Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/05/thursday-morning-news190516/
Just when we were talking about the lack of country-specific Apple press releases yesterday, Apple comes out and announces a new iOS app design and development accelerator in Bengaluru, India, which aims to provide specialised support for India’s tens of thousands of iOS developers. While the iOS design and development accelerator won’t open until early next year, one-on-one app reviews will support Indian iOS developers in creating better iOS apps.
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s current tour of duty is in India, where he’s visiting local temples and attending meetings in Mumbai. Sources claim Cook will be travelling to Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Delhi in order to do meet-and-greets with VIPs in those areas, with the ultimate goal of establishing relationships in the country.
With LTE just around the corner for India’s telcos, Cook is also meeting with the heads of major carriers in order to form strategic partnerships which will hopefully see widespread adoption of the iPhone in the country. And it’s no surprise, seeing as Cook mentioned India as a key market for iPhone growth in the future, as well as for Apple to gain a foothold in the country.
A leaked screenshot of a colourful waveform dock icon brings speculation of always-on Siri in the next version of OS X. We can expect an announcement at WWDC this time next month, and there’s also a box with Siri in it in the menu bar, although at this stage everything you see is probably a work in progress, if not an outright Photoshop job.
In an attempt to track down the iTunes bug which has been deleting music, two senior Apple engineers went to James Pinkerstone’s house and installed a custom version of iTunes with better logging capabilities. The story doesn’t say they found anything entirely ground-breaking, but the fact that Apple is taking this issue seriously is something to take note of.
Apple has been granted a patent for a Touch ID sensor in the display, which 9to5Mac claims brings a bezel-free iPhone one step closer to reality. The patent for transparent fingerprint sensors means that Apple devices could lose the bezel on the device, giving larger screen sizes in more compact form factors.
ANZ has seen a 20% uptick in account applications after announcing Apple Pay, but even 61,000 visitors to ANZ’s Apple Pay website hasn’t been enough to sway the other banks from joining — at least, not yet. Of the remaining Big Four, an article over at the AFR says NAB has their own mobile payments for Android, and Westpac uses Samsung devices for mobile payments, leaving CBA the odd one out.
Intel is rumoured to be providing approximately half of the LTE modems for the next iPhone, with Apple apparently going ahead with a dual-supplier solution like it did with SoCs in the iPhone 6 a couple of years ago.
Twelve South’s BookBook product is now ready for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, with the much larger BookBook providing a book-like appearance on the outside and containing the largest iPad ever on the inside.
The Motherboard review of the iPhone SE says it’s the best phone for people that are in the market for a new phone and don’t want something huge.