A new week, and a fresh new batch of stories for our listeners:
- Updates to all of Apple’s operating systems showed up today, with macOS squashing a bug that caused stuttering sound through USB headphones
- A rumor says that Apple may have “smart bands” coming out as accessories for the Apple Watch that could do real-time monitoring of blood glucose, add battery life, and include cameras
- Artists with iPad Pros and Apple Pencils were in attendance at The Players Tournament this weekend, capturing the PGA Tour event in a high-tech way
The text version of the podcast can be viewed below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below. Note to Apple News readers: you’ll need to visit Apple World Today in order to listen to the podcast.
Text Version
This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update for May 15th, 2017.
In case you haven’t been web browsing today and haven’t seen the news, here it is in audio format — all of the latest versions of Apple’s operating systems became available to the general public today. Those include macOS 10.12.5, iOS 10.3.2, tvOS 10.2.1 and watchOS 3.2.2. In all cases, the updates provided performance improvements, bug fixes, and security patches, so you’ll probably want to get them all loaded as soon as possible. Among the changes to macOS 10.12.5 are fixes to stuttering audio from USB headphones and the ability to install the Windows 10 Creators Update to a Boot Camp partition with no media.
Rumor site BGR says that future versions of the Apple Watch are expected to have major new health features built in, thanks to interchangeable smart bands. Apple has been rumored to be working on sensors for non-invasive blood glucose monitoring for some time, and the BGR report says that Apple’s team of over 200 PhDs has now started feasibility trials. Building the functionality into a Watch smart band would be brilliant, as the primary device — the Watch — wouldn’t have to go through the approval process at the Food & Drug Administration. The company could continue to develop, market, and sell Apple Watches without approval, but when the band is far enough along it could go through the tedious FDA approval. Other possibilities for smart bands are a battery band to extend battery life, and a camera band. All of the modular smart bands would connect to the Apple Watch through the diagnostic port on the device. It’s not know if the new features could make it in time for a 2017 introduction, or if the smart bands are planned for a 2018 release.
Are you a golf fan? If you are, you probably watched the PGA Tour’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass this weekend. What you may not know is that the PGA Tour invited four artists and illustrators to the event this weekend, allowing them to sketch the course, the players, and the crowds. Two of the illustrators were senior graphic designers and illustrators on the PGA Tour staff, while the other two were from New York and California. All of them used the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to sketch and paint, and the images created were quite impressive. You can see the PGA Tour gallery at the link found in the show notes.
That’s all for today; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
