Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) - @bbusschots
• Chuck Joiner from MacVoices - @chuckjoiner
• Gazmaz from the My Mac Podcast - @gazmaz
• Lynda Gousha from the Silicon Valley MUG - @llg4cdg

The show starts with some quick follow-up stories, some Apple-related notable numbers, a few Apple-related legal stories, some staffing changes at Apple, and some Apple acquisitions and investments that made the news in December. The four main stories for the month are the launch of Apple Pay Cash in the US, availability of the iPad Pro, Battery Gate, and the rumoured unified developer platform Marzipan. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some 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!

[audio mp3=”http://www.mymac.com/podcast/lta/LetsTalkApple-EP52-December2017.mp3”]

Followups

• Amazon follows through on promises to mend their rift with Apple by the end of the year:
  • Amazon Prime arrives on Apple TV in over 100 countries — arstechnica.com/… & www.loopinsight.com/…
  • Amazon Prime Video app breaks Apple TV download record — www.bestappletv.com/…
  • Amazon resume selling Apple TVs (and Google Chromecasts) — www.reuters.com/…
• Apple continue their education push: Apple and Chicago join forces to bring coding opportunities to city’s students — www.apple.com/…
• Test shows how good iPhone X’s OLED screen is at preventing burn-in — bgr.com/…
• Continuing their moves to allow Apple scientists present their work more openly, Apple researchers demoed self-driving car tech at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference — www.macobserver.com/…
• Despite their investments in India, Apple are forced to hike their prices in the country due to being considered a foreign company — www.imore.com/…
• Apple have agreed to pay the €13Bn the European Commission says it owes Ireland into an escrow account in the first quarter of 2018 — www.reuters.com/…

Notable Numbers

• iPhone is Flickr’s most popular camera in 2017 — www.imore.com/…
  • The iPhone newspaper cover mentioned by Gaz: www.bbc.com/…
• iPhone maintains reign as top tech best-selling product in 2017 — www.usatoday.com/…

Legal Latest

• Chinese Clothing Brand Sues Apple for App Store Trademark Infringement — www.macobserver.com/…
• An Italian court has granted a pair of Italian brothers the right to name their clothing company Steve Jobs, and use a J with a leaf on top and a bite taken out of it as their corporate logo — gizmodo.com/…, www.macobserver.com/… & www.imore.com/…

Apple Acquisitions & Investments

• Apple acquires Pop Up Archive, the company behind the podcast search engine Audiosear.ch
• Apple acquires popular music recognition app Shazam — www.buzzfeed.com/…
• Apple Purchases Developer Tool Firm Buddybuild, Team to Remain in Canada — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple uses it’s $1Bn Advanced Manufacturing Fund to make a $390M investment in Finisar, a US company that makes laser-based sensors used for depth sensing in the iPhone X and proximity sensing in AirPods — www.macobserver.com/… & www.imore.com/…

HR Happenings

• Jony Ives moves back to directly managing Apple’s design team — www.bloomberg.com/…
• Apple hires former Universal producer Michelle Lee — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple hires two business affairs executives for their video division – Philip Matthys from Hulu, and Jennifer Wang Grazier from Legendary Entertainment — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple hires three more Amazon executives — variety.com/…
  • Tara Sorensen, formerly head of Amazon kids programming, joins Apple in a similar role
  • Carina Walker, formerly an international development executive at Amazon will become an international creative executive at Apple
  • Tara Pietri, formerly Amazon business affairs chief will lead Apple’s legal affairs division
• Google Poaches Top Mobile Chip Designer John Bruno From Apple — www.macrumors.com/…

Main Stories

1. Apple Pay Cash launches in America on iOS & watchOS
   • Apple Releases iOS 11.2, Launching Apple Pay Cash, Faster Wireless Charging, Notifications Bug Fix — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Apple Pay Cash hits Apple Watches with watchOS 4.2 release — arstechnica.com/…
   • Everything Apple Pay Cash, From Setup to Sending Money — www.macobserver.com/…
   • How to send money with Apple Pay Cash in the Messages app — www.imore.com/…
2. The iMac Pro goes on sale — arstechnica.com/…
   • First Impressions of the New iMac Pro — daringfireball.net/…
   • iMac Pro Geekbench scores begin to surface for the iMac Pro — www.imore.com/…
   • Surprise! The iMac Pro has Upgradable RAM and SSD — www.macobserver.com/…
   • iMac Pro Teardown — www.ifixit.com/…
3. Battery Gate (or the latest mindless faux-scandal to set the world atwitter)
   • Apple’s public letter on the topic: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance — www.apple.com/…
   • Apple’s $29 iPhone Battery Replacement Doesn’t Require a Device Check — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Apple’s $29 battery replacement program: what you need to know — www.imore.com/…
   • iFixit Drops DIY iPhone Battery Replacement Kits to $29, Matching Apple’s Apology Price — www.macobserver.com/…
   • No, your iPad isn’t affected by #iPhoneSlow. Here’s why! — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple is Slowing Down Your Old iPhone, but There’s a Good Reason — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Apple deliberately slows old iPhones! A story of good reasons and dumb, dumb messaging — www.imore.com/…
   • hashtag iPhoneSlow What the analysts and experts have to say — www.imore.com/…
   • Battery Scientist Joins Debate on iPhone Throttling — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Apple Is Being Slandered For What Chemistry Cannot Fix — seekingalpha.com/…
   • Samsung, HTC, LG comment on hashtag iPhoneSlow despite awkward histories of cheating on benchmarks — www.imore.com/…
   • Unsurprisingly, the lawsuits soon began to fly:
     • Apple Being Sued for ‘Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models’ — www.macrumors.com/…
     • Days after iPhone battery fiasco, lawsuits against Apple begin to mount — arstechnica.com/…
     • One iPhone slowdown lawsuit is seeking a wild $999 billion — www.imore.com/…
     • Apple Now Facing 8 Lawsuits Over iPhone Battery Slowdown Fix — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Here’s How to Monitor Your iPhone Battery Health from your phone or Mac — www.macobserver.com/…
4. Apple reportedly working on new unified framework for Mac & iOS development code-named Marzipan
   • Apple could announce universal iOS/macOS apps as soon as WWDC 2018 — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple Has Plans for Unified Mac, iPhone, and iPad Apps — www.macobserver.com/…
   • Marzipan — daringfireball.net/…

Quick Stories

• GymKit now available in the US — arstechnica.com/… & www.imore.com/…
• Apple’s TV app arrives in three more countries – the UK, France & Germany — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple updates its iOS App Store Functionality and Guidelines:
  • Apple Allows App Store Preorders — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple eases up on template-based apps — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple cracks down on loot boxes in update to App Store review guidelines — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple to Waive iOS Developer Fee for Governments and NonProfits — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple Maps brings indoor maps to 30 additional airports — www.imore.com/…
• Save the date:
  • Apple Q1 2018 Earnings Call Set for February 1 — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple Annual Shareholder Meeting Set for February 13 2018 — www.macobserver.com/…