Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/07/thursday-morning-news260718/
If you’ll recall, Apple is rumoured to be releasing three iPhones this year. Two will have OLED displays in 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch sizes, while the third will be a 6.1-inch LCD version, with all sporting the same edge-to-edge display design as the iPhone X. Now analysts are claiming Apple will possibly delay the release of the middle sized LCD iPhone by one month due to suspected manufacturing issues to do with backlight bleed.
Results of a voice assistant comparison test say that while Siri has made significant improvements, there’s still plenty of work to be done before it catches up to the likes of Google Assistant. Siri’s correct answer rate for hundreds of questions across different domains was 66% last year, with this year’s number jumping to 78.5%, with 99% of the questions being understood correctly. Google Assistant, by comparison, understood all the questions and correctly answered 85%.
For all of its advantages, such as enabling hardware encryption, allowing always-on Hey Siri support, and securing boot processes, Apple’s T2 chip may be causing other issues for owners of the 2018 MacBook Pro and iMac Pro. Unfortunately, random kernel panics result in those machines shutting down without warning, and logs point to Bridge OS, used by the T2 chip, as the culprit.
So far in 2018 we’ve seen new MacBook Pros and the release of the iMac Pro earlier in the year. But what about the rest of Apple’s lineup? Macworld’s Jason Snell wonders what’s left for the Mac this year, and whether we’ll see updates to other Macs, portable or otherwise.
AppleInsider plays devils advocate this morning, questioning the lack of innovative hardware from Apple to rival Microsoft’s Surface. While the Surface is owning the laptop/tablet hybrid space, we’re worrying about dust in our keyboards and missing digital signatures. That’s not saying that the Surface doesn’t have its own issues, or that other Apple product categories already post numbers far and above the Surface lineup, but it’s almost worrying.
Whenever you read about a new or revamped Apple Store that has the new look and feel, it’s hard to miss a mention of Apple’s plan for Apple Stores to become town squares. This plan for Apple Stores to become new public spaces is a complex issue, with various societal aspects to consider in amongst the controversy of bringing consumerism to open spaces.
New Do Not Disturb options in iOS 12 can be put into either improvements to notifications or a new tool in the digital health arsenal, but the idea is that by giving you more options for making your device less distracting by quieting notifications, you can focus more on the people around you when you’re at a social event, or at least until you leave.
The debut of Nike Training Club on the Apple Watch gives new workout options for active people. Guided sessions help you through your workout, acting as a more portable companion to the full app on iPhone.
Joe Shelton was the first product manager for the original Mac, and over at Business Insider, he tells us what it was like to work within the famed “reality distortion field” of Steve Jobs. There was just something about Jobs that made his justifications for crazy things, like the 128K limitation for code, seem so right.
Apple’s latest ad for the iPhone X tells us about the power of the A11 Bionic chip, especially when used for gaming.