Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/05/friday-morning-news050517/
Appearing in an interview with CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a $1 billion fund to help further advanced manufacturing jobs in the US. Cook said that Apple had already talked to a partner they would be investing in, with Cook saying that creating US jobs was high on Apple’s priority list. The pair talked about a number of topics, including Apple sourcing components from the US where possible, as well as Apple’s overall impact on the world.
Apple’s new page on job creation focuses on the positive impact it has made on the US job market. Apple claims they’re responsible for two million jobs within the US, spending over $50 billion with US suppliers and manufacturers, and paying out over $16 billion to US developers since the launch of the App Store in 2008. There’s plenty of other cool statistics on the page.
Following Imagination Technologies confirming that it would be losing Apple, its biggest customer, by 2019, shares have dropped by more than a few percentage points. While Imagination hasn’t filed a lawsuit against Apple just yet, the company said in a statement that it believes it would be extremely difficult for Apple to design a brand new graphics architecture without infringing on IP owned by Imagination Technologies.
The transcript from Six Colors of Apple’s customary conference call after announcing its financial results sheds some light on how Apple is going. While it’s easy to say that Apple CFO Luca Maestri cherry-picks statements to show of Apple in the best possible light, Macworld’s takeaways include how the rumour cycle has some kind of effect on iPhone purchases.
The good news is, Apple Watch sales have nearly doubled since last year. There’s a good chance that Apple’s Apple Watch business is a Fortune 500 company all by itself, and according to some estimates from analysts, Apple has, for the first time, sold more Apple Watch units than Fitbit has sold Fitbits, at an average of 3x the price per device.
Speaking of the Apple Watch, Coach has announced a new set of Apple Watch bands. I can’t tell if they’re available in Australia because the Coach website is terribly broken, but AppleInsider says the decorative bands start at US $125.
Macworld says it’s not possible to recover a FileVault-encrypted drive without the recovery key, which in some ways is a bonus. If you ever want to trash your data, just permanently delete every copy of your recovery key.
ILounge gives us the tip that prevents the iPhone 7 Plus from switching between lenses when capturing video. There’s a “Lock Camera Lens” setting tucked away in Settings that prevents sudden changes in position and lighting conditions when using zoom.
MacStories dispels the Apple services myth that is commonly touted as “Apple can’t do online services”. But you don’t have to look very hard to see how Apple’s online services come into play when you’re doing normal, every-day stuff.
9to5Mac has the first photos of Apple’s upcoming Singapore location, and what better place for an Apple Store than on Orchard Road.