Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/05/monday-morning-news210518/
Rumours claim the next iPhone will have a USB-C power adapter in the box. The idea presumably is that even if you iPhone still uses Lightning, you’ll be able to use the USB-C power adapter with other USB-C devices when you’re not charging your iPhone. It’s also said that the included charger will get a wattage upgrade, going from 5W to 18W, which seems like a big jump.
A new regulation from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has prompted Apple to begin removing CallKit apps from China’s App Store. While there aren’t any details about the regulation, Apple has begun emailing developers who offer CallKit integration in their apps, saying they can either remove the CallKit integration and have their app remain in the Chinese App Store, or remove their app from sale from China altogether.
The Developers Union is a new formation of app developers banding together to lobby Apple for App Store sustainability. Their first goal is to allow the free trial of all apps — paid or free — by the tenth anniversary of the App Store in July, with future goals including a revenue increase for developers and other community-driven, developer-friendly changes. As of writing, 401 apps and 359 people support the cause.
Additional coverage of The Developers Union by Wired says the group was born out of necessity, with the realities of the App Store meaning that it’s become difficult for developers to earn a living by writing software for Apple devices. Free trials would allow customers to trial apps before committing to a purchase, potentially allowing for developer revenue that would have otherwise been lost to a free app. But it’s about more than that, as Wired explains.
Apple is said to be looking in North Carolina and Northern Virginia for a location for its new campus focused on technical support. The new Apple location is set to become the offices of up to 20,000 employees, with around four million square feet of space needed by the company to make their new office dreams a reality, bearing in mind that any development will likely still take a few years to complete.
Analyst Gene Munster says that Apple’s services business is now successful enough on its own that if Apple’s core products failed, there could be some hope for the company as a service. This idea of “Apple as a service” would be long past the yearly cycle of iPhone and iPad product updates, but would require work on Apple’s part to find additional services revenue.
Over at 9to5Mac, Bradley Chambers draws on his experience as an educator to tell us that Swift Playgrounds is a useful educational tool in schools. Even for teachers that have no programming experience, Apple’s guides on teaching teachers to teach Swift give them the basics to hit the ground running.
Macworld has a list of Apple products that the company just needs to come out and kill. While public executions might be over-doing it, letting products languish with nary an update for years at a time hints of neglect. With AirPorts already crossed off that list, it’s time Apple gave us the final decision on the iPod touch, Mac mini, iPad mini, and iTunes.
The vintage Apple subreddit recently showed off the unboxing of an original Macintosh from 1984, which cost the poster a cool US $200. While this particular Mac doesn’t boot due to a bad RAM chip, it’s pretty cool to see the little details of Apple packaging at the time.
It’s been 251 days since AirPower was announced, and it’s about time we started asking why we even know about this product months before its actual release. There are very few good reasons why Apple would want us to know about products this far ahead of time, and many bad reasons besides that.