Friday’s usually a slow day for Apple news, but we have a handful of stories for your listening pleasure:
- Apple’s celebrating Canada 150 by adding a special section to the Canadian iOS App Store highlighting apps that were developed by Canadians and in Canada
- Google promises that it will stop scanning user emails in its free Gmail product in order to personalize advertising
- That iPhone 8? It might be called the iPhone Decade Edition…or not
- Google’s YouTube TV is expanding to ten more metropolitan areas in the US in the next few weeks
The text version of the podcast can be viewed below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below. Apple News readers 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 June 23rd, 2017.
Canada turns 150 years old next week, and Apple’s in the Canada Day spirit with a special section for Canadian users of the iOS App Store. The new Canada 150 section of the app features apps developed by Canadians and in Canada, as well as apps developed elsewhere in the world that are wildly popular with Canadians. Some of those apps are my favorites and on all of my iOS devices, including 1Password and Alto’s Adventure. Too bad they won’t make the list available for those of in the rest of North America!
There’s good news in the email world today if you have a Gmail account. Google announced that starting later this year, it will stop scanning users emails for creating personalized ads in the web version of Gmail. Instead, the company will serve up ads based on user settings and any Google search results that are made on that account. According to Google Cloud Senior Vice President Diane Green, “This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products. Ads are shown based on users’ settings. Users can change those settings at any time, including disabling ads personalization.”
You regular AWT News Update listeners already know that we’re expecting three new iPhone models later this year: the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus, which will be upgrades to the current iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models, and a new iPhone 8 featuring an OLED screen and all sorts of other new features. Well, an accessory vendor that recently posted an image of its iPhone 8 screen protector is now saying that the new phone might be marketed with the name “Decade Edition.” Personally, it’s unlikely that an accessory manufacturer would know the company’s internal name for the new device and it’s somewhat out of line with the existing number-based model naming system. But of course, Apple has used “Edition” in naming various versions of the Apple Watch, so perhaps this vendor knows something after all. In fact, Japanese blog Mac Otakara reported in March that the new iPhone would be called “iPhone Edition”. We’re guessing that Apple has a bunch of possible names for the product and will just pick one at the last moment to keep all the bloggers off balance.
Google’s YouTube TV will be expanding to ten more regions in the US in a couple of weeks. At present, it’s available in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The expansion will see the streaming service expanding to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Houston, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, Phoenix and Washington, DC. YouTube TV can be viewed on the web and on iPhones and iPads running iOS 9.1 and later. There’s currently no Apple TV app, but streaming from a compatible device via AirPlay works just fine. The service is priced starting at $35 per month, which focuses on the four major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC — and their related channels.
That’s all for today ; I’ll be back Monday afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
