Thursday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/05/thursday-morning-news310518/

Analysts say it would be difficult for Apple to switch to an all-OLED iPhone lineup in 2019 as previously rumoured. Not only would such a switch make iPhones more expensive overall, but with OLED yields as they are, it’s unlikely Apple would get the kind of volume they need to have every new iPhone come with an OLED display. If the rumours are true, it’s possible Apple is being a little ambitious with this one.

Elena Segal is Apple’s new Global Director of Music Publishing, following a promotion from her previous role of Director of iTunes International by Apple Music’s new global operations chief Oliver Schusser, who was himself recently promoted from his role of Vice President of iTunes International back in April. It’s not known why Apple would want to get into the music publishing business, but MacRumors speculates this may be more of a PR-type role that will lend itself to discover and build relationships with artists.

Apple’s SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts will be speaking at the Cannes Lions event in France late next month. She’ll be joined by Apple VP of Marketing Communications Tor Myhren, where the pair will talk about Apple’s vision for retail, the company’s ongoing investment in physical stores, and presumably other topics, including the successes Apple has had with programs like Today at Apple.

The New Zealand Commerce Commission has issued a sternly-written warning to Apple NZ about how it has “likely breached” sections of New Zealand’s Fair Trading Act. Specifically, the Commerce Commission thinks Apple misled consumers over their rights when it came to the warranty of third-party goods sold via Apple’s online store, which Apple has historically referred to the manufacturer of those goods for warranty purposes, and not taken responsibility for themselves. Interestingly, the Commerce Commission also appears to have taken up some stance against Apple’s claim that although the manufacturer warranty may only last for two years, consumer rights laws are not bound by time.

The first developer betas of iOS 11.4.1, tvOS 11.4.1, and watchOS 4.3.2 come a day after the release of the updates that we saw yesterday. From what I’m reading on Twitter, the launch of iOS 11.4 was not well received, with some users experiencing loss of iMessage threads even without enabling Messages in iCloud, with a restore from iCloud backup unable to resolve the issue. I have iTunes backups, but I might give this one a few days before upgrading.

But if you update to watchOS 4.3.1, you’ll get access to the new Pride watch face. For whatever reason, Apple are choosing to launch the Pride watch face at a specific time and day, but if you’re OK with changing the date on your Apple Watch, you can use it today.

I have no idea if Hue is what all the cool kids are using these days for HomeKit-enabled lighting, but version 3.0 of the Hue app has hit the App Store. There’s a bunch of new features and usability improvements in existing ones thanks to Philips listening to end users and consulting with experts, but someone who has Hue bulbs will have to tell me if it’s actually any good or not.

Retrobatch hit 1.0 yesterday, and if you want batch image processing on your Mac that can do a lot more than what you can accomplish with Automator, then Retrobatch is the app for you. Its powerful node-based workflow means you can combine actions to accomplish your end goals, with full metadata, transform, conversion, watermark, and a whole bunch of other operations available.

There are plenty of good apps for using time-based one-time passwords with two-factor authentication for many apps, including Authy and even 1Password, if you have a subscriber. Step Two is the latest such app, and I’m kind of a fan of its big interface, putting the codes front and centre when launched.

MacStories tells us how Apple can make iOS and the Mac more accessible. Consistency across both platforms is pretty much there, but there are still minor gaps with features from the Mac that iOS needs, and vice versa.

To make money and try to tie artists to only releasing through Apple Music would be my best guess