Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/03/monday-morning-news060317/
A replacement for Touch ID was always on the cards as soon as we heard rumours about Apple moving the Touch ID sensor from its current home on the home button. DigiTimes is now saying that Apple has something in the works, not based on any existing fingerprint recognition technology but instead something custom that will allow the use of a touchscreen and fingerprint sensor at the same time. I just hope it’s as reliable and as fast as current Touch ID tech.
All the major rumour blogs now seem to agree that Apple will release an iPhone with a 5.8-inch OLED display. Nikkei joins analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Barclays, and Mac Okatara. While the screen size is expected to measure in at 5.8-inches, the confusion comes from the physical size of the device, which could be something in the size of a 4.7-inch phone.
This year’s iPhone is shaping up to be radically different than previous models, with features such as wireless charging, whole-screen fingerprint recognition, and an entirely new design. 9to5Mac asks the question if you’d be willing to wait a couple of months for this model of iPhone, or upgrade in September as normal with whatever Apple decide to do with the regular 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones.
While Macworld asks how different this year’s iPhone could be, note that they’re talking about the third new iPhone model that isn’t the 4.7 or 5.5-inch models. I’m starting to wonder what Apple are doing with the regular iPhones — it seems unlikely that they would decide to do a simple hardware refresh two years in a row without adding any significant new features, but so far we have’t heard about any kind of redesign.
The New York Times reports Apple devices in classrooms are slowly but surely being replaced with Chromebooks. Shipments of iPads and Macs have fallen below 20% of all mobile devices shipped to primary and secondary schools in the US in 2016. The article also describes cost as a major factor, with the cheap and cheerful nature of Chromebooks providing a much easier sell to administrators.
Jon Mitchell’s post on how he’s an every day Apple Watch wearer didn’t make it into either January’s Good Reads or February’s, so I’m posting about it today. Mitchell tells us about using watch faces based on different contexts, and even though he uses the Modular face almost exclusively, it’s the obvious choice if you want to really customise your watch face.
Over the weekend a few folks on Twitter got excited about the Matias Wireless Aluminium Keyboard. In their review, 9to5Mac says it’s the wireless keyboard Apple should be making, with year-long battery life, the same chiclet keys as the regular Apple keyboard, but with the addition of a numpad.
Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue has been meeting with companies like Paramount Pictures and Sony TV. Reports claim the content of the meetings is unknown, but sources say Apple is planning something big to do with content — or maybe even bigger than that, with “transformative acqusition” used to describe the talks.
If you’re a TextWrangler user, Bare Bones Software has announced the retirement of the text editor. Their replacement of choice is BBEdit, which is their closest product and includes most TextWrangler features and some extras.
Two new ads from Apple continue the iPad Pro tweets, so if you want to take better notes or need less stuff, then the iPad Pro is for you.