Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/01/friday-morning-news200117/
New iPads were expected within the next few months, but now that date could slip to the second half of 2017. A rumour from DigiTimes claims new models of iPads will be entering mass production towards the second quarter of the year, with all new iPads still being described as being in the planning phase. All we know is: there are going to be new iPads, we just don’t know when.
Sources within Apple’s supply chain are claiming Lite-On will supply the wireless charging components for Apple’s next iPhone. It’s rumoured Lite-On has received orders for half of the wireless charging components, making it a major supplier for what might turn out to be a headline feature for this year’s iPhone.
Apple has released updated design resources for developers. The updated UI design resources include Photoshop and Sketch templates, as well as other UI materials for quickly designing iOS apps. The full range of controls, buttons, sliders, views, and glyphs allow developers to quickly prototype interfaces, which form a major part of the user experience of any app.
Apple has also updated its guidelines for the Apple News Format. Used by Apple News, the Apple News Format now has clear guidelines for list item styling within posts, as well as a new design tutorial to help new Apple News publishers make sure that their content looks good within the Apple News app.
The TV app included for US-regioned devices has now gained the ability to play Netflix content directly from within the app. Normally a Siri search for something on Netflix would have brought up the Netflix app to play from there, but now content can play directly from within the TV app.
While opinions of the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros is varied, Touch ID has been universally recognised as a great feature addition to the Mac. But what happens when you want to bring the Touch Bar and Touch ID to desktops Macs? Macworld’s Jason Snell envisions a couple of possibilities, including where the Touch Bar and Touch ID are integrated into the Magic Trackpad.
MacStories says that AirPods usher in a wireless future. As it turns out, Apple’s W1 chip is doing wonders for previously flaky Bluetooth connections, and battery life also seems to be have benefitted from the extra smarts. It’s incredible how well integrated AirPods are into the overall Apple ecosystem, too.
David Smith thinks his Sleep++ sleep tracking app for the Apple Watch will eventually be sherlocked by Apple. There’s a good chance that Apple are working on their own sleep tracking, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be working on the app in order to make it the best sleep tracking app on the Apple Watch, while Apple hasn’t released their own.
Even though Apple has said they’re no longer making displays, that doesn’t mean they won’t ever in the future. 9to5Mac thinks it could be good for them to build an external display with a built-in graphics card. Connectivity is solved via Thunderbolt, and it would mean that laptop users wouldn’t have to have as-powerful discrete GPUs on-board.
Some speculation says that Apple’s big AR play could be based on macOS. It would explain why Apple no longer makes displays, but there’s plenty of technical obstacles that need to be overcome before we start dreaming.