Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/10/thursday-morning-news051017/
Apple has released an update to watchOS. Version 4.0.1 fixes an issue experienced by early reviewers of the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE, where the device would take upwards of a few minutes to find and LTE signal once it was out of range of the paired iPhone. Apple said a future software update would fix the issue, and this is that software update — although whether the issue is fixed or not remains to be seen — we’ll have to wait for everyone’s Apple Watch to upgrade before we’ll be able to tell for sure.
Despite there being no customary confirmation from Apple, the startup Init.ai has been acquired by Apple to work on a project that touches countless people across the world, a project we know as Siri. Just six people worked at the startup, and they’ll now be taking their expertise on parsing and automating customer interactions to one of the biggest AI projects in the world.
Estimates put the total cost of building Apple Park at US $5 billion, making it a contender for the fourth most expensive building in the world. Building permits of Apple’s spaceship campus have now revealed the lowest possible cost for every building, and while the spaceship itself cost US $427 million, the mostly-underground Steve Jobs Theatre was no slouch either, coming in at almost US $180 million.
Three more reports of swollen batteries in the iPhone 8 series, while concerning, still isn’t cause for comment despite the screen assembly separating from the rear housing. With millions of devices sold, a total of less than ten reports is still well within acceptable limits for the industry, although Apple might have something to say about the failure rate for their products.
Apple has announced it will be removing certain sub-categories from the App Store. The catalog, as well as the game-related dice and educational categories are the ones slated to go, and while no reason is given for the change, however I guess there just aren’t as many dice apps as there used to be.
Maybe instead of a dice category, we need an AR category instead? A free new AR app called Chalk is kind of like videoconferencing, only you can draw on your screen and have it appear on the other person’s screen. Great for the kind of remote support that you might need if you’re trying to fix a part on your tractor, for example, and the app even includes audio, just like a FaceTime call.
Speaking of AR, Graphmented is another impressive AR app that recognise printed spreadsheets and can graph them for you in AR space. There’s a lot of impressive things going on in their demo video, from the spreadsheet surface detection, quick and accurate OCR, and then the generation of the graph itself.
The Mac Observer has a great APFS FAQ, in case you were wanting to know more about the technical details of Apple’s latest filing system. If you’ve formatted a drive to APFS, you’re probably wondering why it needs a container, and how that differs from a partition on the disk itself.
Inspired by the screenshot markup tools in iOS 11, Josh Parnham’s Shotbox for macOS is all about editing and sharing your screenshots with ease. It uses the built-in system keyboard shortcuts to detect when you’ve taken a screenshot, and from there, you can easily edit, share, or delete your screenshot. Another great example of an Aussie app.
Sonos announced their Sonos One earlier this morning, and the only reason it’s being featured in the news is because Sonos also announced the One would be compatible with AirPlay 2 next year. Whether that means it’ll work like Apple’s HomePod still remains to be seen, but for those wanting compatibility with future Apple products, you can now safely buy Sonos without having to worry.