Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/05/wednesday-morning-news100517/
Apple has issued media invites to the WWDC Keynote, which we now know happens at June 5th, at 10am. That’s 3am the following day for us Australians, and while Apple hasn’t announced a livestream of the event for all of us that can’t make it in person, there’s a good chance we won’t have to follow along with liveblogs like years gone by. Oh, and we know almost nothing about what Apple are going to announce less than a month out from the event.
Ming-Chi Kuo writes that there’s a “rising probability” of a worst-case scenario for iPhone shortages. Major hardware upgrades are what holds Apple back, which could end up impacting shipments by as much as 20 million units. There’s a decent chance that Apple will ramp production of the new iPhone in October or November, compared to the usual launch ramp period of August-September.
Wired’s review of the 2017 iPad tells us about a device that’s neither as Pro as the iPad Pro, nor strictly speaking, necessary when you have a smartphone. But despite all of that, the new iPad is a nice device to have, whether you’re just mindlessly tapping around the web, watching movies or TV, or playing some casual puzzler. And the price makes it a much more palatable purchase, too.
But corners had to be cut somewhere, which makes it curious that the 2017 iPad does not support always-on “Hey Siri”. Even though the new iPad has the M9 chip found on the iPhone 6s and iPhone SE — both of which support always-on Hey Siri — a note in the Settings page says Hey Siri is only supported when the device is connected to power.
There’s a Harry Styles documentary coming to Apple Music starting May 15th, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the artist’s first solo album. Harry Styles: Behind the Album will be an Apple Music exclusive, contributing in some way to Apple’s overall original content strategy for the platform.
An overnight refresh of Apple Stores is slated to happen on the night of May 16. 9to5Mac claims the refresh will incorporate elements of the all-new design of stores that have already been completely overhauled, likely for shopping-centre stores that aren’t able to go all-out and completely reinvent the space they use to include rows of trees, tables with power sockets that rise out from the top when you wave you hand, that kind of thing.
An update to iShows now lets you see where you can watch a particular TV series. Tapping the new “Watch Now” button lets you choose where to stream, rent, or buy the episode you’re looking for, which comes in handy when you’re not such which of the umpteen streaming services you subscribe to has the episode available.
The Mac Observer lets us know about a bug affecting Windows machines transferring files with non-English characters to iPhones and iPads running iOS 10.3. Luckily, the workaround is simply to rename the file to remove those errant characters before transferring.
Jean-Louis Gasée writes about the failure of the Mac Pro. He says although Apple are to be applauded for deciding something needed to be done, they offered too few details on what they’re going to be working on as the replacement, but maybe in the end that won’t matter, as long as the idea is there.
Late last month, AppleInsider published a lengthy editorial on the Apple Watch and the future of wearables. Given Apple’s latest financials show that the Apple Watch is making a real impact in the industry, it’s high time to admit that the Apple Watch is a thing now.