Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/06/wednesday-morning-news210617/
Leaked photos of an iPhone screen protector indicate that the supply chain knows something we don’t about Apple’s upcoming iPhone, or are taking shots in the dark about what Apple’s next iPhone will look like. The screen protector matches a previous design for an iPhone design that features less bezels and a cutout top portion that houses the speaker, camera, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, and potentially a 3D sensing module, according to MacRumors.
Ars Technica talks the tech of macOS High Sierra. APFS will become the default file system for Apple’s desktop OS, leading to a faster filesystem for everyday tasks, while HEVC and HEIF will be introduced as the next generation of video and image formats. Only the most recent Macs will get hardware acceleration for HEVC, with no Mac Pros, MacBook Airs, or Mac Minis on the list.
A pretty obvious application for AR is placing furniture in your own home to give you an idea of whether things will fit and how it’ll look, and to that end, Ikea has announced they’re a launch partner for Apple’s AR efforts. Ikea are currently working on an AR app of their own, allowing customers to visualise Ikea furniture in their homes along with the rest of their furnishings.
There’s now an annual Apple Music subscription you can, uh, subscribe to if monthly subscriptions aren’t your thing. The yearly Apple Music subscription costs $119 in Australia, which is $25 off the price of 12x monthly subscriptions.
The latest update to Apple’s Nike Run Club app now lets you do Speed Runs without bringing an iPhone. Previously the Speed Runs feature needed an iPhone to track timings and intervals, and while you’ll still need to bring along your iPhone if you want guided coaching, Speed Runs is now possible without an iPhone.
The Verge’s review of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is pretty much you’d expect: a great device now, a better one once iOS 11 has been released to the general public. If you’re the kind of person that gets a lot out of the Apple Pencil, or really like the Smart Keyboard for getting things done on the go, then you’ll probably buy the 12.9-inch iPad Pro regardless of reviews. But would you still do so even if you had a previous-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro? Hard to say.
Six Colors writes about the changes to App Store editorial as part of iOS 11. The Today view is designed to be a curated list of apps and stories, and for the longest time, App Store editorial appeared to be about curating collections of apps rather than telling their stories. Now, that’s all changed, and the App Store is as much about marketing as it is curation.
Phil Farrugia’s post on rebuilding the App Store’s Today view provides a look at what makes Apple’s curated content tick behind the scenes. While the content remains static, the collection of cards and how you interact with them, and the grid layout on iPad, gives us some insight into the simple implementation comprised of standard UIKit controls and patterns.
MacStories tells us about the calendar, Markdown, and notes integration of calendaring app NotePlan. There are better apps if you’re after a task manager or a to-do list, but NotePlan still has some usefulness as a day planner.
The latest Apple ad is The Archives, which shows off the Memories feature in the Photos app, which creates great movies out of your photos and videos. It’s practically magic.
