Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/01/monday-morning-news090117/
A photo posted to the Beats Instagram account shows what appears to be a white iPhone 7. At first it looks almost like an iPhone 5c, but the full-size image makes it look completely fake, almost as if the camera lens is a piece of paper that’s just stuck onto a white rectangular-shaped box. Still, it’s fuelling rumours that Apple could make a glossy white version of the iPhone 7 successor.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has declined an invitation to an Irish hearing regarding EU tax policies which recently saw Apple being hit with a $14.5 billion tax bill. Apple’s reasoning appears to be that this is a complex legal issue, with speculation also saying Apple’s legal counsel has advised against actions which would compromise its appeal in the ongoing case.
Even though Steve Jobs joked about it on stage when he announced the iPhone, little did we know there was a scroll-wheel interface for the iPhone that lost out to the eventual touch-centric design of what would later be known as iOS. The whole interface took up the entirety of the display, and was designed to be navigated using a virtual iPod scroll wheel.
HomeKit has a bit of a slow start, and compared to the other gadgets that were shown off at CES last week, The Verge says HomeKit is still working on the basics. They write that there’s a lack of variety in terms of HomeKit-compatible accessories, which is further hampered by lack of availability outside of the US.
Jason Snell’s take on what the Mac needs in 2017 is updates to the Mac Pro and Mac mini lineups, sure, but also the removal of traditional hard drives. Touch ID on iMacs would be nice and all, but may present a bit of an issue — do Apple do a standalone keyboard with Touch ID? Or do they integrate it into the hardware of the iMac somehow?
Stephen Hackett tells us about the introduction and evolution of Dashboard. It’s pretty wild to think that these widgets are just a set of HTML/CS/JS applications. While Dashboard is still included in macOS Sierra, there’s much less of a focus placed on the widgets that can either appear on top of whatever you’re currently working on or alternatively in their own space.
Joe Cieplinski’s thoughts on AirPods after a few weeks of ownership say that the fit isn’t perfect, but it’s nothing to be overly concerned about, and there’s probably a good chance they fall out of your ears less than regular wired EarPods. Battery life isn’t an issue, but more gestures to control them would be nice.
David Smith, on the other hand, just wants to be able to double-tap to skip songs when using AirPods. He justifies this request by saying that play/pause already exists in the form of removing one earbud temporarily, so there’s no need to change the double-tap gesture to do the same thing. Instead, make double-tapping the earbuds a gesture for skipping songs.
App Advice covers the 50 best iOS games of 2016. They claim everything on the list deserves its own recognition for 2016 for being the best in its category, but there’s a good chance you’ll find something new to play whatever your iOS gaming niche is.
Apple’s latest ad, Take Mine, features the portrait mode found on the iPhone 7 Plus as a big drawcard of the bigger phone.
