Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/03/thursday-morning-news160317/
The Australian banking cartel that want access to contactless payments on the iPhone have called Apple Pay alternatives “unrealistic” in the Australian market. As reported by ZDNet, the latest submission to the ACCC from the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB, and Bendigo and Adelaide banks, say that Android Pay and non-NFC payment technologies are unrealistic in Australia, “which has the world’s highest adoption of contactless NFC card payments and one of the world’s highest iPhone market shares, particularly among customers likely to use mobile payments”. It’s almost as if the banks recognise that people want Apple Pay, and not whatever they’re selling, but don’t want consumers to have access to the former without the latter.
MacRumors has another post on upcoming iPads, but there’s a lot of uncertainty over exactly what products will be updated, or when they will be announced. The general consensus appears to be that both the 9.7 and 12.9-inch iPads will be updated, along with the introduction of a new 10.5-inch iPad. The iPad lineup update rumours closely mirror iPhone rumours, with both the 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones getting minor updates compared to the 5.8-inch iPhone.
Speaking of the new iPhone, the rumour blogs are still flip-flopping on whether the brand new model will have a curved display or not. Previous rumours claimed it would, rumours from earlier in the week said it would not, and now we’re back to curved again. This time around, the Nikkei Asian Review says the curved display on the upcoming iPhone will be gentler than the on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, likely due the difficulty associated with curved glass covers.
Meanwhile, AppleInsider claims it’s unlikely Apple would ditch Touch ID to rely solely on a facial recognition technique, at least not in this year’s iPhone. The introduction of facial recognition would need to be as reliable as Touch ID for it to become the complete replacement, and as everyone with wet fingers knows, Touch ID isn’t always as reliable as it could be.
New Apple Stores are on the way, with Apple Store numbers 491, 492, and 493 being Nanjing Jinmao in Nanjing, China, Schildergasse in Cologne, Germany, and Brickell City Centre in Miami, USA. Brickell City Centre is set to be the largest Apple Store in Miami, and all stores are set to open by the end of the month.
Motherboard has photos of an iPhone calibration machine. Not much is known about the device, but it does have markings to calibrate the iPhone camera and screen. The machine is also connected to a computer that can allow Touch ID units to be replaced on the device, something only Apple can do if you want your new Touch ID home button to work correctly.
An iOS 11 lockscreen concept attempts to minimise notification chrome and put the focus on the content, but I feel as though it looks a little confused, and not in line with Apple’s current design standards. I’m also not sure Apple would consider updating icon badges to give a little more information.
MacStories tells us about the email management features in Spark for macOS, which include labels for organising emails that are already supported by some email services, such as Gmail.
9to5Mac says many Apple Watch problems that revolve around the slow transfer of data to the Watch could be solved by adding mobile data, but I think that adds more problems than it solves. Mobile data is great and all, but it’s also a major drain on battery life if left on all the time, like it is in the iPhone.
There’s a rare Apple-I headed to auction in May, and it’s perhaps one of 50-60 of the machines designed in 1976 by Steve Wozniak that still exist. There’s a good chance it will go for as much as half a million, if you’re interested.