Friday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/09/friday-morning-news080917/

Apple has reached a deal with the Warner Music Group, which means that hopefully artists like Ed Sheeran, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bruno Mars will soon be available on Apple’s all-you-can-eat music streaming service. Bloomberg reports the deal was reached even though Apple plans to pay labels less than it did previously, so we’ll see how Sony takes that news when Apple sets their sights on them as the next partner for Apple Music.

Code discovered all but confirms HDR content coming to the iTunes Store, with one developer revealing the presence of “has HDR” in multiple lines of code in an iTunes Store daemon. If the rumours are right, there’s a good chance we’ll see a new Apple TV with 4K and HDR support by the end of the year, if not early next week.

An Apple patent describes a method to use the LED backlight of iPhones as a strobe, both acting as a safety light for runners and matching to the beat of their music. Even though the patent was filed this year, one of the diagrams depicts an iPod classic, which 9toMac explains as a continuation of a series of patents going back 2004.

From the same guy that built his own iPhone from parts from the Chinese manufacturing marketplace, Motherboard has the story of Scotty Allen, who has now designed and manufactured his own iPhone 7, with one key difference: it has a headphone jack. The story itself is pretty incredible, with Allen making room within the iPhone 7 design to fit a headphone jack and everything needed for it to work, including a custom circuit board to handle the electronics.

PodCase is a Kickstarter project from the creator of the Pebble that aims to combine an iPhone case with AirPods charging. While the all-in-one design might appeal to some, I feel as though it’s a niche to want to have a case that charges your iPhone and your AirPods at the same time. And it’s not exactly a slim design, either — what battery case is? — but maybe it’ll make the $373,000 needed to fund the project.

Elevation Lab has announced the ElevationDock 4 for iPhone and iPad. Like previous Elevation Docks before it, ElevationDock 4 allows for perfect one-handed docking/undocking operation, while sporting a new minimal design that’s designed to fit your device with or without a case. There’s an adjustable tilt back for different usage scenarios, and even comes with a braided iPhone Lightning cable. Pre-orders are up for US $59, with shipping starting in two weeks.

Mac app updates for macOS High Sierra are starting to trickle through, starting with the public beta of Bartender 3. The new version has been re-written in Swift, but contains some changes to how the app works due to heightened System Integrity Protection restrictions. IStat Menus 5 has also recently been updated with support for macOS High Sierra, and word on the street is that there’s a beta going around for that, too.

OnePassword’s command-line tool public beta is an interesting one. It seems primarily aimed at those wanting to integrate 1Password into something else, as I suspect most regular users will still want to have their passwords filled into their browser windows, but I’m sure plenty of people will find it incredible useful.

A cool update to Elk adds lock screen currency conversions in the form of a Live Wallpaper. It’s a really neat solution, letting you see your regular wallpaper until you press and hold, when your currency conversion of choice shows up in a little table. The rates aren’t updated live or anything, but for most cases, you’ll get a pretty good idea of the conversion rates when you’re in a different country.

HomeKitty is a crowd-sourced database for HomeKit-compatible accessories, with the caveat that not everything will be available in Australia.

That’s pretty impressive but I don’t know that there would be a huge market it modifying what is a bloody expensive device and sadly I just don’t see Apple going back on that one, even if only out of principle.

I will miss the headphone jack when I upgrade, but not nearly enough to trust some company with my shiny new phone.