Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
- Nick Riley – @spligosh
- Guy Serle from the My Mac Podcast – @Macparrot
- Gazmaz from the My Mac Podcast – @gazmaz
The show starts with some not-so-quick followups to stories from previous months, before moving on to look at just one notable number – iPhones appear to have been gifted twice as often as Samsung Galaxies this holiday season. Next, the panel discuss some of the Apple-related legal stories that broke in December – including the never-ending Apple -v- Samsung saga. The four main stories are the decline of the rest of the smart watch market while the Apple Watch continues to prosper, Apple’s move to start publishing academic papers in the AI field, the release of the Air Pods, and battery controversy for the new MacBook Pros. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other shorter Apple-related stories that made the news in December.
You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!
Followups
- Apple have updated iOS to collect more data on battery usage and unexpected shutdowns to help track down the root cause of unexpected iPhone shutdowns – www.imore.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
- Single Sign-on for US cable logins on iOS & Apple TV has rolled out, but support by cable companies and content companies is far from universal – www.imore.com/…
- Samsung are pushing out a software update to intentionally brick any Galaxy Note 7 phones still in use – www.reuters.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- Apple have extended their discount pricing on USB-C dongles through the end of March 2017 – www.loopinsight.com/…
- Super Mario Run released in time for Christmas as promised
- Requires always-on internet connection in an attempt to combat piracy – www.macrumors.com/…
- Downloads top 40M in 4 days – www.macobserver.com/…
- Pokemon Go for Apple Watch also released just before Christmas as promised – www.macobserver.com/…
Notable Numbers
- Data from analytics firm Flurry suggests twice as many iPhones were given as gifts this holiday season than Samsung Galaxies – www.imore.com/…
Legal Latest
- Apple -v- Samsung: US Supreme Court sides with Samsung – damages should not be calculated on the full price of a phone when only some aspects of the phone infringe on Apple's patents. The difficult question of how the damages should be calculated has been left to the lower courts, where the case is now headed again (Samsung are still officially guilty of patent infringement, the only question is how much they owe Apple in damages) – www.imore.com/…
- Nokia & Alcatel-Lucent start a whole new patent war by suing Apple over 32 patents in Germany & the US – arstechnica.com/…
- Apple Store employees win a hollow victory against Apple in California – Apple ordered to pay $2M to workers for breaches of employee rights, but each worker will only get a maximum of $95 – www.theregister.co.uk/…
Main Stories
- The Apple Watch appears to be the only smart watch that is doing well. IDC released numbers suggesting a 71% year over year decline in sales of Apple Watch, but Tim Cook emailed Reuters to say that Apple Watch sales are on target for their best quarter ever, and that in the lead up to Christmas the Apple Watch had its best week of sales ever – www.reuters.com/…
- In recent months Google have delayed Android Wear 2 until 2017, Motorola has put its smart watches on hold – www.imore.com/…
- FitBit buys software assets from Pebble, cancels all upcoming Pebble hardware, and promises to keep the servers which support existing Pebble watches running "through 2017" – www.bloomberg.com/…
- Apple announces it will start to publish academic research papers in the AI field
- Publishes first paper – www.macobserver.com/…
- John Martellaro postulates that Apple may have been forced to open up about it's AI research by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – www.macobserver.com/…
- AirPods finally released JUST in time for the holidays (if you ordered VERY quickly) – www.macobserver.com/…
- iFixit tear down the AirPods – find lots of cool tech in there, and that they are utterly unrepairable – www.ifixit.com/…
- The New MacBook Pro runs into potential battery problems
- Some users are reporting experiencing battery life below what Apple promised, but it could be for all sorts of reasons – arstechnica.com/…
- Consumer Reports refuse to recommend new MacBook Pro, the first one they have not recommended, because their tests show really odd battery life – ranging from 3 to 18 hours. It is not at all clear if the problem is with the laptops or the tests, or both – www.imore.com/…
Quick Stories
- Testing organisation Trading Standards in the UK finds that 99% of fake Apple chargers are dangerous – they could kill you or burn your house down – www.bbc.com/…
- Project Titan goes from rumour to fact – Apple acknowledges that it has a self-driving car project in a letter to U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in which the argue that 'new entrants' to the field should have the same rights as others – www.bbc.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- Bluetooth 5 standard officially adopted – devices expected to roll out in the next 2 to 6 months – www.engadget.com/…
- In an internal Q&A Tim Cook assures workers that Apple is committed to the Mac and that 'great Desktops are coming' – social.techcrunch.com/…