Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/08/tuesday-morning-news010817/
A lawsuit involving Apple deliberately disabling FaceTime on older iPhones cannot be dismissed by the court. Judge Lucy Koh ruled over the weekend that Apple consciously made the decision to disable FaceTime on devices running anything other than iOS 7 and above, which meant that iPhone 4 and 4S users had no choice but to upgrade. According to Ars, Apple told consumers that FaceTime not working was due to a certificate expiring, when in fact it had to do with their ongoing legal battle with VirnetX, which was costing them licensing fees.
The Australian Financial Review says Apple are looking at renewable energy in Australia, but has no solid plans at this time. Appleās Lisa Jackson, Senior Vice President of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives said Apple was considering all options to reduce its carbon footprint in Australia, with the AFR pointing out that Apple was already 100% renewable in Australia, by purchasing its power from renewable energy sources from existing retailers.
As it turns out, the HomePod firmware had a little more to tell us. Thereās a framework for infrared face detection (which means itāll also work in the dark), as well as a glyph representing the new shape of the iPhone which all but confirms the design weāve seen before: a bezel-less display with a notch at the top for the earpiece and sensors. Thereās also no Home button on the front, but it remains to be seen whether Apple will ditch Touch ID entirely.
Not only that, but the HomePod firmware also tells us a little more about the HomePod itself. HomePod devices will have 1GB of RAM and a decidedly low-res 272x340 display, which is the same res as an Apple Watch. Itās still unknown why the HomePod requires iPhone 6-era hardware to power a speaker, given that itās basically a glorified speaker, but I guess it does have to run Siri.
The latest numbers say Spotify has 60 million paying subscribers, far above Apple Musicās 27 million. Not only that, but Spotify is also reportedly dipping a toe in the traditionally Apple-dominated space of podcasts, starting with promoting podcasts in ads and seeing where things go from there.
The Sweet Setup says Bear is the best note-taking app for iPhone and iPad. Bear is taking a subscription approach to revenue generation, and at $15 a year, looks to be worth the cost if youāre after a functional, cross-platform app that supports various export features thatās a bit of a step above Appleās own Notes.
Thereās got to be a pretty small intersection of people that read this blog, people in NSW, Australia, and people that are interested in real-time prices of petrol at stations near them, but if that sounds like you, Petty from Zach Simone might be worth checking out. Iām interested in the real-time aspect ā apparently this is just a thing that happens in NSW?
Former Google VP Vic Gundotra has said that if you truly care about great photography, you own an iPhone. The ex-VP of Social took to Facebook to tell the story of the time he left his professional camera at home, also alluding to how behind Google/Android was in the area of photography, due to the open-source nature of the mobile OS.
Microsoft has decided to shut down its Word Flow keyboard. The company is pointing existing users to SwiftKey, the other keyboard app owned by Microsoft. Honestly, the biggest news in all of this is that there are people still using third-party keyboards on iOS.
Appleās latest ad is a teaser for their upcoming Carpool Karaoke series, which premieres exclusively on Apple Music on August 8.
