Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, we’ll frequently offer a wrap-up of news items you should check out. First up: Apple’s online store now provides a direct option to pay with the Apple Card at checkout.
° In “a major U-turn,” the UK is ditching the way its current coronavirus-tracing app works and shifting to a model based on technology provided by Apple and Google, according to BBC News. The Apple-Google design has been promoted as being more privacy-focused.
° Apple manufacturer Foxconn posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit and forecast its smartphones business would see sustained revenue weakness but at a slightly slower pace this quarter, reports Reuters.
° AppleInsider says Apple and Google’s joint coronavirus contact tracing effort, dubbed the Exposure Notification API, has seen reasonably rapid uptake internationally despite continued foot-dragging from U.S. states.
° Verizon is offering the 64GB iPhone SE (2020) for free when you sign up for a new line on a Verizon Unlimited plan.
° A new report from Nikkei Asian Review says Huawei has surpassed Apple with the second-largest market share of the smartphone market for the first time in 2019.
° Joe Kissell has updated his Take Control of iCloud to the seventh edition, the first in Take Control history. Can iCloud finally replace Dropbox? On the latest MacVoices, he talks about why the answer is a definite “maybe”, depending on your needs. He goes through some of the considerations, and also why you may or may not want to store your desktop and Home folder in iCloud in this first part of our review of Apple’s online storage and file sharing service.
* Dropbox has made three new features available to the public following beta testing, including a password manager, file vault, and automatic backup functionality on the Mac and PC, reports The Verge.
