Benjamin Mayo

Apple has hit walls introducing Apple Pay into Australia with the banks arguing Apple’s business practice was anticompetitive. The banks demanded access to the NFC hardware in the iPhone to be able to offer competing contactless mobile payments services. Apple refused and the banks went to court.

Although draft rulings indicate that the court will rule in favour of Apple, the final decision will be announced in March. Today, Apple continues to lay on the criticism accusing the Australian banks for attempting to ‘delay or even block’ the Apple Pay rollout.

Expand
Expanding
Close

A total of 97 companies, including Apple and many other major Silicon Valley technology firms, filed an amicus brief late on Sunday to oppose the immigration order introduced by US President Donald Trump (via Bloomberg). An amicus brief is a legal filing that allows parties not directly involved in a lawsuit to offer their opinions to the court.

The brief says an open-ended ban does not aid America’s national security and instead undermines its interests. It notes that 200 of the companies in the Fortune 500 list were founded by immigrants or their children.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Earlier in the week, we reported that the LG UltraFine 5K Display can be effectively unusable if placed near a Wi-Fi router with some kind of radio interference causing the monitor to regularly black out and hang the connected MacBook Pro.

LG has now said that it has identified the hardware problem in which Wi-Fi routers within 2 feet of the display resulted in signal interference issues. All new UltraFine units produced after February will not be affected as they will be fitted with ‘enhanced shielding’. Existing owners of the UltraFine 5K Display, recommended by Apple as the best companion to the 2016 MacBook Pro, will need to contact LG support for assistance.

Update: The stock continues to climb as the day progresses, now up 6.5% at around $129, which values the company at more than 670 billion dollars in market cap. It is also nearing Apple stock’s all time high of $135.

Last night, Apple reported all-time record earnings with revenue topping $78.4 billion, beating analysts consensus. The stock market investors appear to be pleased with Apple’s results; AAPL stock opened up more than 5%.

The company reported sales of 78.3 million iPhones, 13 million iPads and 5.3 million Macs. Spiking at over $127 this morning, Apple stock is once again close to its all-time high of $135 after rallying following Trump’s presidential victory.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has silently updated the Apple AirPods firmware to version 3.5.1, from 3.3.1, earlier today. The AirPods automatically update to the latest software when the earbuds are charging in the AirPods Case and close to a paired device. The new firmware does not appear to contain any new front-facing features.

There is no onscreen alert or notification that an update has taken place. You can however verify if your AirPods are up-to-date by checking the AirPods firmware version number in Settings on an iPhone …

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Iconfactory is today launching Linea, a straightforward digital drawing app. It’s available now for iPad in the App Store for $9.99. With only four brushes and a maximum of five layers, the app focuses on essentials. It’s a replacement for the digital sketchbook you might carry around in your bag to explore ideas or casually draft compositions.

The whole UI is refined to maximise drawing space and it doesn’t let you get bogged down in customization options. Linea was designed with the Apple Pencil in mind; you can erase with your finger and draw with the Pencil without switching tools. Here’s my hands on …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has inexplicably removed the iCloud Activation Lock status page, which used to exist at iCloud.com/activationlock, but that URL now leads to a 404 error instead. The utility let anyone type in the IMEI or serial number of an iOS device to find out if Activation Lock had been turned off, handy to verify the authenticity of a seller when buying a used iPhone online.

References to the web page have been removed from Apple’s support documentation, indicating this is not a temporary issue and the page has been intentionally pulled from service …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple is apparently looking for next-gen flexible LCD screen technology from Japan Display to use in future iPhone models. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is ‘considering’ the new panels for future iPhone designs which could pave the way for bendable smartphones becoming mainstream.

Japan Display’s technology uses LCD and plastic rather than the typical LCD and glass, which makes it able to flex and bend as shown in the photo above (left).

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple is launching an official way for developers to ask for ratings in the App Store with iOS 10.3. The new system attempts to strike a balance for customer experience and developer incentive, allowing users to leave a rating without leaving the app — but the API enforces that the developer can only display the popup three times a year.

Adoption will not be mandatory with iOS 10.3 but Apple intends to force developers to use the official API in the future, via Daring Fireball.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has announced that it will soon let developers reply to reviews on the iPhone, iPad and Mac App Stores. As part of the iOS 10.3 release notes, the company says that by the time iOS 10.3 is available to customers, developers will be able to respond to customer reviews on the App Store.

This is a major breakthrough enhancement as developers have been asking Apple for better ways to interact with customers for a long time.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has just released beta 1 of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 and it comes with one particular headline feature, it brings the same Night Shift feature seen on iOS to the Mac for the first time. This means Mac users can now set a schedule to have their display colors slowly shift hues over time, displaying less blue light as night time approaches. Night Shift on Mac changes the colors of the integrated Retina Display on a MacBook as well as any connected external displays.

Along with Night Shift, macOS 10.12.4 also includes Shanghainese dictation support, Siri cricket scores and more …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Late on Friday, Apple announced that it would be suing Qualcomm for approximately $1 billion due to a dispute over patent royalties. Qualcomm licenses many wireless patents as well as being a modem supplier for the iPhone. Naturally, Qualcomm is rejecting Apple’s claims of misconduct and will fight the case.

In a statement, it said the claims are baseless and Apple has ‘intentionally mischaracterized our agreements and negotiations’.

Expand
Expanding
Close

There are a big expectations for the iPhone 8; namely a major redesign featuring a large OLED display that wraps around the sides of the device with a front face featuring almost no bezels; the fingerprint Home Button will somehow be integrated into the screen.

In addition to the radical new design, KGI has a new report today adding another new feature to the list: a new, improved, 3D Touch system for enhanced pressure sensitivity …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Reliable Apple analyst KGI Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that they believe Apple is looking to leapfrog its existing Touch ID sensor, first introduced in 2013 with the iPhone 5s and refined with a 2x faster sensor for iPhone 6s, to instead rely on several new biometric technologies, which will enable new iPhones and iPads to feature ‘zero bezel’ designs.

The current Touch ID is a capacitive sensor, KGI believes the company will supplant it with a new optical fingerprint sensor as well as facial recognition sensors. The optical sensor is necessary for Apple to execute its vision for a zero-bezel iPhone, currently rumoured for iPhone 8.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Swift creator and ex-head of Apple developer tools Chris Lattner is a special guest on this week’s episode of the Accidental Tech Podcast, following the announcement that he is leaving the company to join Tesla as a VP of the Autopilot self-driving features.

Lattner talks about his general career at Apple, from compiler manager to senior director, the invention of Swift language and how it was brought up from within Apple to become its new premier development language, debuting at WWDC in Swift 1.0. The interview gives some insight into how new projects at Apple are made and managed …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple is rising the prices for apps and in-app purchases in a few countries following changes to exchange rates and taxation policy, with customers in India, Turkey and the United Kingdom to see price increases.

In the United Kingdom, one of Apple’s largest markets, app prices are rising up more than 25% following the weak pound exchange rate after the Brexit vote. An app sold for $0.99 in the US will now cost £0.99 in the UK, up from £0.79.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The iPhone 8 is being fabled by all sides as a major upgrade, following three years of the same chassis design for the iPhone. One of the flagship iPhone 7 features was the addition of waterproofing.

Along with a glass chassis redesign and bezel-less screen, The Korea Herald reports that the new iPhone will also best the iPhone 7 with even higher resistance to water and dust.

Expand
Expanding
Close

On the Backchannel blog, Steven Levy has posted a concise interview with Apple SVP Phil Schiller timed with the iPhone’s tenth anniversary. The post includes Levy’s anecdotes about Steve Jobs back in 2007 at the original iPhone launch followed up with some questions to Schiller about the success of the iPhone looking back and looking forward.

Regarding voice-only personal assistant devices like the Amazon Echo’s Alexa, Schiller says that the best intelligent assistant is the one that’s always with you, and that you can’t discount the value of a color display to present information …

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Mixtile Hub is the first smart home hub that can bridge existing smart accessories from other popular home automation protocols, like ZigBee and Z-Wave, and bring them into the HomeKit ecosystem. This means customers will be able to view various accessories in the Home app and control them with Siri voice commands, even if they weren’t designed for HomeKit originally.

The hub, announced at CES, appears to be the first of its kind consumer product although Focalcrest didn’t announce when the product would actually go on sale. The current workaround solution involves running a hacky network server whereas the Mixtile is MFi-licensed and should be as easy to setup as any other HomeKit product.

Expand
Expanding
Close