Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/11/monday-morning-news131117/
Apple’s latest diversity and inclusion report tells us about the Apple workforce. While the overall split between male and female is still about 68% male, 32% female, Apple notes that half of all new hires from the past year were from “historically underrepresented groups in tech”. Female Apple employees have been on the rise, but Apple’s tech and leadership sectors are still skewed towards white males.
The release of iOS 11.1.1 fixes the much-publicised issue where typing the letter “i” could result in it being auto-corrected with a capital “A” followed by a box with a question mark. Apple’s release notes also indicate a fix for a case where Hey Siri would stop working.
Following the discovery of how iPhone X screens can stop working in cold weather, Apple says they’re working on a fix for the issue that will be released in a future software update. Not knowing how the problem works, I’ll say that it’s nothing short of impressive that Apple can fix physics in software. But what will be really hilarious is if this fix turns out to be maxing out the CPU all the time to heat up the phone in cold weather.
Speaking of the iPhone X screen, some users have come across an issue where a vertical green line will appear on the display and stay there permanently. Restoring your device doesn’t seem to fix it, suggesting this is some kind of hardware issue, but the issue doesn’t appear to be widespread.
Apple is taking their Everyone Can Code initiative worldwide, with over 20 international universities adopting Apple’s full-year App Development with Swift course. Australia’s own RMIT is getting on the Swift programming action, offering both online and on-campus versions of the course, along with scholarships for school teachers who want to learn programming.
As the completion of Apple Park nears, Apple has posted a sign announcing the grand opening of the Apple Park Visitor Centre this coming Friday. Employees and other Cupertino residents have been invited to a special preview the day before, but for those privileged few who were invited to the first event at the Steve Jobs Theatre, they’ve already seen the cafe, Apple Store with exclusive products, and rooftop observatory.
More iPhone X cases from MacRumors include offerings from Rokform, Nodus, Moshi, and Peel, as well as Caseology, X-Doria, and Magbak. There’s something for everyone, although the most popular styles will have some overlap between brands.
MacStories points out some well-designed apps that show off the iPhone X display. While there’s a few choice apps that take advantage of the extra screen space next to the notch, or apps that incorporate extra features to use all of the available screen space, there’s still plenty of apps that weren’t specifically updated for the iPhone X yet still work pretty great. That credit has to go to Apple, though.
Concept renders of the bezel-less iPad Pro give us some idea of what next year’s iPad might look like. There are still plenty of questions to be answered about how an iPad with Face ID will work, given that you can use the iPad in basically any orientation — even if you’re not allowed to use the camera as a pseudo-button of sorts.
Apple’s Clips app has been updated to version 2.0, which adds a bunch of new features including 360-degree “selfie scenes”. Apple also partnered with Disney to put you in the Millennium Falcon and a ship from the upcoming Star Wars film. Most of all, I’m pleased that Apple is continuing to show what the TrueDepth camera system is capable of, and especially glad that Apple hasn’t outright abandoned what is a very fun app.