Dennis Sellers

<p class="">Apple will reopen its retail stores in Switzerland on May 12, reports <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/09/all-four-apple-stores-in-switzerland-reopen-may-12/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">9o5Mac</span></a>. There are 12 stores in the country.</p>

<p class="">As noted by 9to5Mac, with Fathers Day coming up on June 21, the documentary film <em>Dads </em>will be coming to Apple TV+ on June 19.</p>

<p class="">The weekend has kicked off with two rumors. One says that the next gen Apple Watch will have "mental health capabilities.</p>

<p class="">On a regular basis, <em>Apple World Today </em>posts a list of notable new apps or app updates that have been released. They may not necessarily be new, but they're popular and deserve mention. Here are this week’s picks.</p>

<p class="">Apple will reopen retail stores in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama and Alaska starting next week, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/apple-to-reopen-stores-in-us-starting-next-week.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CNBC</a>. The stores will have temperature checks and will only permit a limited number of people in the store at one time.</p>

<p class="">Apple has launched a <a href="https://authors.apple.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new webpage</a> dubbed “Apple Books for Authors” that “guides you through every step of your journey as an author, from structuring your story to packaging your digital book and selling it on our store.” (That store, of course, is the iBookStore).</p>

<p class=""><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-otherside/id1415190753" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The_Otherside</a> has been added to the line-up of games on Apple Arcade, Apple’s US$4.99/month or $49.99/year streaming game service.</p>

<p class="">Apple has <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">launched a new web page</a> that lets you chat with Apple Specialists, set up financing and credit, order and track products for no-contact delivery, and trade-in an Apple product.</p>

<p class="">In a statement shared with German website <a href="https://www.macerkopf.de/2020/05/08/apple-stores-deutschland-wiedereroeffnung-mai2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Macerkopf</a>, as noted by <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MacRumors</a>, Apple will begin reopening its retail stores in Germany on May 11, almost two months after they were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tech giant has 15 physical stores in the country.</p>

<p class="">Microsoft will add trackpad and mouse support to its Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps for iPadOS by the fall, according to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/06/how-apple-reinvented-the-cursor-for-ipad/">TechCrunch</a>.</p>

<p class="">U.S. District Judge William Alsup admonished Apple and Cisco during a telephone hearing Thursday, asserting that the tech giants tried to land inflated attorney fee awards after beating Straight Path IP Group's infringement litigation and saying they used "abusive" tactics and were motivated by "greed, G-R-E-E-D,” reports <a href="https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1271428/alsup-scolds-apple-cisco-for-g-r-e-e-d-in-atty-fee-bid?nl_pk=ade0cf2b-ea3f-464b-bc93-d8e19277ac63&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=technology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Law360</a> (a subscription is required to read the entire article)</p>

<p class=""><em>TidBITS</em>, the longest running email newsletter on the Internet just had its 30th anniversary, and publisher Adam Engst joins host Chuck Joiner on the <a href="http://www.macvoices.com/macvoices-20131-tidbits-30th-anniversary-with-adam-engst-part-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new episode of MacVoices</a> to celebrate by talking about how web development has become a discipline of its own, and how that affected <em>TidBITs </em>over the years.</p>

<p class="">Apple has filed for a patent (number ) for “user interface camera effects” that hints at even more filters and effects that can be added with the Camera app on an iPhone or iPad.</p>

<p class=""><em>Defending Jacob</em> is believed to be setting Apple TV+ records for viewer engagement, according to <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/05/defending-jacob-success-chris-evans-series-apple-tv-plus-ratings-1202928008/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deadline</a>. The vast majority of viewers who sampled the show during its premiere weekend watched all three available episodes, and nearly all who watched those also completed the fourth episode released May 1, the article adds.</p>

<p class="">Even though Apple owns the Beats brand, which makes a line of headphones, the rumor mill says the company plans to release an Apple-branded headphone any day now. That doesn't make sense to me from a branding viewpoint, but the tech giant has filed for a new patent (number 20200145747) for “detection of headphone rotation.”</p>