Friday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/03/friday-morning-news230318/

The Spring collection of Apple Watch bands includes colourful new options for a range of bands across the board. The Woven Nylon bands now alternate white stripes with colours for a fresh new take, with new colours for the Sport Band, Sport Loop, and and Classic Buckle, and for the first time, the Nike Sport Loop will be sold separately. New Hermès bands also feature an accent colour.

The Verge tells us what to expect from Apple’s education event. If any hardware is going to be released, the smart money’s on new iPads and/or updated Apple Pencil hardware, with the slim chance of new MacBooks or MacBook Airs. There’s also a good chance we’ll see some kind of update to iBooks, Apple’s ClassKit for creating educational apps, or whatever other software surprise Apple has up their sleeve.

Apparently, Siri being able to read the contents of hidden notifications on the lock screen of a locked iPhone is a bug, not a feature. Apple has since confirmed to MacRumors that a fix for the issue will be coming in a future version of iOS, whether that’s the upcoming iOS 11.3, a hotfix patch like iOS 11.2.7, or even something else. The issue seems to affect the iPhone X more than other devices because notifications are hidden by default until the user is recognised by Face ID, but the issue can affect other devices when the “Show Previews” setting is set to “When Unlocked” or “Never”.

The Wall Street Journal reports Apple Music chief Jimmy Iovine will be moving into a consulting role at Apple. While he’s not leaving Apple and will still be involved with Apple Music, Iovine will be taking a step back from daily involvement with Apple Music, ending his role as the public face of Apple Music. It’s unclear who will succeed him in this regard, as Apple Music’s day-to-day operations have seemingly been handled by two individuals overseeing the business and engineering sides.

One DigiTimes analyst says this year’s iPhone X revision will cost Apple 10% less to manufacture than the current iPhone X. The second generation iPhone X is said to feature the same 5.8-inch OLED display, with an updated version rumoured to be introduced with a larger 6.5-inch OLED display.

Apple SVP of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts recently interviewed with Japanese publication Nikkei about Apple’s plans in Japan. Ahrendts revealed the existence of a five-year plan for Apple in the country, which includes the opening of several new stores and renovation of existing stores. There are currently 501 Apple Stores in operation around the world, with more coming this year.

AdWeek reveals the magic behind the scenes of the Apple Music ad directed by Spike Jonz and starring FKA. Not only was there very little CGI in the final product, but an interesting hydraulically-expanding set allowed the entire thing to come together as nicely as it did.

Variety discusses Apple’s increased presence in screen media, noting the prominent appearance and display of iPhones and other products in shows, like Fox’s 9-1-1. Variety says this kind of public exposure is only good for Apple, further increasing their brand presence either by paying for on-screen appearances, or allowing its devices to be used in key scenes to bolster realism.

The 2.0 update to Linea by The Iconfactory changes the name to Linea Sketch, which is a superb drawing app even for those that don’t consider themselves artists. A bunch of great new features have been added by the update, covered by MacStories as all being innovative additions without cluttering the interface.

The latest Apple ad shows off Face ID and Apple Pay, with the successful Apple Pay chime playing as a male purchases things in a market, changing his appearance in the process. OK, so that wasn’t the best description ever, but it’s still a fun ad.

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