Now that we’ve all had a chance to shoot through Apple’s release notes for the iOS 9.3 beta, MacRumors has a roundup of the new features. New 3D Touch quick actions have been introduced for a number of Apple’s own apps, allowing easier access to things such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings, while the new Night Shift mode cuts down on the amount of sleep-impeding blue light emitted by your iPhone at night. The Apple Watch app can now automatically switch between any paired Apple Watch, which means you can start joking about your day and night Apple Watches any time now.
Apple’s education focus for iOS 9.3 was linked to from the main iOS 9.3 preview page, but it’s worth talking about due to the changes it brings. Of course, there’s the shared devices feature that allows students to make any iPad their own, but other management features and tools make it easier than ever to manage an iPad rollout at schools.
Telsa CEO Elon Musk has gone on the record as saying that Apple’s electric car project is now an “open secret”. While the Tesla chief brushed off questions about whether Apple’s electric car would be a threat to Tesla, he said that he believed Apple was serious about the project and welcomed competition, saying that Apple would develop compelling alternative because it’s the right thing to do.
After a rumour claimed Apple was making a tool to make it easier for users to switch away from the iPhone, Apple has since cleared the air by confirming to BuzzFeed that it is not working on such a tool. The rumour originally came about due to mounting pressure from European telcos, who said that people rarely switched away from the iPhone because Apple made it purposefully difficult to.
Another rumour claims Apple will be investing in Taiwanese display manufacturer AU Optronics, in a bid to make the company a future supplier for AMOLED displays in future iPhones.
VLC has launched on the new Apple TV, with the goal of the app being the same universal media player that is is on all platforms. MacStories has first impressions of the app, which can play content from a variety of different sources including Plex servers, although you don’t get the same Plex features as you would by using Plex’s own media browser/player. Still, being able to play content from streams seems like a strong feature that I’m sure people will do some pretty cool stuff with.
Rogue Amoeba’s latest app is Loopback, a Mac app that’s designed to make audio routing easy. Whether you’re combining hardware devices into one input or playing music to all your podcast guests, Loopback is one of those tools that would be invaluable if you do a lot with audio or sound production.
Over at Macworld, Kirk McElhearn takes a look at 15 years of iTunes.
The Mac Observer tells us about the Bluetooth debug menu that lives in the Bluetooth menu bar item.
TechCrunch shows us what notifications look like when you have 8 million followers on Instagram. I’m actually a little impressed Apple’s push notification servers and the iPhone can handle the sheer volume of notifications without breaking a sweat.
Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/01/wednesday-morning-news130116/