Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/08/friday-morning-news030818/
Apple is the first US company to hit a market cap of US $1 trillion, after a false start by the built-in stocks app based on inaccurate share data from Yahoo. It’s a figure so incomprehensible that only a handful of companies have ever done it, and none since 2007, when PetroChina technically crossed the trillion-dollar mark but fell quickly afterwards, but either way, it’s an impressive feat.
Which is why it’s so strange that Apple chose to announce that they would be removing apps from the affiliate program as of October 1st, 2018. The App Store affiliate program was one of the main ways for iOS app and game review sites to earn some kind of income from their pieces; while individual purchases might not have mattered in the grand scheme of things, the sum of the whole was greater than its parts.
A new asset found in the latest iOS 12 beta tells us about an iPad-sized device with thin bezels and no home button or notch. This notch-less iPad will likely be released later this year, as the rumours have been claiming, and further discoveries from the beta all but confirm the presence of Face ID for the iPad refresh this time around.
Unfortunately, iMessage spam is a real issue in China, and Apple has announced that they will be working with carriers in an attempt to cut down on the spam. While Chinese telcos can cut down on SMS spam by blocking keywords, filtering iMessage spam is much more difficult to the fact it is encrypted end-to-end, thwarting any kind of filtering that relies on seeing the message.
Apple is no stranger to taking impressive/named architecture and putting an Apple Store in there, and I doubt their grandiose plans for LA’s Tower Theatre will be any different from any of their recent projects. For whatever reason, Apple is attracted to renovating historically significant buildings for Apple Store locations as much as they are building their own glass-walled stores.
Apple’s latest patent application tells us the company is still working on devices with foldable displays. Their application for a foldable cover and display suggests there may be a device in the future which can be folded at will in almost any configuration the user desires. While I don’t think we’ll get the ability to scrunch up our iPads like we might do with a piece of paper, or be able to fold them more than seven times, it might be useful to fold a device in a couple of different ways.
Speaking of patents, Apple has been ordered to pay $145 million in damages for infringing on two wireless communication system patents held by WiLan, a Canadian intellectual property company. 9to5Mac says this isn’t the first time the pair have met in court, with their previous encounter being found in Apple’s favour.
Mimeo Photos is the latest third party to jump on board the physical photo book train, with the release of identical formats, templates, and book sizes that Apple used to offer. Mimeo Photos comes with its own Photos extension as well as its own app. Strangely, their statement to MacRumors says the company is excited to see an increase in demand from Australia, even though a support article on their own website claims they only ship to US addresses.
Om Malik says the Apple Watch isn’t about telling the time, even though that’s what it’s called. It’s so many different things combined into one that calling it a wrist-worn wearable is a disservice for a product that probable generates revenue around the $15 billion mark, but with the world becoming made up of more and more information streams, a device that doesn’t do all of them sounds pretty good to me.
Despite what you may read, or what you can infer from Apple’s financial results, the lack of updates to the Mac lineup, or any number of other sources, Macs still matter at Apple. Engadget tells us that they’re a primary driver for the company’s second-biggest revenue stream behind the iPhone: services. Do you really think Apple would spend years of engineering time making iOS apps work on the Mac, if the Mac didn’t matter?