Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/12/wednesday-morning-news071216/
The US Supreme Court has decided that design patents aren’t worth as much as Apple thinks, invalidating Apple’s claim to $399 million in lost profits damages. The $399 figure has changed a bit over the years — it was originally $1.05 billion when the first Apple vs Samsung trial ended, further reduced to $548 million after trademark damages were thrown out, with the $399 million figure based on three design patents. While things are looking bleak for Apple, there’s still a good chance it will end up with a decent chunk of change, and maybe we’ll be able to put this entire saga behind us.
Apple has published tips from pro photographers on using the new Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus. The new depth-of-field effect brings out a new element in photography, and pros advocate techniques such as getting close to your subject to bring out the details, and minimising the background will let you get the most out of the effect.
Shanghai’s Consumer Council has received reports of eight iPhones spontaneously catching on fire. On the other hand, Apple claims it has inspected the devices and blamed external physical damage as the leading contributor to the fires. With the biggest iPhone battery issue to date being a minor manufacturing fault, I’m tempted to agree.
Apple has now said that some customers outside of the range of iPhone 6s devices manufactured between September and October of 2015 have also been affected by a random shutdown issue. Apple says that although some of these shutdowns can occur as part of a normal process to protect electronic components, it will be including a new diagnostic in an iOS software update which will be available next week in order to further diagnose the issue.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the Apple Watch is “doing great” in terms of sales and that Watch sell-through to customers (as opposed to units sitting on shelves) is the highest it has ever been. While Apple doesn’t release Apple Watch sales numbers, estimates from firms put Watch sales at 1.1 million units in Q3 2016.
Tidbits reports some some 2016 MacBook Pros with Touch Bar suffering USB-based file copy problems, with some machines even shutting down when files are copied from one external drive to another. File operations from the internal drive to external seem to pose no issues, but otherwise there’s hints of trouble in paradise.
MacRumors writes that Apple’s focus on the iPad left the Mac behind this year, which may be yet another symptom of resourcing issues at Apple due to the way the company acts a lot like a start up.
AI researchers at Apple will now be allowed to publish their findings and share with other researchers in their field, ending years of silence which resulted from paranoia over losing commercial intellectual property.
After releasing their somewhat weird lineup of magnetic cases for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Mophie has released the first Juice Pack Air for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, which combine both a case and an external battery pack into the form factor that you’re familiar with. The new Juice Pack Air also features Mophie’s wireless charging tech.
The latest iPhone 7 ad is Romeo and Juliet, which comes with the tagline that your movies look like movies with the iPhone 7.