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The Rose-Gold-MacBook Edition Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Apple Releases New 12 Inch Retina MacBook: New Processors, Rose Gold, Better Battery Life, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Apple has today released an update to the 12 inch Retina MacBook line, with new Skylake processors, overall better performance, and a new color: Rose Gold. The new internals have also allowed Apple to grab an extra hour of battery life out of the same sized product. The MacBook refresh keeps the same thin chassis, the same edge-to-edge keyboard and the same single USB-C port design as the original Retina MacBook, released about a year ago. The new Retina MacBook costs the same as before, starting at $1299.

Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air Now Comes With 8GB Of RAM Standard, by Dan Selfert, The Verge

In addition to upgrading its MacBook line with faster processors and a new color, Apple today announced that the 13-inch MacBook Air now comes with 8GB of RAM standard.

wwdcOS

Apple Confirms WWDC 2016 Kicks Off On June 13, Tickets Now On Sale, by AppleInsider

Those interested in attending can buy tickets through Apple's official WWDC website now through Friday, April 22 at 10 a.m. Pacific. As usual, tickets will be meted out using a random selection process, and recipients will be notified of their application status on Monday, April 25 at 5 p.m. Pacific.

Apple Debuts Redesigned Developer Resources Mini-site Focusing On App Store, by AppleInsider

In concert with Monday's WWDC 2016 announcement, Apple launched a revamped informational resources section on its developer portal, which includes articles, technical insight and real world examples designed to help new coders get their start on the App Store.

Embedded Apple Map On WWDC Site Suggests Official Public MapKit Web API Coming Soon, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

On the WWDC microsite, Apple has embedded its own map object in the page to show attendees how to get between Moscone West and the Bill Civic auditorium, where the Monday keynote will be held. Looking at the code, it appears Apple wants to make this embeddable map a public API in the (near?) future so anyone could add an Apple Map to their website.

Unlocking Data

Apple Says The Average iPhone Is Unlocked 80 Times A Day, by Nick Statt, The Verge

The number was relevant to the conversation because around 89 percent of iPhone owners use either a fingerprint to unlock their device with TouchID or a multi-digit numeric passcode, Apple said. That's a lot of people taking cybersecurity seriously.

Apple Posts Latest Transparency Report, Received Over 30k Law Enforcement Requests, Complied With Up To 82%, by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac

It revealed that it received over 30,000 requests last year, and complied with up to 82% of them. It is not allowed to specify the exact number of National Security Requests, but says they fell into the 1250-1499 band.

Viber Adds End-to-end Encryption And Hidden Chats As Messaging App Privacy Wave Grows, by Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch

Following WhatsApp’s move to add end-to-end encryption to its platform, another big messaging company is joining the wave of apps turning on expanded privacy features. Viber — a messaging app with 711 million+ users — today is introducing end-to-end encryption for all messages and calls on its platform, including group chats (you can chat with up to 200 people), and a way to ‘hide’ chats on your account alongside its existing expanded deleting function.

Flix Rumor

Apple, Facebook, Google, And Alibaba Take Hollywood, by Nicole Laporte, Fast Company

Behind the now unmarked door at 221 Main, Apple hosted private, invitation-only events. On one evening, a group of young filmmakers were treated to cocktails and a farm-to-table dinner put on by the chefs from Eveleigh, one of Los Angeles’s hottest restaurants. The space was as sleek and understated as an iPhone 6S; one attendee described the decor to me as "very beige." Unlike most Sundance brand-sponsored events, there were no press releases. There were no party pictures. There wasn’t any swag. The iTunes Lounge, as it was known to invitees, was as real to most festivalgoers as Lizzy. Says one guest who was in attendance, "They were definitely talking to the talent."

The iTunes Lounge was in fact part of a stealth effort by Apple to establish a new, more active role in delivering entertainment. In the weeks that followed, Apple execs were in Los Angeles hearing pitches for original TV series that it plans to launch on an "exclusives" app on Apple TV and within iTunes. Apple wants to work with "triple A-list" talent, according to a source, and build up a roster of must-see shows available only on its platform. Naturally, the talks have been veiled in the utmost secrecy. Producers who have met with Apple will refer to it only as the United Fruit Company.

AppleAmExPay

Apple Pay Expands To Singapore Through American Express Partnership, Visa Support Coming Soon, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple Pay is limited to cards issued by American Express, but the website says Apple Pay support will expand to major credit and debit cards from top banks "soon." Visa is listed as a credit card partner that will support Apple Pay in Singapore in the future, as are the following banks: DBS, UOB, and Standard Chartered.

Apple Pay To See Slow Adoption Rate In Singapore: Analysts, by Tang See Kit, Channel NewsAsia

While Apple Pay may help to increase transaction volumes, banks may stand to lose out on crucial customer data from their own apps if consumers stopped using the banks' services, the analyst said.

Take Note Of This

Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away, by James Doubek, NPR

But the students taking notes by hand still performed better. "This is suggestive evidence that longhand notes may have superior external storage as well as superior encoding functions," Mueller and Oppenheimer write.

Stuff

Apple Celebrates Earth Day With Selection Of Apple Music Playlists, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

There are five playlists available, each with a collection of 22 to 25 songs spanning a wide range of genres and musical tastes.

Apple Confirms QuickTime For Windows At End Of Life, by AppleInsider

With QuickTime deprecated, and its last update now three months old, Windows users are urged to uninstall the software to avoid potential security breaches.

Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi And Frances Barber To Voice iPad App Edition Of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, by David Hutchison, The Stage

Users will be able to scroll through a play’s script while actors, including McKellen, read the lines aloud as they appear on screen.

SongShift Lets You Import Spotify Playlists Into Apple Music With Incredible Ease, by Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac

In the past, there have been some roundabout ways to accomplish that task, but SongShift is one of the first apps that takes advantage of a new iOS 9.3 provision that makes it possible for third-party apps to access Apple Music.

Develop

On Looking Up A Mountain., by Dermot Daly, Medium

I was struggling not because I didn’t know how to do parts of it, but rather because of the size of it.

So now, every time I’m working on anything that the task feels too big, or if someone comes to me struggling near the start of the project, I bore them with the story of my SNMP Agent, and try to find a trivial first step.

Reddit App Takedowns Expose Serious App Review Flaws, by John Voorhees, MacStories

What bothers me the most about this incident is how Apple implemented its policy change. There was no imminent threat or emergency that made Reddit clients any more a threat than they were twelve months prior, but nonetheless Apple summarily pulled them and offered to reconsider the apps if the developers resubmitted.

Notes

Unlikely Alliances, by James Surowicki, New Yorker

When you think about the role that big corporations play in American life, fighting for social justice is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet many corporations are doing precisely that in the ongoing struggle over the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Fair Use Prevails As Supreme Court Rejects Google Books Copyright Case, by David Kravets, Ars Technica

The Supreme Court let stand the lower court opinion that rejected the writers' claims. That decision today means Google Books won't have to close up shop or ask book publishers for permission to scan. In the long run, the ruling could inspire other large-scale digitization projects.

Bill Campbell

Silicon Valley’s Legendary ‘Coach’ Bill Campbell Has Died, by Kara Swisher, Re/code

Bill Campbell — who garnered the name “The Coach” for the sage advice and counsel he gave numerous tech leaders from Apple’s Steve Jobs to Google’s Larry Page to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — has died.

[...] Campbell ran companies like Intuit and worked in key jobs at Apple, Claris and Go, and also served on a plethora of boards, including Columbia University, Intuit and Apple. He had been a longtime adviser to Google execs including Page and Eric Schmidt –and really just about every major tech executive you could think of at some point.

Silicon Valley Legend Bill Campbell Has Died — Here Is Some Of His Best Leadership Advice, by Richard Feloni, Business Insider

As Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Randy Komisar explained in an episode of his “Ventured” podcast, Campbell’s executive coaching style was akin to that of a psychiatrist, asking the right questions to steer his subjects to their own conclusions rather than giving mandates.

Campbell preferred to stay out of the spotlight, but we’ve collected some of his best leadership advice from relatively recent interviews.

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The question remaining: will it be MacOS, or macOS?

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