Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2018/08/tuesday-morning-news140818/
The seventh beta of iOS 12 was released briefly to developers today, but has since been pulled for performance issues. If Apple sorts out the noticeable pause when launching apps, perhaps we’ll see the update re-released to developers and given to public beta testers later today, otherwise we’ll just have to read about the changes. This late in the release cycle means only very minor tweaks, with one icon change and a new Messages splash screen explaining what some of the buttons do.
Just like a previous iOS release before it, Apple has confirmed they will be delaying at least one iOS 12 feature, with Group FaceTime needing a little more time in the oven before it is ready. The removal of Group FaceTime also affects the macOS Mojave beta. Given this isn’t the first time Apple has pre-announced a feature only to launch it later than expected, we are truly in an era where Apple continues to announce products and features before they’re ready.
If the rumours are to be believed, AirPower will launch in September alongside new iPhones, all of which will support wireless charging. Apple’s AirPower mat will also reportedly cost US $150, which might turn out to be closer to $200 on our side of the globe, which is an interesting price point. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, so we’ll have to wait and see if people are willing to fork out that much to be able to wirelessly charge up to three devices simultaneously.
A new report tells us that Apple is the leading appealer of tax assessments in its home county of Santa Clara in California, but can anyone blame them? I mean, Apple already pays $56 million in tax per year, the most out of any Santa Clara company, and you probably don’t get to being worth a trillion dollars by letting the government tell you how much your land is worth. No, you say that the properties around your major campus are worth $200, even when assessors claim they’re worth a billion dollars.
An American politician has ideas on how Apple could better spend its money than a $100 million share buyback. Ralph Nader claims Apple could increase the number of its employees, or put to any number of other uses, such as improving recycling practices for older devices, or even increasing dividends paid to shareholders.
If you want to consolidate all the images on your Mac into into one place, Macworld says you have a few different options to choose from, even if you don’t want to import everything into the one app and silo all your photos there. Lightroom and Photos can deal with referenced images outside of their own libraries, and you can even use Finder’s Smart Folders to copy everything elsewhere.
MacRumors tells you how to setup text message forwarding so you can use your iPad or Mac to send and receive SMS messages via your phone. While other iOS devices and Macs can deal with iMessages natively, if you have people who send you green bubbles on a regular basis and want to talk to them from other devices, you’ll need text message forwarding setup.
Gabe from Macdrifter tells us about his recent switch from GoodNotes to Notability for handwritten notes, whether that’s diagrams, text, or almost incomprehensible scribbles on virtual paper. While GoodNotes still does some things better than Notability, the other features and refinements of Notability give it the edge in the iPad note-taking app fight to the death.
Becky Hansmeyer thinks that the visual design of iOS has grown stale and is in need of an overhaul, and the Marzipan apps that Apple showed off at WWDC didn’t look like true Mac apps. For these two reasons, she speculates Apple is working on a significant design overhaul for iOS 13, which will address many of the issues people say they have with Marzipan apps as shown off at WWDC and from what we know now.
AppleInsider is back with another lengthy editorial, this time on something called value capture and how Apple are doing so well at it, although I’m not sure what the point of the piece is, or what point it’s trying to make. Is it poking fun at the other companies not doing as well, financially, as Apple? Making comparisons to other historically significant companies which aren’t all that relevant today outside of being cited as examples of how to do it (or not to do it, as the case may be)? I don’t know.