Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/12/friday-morning-news161216/
On the last day of the news for 2016, Apple has released Super Mario Run. It’s a free title with a an in-app purchase to unlock the full game, and although the Ars Technica review says it’s a little thin on content with just 24 levels, it also scathingly says Super Mario Run “never amounts to much more than a conveyor belt coin hunt”.
The Verge already has already published tips on playing the game, with hints based on each of the three modes.
Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a tech summit at Trump Tower earlier this week, meeting with President-elect Trump to discuss what Trump would do for the tech leaders gathered. The leaders were then invited back for quarterly meetings with Trump, but we’ll have to wait and see for what comes out of the meetings.
The good news is, some MacBook Pro owners have reported improved battery life with the recently-released macOS 10.12.2 update. Despite the removal of the “time remaining” battery life indicator, some owners indicate their late 2016 MacBook Pros are now discharging at a lower wattage, which would lead to longer battery life overall.
Now that AirPods are out, so is their service pricing. A battery service on AirPods will set you back $69, although the Australian page for AirPods service doesn’t say whether that’s for one or two AirPods. It also doesn’t specify the costs on replacing the charging case, so I’m unsure if that’s even offered in Australia.
The Apple supplier Dialog has partnered with a long-distance wireless charging company, fuelling speculation long-distance wireless charging will be coming to a future Apple product. Reports claim as much of three quarters of Dialog’s business is with Apple, which means Dialog’s US $10 million investment in distance charging company Energous will certainly affect Apple.
AppleInsider has a breakdown of the changes to the Music app in iOS 10.2. Star ratings for tracks is back, along with a helpful notification to tell you about the somewhat hidden shuffle and repeat controls on the now playing screen.
A series of tweets from Fraser Speirs tells us about issues with managed iCloud accounts, which are limited to 5GB of free space on devices that shoot 12-megapixel images, 4K video, and 60 FPS.
MacStories has a list of their favourite Mac apps of the year — some of them weren’t released this year, sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less favoured.
Over at MacStories, Stephen Hackett tells us about the businesses Apple has left behind. As it turns out, there’s plenty of markets Apple has gotten out of, not just in recent memory.
