Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/10/friday-morning-news271017/
Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber talks about the fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding recent Face ID rumours and the “reduced accuracy” to allow easier manufacture. Apple has since denied the statement, leaving not-great explanations as to why the articles were published in the first place. Gruber then goes on to debunk further Bloomberg reports about the iPhone, saying that design decisions about the iPhone X were made before January this year, not last-minute like Bloomberg has previously reported.
If CarPlay is the version of Apple’s in-car infotainment system, what’s the name of Apple’s infotainment system for motocycles? Strangely enough, it’s also CarPlay, and Honda has announced the first motorcycle that will be available with CarPlay in February next year. You’ll need a Bluetooth headset to use it, though.
Speaking of Bluetooth headsets, Cochlear’s Made for iPhone Nucleus 7 Sound Processor is launching this week after being announced earlier in the year, to allow those with a cochlear implant to stream audio from an iOS device directly to their implant. The Nucleus 7 uses Bluetooth low energy to provide long battery life for both devices.
With iPhone X pre-orders starting later this evening at 6:01pm AEDT, Virgin are the only telco that has announced iPhone X pricing. Their pricing isn’t too bad, with the 64GB iPhone X starting on a $92/month plan with 2GB of data, and the 256GB coming in at $103/month, also with 2GB data. For those of us not looking to pre-order, we’ll make sure to get the popcorn out for the inevitable shipping date discussion that happens following pre-orders opening.
Following his earlier revelations that granting an app access to Photos gives access to all photos and their associated metadata, Felix Krause is back with another iOS privacy post which says apps have unfettered access to both iPhone cameras any time the app is running, provided the user has first granted access. On the Mac you have a LED that tells you when the camera is active, but there’s no such camera activity indicator on iPhones or iPads. Maybe there should be.
The fifth developer beta of macOS 10.13.1 has been released by Apple, and it’s notable for being the second beta released this week. Doesn’t look like it’s been released to people on the public beta testing stream, but it should be shortly.
Macworld talks about MacBook mistakes that Apple has made. There’s one USB-C port for charging and peripherals, there’s a butterfly switch keyboard that seems pretty divisive, and it doesn’t have Touch ID or the Touch Bar that comes along with it. Will future MacBooks solve these issues, or are you relegated to buying a MacBook Pro if you want more ports?
But hey, at least the Touch Bar can be made to look like KITT from Knight Rider.
OWC has announced flash storage upgrades for 2013 or later Macs. OWC’s Aura Pro X series of flash storage is reportedly up to 2.3 times faster than Apple’s flash storage used on those models, with an advanced NVME controller and over-provisioning to allow for a longer lifespan. You can even get the flash storage upgrades in a 2TB capacity, although that’ll model won’t be released until mid-November.
Nintendo announced Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp yesterday, and the good news is, it’s out in Australia as a sort of soft launch. If you’re an Animal Crossing fan, it’s pretty much the same Animal Crossing you know and love, except miniaturised down into a version that runs on your iPhone, with a few in-app purchases here and there. Touch Arcade has some first impressions, but otherwise Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is free, on the App Store.