Nobody but Apple knows for sure, but there seems to be a feeling in the air that Apple will soon announce some new products, including perhaps a new iPad Pro. There had been rumors that the announcement would occur this week, but (obviously) that did not happen. But I still think that we are likely close to a new iPad Pro. What will it include? In an article for Macworld, Dan Moren has some pretty good ideas of what we might see in the next iPad Pro. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- California attorney David Sparks explains how he uses the OmniGraffle app on his iPad and Mac to create a status board to track all of his projects, including his law-related projects.
- In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell writes that twenty years ago this week, Apple introduced Mac OS X, the operating system for the Mac that was based on software developed by NeXT, a company created by Steve Jobs after he was kicked out of Apple. I rarely discuss Mac software on iPhone J.D., but this story is directly relevant to the iPhone. The software at the heart of Mac OS X is the same software that is used on the iPhone and iPad. And if it were not for Apple purchasing NeXT so that it could develop Mac OS X, Steve Jobs may not have returned to Apple. And without Steve Jobs, I don't think that we would have seen the iPhone and iPad — certainly not in the form that we know today.
- It is extremely rare for any company to buy another company and have the ramifications become as major as Apple's purchase of NeXT in the 1990s. But any such purchase has the potential to have important implications, and Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that Apple has purchased more Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies than anyone else between 2016 and 2020. It is hard to imagine that those purchases are just to improve Siri's ability to answer questions, so my guess is that Apple has big plans for AI in the future.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook writes about the COVID-19 pandemic over the last year in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal.
- Jakub Vávra of the security company Avast writes that bogus apps on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store have scammed people out of $400 million. These apps entice you to into a free trial, but after that, they charge you for a subscription, and unless you pay attention and cancel the subscription, you may find yourself charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. Be careful about signing up for subscriptions when you download an app.
- This wasn't a scam but instead a price error, but Stephen Warwck of iMore notes that a woman in London noticed that a grocery store charged her £1,599 (more than $2,200) when she used Apple Pay to pay for bananas. I can understand how this happens. Apple Pay is so easy to use that it is often tempting to just pay and go, without paying attention to how much you were charged — even if you were grossly overcharged.
- Lauren Dragan of Wirecutter explains how to clean AirPods.
- Zac Hall of 9to5Mac takes a look back at his Apple Watch review from 2015 and discusses how the product has changed six years later.
- And finally, Apple posted a new video this week called Fumble which demonstrates how the iPhone 12 has extra protection that might protect the iPhone if you drop it. Hopefully, you have not had too many experiences like the one demonstrated by the woman in this video:
