Friday Morning News

Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2019/01/friday-morning-news110119/

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s full interview with CNBC aired last night, giving us some insight into what’s next for Apple in 2019 and beyond. While Cook didn’t give any details, he did confirm that Apple will be launching new services this year, with the most likely candidate for a new service being Apple’s streaming video service that still has questions hanging over it regarding distribution and availability. Cook also said that Apple will be remembered for its impact on consumer health in the long run, saying that Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind is about health and that Apple’s business has always been about enriching people’s lives.

Supply chain sources tell us that Apple has told its suppliers to cut iPhone production by a further 10% over the next three months. Nikkei reports the request came from Apple late last month, which would put it slightly before Apple’s announcement of reduced earnings guidance earlier this month, although it’s likely that both decisions were made hand in hand.

The Korea Herald reports Apple’s senior regional director of Asia-Pacific operations Donald Shruhan will be presenting a plaque of appreciation to police investigators in Korea who intercepted 1 billion won (AU $1.25 million) worth of fake Apple accessories. How the fake charging adapters, cables, and headphones made it into the country from China is still being investigated, the distributors have since been arrested on suspicion of fraud and trademark violations.

Apple has updated its iOS feature availability page with a number of new flyover locations and locations where indoor maps is available for shopping malls. New Australian locations for indoor maps were quietly added to Apple Maps late last year, so it’s nice to see some Australian places on the list, even though their naming scheme is somewhat inconsistent — some places on the list are listed as "suburb, Australia", there’s at least one with "suburb, state", and even though I recognise Doncaster, Australia, as the Westfield there, I’d be hard-pressed to name which shopping mall in Wantirna South now has indoor maps. Oh, and the Australian iOS feature availability page has none of this info either, by the way.

Apple’s latest hire is Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook privacy and policy employee who left the company after one and a half years due to his privacy concerns falling on deaf ears internally. Parakilas testified in front of UK Parliament last year regarding the data that Facebook stores on everyone, so his position as a privacy advocate is probably what has landed his current role at Apple.

Macworld’s Jason Snell tells us about the significance of Apple making deals with TV manufacturers to compel them to include AirPlay 2 on their smart TVs, as well as whatever other features they warrant worthy enough. It’s an interesting enough move that somewhat negates the need for Apple TV devices, as well as going most of the way towards quashing any rumours that Apple would ever build its own TV set.

Now that GitHub has unlimited private repos for free users, you may be wondering how to hook up your code editor of choice to GitHub for some of that sweet source control action. The good news is, there’s a guide on hooking up basically every popular editor to GitHub, so whether you use Xcode, Visual Studio Code, or whatever else, there’s something to get you started. The bad news is, that code isn’t going to write itself, so get cracking!

ToothFairy received some positive press over the holiday break for being a super-simple Mac utility to connect Bluetooth headphones to your Mac via a single keypress or click. It even works with AirPods, solving a number of problems that makes them that much nicer to use with a Mac.

AppleInsider debunks some questionable reporting that says it’s entirely possible, even probable, that the Apple Watch’s new EKG feature will result in some people being mis-diagnosed, or low-risk patients will go see a doctor after an Apple Watch notification, which can put additional strain on the US healthcare system and all of the flow-on effects that can have. While none of this is entirely untrue, at its core this seems to be a decision between having access to data and saving lives, or not having access to the data and having people die because of it, even though it’s probably more nuanced than that.

Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller retweeted this post on Twitter about Zoe Smith’s husband loving his new Mac, so you might have already read it. But it’s one of the very few, pro-Mac pieces that I’ve read in quite a long time, so I’m sharing it here too.