Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/06/friday-morning-news220618/
Apple is getting into children’s TV programming. Variety reports the company is teaming up with the non-profit educational organisation Sesame Workshop to create new kids’ programming that will not include Sesame Street. Instead, the two will be developing their own live-action and animated series, as well as a puppet series, adding another feather in the cap of Apple’s series of original programming.
Bloomberg’s explains the lack of any AirPower availability or announcement after it was teased in September by Phil Schiller as “technical hurdles”. Given that rumours say AirPower will be using three wireless charging coils and something to control which coil gets activated when a device is placed anywhere on the mat to begin charging, that’s not too unexpected. Besides, the last Apple accessory that had technical hurdles, AirPods, ended up being so great that they were widely praised after their release.
MacRumors points out from the Bloomberg story that Apple wanted to remove wired charging from the iPhone X, but felt that wireless charging technology wasn’t quite there yet. Including a wireless charger with the iPhone X would have increased costs of the device even further, and while it seems like the removal of wired charging is the eventual end goal, for now the Lightning port is required for charging, data transfer, as well as connecting to accessories.
Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke to The Irish Times about Apple’s decision to cancel plans for a $1 billion data centre in Ireland, re-affirming — amidst a major tax dispute with the European Commission — that the company remains committed to Ireland. Cook’s words on the possible positive improvements to the Irish community echoed similar sentiments he had for Cork, which had recent expansions to Apple’s European headquarters to provide space for an additional 1,400 employees.
Apple SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts spoke at the Cannes Lions festival in France earlier this week. Interviewed by Apple’s own VP of Marketing Communications Tom Myhren, Ahrendts discussed the future of retail and the concept of Apple humanising technology by being at the centre of technology and the liberal arts, a phrase you’ve probably heard before in the context of Apple.
The second developer beta of iOS 12 contains references to new Apple Watch models. The new identifiers include Watch4,1, Watch4,2, Watch4,3, and Watch4,4 which more than likely represent the existing Apple Watch product lines. With rumours saying that this year’s Apple Watch hardware update will have a larger screen in the same form factor, we’ll have to give it a few months before we’ll know for sure.
An update to Final Cut Pro X supports ProRes RAW files from the DJI Inspire 2 drone, as well as a number of other bug fixes and performance improvements. 9to5Mac has the full changelog.
The Car Connectivity Consortium recently published a new digital key standard that could mean replacing your car keys with an iPhone. An interoperable digital key standard is the end goal, with owners of authenticated smart devices (whether that’s an iPhone or otherwise) being able to lock, unlock, and start a car wirelessly. Digital keys are already being used by a number of car manufacturers, with CCC charter members Audi and Volkswagen being the first to take advantage of the technology.
Brett Terpstra points out his favourite macOS dialog box shortcut keys. Full Keyboard Access to “all controls” is an option that you can turn on in System Prefs, but the most common actions can also be performed via keyboard shortcut, even if you don’t have that option turned on.
Microsoft’s latest iOS app is Microsoft News. As part the company’s re-branding of years-old websites, MSN News now becomes Microsoft News, with the iOS counterpart being a reasonably nice app with support for a dark mode and Notification Centre widgets to keep up to date.