Thursday Morning News

Apple’s Back to School promo went live yesterday. Until March 21st, the purchase of any eligible Mac will come with a pair of Beats Solo2 wired headphones, with the option of upgrading to the wireless version if you pay the $140 difference. All Mac products besides the Mac mini and refurb machines are eligible for the promotion, and if you were in the market for a new Mac anyway, the free headphones are a pretty good deal. As always, you can support AppleTalk by shopping via our Apple Online Store affiliate link.

If the only change Apple makes to the design of the iPhone is having a rear camera that’s flush with the casing, I will be happy. But that’s not all they’re planning, according to MacRumors, who also says Apple is removing the antenna bands across the rear.

Apple lost a court case in the UK and has since removed claims the Apple Watch display is impact resistant, with 9to5Mac pointing out that while the sapphire glass display of the Apple Watch and Edition models is more scratch-resistant than that of the Apple Watch Sport, it’s just as likely to crack.

Apple has hired two security researchers who revealed a security exploit which ran on the Thunderbolt platform, in an effort to bolster security on Apple’s Mac and iOS platforms.

With the Apple Watch launching in Greece, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar next week, it seems insane to think Apple would release a new model of Apple Watch next month. Possible, of course, but pretty insane.

The New York Landmarks Conservancy has recognised Apple for their work in preserving historic NYC buildings. Apple’s SoHo, West 14th Street, Upper East Side, and Grand Central Terminal locations all being called out for being restored in line with their original heritage, “marrying modern technology with distinguished architecture”.

Accessory manufacturing company Zagg (you probably know them for their InivisibleShield product) has acquired Mophie, better known for external battery cases. Zagg has since branched out into the world of keyboards and other accessories, and with the acquisition, will be looking to take over the third-party accessory market.

Ben Brooks isn’t a fan of cute release notes, but as someone who doesn’t read release notes due to doing app updates from iTunes, I can’t say I agree or disagree either way.

Walt Mossberg writes Apple’s own apps have lacked a little something in recent times, both on the Mac and iOS. Software quality aside, he says notable apps such as Mail, Photos, and iTunes have been more evolution than revolution.

If you’re waiting for the excellent puzzler The Witness to come to the Mac or iOS, you might be waiting a little longer. Developer Jonathan Blow has put the call out for a developer who’s interested in doing the majority of the work porting the title to iOS, which probably means it’s about six months before we’ll hear anything concrete.


Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/02/thursday-morning-news040216/

I’m not as passionate as Ben on this, but I don’t like it when I go to read what’s changed and all it says is “bug fixes.” That’s just pure laziness and unhelpful.

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Even worse is “we update the app every two weeks”.

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Just on this, I for one hate the current trend of not actually writing anything about what has changed in the release notes - simply saying (looking at you Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest amongst have others) that you bring new updates to the App Store every _ weeks. Just tell me what you have updated!