The Intercept brings us the news of an Apple victory in the courts, but this isn’t the Apple versus FBI victory that you were looking for. Instead, a New York judge has ruled the law does not “justify imposing on Apple the obligation to assist the government’s investigation against its will”. It’s a case that’s very similar to the current one connected to the San Bernardino shooting, with a similar inaccessible iPhone and the US Government filing for Apple to assist under the All Writs Act.
Rumour has it the smaller iPad Pro (or what would have been the standard-sized iPad Air successor, whatever you want to call it) may have an even better camera than its larger-sized sibling. 9to5Mac writes it’s possible the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will come with a 12 megapixel camera capable of 4K video capture, which seems to be on the spec sheet of any smartphone manufacturer these days — Apple’s smaller iPad Pro would be one of the first tablets to join those ranks.
Over in the iPhone section of the house, it’s claimed the new iPhone will be just 1mm thinner than its predecessor, with a flush rear camera, and an overall design reminiscent of the current iPhone 6/6s. There’s also going to be stereo speakers and a thinner Lightning port, according to Macotakara.
Although unlikely for a number of different reasons, it’s also possible that the larger iPhone will be renamed to be the “iPhone Pro”. With analyst Ming-Chi Kuo firmly believing Apple will split the lineup into models with a single camera and models with dual cameras, I guess anything is possible with regards to the name, but wouldn’t an iPhone Pro need to have other features rather than just dual cameras?
Apple has seeded the fifth beta of iOS 9.3 to developers, and interestingly enough, it’s the first time members of Apple’s public beta testing program have received the beta at the same time. It suggests that we’ll see a public release of iOS 9.3 soon enough, perhaps as soon as next week before the Apple event later this month.
Apple has also seeded the fifth beta of OS X 10.11.4 to developers and public beta testers, again going down the same route of simultaneous releases.
Not wanting to be left out of the party, there have also been new developer betas of tvOS 9.2 and watchOS 2.2, but these have not been released to public beta test members as yet.
Apple has patented magnetically-detachable wireless earbuds for the iPhone, detachable in the sense that you’ll be able to uncouple them from whatever they plug into (either to charge or provide an alternate method of connecting to the iPhone). It’s possible this is all part of Apple’s master plan to obsolete the 3.5mm headphone jack.
The LMcable on Kickstarter looks to be an Aussie invention which combines a Lightning cable and Micro USB in the one cable. It doesn’t use a janky adapter or anything like that, instead using the two interfaces on the one end, utilising the reversible nature of Lightning to allow the other side to be used for Micro USB. With all that aside, here’s the catch: it doesn’t appear to be MFi-certified, and the Kickstarter has raised $63,000 out of its original $5,000 goal, meaning that shipping delays are sure to follow as per the inverse law of Kickstarter which states the more a project blows past its goal, the more delayed the final product will be — if it delivers at all.
An upcoming PlayStation 4 update will soon let you stream your games to a PC or a Mac, which is good news for those of you that need to share a TV with your family members/room mates.
Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/03/wednesday-morning-news020316/