MyAppleMenu - Fri, Dec 18, 2015

Fri, Dec 18, 2015The Chinese-Network Edition

Apple Partners With China UnionPay To Bring Apple Pay To China In 2016, by Graham Spencer, MacStories

Apple today announced a partnership with China UnionPay, which will see Apple Pay available to Chinese customers as soon as early 2016. China UnionPay operates the Chinese inter-bank network and develops the UnionPay Card network – and its role in China is somewhat analagous to that of Visa and Mastercard.

Apple Pay, Samsung Pay To Duel In China Next Year, by Steven Musil, CNET

Christmas Promotions

Apple Names Jeff WIlliams Chief Operating Officer, Phil Schiller Now In Charge Of App Stores, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Schiller taking over the App Stores is very interesting — and is definitely a shake-up that seemingly wasn’t widely known internally until today’s announcement.

Tim Cook Promotes “Tim Cook’s Tim Cook” To Tim Cook’s Old Job, by Dan Frommer, Quartz

Jeff Williams has been promoted to chief operating officer. Williams, who has played an increasingly public role, had been senior vice president of operations, in charge of things like Apple’s supply chain and the Apple Watch.

As Apple's New Marketing VP, Tor Myhren Rides In On A Wave Of Ad Industry Success, by Roger Fingas, AppleInsider

Apple's new VP of Marketing Communications, Tor Myhren, comes from one of the behemoths of the international advertising industry, where he was responsible for a number of well-known and award-winning campaigns.

Williams, Schiller, Srouji: What Apple's New Executive Titles Really Mean, by Rene Ritchie, iMore

Just like Jony Ive was given all of design, Craig Federighi all of software engineering (pre-Kevin Lynch and Apple Watch), and Angela Ahrendts all of Apple Store, Phil Schiller has now been given all of App Store. There's a clear, unified leader at the highest levels.

That's why, while today's announcements may seem ceremonial, they're really far more functional. And staying functional is critical to Apple's ongoing success.

Stuff

Hands-On With Adobe Post: New Photo App Creates Instagram-Worthy Graphics, by Caitlin Mcgarry, Macworld

Annoying watermark aside, Adobe Post is a fun app that perfectly slots into the portfolio of social media-adjacent tools that give your photos extra oomph, like VSCO Cam, Instagram’s Layout, and Flipagram. Every aspect of your Post creation can be changed, even after you save it to your Camera Roll. And if you don’t want to change anything but the text, you can do that, too.

How My iPhone Is Helping Me Get Healthy Again, by Brian Sutich, The App Factor

Getting healthy is a long road, and for many of us that road will never end, but technology can truly help us achieve our short and long term health goals.

Web Tools: A Web Inspector For iPad, by Alex Guyot, MacStories

Web Tools is a new app from developer James Finley of Ergo which aims to create a Safari-style web inspector for iPad. I've tried other solutions for getting the source of web pages via iOS, but, at least on iPad, I haven't seen any come close to being as well designed and implemented for the iPad's bigger screen.

Microsoft Translator Now Lets You Carry On Conversations In Seven Languages, by Steven Sande, Apple World Today

The latest version lets you and another individual engage in a conversation as long as you're speaking Mandarin Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish.

Stringify Your Life By Taking Control And Automating Tasks, by Sandy Stachowiak, AppAdvice

Very similar in concept to the IFFFT apps like IF, Stringify makes ordinary tasks simple and automatic. And, the fact that it works with both physical and digital items makes it a wonderfully, useful app.

Looping And Reversing Live Photos As GIFs With Lively 2.0, by Federico Viticci, MacStories

Lively was one of the first utilities to enable exporting of Live Photos to GIF shortly after the iPhone 6s was released. Today, Tiny Whale has launched Lively 2.0 with new options for video trimming and GIF generation, and it's a lot of fun.

Develop

Realising The iPad Pro’s Potential, by Philip Miller and Philip McDermott, Bloomberg

Last week, Bloomberg announced an updated Bloomberg Professional app for iPad Pro and iOS 9. The launch of new operating systems and connected devices impacts productivity and creativity, and at the same time, presents enormous opportunities for developers.

Below is an inside, behind-the-scenes look at some of the main challenges we faced and how we addressed them. For example, how do you optimize an app for a specific environment without having access to the device? How do you test implementation? How do you know if the architecture is flexible enough?

A Codebase Is An Organism, by Kevin Simler, Melting Asphalt

Here's what no one tells you when you graduate with a degree in computer science and take up a job in software engineering: The computer is a machine, but a codebase is an organism.

Notes

'60 Minutes' To Highlight Apple's Secret Design Studio, Retail Store Of The Future In Upcoming Episode, by Harish Jonnalagadda, iMore

Jony Ive will give Charlie Rose a look inside "Apple's secret design studio" in an upcoming episode of 60 Minutes that will be aired on Sunday, December 20 at 7:30PM ET & 7PM PT on CBS. Rose's tour of Apple's "store of the future" with retail chief Angela Ahrendts will also be highlighted on the show.

Norway Wants To Move Its Border 20 Metres Left – So It Can Give Finland A Mountain, by Adam Barnett, The Independent

A social media campaign launched by Bjorn Geirr Harsson, a retired employee of the Norwegian Mapping Authority, suggests Norway could shift its eastern border 20 metres (66 feet) so that the Halti mountain peak could become part of Finland.

The proposal was intended as a gift to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Finland's independence in 2017.

Bottom of the Page

Will Apple ever find a way to input Chinese characters on the Apple TV?

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Thanks for reading.