Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In December 2018, <a href="http://www.waterstonegroup.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Waterstone</a> surveyed 5,000 Americans to establish their relationship with cable TV and streaming services. The management consulting firm found that cord cutting continues to rise.</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 this week’s picks.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Bill Stasior (pictured), who was lured from Amazon in 2012 to lead Siri after two of the personal digital assistant’s creators left Apple, is no longer heading the voice assistant group, though he remains at the tech giant, according to a report at <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apples-siri-leader-is-out?" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Information</em></a>, citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple has apologized for the FaceTime bug . You can read the statement of the apology at <a href="https://www.macrumors.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>MacRumors</em>.</a> The company says a fix is coming next week for the the<a href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2019/1/28/be-aware-of-this-facetime-bug-on-ios-devices"> Group Calling exploit </a>that allows a FaceTime video caller to hear the audio from a recipient's iPhone without the call even being picked up.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The Russian security services could soon have access to the personal data of thousands of Apple users in Russia, following the tech giant’s decision to comply with Russian law and store user data on servers in the country, according to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/31/how-russia-is-strong-arming-apple-data-security-icloud/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an <em>FP </em>article</a>.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">During Heart Month, Apple will offer an Activity Challenge on Apple Watch and heart health events in Apple Stores in San Francisco, Chicago and New York to educate consumers on their heart health and encourage them to get active and live a better day.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">According to the latest market share survey from <a href="http://netmarkeshare.com/">NetMarketShare,</a> the market share for both macOS and iOS was down in January.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple has filed for a patent (number 20190037342) for “location-based ticket books.” It would allow iPhones, iPads, and perhaps even Apple Watches to alert you of tickets available for events in your location. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">With Reading Lists in iOS 12, you can save webpages for later and read ‘em whenever you want — even if you don't have an Internet connection. Here’s how:</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/31/macos-malware-cookies-swipe-cryptocurrency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>TNW</em> reports</a> that ecurity researchers from Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 have identified a new cryptocurrency stealing malware. What has been dubbed as “CookieMiner,” specifically targets Mac users and the cookies related to their logon credentials for cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Poloniex, Bittrex, Bitstamp, and MyEtherWallet.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">MacTech has announced a new regional event series, <a href="http://tracking.mactech.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpro.mactech.com%2F&i=1&d=yXd8-f8IQkKmdblRfD-MfQ&e=dsellers%40applecentral.com&a=1AYMSOFcTt2g0_5EOJuu0g" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">MacTech Pro 2019 Events</span></a>, designed specifically professional Apple techs. The events will be in 10 cities in 2019.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">A Munich district court has rejected four out of eight local lawsuits brought against Apple by Qualcomm. Siri and Spotlight search features don't infringe on the Qualcomm patents in those cases, the Munich I Regional Court said in an announcement on its, of course, <a href="https://www.justiz.bayern.de/gerichte-und-behoerden/landgericht/muenchen-1/presse/2019/1.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">German language website</a>.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">First Apple stopped Facebook from being able to use its internal apps by revoking its enterprise developer certificates following reports that the social network ignored guidelines relating to user privacy by distributing apps outside the app store. Now the tech giant has done the same thing with Google, according to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18205795/apple-google-blocked-internal-ios-apps-developer-certificate" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Verge</em></a>.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">StarTech.com has introduced two dual display USB-C multi-port adapters/mini docks that offer support for Power Delivery 3.0 and dual 4K displays: the <a href="http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Laptop-docking-stations/usb-c-multiport-adapter-dual-4k-hdmi~DK30C2HAGPD" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">DK30C2HAGPD</span></a> ($169.99) and <a href="http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Laptop-docking-stations/~DK30C2DAGPD" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">DK30C2DAGPD</span></a> ($155.99).</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Another day, another lawsuit. Well, another one soon anyway. The Montreal, Canada law firm of Lambert Avocat <a href="https://lambertavocatinc.com/class-action-apple/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has started an application</a> to be authorized to bring a class action suit against Apple. </p>