Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/05/wednesday-morning-news090518/
Apple is now making deals with publishers for video content on Apple News. BuzzFeed News is the first known publication that was paid for an Apple News exclusive release of their Future History: 1968 video series, and according to BuzzFeed, they were paid “for first-window rights to the show’s first three episodes and cut BuzzFeed a share of ad revenue”, according to MacRumors.
Apple has laid down the law for developers wanting to update their apps after July 2018. A post on the Apple’s developer portal says that starting July 2018, any app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 11 SDK and support the Super Retina display of the iPhone X.
TechCrunch tells us about a new security feature built into iOS, which will disable the phone’s data connection via USB if left locked for a week. Such a feature seems particularly debilitating to law enforcement, who may rely on wired connections for data transfer and in some cases, the easier cracking of passcodes. Devices locked in this manner will still be able to take a charge, but won’t transfer data.
Patently Apple tells us about two newly granted Apple patents. The first is a new case concept for iOS devices, which will allow the device to sit upright in a portrait orientation, while the other is a wearable device with a circular display. The obvious candidate for the latter device is the Apple Watch, but we’ll have to see if Apple will ever release an Apple Watch with a round face after years of rectangular displays.
USA Today reporter Jefferson Graham requested the personal data Apple had on him, and it’s not much to write home about. Apple stores anything you’ve ever purchased, downloaded, or had repaired, but that’s about it. None of your Siri requests are stored by the company in a way that can be associated to you, and anything on-device also doesn’t get uploaded and stored by Apple.
A tvOS 12 wish list from 9to5Mac gives us an idea of what would be nice to have with the next version of Apple’s TV interface. It might be nice, for example, to be able to watch Apple News video content, or be able to control your HomeKit accessories. Maybe even picture-in-picture support, or the ability to use the Apple Watch as a remote when you can’t find the Siri Remote.
A petition has been created by dissatisfied MacBook Pro owners calling on Apple to recall and repair all MacBook Pro models released after late 2016 for spontaneous keyboard failures. The petition specifically calls for Apple to not just replace the existing keyboard with the same design, but an entirely new design that isn’t failure-prone in the same ways that the current one is. It’s hard to see Apple doing that, given that all they did when people were holding the iPhone 4 wrong was give out free cases.
The Shifty Jelly blog addresses some of the concerns that weren’t addressed in the original announcement post saying that Pocket Casts had entered into a partnership with some of the biggest names in podcasting. The new post now clarifies some of the details around the partnership, including some of the motives behind it and what they will (or won’t, as the case may be) start doing.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a promo video for an Apple product that runs longer than three minutes, but 20 years ago, the iMac was introduced at Macworld Expo with a “simplicity shootout”. The video showed off the ease of use that the iMac offered, and 9to5Mac talked to the original stars of the video about how they came to be involved.
The technical specs of the original iMac give us a glimpse of how far technology has come in that time. The humble iPhone is a pocketable supercomputer in comparison, even if we’re talking about the original iPhone from eleven years ago.