Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple is teaming up with Adidas — which makes footwear, sports, and casual apparel— for a new Apple Pay promo: use the latter’s mobile payment service in the Adidas app — available at the Apple App Store — and get 15% on your purchase.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.strategyanalytics.com%2Faccess-services%2Fdevices%2Fwearables%2Fmarket-data%2Freport-detail%2Fglobal-smartwatch-vendor-market-share-by-region-q4-2018&esheet=51947836&newsitemid=20190227006074&lan=en-US&anchor=global+smartwatch+shipments+grew+an+impressive+56+percent&index=1&md5=61f23c443143e129e150fb081ec8d67e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">global smartwatch shipments grew an impressive 56% </a>annually to reach a record 18 million units in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018. Apple Watch maintained first position with 51% global smartwatch marketshare, while Samsung jumped to second place, overtaking Fitbit and Garmin.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Plugable’s 10Gb USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2) <a href="https://plugable.com/products/usbc-nvme" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">NVMe SSD Enclosure</span></a> is, as far as I can tell, the first high performance NVMe enclosure to feature a completely tool-free, spring-loaded design for inserting and removing a compatible SSD. It’s compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux systems.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Vulnerabilities in Thunderbolt has been disclosed by security researchers, with "Thunderclap" allowing a device connecting over Thunderbolt to acquire sensitive data from the host Mac, an issue that affects almost all Macs released since 2011, notes <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/27/thunderbolt-3-thunderclap-vulnerabilities-let-malicious-peripherals-attack-a-macs-memory" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>AppleInsider</em></a>.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple is laying off 190 employees who worked in its Santa Clara and Sunnyvale self-driving car division dubbed “Project Titan,” the company said in a letter to the California Employment Development Department noted by the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Apple-self-driving-car-layoffs-hit-190-employees-13649994.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>San Francisco Chronicle</em></a>. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">KeepSolid has released an update for their registration-free VPN service, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vpn-lite-without-registration/id1445553327?mt=12" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">KeepSolid VPN Lite</a>. The app is finally available on macOS. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">HITCASE has released the Ferra, a handcrafted, full grain leather drop resistant case for iPhone X, Xs, and Xs Max. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I suggested this idea four years ago. It never came to fruition, but I still think it’s a timely idea: Apple should open small retail stores — Apple mini stores, if you will — in towns that are too small for the traditional, bigger Apple retail stores and Mac Specialists.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple has filed for a patent (number 10,216,147) for a “tactile switch for an electronic device” — the device being an Apple Watch. The plan seems to be to add even more functionality to the smartwatch’s Digital Crown and screen.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, at the end of each week day, we’ll offer this wrap-up of news items you should check out.</p><p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The creators of the upcoming Apple TV series inspired by Hilde Lysiak, the 12-year-old investigative reporter who exposed a murder in her Pennsylvania hometown when she was 9 in her self-started newspaper, have been keeping up with her work. Most recently, that included standing her ground against an Arizona town marshal, according to <a href="https://deadline.com/2019/02/hilde-lysiak-journalist-apple-series-latest-scoop-1202563511/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Deadline</em></a>.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Another day, another lawsuit. As reported by<em> </em><a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/26/apples-iphone-ipad-more-targeted-in-new-lawsuit-over-lte-patents" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>AppleInsider</em></a>, a group of firms operating under the name Optis Wireless Technology are suing Apple over seven patents connected to LTE cellular standards.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple is expected to debut “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality/virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), perhaps as early as next year. And the company has been granted another patent (number 10,217,288) dubbed “methods for representing points of interest in a view of a real environment on a mobile device.” The patent could also apply to AR features on an iPhone or iPad.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">You may one day be able to control your Mac — and perhaps your Apple TV — by gestures. Apple has been granted yet another patent (number 10,218,963) for a “gesture-based user interface” that hints at gesture controls for Macs. This one is dubbed “scanning projectors and image capture modules for 3D mapping.”</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple is testing a sleep tracking app for the Apple Watch, according to report by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-26/apple-is-said-to-plan-sleep-tracking-feature-for-future-watch" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Bloomberg</em></a>'s Mark Gurman, who has a good track record regarding Apple rumors.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Eighty percent of compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices are now running iOS 12 Apple announced in a support <a href="https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">webpage</a>.</p>