Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/01/wednesday-morning-news100118/
A new TV mini-series is on the way from Apple. According to Variety, Apple has ordered ten episodes of “Home”, a series which gives us a look into extraordinary homes and the minds of the people who built them. Variety also reports that Apple are also developing a drama series based on the book “Are You Sleeping”, produced by Reese Witherspoon and starring Octavia Spencer, continuing their push into the world of original programming. So long as it’s better received than Planet of the Apps, it should do fine.
It seems naive to think that Apple could have gotten away scotch-free, after they admitted to deliberately affecting performance of iPhones with chemically-aged batteries, regardless of how well-intentioned their actions were. The French Paris prosecutor’s office of the Directorate General of Competition, Consumption, and Repression of Frauds has opened a preliminary investigation against Apple for programmed obsolescence and deception, and it’ll be interesting to see what their findings are.
Meanwhile, in the US the class-action lawsuit count against Apple for purposefully or secretly slowing down older devices is now at at least 24. The lawsuits themselves all seem to have pretty similar demands: compensate customers with slowed-down iPhones, offer free battery replacements, refund customers who purchased new iPhones to restore performance, and add info to iOS about when performance may be affected by battery age.
Apple’s annual Back to University promo has kicked off for Australia and New Zealand. The headlining offer is a free pair of Beats Solo3, BeatsX, or PowerBeats3 headphones when any qualifying Mac is purchased by anyone eligible for the educational discount. Mac minis and refurbished Macs appear to be the only ones excluded by the promo, which runs until March 15.
At the start of the year, Apple investors published an open letter to Apple’s board of directors about offering parents more choices when it comes to limiting their children’s screen time. Their argument claims there’s a “growing public heath crisis” of younger children becoming addicted to technology, with evidence that points towards unintended negative consequences as a result of too much use of social media and technology.
Apple’s response seems to be that it will be working towards new features and enhancements to limit screen time for younger users. In statements released to a number of outlets, Apple said it thinks deeply about how its products are used, taking their responsibility of the impact their devices have on their users and the people around them very seriously.
Rumours of the iPhone SE successor are back, with the latest being that the small-screened device will feature a glass back and support wireless charging. Presumably any iPhone SE successor will be brought up to speed in terms of internals, although that may be the only other internal change the device will see. As long as Apple doesn’t change the form factor, that’ll keep people happy.
There are new betas of iOS 11.2.5, watchOS 4.2.2, macOS 10.13.3, and tvOS 11.2.5. I guess now we know why there’s an unusual .5 designation for these updates, given the recent updates we had for iOS and macOS on the back of Meltdown and Spectre speculative execution security vulnerabilities affecting nearly all modern processors.
Terminal for iOS is a sandboxed application that contains access to over 30 command-line utilities. Not only that, but it’s available as an open-source project, if you want to take a peek at the source code to see how developer Louis D’hauwe is doing it.
Bluetooth-connected toothbrushes are nothing new (what a world we live in), but Colgate’s latest uses Apple’s ResearchKit to give the company data on brushing habits for a better guess at the future of oral care. Real-time sensors and AI algorithms detect brushing effectiveness in 16 mouth zones, according to AppleInsider.