Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2018/09/wednesday-morning-news120918/
If you’re planning to watch Apple’s September event tomorrow live, then you’ve got a couple of options. Besides watching on the Apple TV via the Apple Events app, you can also stream the event from Apple’s website, and for the first time, Apple will also be streaming their event on Twitter. Apple’s mysterious Twitter account with no tweets continues to offer reminders about the event, if you need one more notification in your life.
Even if you’ve followed all the rumours thus far and think you have a pretty good idea of what Apple are going to announce, as Six Colors points out, there’s still a bunch of questions to be answered tomorrow morning. There’s a good chance we haven’t seen everything yet, and besides, the real thrill is in the reveal that comes from the horse’s mouth. Not disseminated via rumours and hearsay over the course of months prior, but condense down into a concentrated 90-minute presentation where the hits just keep coming.
The part leaks continue all the way up until the final reveal, with different-coloured SIM card trays for the cheaper of the three iPhones being shown off this morning. The five colours are in line with previous rumours saying we’ll get the new iPhones in at least two different colours.
Other last-minute rumours include the fact that the largest of all devices, the 6.5-inch OLED-equipped model, will weigh slightly more than the current iPhone 8 Plus model. Rumour has it Apple will be including the same slow-charging 5W USB power adapter in the box, like it has always done, and Apple may update the Apple Watch to be 64-bit this year, ahead of obsoleting 32-bit on macOS and iOS.
On some level, it makes sense for iPads and iPhones to move to USB-C. I’m not sure the tech is quite there to allow us to go completely port-less on iOS devices just yet, and 9to5Mac brings up some good points about why it doesn’t quite make sense for the iPad to go USB-C before the iPhone. It’s probably not happening this year, in any case, but maybe next year’s iPhones will come with USB-C instead of Lightning.
Writing at ZDNet, Jason Perlow tells us the story of how the Apple Watch saved his life. It’s not quite your typical “Apple Watch constantly monitors hear rate” story though, as Perlow participated in the recent Apple Watch Heart Study, which pointed out heart rhythm abnormalities, which eventually led to an afib diagnosis. Whether his condition would have been picked up if he wasn’t participating in the study is another question — I’ve read a few stories about high resting heart rate being picked up, but not abnormal rhythm.
Apple is telling developers about the benefits of adopting recurring payments in their apps. A new video posted to Apple’s developer portal saying that subscriptions allow developers to create great customer experiences — while these are more developer-centric, the side-effects will probably be felt by customers who can rest easy with the knowledge they’re continuing to support great software.
We’ll probably see iOS 12, macOS Mojave, tvOS 12, and watchOS 5 released within the next few days. TechCrunch summarises the best security and privacy features of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, with features like cross-site tracking and browser fingerprinting preventing you from being identified by websites, not to mention the many security additions to iOS 12.
The Verge wonders if Apple still cares about Beats, which is a fair question given there have been no new Beats hardware releases this year. That’s not entirely unexpected if you’ve seen Apple’s Mac lineup, but is unprecedented for Beats since their acquisition by Apple in 2013. While Beats remains a strong enough brand that they’re still capable of becoming the main audio sponsor for the NBA without any new headphones, it’s possible Apple are leaving Beats to languish while they build their own audio hardware.
In case the new iPhones aren’t expensive enough for you and you have some cash burning a hole in your wallet, there are some luxury companies that will sell you gold-plated versions of the upcoming iPhones, with optional embedded diamonds. It’s almost as if these companies haven’t heard of Vertu, the luxury device company that went bankrupt last year.