Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/07/monday-morning-news180716/
A video of what’s purported to be the new case design for this year’s iPhone has surfaced. In a comparison to the design of the current iPhone, the differences of a larger camera lens cut-out, redesigned antenna bands, and no headphone jack become apparent, although the changes are still fairly subtle. Whether this turns out to be the finalised design is still anyone’s guess.
If Apple really are planning to remove the headphone jack, then you better believe they’re working on wireless headphones, too. A trademark for “AirPods” was unable to be linked to Apple when it was discovered back in October last year, however this time MacRumors think it might be from Apple after all, as a signatory on the patent application can be tied to Apple.
Recode thought what Apple has been pursuing in the streaming video space is a little at odds with what Apple has been doing on the Apple TV so far. Their translation of what Cue said last week an interview regarding Apple’s streaming plans puts it in plain English: Apple wants to do skinny bundles, with one or two channels instead of the entire package. But it can’t because of content providers being unwilling to do that — so Apple is going with apps instead.
Apple’s government filing proposes simpler royalties for streaming music services. Under the new scheme, streaming services would pay 9.1 cents per 100 streams of a song, eliminating the currently convoluted pricing model. But commentary from the New York Times says Apple’s proposition would muscle-out music streaming competitors such as Spotify, who would be forced to pay significantly higher royalties.
A look at some of the navigation in the iOS 10 Music app points out areas where the app is improved over its previous iteration, as well as minor changes that would make a positive difference on the user interface.
Anandtech’s preview of macOS Sierra runs us through the new features. There’s surprisingly little on how technology like “storage optimisation” works, possibly due to how black-box it all is, but perhaps the biggest disappointment is Messages, which appears to inherit none of the cool new features from its iOS counterpart.
With Siri integration in macOS Sierra, you can turn on an option to enable hands-free Siri activation, approximating the iOS “Hey Siri” feature. The Sierra equivalent requires a little setup, but that also means you can customise the voice command to be whatever you want, taking us one step closer to Jarvis in Iron Man.
9to5Mac also lets us know how to get auto-unlock working with macOS Sierra and the preview of watchOS 3. You’ll need a 2013 or later Mac, as well as the watchOS 3 beta, which is currently only available to developers.
Six Colors goes hands-on with Scrivener for iOS, which may turn out to be one of the missing pieces for people who plan to use their iPad for serious writing projects.
Mac sales fell at double the market rate in the last quarter, no doubt helped by the relative dearth of Mac updates. All Macs are due for an update, in a market that’s come to expect yearly hardware updates.