Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/01/thursday-morning-news050117/
A post from MacRumors published before the new year turned over tells us about what to expect from Apple this year. The first one is an easy one: we’ll undoubtedly see a new iPhone around August/September, but from there things start to get questionable due to Apple’s unpredictability in updating product lines of late. Still, there’s a good chance we’ll see an iPad Pro update this year, along with the iMac and MacBook. To avoid disappointment, it’s best to not expect anything and instead be pleasantly surprised when Apple do announce updates.
Rumours are already flying that this year’s iPhone refresh will include a “Jet White” version, which will probably be called something else as “Jet White” doesn’t really describe the shiny and polished finish that comes with the Jet Black iPhone. Maybe “Pure White”? “Snow White”? Now that’d be interesting.
Ars Technica reports a family in Texas has sued Apple for failing to prevent FaceTime usage when driving a vehicle. The case of Modisette versus Apple alleges Apple could have warned motorists against FaceTime usage or used patented motion-sensing technology to prevent FaceTime usage altogether when moving at speed. Apple’s statement on the matter says that ultimately, drivers are responsible for their behaviour.
A story from Bloomberg tells us the saga of Apple’s retail push into India, chronicling the sequence of events that has happened so far, despite the “horse-trading” resulting in any actual Apple stores opening in the country.
Apple has confirmed a $1 billion investment into the Softbank Vision Fund, a technology fund that Apple says will “help speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple”. SoftBank themselves (as in the Japanese telco) are investing $25 billion, and the Saudi Arabian government is investing $45 billion.
There’s not a lot of interesting stuff coming out of CES these days that isn’t completely unexpected, but OWC’s DEC expansion module adds a little thickness to your MacBook Pro for a few more ports and storage. There’s not a lot of photos of the DEC, but for an extra inch of thickness, you get up to 4TB of SSD storage, regular USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and an SD card slot.
It’s been a couple of months since the iPhone 7 was released, and yet I’m still finding 3D Touch to be one of the most useful features. I find the app-switching gesture a little awkward, but maybe if I force myself to use it I’ll get used to it.
Casey Liss experienced a magic moment using Apple’s AirPods to share the ringing in of the new year with a sleeping toddler in between himself and his wife, showing off the flexibility of truly wireless earbuds. On the other side of the fence, young boys will soon lament that AirPods mean girls aren’t as physically close to them as they would have been with wired earbuds.
Rob Griffiths shares some defaults write commands to speed up some animations on your Mac, which go a long way towards making things feel faster. While I’m all for more responsive computing, messing with the animation timings feels wrong somehow, and removing them altogether is kinda like removing some of the personality of OS X.
Nike and Apple have released a bunch of Nike+ ads starring Kevin Hart, and they’re all available on the Nike YouTube channel.