Thursday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/05/thursday-morning-news260516/
Tesla-SuperchargerApple has been talking with charging station companies about their underlying infrastructure, prompting further rumours about what the company’s next big thing will be. But charging firms are having none of it, with charging companies treading carefully so as to not give away too many industry secrets to a company that could easily become their biggest competitor.

Apple was planning to open Retail locations in India, and it was planning to get an exemption from a rule saying foreign retailers must sell at least 30% locally-sourced goods if they wish to open stores in the country. India, however, appears to have other plans, denying Apple the exemption it was seeking.

Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has replaced 60,000 workers with robots at a single manufacturing facility, although it’s unclear whether those robots are currently used in the manufacture of any Apple products. While automation has benefits, the more human impact of all this is that the population of the area will decline in the long term.

A job listing from Apple says the company is looking to hire a lawyer with health privacy expertise. The move confirms that Apple will be continuing on their health push, which was largely inspired by Steve Jobs who believed technology could better the healthcare process.

You may remember the case of Error 53, which rendered devices inoperable after internal components were replaced with third-party alternatives. Although Apple quickly released iOS 9.2.1 to resolve the issue and had the lawsuit dismissed, plaintiffs have now pushed to keep the lawsuit alive, saying Apple’s reimbursement efforts so far have not been enough.

Singapore is the latest country to welcome Apple Pay, with five major banks getting on board the Apple Pay train and covering 80% of Visa and Mastercard holders in the country.

Hyundai will be releasing updated software for their cars that brings CarPlay support to models of the Elantra, Santa Fe, and others.

Apple has updated the Safari Technology Preview to release 5, and while I’m not sure how the version numbering works for the technology preview, it’s the fifth release so far and comes two weeks after the previous one. Soon we’ll be past Firefox and Chrome levels, where version numbers don’t matter.

The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple has a tip on “loving” your favourite iTunes tracks in Apple Music in one fell swoop.

Over at The Verge, Walt Mossberg wonders if Apple has what it takes to stay on top in the upcoming tech wars.