Wednesday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/03/wednesday-morning-news290317/

The security content of iOS 10.3 isn’t particularly exciting reading, but gives you an idea of the kinds of “bug fixes” that have some sort of real-world impact. CVEs are referenced to give you a sense of common security issues and vulnerabilities, and of particular note is CVE-2017-2384, which would have allowed a local user to discover websites visited using Private Browsing. Apple improved SQLite cleanup in order to address this issue.

Apple’s support document on how to reinstall macOS has some important changes. It seems that Command+R is the only sanctioned way to start macOS Recovery, but doesn’t seem to specify whether that’s from the recovery partition or internet recovery. There are now other keyboard combos that let you either upgrade to the latest version of macOS that is compatible with your Mac, or reinstall the version that came with your Mac or the closest still-available version.

Apple now allows developers to respond to App Store reviews, which allows more communication between developers and their users. Apple’s page for developers has a few guidelines for developers responding to App Store reviews, written in clear, concise language with the intent of developers providing the highest customer experience possible. How this will all pan out is anyone’s guess, but it’s probably a step in the right direction.

Now that Apple has released everything in their beta cycle, it’s time for a new set of betas. We know almost nothing about iOS 10.3.2, macOS Sierra 10.12.5, watchOS 3.2.2, or tvOS 10.2.1, but you can put money on the fact that there will be bug fixes and performance improvements galore.

MacOS 10.12.4 introduces Night Mode, which according to Apple reduces the amount of blue light emitted by your display before you go to bed, in the hopes that you’ll get a better night’s sleep. But comparing Apple’s Night Shift to f.lux, a f.lux developer says that Night Shift doesn’t reduce the amount of blue light by nearly as much as f.lux does, and it’s a little more complicated than just changing the colour of the light.

It’s widely theorised Apple will soon be disallowing 32-bit apps to run on iOS, perhaps as soon as iOS 11. With iOS 10.3 now allowing you to identify your 32-bit apps, it may be time to start looking elsewhere. On my own iPhone, Pastebot, Fieldrunners 2, Consume, and even Apple’s own Trailers app have no updates available.

The iOS 10.3 feature to allow icon changes for your apps is already out in the wild. The MLB At Bat app now lets you change the icon to your favourite team, and Streaks lets you choose from over 30 different colour combos on the default Streaks icon. If you’ve seen or heard of any other apps that let you change the icon, I’d love to hear about them.

MacRumors tells us about a questionable rumour that says Siri will soon be upgraded with the ability to chain queries and offering different actions based on context. It would mean that two major Siri gripes would be resolved in one fell swoop, although I’m sure people would still be complaining that Siri doesn’t understand them.

A supply-chain rumour claims the Apple Watch will also be upgraded with an LTE connection, with all future iPhones implementing some sort of hybrid USB-C and Lightning charging, which all doesn’t seem to outside the realm of possibility.

Despite Apple’s interest in AR and the rumour of AR eyewear, any potential product launch is still over a year. But the possibilities are interesting to think about — will Apple be launching Google Glass in a different form?

1 Like

Consume! Wow I haven’t thought of that app in a very long time.

I look forward to the AFL (/Telstra) supporting app icon changes in time for the 2020 season!

The NHL app also allows icon changes to your favourite team.

Me neither, they stopped development yonks ago so I sought alternatives. Didnt find one that was any good. Damnation.

As an aside, I like f.lux