Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">A HomePod private beta could be testing the ability to enable Apple’s wireless speaker to allow users to make phone calls and use it as a speakerphone for a wirelessly-connected iPhone. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.law360.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Law 360</em></a> notes that there are several recent legal decisions that could affect Apple. <strong>One</strong>: in a partial dissent from a decision handing Google, Apple, AOL and Yahoo a win in a patent infringement suit, a Federal Circuit judge on Friday slammed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice decision, expressing frustration with its definitions of “abstract ideas” and “inventive concepts.”</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has applied for a patent (number 20180205728) for “biometric device pairing,” the technology behind Touch ID.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Cisdem's <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pxctdms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BetterUnarchiver</a> is a Mac archive manager app that makes it easy to compress and decompress archive files. It supports unzipping files like Zip, 7z, Rar, ISO, Tar, Cab, Wim, xz, CHM, com, Hfs, Nsis, Udf, and more.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple <a href="https://support.apple.com/homepod-event-july-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has announced</a> that it will be holding a live chat with HomePod specialists on Wednesday, July 25 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Pacific).</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;">Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,028,397) for an “electronic device with liquid-resistant SIM tray and audio module,” which shows that it’s working on further ways to make iPhones and iPads even more water resistant.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The Omni Group's <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OmniFocus</a> is a handy task management tool for macOS, iOS, and the Apple Watch. And they work together.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Macs and PCs use different file systems, which can make it tricky to put data from your Mac on a flash or hard drive and give it to a Windows user. Tricky, but not impossible. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">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 today's picks.</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;">Apple offering a “summertime savings” promo for Apple Pay users. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Passware, Inc. — a provider of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software for computer forensics, law enforcement organizations, government agencies, and private investigators — has released <a href="https://www.passware.com/kit-forensic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Passware Kit Forensic 2018 v1</a>. The new version leverages advanced methods to decrypt the new Apple Files System (APFS) disks, which include memory analysis and leaked passwords dictionary, according to CEO Dmitry Sumin.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Maclocks has announced an anti-theft solution for the new MacBook Pro 2018 with Touch Bar models that’s compatible with other models as well.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">With Apple touting the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement and Microsoft offering a 15-inch Surface Book, would there be a market for a 15-inch iPad Pro (an “iPad Pro Plus”)?</p>