Tuesday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/10/tuesday-morning-news041016/
image-block-holdforce-ps-1x_r1The iPad lineup is currently all over the place. It’s been about a year since the 12.9-inch iPad Pro was released, and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has only been out since March. Meanwhile, the iPad mini hasn’t been updated for about a year. Rumours say there will be a 10.5-inch iPad Pro to replace the 9.7-inch model, with the iPad mini also getting the Pro name and features, as well as a refresh of the 12.9-inch model, all slated to happen around Spring next year.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple Watch sales will be down this year, despite Apple releasing new Series 2 models as well as the fitness-oriented Nike models. Kuo’s predictions put Apple Watch shipments at 8.5-9 million units, compared to last year’s 10.5 million units.

Spoken editions of many publications are now available in iTunes, giving people who want to catch up on news the chance to do so while also doing something else. They’re found in the podcast section of iTunes, and you’ll be able to listen to content from Slate, TechCrunch, Reuters, Gizmodo, and The Intercept.

Apple’s Angela Ahrendts has had her title updated, reflecting Apple’s simplification of retail operations. Now just the Senior Vice President of Retail, Ahrendts’ responsibilities for strategy, real estate, development, and operations of Apple’s physical stores and online hasn’t changed, but her title has.

The third developer beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.1 has been released to developers, with no known changes at this time.

Speaking at the Utah Technology Council, Apple CEO Tim Cook has reiterated Apple’s continued commitment to encryption and privacy protections for its customers, according to MacRumors who cite local media sources. Speaking to attendees, Cook said that “We believe the only way to protect both your privacy and safety from a cyberattack is to encrypt”.

Mophie has launched its range of iPhone 7 battery cases, which are a little different than normal. Instead of just strapping a battery to their case, Mophie’s modular Hold Force accessories let you choose between different attachments depending on your use case. There’s a battery attachment, sure, but also one that holds all of your cards and cash, as well as a more folio-style wallet.

The Mac Observer says that evidence is mounting that Apple will switch Macs from Intel to ARM. It’s entirely possible, but I don’t think it will happen — it has the possibility to break more than it will fix.

There’s a new Twelve South product out, and this time, it’s a hand-poured soy candle that smells exactly like a new Mac. Yeah, you read that right.

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What a time to be alive.

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If Apple movies to ARM I never buy another Mac again. It’s really that simple.

It’ll cost Apple an arm… and leg…

Pretty much correct.

Dear god that’s an ugly looking solution. I get that it’s supposed to be removeable and all, but wow that plug is HUUUUUGE!

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As someone who is not particularly wed to a CPU instruction set (I’ve been at home using Alpha, SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, x86, …), I’d be interested to see what could come of a modern ARM based personal computer. Considering the A10 seems to be going toe to toe with i5s for certain tasks and just how many cores could Apple cram into the same die space and power envelope of an i7?

A 32 core laptop anyone? The push a while ago for things like Grand Central Dispatch would help out a lot with thread scheduling to actually take advantage of all those cores.

Sure, people that require Windows for some reason, or other commercial software that won’t have an ARM build in a while, but plenty of people live in a Free Software world where an ARM build is just a compile away.

Unless of course it’s all about … zOMG lockdown! In which case, I’ve got news for you as to just how “open” an x86 PC is these days.