A few interesting stories for you on this last day of November:
- Apple releases yet another macOS update, this one to fix a bug introduced by yesterday’s update
- Taylor Swift fans should be happy to hear that they’ll be able to stream the new “reputation” album starting at midnight tonight on Spotify and Apple Music. Yay.
- Google Maps for iOS was updated today to take advantage of all the screen space on the iPhone X
- The SiriusXM app for iOS now supports CarPlay, perfect for those who may not have a SiriusXM receiver in their vehicle
The text version of the podcast can be read 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 podcast for Thursday, November 30th, 2017.
As we slide into December tomorrow, we’ll be getting out of a month that ended with one big nasty macOS bug. In case you haven’t heard about it yet, there is a second security update that was shipped out today to patch the one that came out yesterday. It turns out that yesterday’s update caused a problem with File Sharing authentication, so today’s update fixes that… Hopefully today’s update doesn’t cause any more problems. To make sure that you have installed both of the High Sierra updates, you can run the System Information utility, click on Software to get the System Software Overview, and check that the version of macOS is 10.13.1 (17B1003).
If you’re a Taylor Swift fan and wanted to hear her new album, titled Reputation, it’s now available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music. Fans in Australia and the Philippines, where it’s already December 1st, have tweeted screenshots of the album, and it’s expected that it will hit the US at midnight local time tonight. Previously, fans had to purchase a digital download or get a CD with two $20 magazines that were available only at Target. For the majority of us on Planet Earth who really don’t care, this is non-news, but hopefully some of you who are listening to this podcast will now anxiously await midnight so you can listen to Taylor on Apple Music.
Have an iPhone X? You’ll be glad to hear that one of the most popular apps on iPhone and iPad — Google Maps — has been updated to take advantage of the edge-to-edge OLED display of the newest iPhone. The update is free, as is the app, and the new version also brings a handful of bug fixes. Google’s developers did a very good job of re-imagining the app for the iPhone X display, as the map display actually fills the display behind the time, connectivity and battery info at the top of the screen. In landscape orientation, map data and menus bleed into the notch but actionable items like buttons are set inward so that they don’t end up in the notch.
Do you have a car that supports Apple CarPlay? Whether or not you already subscribe to SiriusXM Radio, you’ll be happy to know that the satellite radio provider’s iOS app was updated today to support CarPlay. When connected to an iPhone, the SiriusXM app now appears on the CarPlay screen. To me, the app is a much easier way to navigate around the channels and shows than the usual user interface found in cars equipped with SiriusXM receivers. On the negative side, listening to SiriusXM through the app and CarPlay means that you’ll need to be in range of cell towers — something that’s not always the case here in the western USA — and you’ll rack up data charges while streaming Music, News, Sports and Talk Radio.
That’s all for today; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
