Friday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/11/friday-morning-news241117/

Faster mobile radios in iPhones is definitely something Apple is working towards, and in his latest research note, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims next year’s iPhones will feature gigabit LTE technology. Kuo expects 4x4 MIMO technology to come as standard on next year’s iPhones as faster transmission speeds are reached by telcos. This will also result in changes to Apple’s supply chain as they switch to Intel for cellular modems.

Another rumour says an updated iPhone SE will be launching in the first half of 2018. While that’s great news for fans of the physically smaller iPhone, there’s no speculation on what, exactly, an updated iPhone SE would just be updated internals, or a minor redesign to accommodate the home button-less future that we’re living in now. It’s also said that this iPhone SE refresh will be manufactured entirely in India.

Apple must have gotten a good Black Friday deal, because they acquired the Canadian augmented reality headset startup Vrvana for US $30 million. It’s interesting to note that Vrvana had an AR headset that they made but never shipped to end-users, capable of combining AR and VR technologies for the best of both worlds. Apple neither confirmed nor denied the acquisition, but they also didn’t respond with their customary, good-as-confirmation statement. TechCrunch are pretty confident the deal happened, though.

Apple’s one-day shopping event includes no discounts on Apple hardware, but like previous years, purchases on iPads, iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 1, and Macs can get you up to a $210 gift card. Speaking of Black Friday deals, MacStories has rounded up a bunch of deals on iOS apps, games, and accessories. While we’re waiting on the launch of Amazon in Australia, some of the apps and games are particularly worth getting; I’ve been waiting for the Australian-developed Agent A to go on sale for a while now, and there’s plenty of other great picks in their list.

The latest AI paper from Apple describes using LiDAR for 3D object sensing, with the possibility of the tech being used in an autonomous vehicle context. Using LiDAR to identify other cars and differentiate them from pedestrians and cyclists should come in handy for when your driverless car wants to make an informed decision about its environment, although LiDAR itself may become the eventual bottleneck for accuracy.

9to5Mac tells us everything we know so far about AirPlay 2, including what new features it brings, what devices will support it, and when we can expect to see it in widespread usage. Multi-room playback and multi-device control are clearly shots at Sonos, which are currently seen as the king of the hill when it comes to wireless multi-room audio. And with the HomePod delayed until early 2018, it looks like they’ll hold that title for a little longer.

Somehow, iPhone cameras get better ever year. The iPhone’s camera is always better than the one that came before it, and this year’s iPhone X is nothing short of stunningly good, making all of your shots look great. And if you’re shooting in RAW with an app like Halide, there’s even more you can do with the image to really make it sing.

The latest update to popular Podcast app Overcast adds a true dark mode that looks great on the OLED display of the iPhone X, and I hope a lot of other apps follow suit. Current dark modes are more of a dark grey, but any app that adds true dark is a good one, in my books.

OS X Daily says you can setup Touch ID to let you authenticate sudo commands on your Mac, but it comes with a couple of caveats in that you won’t be able to sudo if you’re connected to your machine via SSH.

Apple’s Thanksgiving ad tells us to move someone this holiday. It’s kind of weird as it doesn’t show off why AirPods are so great, but there’s still some kind of narrative there.

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