Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/07/monday-morning-news300718/
Rumours regarding this year’s iPad Pros say the device is unlikely to have a regular headphone jack. While the display size is expected to stay the same, a minor reduction in body size will hopefully mean Apple is reducing the bezels on those devices even further. Face ID on the iPad Pro will be portrait-only, like it is on the iPhone X, and Apple will also be moving the Smart Connector to the lower edge of the device near the Lightning port, prompting a possible change for this year’s iPad Pro Smart Keyboard.
Qualcomm’s CFO has told investors the company expects Apple to be exclusively using a competitor’s modems in any future devices. If nothing else, the news aligns with previous rumours from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said Apple would be using Intel for its LTE modems in upcoming iPhones, as well as reports from the Wall Street Journal which claimed Apple would be eliminating Qualcomm from its supplier lineup.
A message posted to Apple’s Japanese support website says the company will be offering free repairs of products damaged by heavy rains in July. So long as the damaged product is repairable, Apple customers in Japan can contact Apple by phone, who will then arrange for collection of the device, which will be repaired and returned to the user, all of which seems like an inordinate amount of good will.
Apple CEO Tim Cook offered positive words of advice for LGBT youth at the 2018 Loveloud festival over the weekend. Cook told everyone in attendance they were a gift to the world, and that it was important for everyone to find, speak, and live their own truths, saying that although things could be hard, and that life could seem unreasonable, things will get better.
The Verge has a really great primer on Apple’s issues [attempting to compete in India](The Verge). The numbers aren’t looking great for a market that Apple expected to show great promise; out of 60 million feature phones and smartphones, Apple devices accounted for less than 2%, with under one million iPhones sold in the first half of this year. It’s an interesting problem from an economic standpoint, with various market considerations that make it difficult for Apple to make an impact.
Estimates of Apple Watch sales say Apple shipped 3.5 million devices in Q2 this year, which is significant due to Q2 being the worst quarter Apple had last year. It definitely seems as though the Apple Watch Series 3 is more popular than its predecessor, with analytics company Canalys attributing the increased sales due to partnerships with telcos in Asia and Australia.
So, what’s next for the Apple Watch? It’s incredible that the form factor for the Apple Watch has stayed the same — it’s pretty wild to think about the kind of decision-making Apple had to do to settle on this form factor, especially if they knew it was going to be used for years to come. Now that staple features like GPS and LTE are present and accounted for, what else can Apple realistically add to entice new buyers?
AppleInsider takes a look at Sparkle, the web design and development app for the Mac that they’re calling the spiritual successor to iWeb. The aim for Sparkle is to make it easy for anyone to create a professional-looking website, with a great Mac app that ticks most of the web-design boxes with an easy-to-use layout.
Motherboard says thinner and lighter laptops have screwed us over when it comes to performance. Of course, it’s mostly Apple’s fault — not only did the company define the ultrabook category, recent Mac laptops have struggled with the kinds of thermal workloads we’re throwing at them. I’m not saying it’s time to bring out the PowerBook G5 parody again, but I’m not saying it’s not time, either.
Something that could have been in this week’s Good Reads but wasn’t due to space considerations was some great analysis from Neil Cybart on Apple’s current strategy. The company is figuring out what’s next — it likely already knows the iPhone won’t continue to represent two-thirds of its current revenue forever, so they’re working on the next big thing.