Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/06/monday-morning-news190617/
Apple’s latest press release says they have hired Jamie Erlicht and Zack van Amburg, both former video execs at Sony Pictures Television. Erlicht and Von Amburg will lead Apple’s video programming efforts worldwide, reporting to Apple’s Senior VP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, with the pair saying they are looking forward to bringing “unparalleled quality” and a relentless focus on delighting customers to Apple’s video efforts.
Ars Technica’s review of the 2017 MacBook says that although nothing significant has changed about the laptop, it’s now more of a mainstream laptop than it used to be. A minor upgrade to the keyboard now means that if it “still isn’t easy to love, it is at least more difficult to hate”, and two years after the introduction of USB-C also means that there are less shortcomings about the MacBook’s solitary USB-C, not-even-Thunderbolt-3, port.
Six Colors has thoughts on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro. They point out that Apple’s reduced display bezels have been done before, with the iPad to iPad Air model switch, and every other feature — with the exception of the ProMotion display — we’ve also seen before with the previous generation iPad Pro. With the iPad mini lineup on life support, this is the next-best iPad to get.
Similarly, their post on what’s new in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro tells us that none of this is particularly new, although it is new to this particular iPad. I’d hardly call the addition of “Hey Siri” a game-changing feature, but this is Apple at its best — iterative improvements to an already successful product, now with an embedded Apple SIM.
MacRumors has hints of the next iPhone showing up in their web analytics. Interestingly, they speculate that it’s possible the next iPhone will be a 3x display running at a resolution of 1125x2436, which works out to be a 3x Retina display at 375x812 points for the 5.8-inch display rumoured to be included in the next iPhone. What’s more, those figures line up with what analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has been saying up until now.
Just when you thought QR codes had bitten the dust, Apple ads them in as a feature in iOS 11. Despite this, TechCrunch thinks they’ll still have little to no impact in any part of the world, even China which loves QR codes, given that WeChat and AliPay already have their own QR code readers built into their apps.
In case you haven’t noticed, Apple dropped the 1TB iCloud storage plan, and dropped the pricing of the 2TB plan at the same time. If you were previously on the 1TB plan before June 5, you’ll be automatically upgraded to the 2TB plan, otherwise the 2TB plan is $14.99 per month. I still kind of wish there was a plan somewhere in between the 200GB and 2TB — not only is that a big jump in terms of storage, but $5 and $15 a month is also a big difference.
Starting January next year, Apple will be phasing out 32-bit Mac apps. Any new Mac apps and updates submitted to the Mac App Store after that time will be required to be 64-bit, and Apple has said that the next version of macOS after High Sierra will start aggressively warning users about 32-bit Mac apps before refusing to run them altogether.
Macworld has unanswered questions from WWDC, including what will happen with the preview products we saw at WWDC, and what Apple’s plans are for AR as a platform. It seems kind of wild that Apple would invest so much in creating an easy-to-use AR SDK without some kind of long-term plan, and that’s to say nothing about the Apple TV and when it will support 4K TVs.
The Verge thinks they can break down Apple’s AR platform, saying that even though it’s a big step forward it’s mostly just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. ARKit lowers the barrier to entry for AR, allowing developers to build unique experiences and integrate it into their apps in unforseen ways — we’ll just have to wait and see how this all pans out.