Apple’s latest environmental feat is generating clean energy for 100% of its operations in China. A solar installation in the Sichaun Province generates over 40 megawatts of energy, producing more than the total amount of energy used by Apple’s offices and retail stores, making Apple’s operations in China carbon neutral, according to the press release from Apple. Meanwhile, it seems Apple still has some way to go in terms of improving working conditions, with the latest report from Chinese Labor Watch pointing out poor working conditions in one of Apple’s iPhone manufacturing facilities.
Everyone’s favourite analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts Apple will sell 75 million iPhones and 4 million Apple Watch units during the holiday season, based on previous sales figures and recent Apple Watch sales estimates. Ming-Chi Kuo also believes sales of the new iPhone will also decline in the new year, although Mac sales will continue to be better than its competitors.
The Hermès Apple Watch comes with a custom Watch Face featuring the famed Hermès iconography, and iMore’s Serenity Caldwell says this means there’s hope for custom watch faces. It’s possible Apple hasn’t implemented custom Apple watch faces due to battery concerns or similar, or maybe they just don’t have the APIs for custom watch faces to act like the ones included as part of the package.
Apple has asked developers to submit their tvOS apps for the launch of the new Apple TV next week, and Plex has already said they’ll be ready on launch day. Australian pricing still has yet to be revealed, but with the launch so close we’ll know soon enough.
Facebook has implemented a fix for excessive battery drain on its iOS app, admitting a bug caused silent audio to eat away at your battery.
In other app news, Runkeeper’s standalone Apple Watch app is truly that, with the app capable of tracking runs without an iPhone. You’ll need to do a few calibration runs (or walks, if that’s more your speed) before you can leave your iPhone at home, but at least the option is there. Meanwhile, Instagram’s answer to Apple’s Live Photos is Boomerang, a standalone app that is designed for sharing fun, short videos.
In the continuing non-Plus or Plus debate, Aleen Mean purchased a ginormous iPhone because he wasn’t doing the kind of one-handed usage that necessarily needed a smaller device, and for everything else he was doing on the iPhone, a larger screen attached to a massive battery made sense. I’m still not convinced the Plus-sized iPhone is for me, but I’m getting there.
Wired covers the story of the mysterious eye emoji in iOS, which isn’t part of the official Unicode emoji spec but is instead part of an anti-bullying campaign. I am a witness says you can use the eye emoji to show support for someone who’s being bullied online, although I suspect it’ll be used satirically as much as it will be for its intended purpose.
The latest gaming flavour of the week is Shooty Skies, a free to play Crossy Road and shoot-em-up combo. TouchArcade has a review of the title that tells you the kind of fun you’re missing out on.
Seven new Apple Watch ads show off Apple’s wearable in everyday situations, and while I feel as though I’ve written that sentence before, the new Apple Watch ads are a nice look at how it fits into your day-to-day.
Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2015/10/friday-midday-news231015/
