Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.raindesigninc.com/">Rain Design</a>'s $59.90 mBar pro+ is a worthwhile addition to an arsenal of accessories for a new MacBook Pro — as long as you’re using an external keyboard.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple is almost certainly working on its own augmented reality/virtual reality headset (usually dubbed “Apple Glasses” and expected in 2020). A new patent filing (number 20180232942) dubbed “method for representing virtual information in a real environment’ underscores this.</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;">In a <a href="//loupventures.com/apple-retails-mission-embodied-values/)" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blog post</a>— Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster thinks the number of Apple stores will grow from slightly over 500 now to 600 by 2023.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">ARM has <a href="https://www.arm.com/company/news/2018/08/accelerating-mobile-and-laptop-performance" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">presented its roadmap</a> for future CPUs, saying that they’ll be able to outperform Intel chips. If so — and there’s a difference between a company’s hype and reality — ARM-based Macs are almost certainly coming down the road.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=8tT1jgQj-MIC_4R39BtT-SbPE3_X9GRl8lk_7aRSuE6dtwwxyaujqbKpsAO2NehqNBAdS2M8rx6sjeL-kgW8xg==" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jamf</a>, which specializes in Apple ecosystem management, has announced that it made a successful company-wide global migration to Apple technology possible for <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=u_D3i1kkag7kzEAovJ_MWfil7rtODPkIicKYDE3hNrsbUsSh1RHfjG7j-n9YtbvzVrppl51IUSMEtqUV0_vDJWSTpm4QHFuhhoqsoVIfTDI8mNuV9alP-fOiq-1xCCAw1jg_TGAs-kpnmekPEi5X_qEekGXg-GeJC0w8u1RTuBbuXdNFxgDC1bqp4gYTVYdOZPHBsbLfjsZuVWPIx2VuLBsKtPc5DgcxICyNESGPGx4=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rituals</a>, one of the fastest growing luxury brands in Europe. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">FallCall Solutions, the creator of the FallCall Lite app for Apple Watch and iPhone, has teamed up with Mytrex — a provider of monitoring services in the Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) market — to bring fully-integrated emergency medical monitoring services into the Apple ecosystem, including the iPhone and Apple Watch.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Take this as further evidence of a full-fledged “Apple Car” or, as I do, evidence of new features planned for the iPhone and perhaps the Apple Watch: Apple has filed for a patent (number ) for “enhanced automative passive entry.”</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’ve forked out the big bucks for the 2018 MacBook Pro, you’ll want to protect it when you’re on the go. One fine item for helping keep it pristine is the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/phwq6j8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palm Rest and Trackpad Protector</a> from UPPERCASE. </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;">Japan is investigating allegations that pressure from Apple forced Yahoo Japan to pull back from a game platform that competes with the App Store, reports <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Apple-probed-in-Japan-over-anti-competitive-behavior" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Nikkei</em>.</a></p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has dropped to sixth in the global laptop market<strong> </strong>with its market share sliding to 6.5%, according to new data from <a href="http://www.trendforce.com">TrendForce</a>. That’s down from 7.7% in the first quarter of 2018.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy birthday, iMac. The ground-breaking all-in-one was launched on May 6, 1998, at a Macworld Expo by Steve Jobs. I’ve owned every iteration of the iMac since then, so I’m expecting Apple to give us a cool new version any day now.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I have no doubt that Apple is working on an AR/VR headset ("Apple Glasses"), but am still skeptical that the tech giant plans to build a full blown car. However, in a note to clients — as reported by <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/14/kuo-apple-car-likely-to-launch-in-2023-2025-fuel-2-trillion-company-valuation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>AppleInside</em>r</a> — well known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts we’ll see the latter by 2025, and the former in 2020.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple repeatedly denies that it has any plans for a touch screen Mac. However, a newly granted patent (number 10,048,788) for “touch screen display uniformity” hints at such a device. Or perhaps an iOS laptop.</p>