you may have missed

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 12 teardown reveals all

With the first iPhone 12 handsets reaching early adopters, it was only going to be a matter of time before Apple’s new phone received the teardown treatment. That duly appeared via Chinese social media, as retweeted by DuanRui. While it doesn’t go into too much detail, the video does show that the iPhone 12’s fancy display is relatively easy to remove and replace.  We also get a glimpse at the components that go into the new MagSafe feature, which many see as the most exciting addition to Apple’s latest phone.

iPhone 12 5G comes at cost

Alongside the literal dissection that we see above, various sources have been breaking down the new iPhone 12’s performance using a variety of metrics. One of those has been battery life, where it seems the new 5G connectivity feature is taking its toll. According to Tom’s Guide’s tests, 5G usage lops off an extra two hours of battery life compared to 4G. It’s a known fact that 5G is more power-hungry than 4G, but even so, these results don’t compare too favorably to rival phones. This is Apple’s first crack at a 5G phone, of course, and hopefully it will be able to make improvements via future software updates.

Airbnb hires Jony Ive

What does a legendary design guru and former ying to Steve Jobs’s yang do after helping to make Apple the most valuable company in the world? He goes and works for a holiday apartment rental company, apparently. Jony Ive’s design company, LoveFrom, has been hired by Airbnb in what is being described as “a multi-year relationship to design the next generation of Airbnb products and services”. It seems Ive and Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky go way back. What this “special collaboration” actually means in practice is anybody’s guess, but sleeping in a total stranger’s home could be set to get a whole lot more attractive.

Apple TV coming to PS5

Apple is continuing its push to bring its media streaming service to a wider audience with the news that Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation 5 console will host the Apple TV app. We’ve already seen the Apple TV app appear on a number of smart TVs, but this marks the app’s debut on a games console. In a blog post that covered a range of media streaming services headed to Sony’s next-gen console, the company announced that PS5 users would be able to “enjoy Apple Originals like Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, Ted Lasso, and The Morning Show through Apple TV+, subscribe to premium channels, and buy or rent movies and TV shows and access past purchases from Apple” from day one. The app will also be coming to PS4.

Apple looking to move chip production to US

Apple would appear to be looking to lessen its reliance on China by moving more of its manufacturing operation back home to the US. That’s the key conclusion that can be drawn from the company’s second and third quarter disclosure reports, which reveal that Apple has been lobbying the US government for more tax breaks to support domestic chip production. Bloomberg points out that Apple spent $1.5 million in the third quarter petitioning officials from the Treasury Department, Congress and the White House on “issues related to tax credits for domestic semiconductor production”.

Halide Mark II arrives

Popular photography app Halide has received a major update, to the point where it’s been rebranded Halide Mark II. This “bottom–up redesign” includes a snazzy new UI that places more control under your thumb. The app’s new Coverage feature lets you shoot RAW and both RAW and computational photos in one burst, as well as an Instant RAW mode that automatically edits RAW shots for you. There’s a new payment model too, so you can sign up for a membership for ongoing content drops. But the good news is that if you previously paid for Halide I, you’ll get Halide II for free.