Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
- Gazmaz from the My Mac Podcast – @gazmaz
- Chuck Joiner from MacVoices – @chuckjoiner
- Nick Riley – @spligosh
The show starts with a quick look at some Apple-related legal stories which broke in September. The four main stories are Apple’s new hardware (iPhone 7 & 7Plus, AirPods & Apple Watch Series 1 & 2), Apple’s new OSes (iOS 10, watchOS 3 & macOS Sierra), some more developments in the privacy war, and two new corporate deals for Apple. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other shorter stories that made the news in September.
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!
Legal Latest
- Acacia Research Corp. (a patent holding company rather than a research company) has won a $22.1M vderdict against Apple in Texas over an LTE patent – arstechnica.com/…
- Patent holding company and long-time thorn in Apple's side VirnetX wins $302.4M ruling against Apple in a jury trial in east Texas. The patent in question relate to FaceTime and secure communications. The case is inevitably heading for appeal in Washington, where VirnetX face an up-hill battle – www.macobserver.com/…
Main Topics
- New Hardware
- iPhone 7 & 7+ – www.imore.com/…
- Both iPhone 7 & iPhone 7+ get great camera upgrades – www.imore.com/…
- How Apple achieves the Jet Black finish – www.wired.com/…
- AirPods – www.imore.com/…
- Apple Watch Series 1 & 2 – www.imore.com/… & www.imore.com/…
- The Gold watch has been silently discontinued – arstechnica.com/…
- The new top-of-the-line watch is ceramic – www.wired.com/…
- Apple also upped the storage in the iPad line, and reduced some of the prices (now start at 32GB) – www.macworld.com/…
- iPhone 7 & 7+ – www.imore.com/…
- New OSes
- iOS 10 – www.imore.com/…
- The launch was a little bumpy, with some early updaters having to connect to iTunes when the OTA installer failed. Apple quickly fixed the problem with iOs 10.0.1 – www.recode.net/…
- iOS 10.0.1 was quickly followed by iOS 10.0.2 which fixed some bugs that were causing problems with headphone controls, the Photos app, and some app extensions – www.macobserver.com/…
- Understanding the change in the unlock behaviour and the new home screen – www.macobserver.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
- Security researchers have found a bug in how iOS 10 encrypts local iTunes backups, making them easier to crack than they should be – a fix is on the way – www.forbes.com/…
- Found to run well on older devices like the iPhone 5 & 5C – arstechnica.com/…
- watchOS 3 – www.imore.com/…
- macOS Sierra – www.imore.com/… & tidbits.com/…
- Controversially, Apple is starting to push macOS Sierra as a standard update through the software update service. If you have updates set to automatically download, Sierra will auto-download (assuming you have enough disk space), but not auto-install – www.macobserver.com/… & www.idownloadblog.com/…
- Optimised storage explained – tidbits.com/…
- Instructions for creating a bootable USB installer – arstechnica.com/…
- iOS 10 – www.imore.com/…
- Privacy Wars update
- A security researcher has successfully used NAND mirroring to bypass the auto-wipe on an iPhone 5C, and brute-force a passcode (like the FBI said could not be done, hence the demand for a back door) – arstechnica.com/…
- The Intercept reports that Apple keep logs of iMessage contact lookups for 30 days, and comply with court orders for access to this data – theintercept.com/… & www.imore.com/…
- More Corporate deals – www.imore.com/…
- Apple teams up with Deloitte to make it easier for their employees to get iDevices
- US Health Insurance firm Aetna strikes a deal with Apple to offer customers and employees deals on Apple Watches
Quick News
- Blackberry to stop developing its own phones, and will focus on software – www.recode.net/… & www.bloomberg.com/…
- Microsoft kill the Microsoft Band – www.theverge.com/…
- Apple has revealed plans for an impressive new UK HQ – www.imore.com/…
- JD Power finds Apple Music has the highest customer sat – www.macobserver.com/…
Reminder – Apple's Q4 earrings call is scheduled for Tuesday 25 October at 2pm PST – www.macobserver.com/…