Tuesday Morning News

Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2018/12/tuesday-morning-news111218/

As part of the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, US tech giants including Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have issued a statement denouncing the Assistance and Access Bill. “The new Australian law is deeply flawed, overly broad, and lacking in adequate independent oversight over the new authorities”, the RGS says, urging the Australian government to promptly address these flaws when it reconvenes, as not doing so will undermine the cybersecurity, human rights, or the right to privacy of their collective users.

A new round of betas across all of Apple’s software platforms reminds us that despite the holiday season starting to ramp up, it’s business as usual for Apple’s software teams. The latest releases of iOS 12.1.2, tvOS 12.1.2, macOS 10.14.3, and watchOS 5.1.3 all have very tame release notes, with the releases largely targeted at bug fixes and performance improvements.

Qualcomm has gained an import ban on the iPhone 6s through to the iPhone X in China for violating two Qualcomm patents. The only thing is, I’m curious what happens when you decide to ban imports of a device that is manufactured locally. Nothing, apparently, given that Apple still says those devices are available for purchase, with Apple issuing a statement saying that “Qualcomm’s effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world”.

Despite AirPower still being a faint pipe dream, a new Apple patent tells us about a method to protect wireless communications between devices charging wirelessly. It’s this data transfer that powers the feature to let you know the charging status of other devices on the same charging mat, allowing you to see the charging status of your Apple Watch or AirPods on your iPhone.

Six Colors wants a way to temporarily disable Downtime. Similar to the more granular controls over Do Not Disturb, it might be nice if there was a way to temporarily disable Downtime for a set time period if you need to access a number of apps and don’t want to setup individual exceptions for them.

9to5Mac comments on the aggressive advertising in Apple Stores, with trade-in deals permeating both in-store and online. At least in the US, anyway — here in Australia we’re not subject to the same trade-in deals (compare the US and Australian Apple websites right now), so we don’t get the trade-in message. But in the US, trade-in messages have the potential to send the wrong message.

The state of the Apple Watch in 2018 is that it may be the most profitable accessory of all time, even by Apple standards. Not to mention the entire market of accessories for your accessory in the various first-party watch bands that are available for it. And with watchOS 5’s improved health, communication, and activity tracking features, the Apple Watch is in a good place.

Google is opening up recommendations in Google Maps for over 40 countries today on iOS, and over 130 countries on Android. For You is designed to give you personalised recommendations for new places to check out, whether you’re a foodie, wino, or whatever other interest you have.

M.G. Siegler has a somewhat negative review of the new iPad Pro. It’s not that he doesn’t like the 2018 iPad Pro, it’s that the external differences are stark enough to make the iPad Pro go from iPad-tablet, to tablet-tablet, even though it’s better in almost ever way otherwise. I believe utilitarian is the right word for it.

Have you ever wanted to learn HyperCard? Today’s you’re lucky day. The internet archive has a copy of a 1989 book that walks you through teaching yourself HyperCard, called Teach Yourself HyperCard. This being the internet archive, they’ve also emulated a Macintosh from that era that will let you accomplish all of the software-related tasks in-browser.

God I miss HyperCard…!

Lovely little emulator. Tried vMac or something but it got frustrating.

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