Tuesday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/07/tuesday-morning-news040717/

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has posted a new research note, in which he claims that Apple will remove Touch ID entirely from the next iPhone. While most of his predictions fall in line with what’s already been rumoured, Kuo’s claim that the iPhone will have the largest screen-to-body ratio of any smartphone currently available worldwide" is a bold one. I’m pretty sure there’s a certain Samsung flagship that owns that title, and the screen on those is pretty amazing.

Bloomberg seems to back up Kuo’s prediction of the removal of Touch ID in the next iPhone, saying that Apple may release an iPhone with 3D face scanning instead of Touch ID. While I’m sceptical that face scanning has the ability to work as reliably or as subtly as Touch ID, the supply chain is certainly suggesting that Apple are going to have issues integrating Touch ID beneath the display for this year’s iPhone.

The rest of Kuo’s predictions are tame by comparison. Kuo writes that the next iPhone will support wireless charging based on the WPC standard, of which Android’s Qi is a subset of, although the expectation is you’ll still need a standalone accessory to charge wirelessly. And while you’ll probably be able to use a USB-C power adapter for faster charging, the iPhone will likely ship with a USB-A power block, just like it has for the past ten years.

Apple is said to be investing in LG’s newest OLED plant, which is rumoured to be dedicated solely to Apple orders. While LG aren’t expected to start producing OLED displays for Apple until 2019, Apple’s investment of about US$2 billion will ensure supplier diversity for OLED parts going forward.

A video shows off the Apple Watch restore process using something called the “iBus tool”. By entering DFU mode on the Apple Watch, the iBus can then connect via the Apple Watch’s diagnostics port, at which point iTunes can pick it up and start the restore process, much like how you can restore an iPhone or iPad.

9to5Mac has tips on working with screenshots in iOS 11. The new markup tool appears when you tap on a screenshot thumbnail, but did you know you can take multiple screenshots to be annotated at the same time, or use keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots?

The hands-on with the social music discovery features in iOS 11 tells us about making friends, seeing their playlists, and then subscribing to playlists to get updates. Definitely seems like something you’d want to do with a close circle of friends as opposed to subscribing to stranger’s music playlists, but maybe your music tastes aren’t as eccentric as mine.

Gabe from Macdrifter tells us about making Drafts a true writing environment on the iPhone and iPad. It’s not just about doing distraction-free writing, but the extensibility of Draft’s engine means that you can capture text from pretty much any source, including via dictation and then export it to wherever it needs to go.

Just when you thought we were done with the iPhone anniversary celebration posts, this piece from Ars looks at the iPhone’s influence on medicine. There are apps for everything these days, and medicine is no exception, but even those only go so far. In the end, the consumer health and fitness applications might have the biggest impact.

Motherboard’s series of “what is the iPhone” also makes for some good reading. A few choice pieces include their post on love in the time of iMessage, and their post on iPhone repairability and the effect that has on the environment.

Last but not least this morning, there’s a post from Kontra who tells us about the bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline. In 2005, the iPhone was a huge bet, and I’m sure we’ll all agree that it paid off.