It’s Monday, and here are our top stories for this afternoon:
- Apple is sending mixed messages to developers of iMessage sticker packs
- Several hospitals in the US are using iPads to give patients insights into their condition
- olloclip and Incase team up for the new limited-edition Flimer’s Kit, which includes lenses and a video grip mount.
Many thanks again to our Apple World Today sponsor, EverWeb.
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Text Version
This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update for July 17th, 2017.
It appears that iMessage sticker packs are popular…too popular. Apple is apparently putting restrictions on the number of iMessage sticker packs that an individual developer can publish on the App Store. The new policy was explained in a blog post by iOS Developer Melissa Chan, who has a number of popular iMessage sticker packs in the App Store. In May, several of her new packs were rejected by Apple under section 4.3 of the App Store Review Guidelines, which has to do with “spam apps” that are in saturated categories. Chan found out from Apple that the company wants developers to create larger “container” apps for iMessage stickers, selling individual packs through in-app purchases. As Chan notes, though, Apple is still featuring the small niche sticker packs that they don’t want developers to create. Chan finally created a new sticker container app called OMGmoji to bundle her sticker collections, and it was eventually accepted into the App Store.
TechCrunch is reporting that Apple is trying to not only get iPads into the hands of doctors at hospitals, but into the grip of patients as well. At this time, there are just a handful of hospitals in the US that are using iPads across the board, including Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego, MetroSouth Medical Center in Chicago, and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Cedars is using iPads and an in-house app called My CS-Link to let patients look up information about their condition, including notes from their doctor. Cedars is using Epic’s MyChart app to record vitals and other info on about 50 iPads in its heart failure unit, and patients can not only see how they’re doing, but watch educational videos that provide tips on self-care after discharge from the hospital. Another part of the hospital, the neonatal ICU, is using iPads to let premature or sick newborns and their patients communicate via FaceTime. Since the babies are isolated for several, the new parents can use the tool — which the nurses refer to as BabyTime — to interact with their new arrivals while they wait for them to get better.
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iPhone accessory lens manufacturer olloclip today announced a special limited-edition Filmer’s Kit that it developed in collaboration with Incase. The Filmer’s Kit has about $300 worth of essentials for mobile videography, photography and live streaming included in it, and it’s available for just $199 at Apple.com and most Apple retail outlets. In a small, padded case made by Incase, the Filmer’s Kit includes the olloclip Core Lens Set, the olloclip Active Lens Set, and the olloclip Pivot mobile video grip. Through this special kit, photographers using the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus get fisheye, super-wide and 15x macro lenses in addition to 2X telephoto and ultra-wide lenses. The Pivot uses an articulating hub to provide 225 degrees of rotation so holding the iPhone solidly at any angle is possible. As the Filmer’s Kit is a limited-edition deal, photographers should act quickly to ensure availability.
That’s all for today ; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
