Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2018/10/tuesday-morning-news231018/
Although reviews of the iPhone XR aren’t quite out yet, Engadget has a great piece on the iPhone XR that includes an interview with Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller. Schiller confirms that Apple doesn’t assign any specific meaning to the letters, but his personal take on it is that the S and R in this year’s iPhone X revisions are like the letters used to denote special models of sports cars. And like those special models of sports cars, the iPhone XR brings most of the tech of the iPhone XS to everyone at a slightly lower price point and in a range of bright new colours.
Apple’s redesigned jobs portal tells us about the company’s core values when it comes to working at Apple. From innovation at every role at Apple, to sharing ideas and learning from everyone and collaborating on hard problems, Apple’s business practices speak for themselves — whether that’s Apple’s approach to the environment, their commitment to the ongoing privacy and security of its customers, or the benefits granted to employees that allow everyone to share in Apple’s success via discounted stock.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Europe this week ahead of his speech later this week at the European Data Protection Conference in Brussels, and he’s been sharing some of what he’s been doing on his Twitter account, summarised by MacRumors. He’s been meeting with AR app developers in Berlin, filmmakers shooting films on an iPhone in France, and even visited the offices of Foodadvisor in Paris.
The fifth developer betas of iOS 12.1, watchOS 5.1, and tvOS 12.1 are now out, with public betas of the same also being available. If I had to speculate, I’m guessing we’ll see these right around the time of Apple’s event next week, to coincide with new iPad Pros and whatever else Apple decides to unveil.
TechCrunch discusses the accessibility of the Apple Watch Series 4, saying that it’s the most accessible version yet thanks to the larger display. Although it’s the most accessible watch ever, it still has room for improvement, and it’s interesting to see the same pain points — the Infograph and Infograph Modular watch faces — as regular folks have, as well as concerns regarding iPhone packaging.
And by now, you’ll know that the Apple Watch is far from a necessity. It’s a nice-to-have, whether you take advantage of its fitness and activity tracking features, use it to communicate with friends and family, or just get your notifications without having to pull out your iPhone. But it’s ambitious, and that’s starting to show with the direction Apple are taking it.
The Mac Observer says there’s plenty to like about the Apple Watch Series 4, including how fast it is, the battery life you get out of it, as well as the new watch faces and redesigned display. That said, their main gripe is probably similar to what some people have, which is a lack of true customisation — in this case, a lack of seconds displayed on many digital time watch faces.
Now that iOS 12 lets you use the iOS 12 keyboard to control text cursor position, every device capable of running iOS 12 gets it, regardless of whether it supports 3D Touch or not. A nice touch, given the iPhone XR has no 3D Touch.
MG Siegler writes that despite opting for the iPhone XS Max, he actually prefers the regular XS size. Even though the extra display size was nice, and he was able to use all of it thanks to Reachability, feature parity across both models means there’s less to draw prospective owners towards the iPhone with the largest display ever.
AppleInsider has the story of Aperture, Apple’s pro-photo management and editing app that invented an entire category of photography apps, only to later cede that crown to Adobe Lightroom, with the final update from Apple on their pro-level photo app recommending users switch to Lightroom.
