Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple has been granted a patent that, if it ever materializes in a product, would equip your Mac laptop, iPhone, and iPad with environmental sensors to better protect the speakers and microphones. Basically, the sensors would alert users when water, smoke, excessive heat, etc., is detected so they could protect their gadgets.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The Sellers Research Firm (that’s me) disagrees, but a new study from <a href="http://www.juniperresearch.com/CMSModules/Newsletters/CMSPages/Redirect.ashx?linkguid=f360b089-9b0d-4bc6-8567-05ec2833213f&email=submitnews%40applecentral.com&hash=898d7744c1fb18e3162d64eeaff77c4d3cc1a3b3101c2b7a131d8a324f3f7a58" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">Juniper Research</span></a> has found that the four biggest smartwatch vendors — Apple, Fossil, Fitbit and Samsung — will have their market share for connected watch shipments fall to 47% by 2023, down from an estimated 58% in 2018. The decline is linked to the growth of smaller players, including Garmin, Huami and Huawei amongst others, claims Juniper.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2379181-1&h=3128232010&u=https%3A%2F%2Frokt.com%2F&a=Rokt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration:underline">Rokt</span></a>, which specializes in e-commerce marketing technology, announced that James Wilson has joined the executive team as chief technology officer. He has over 20 years experience in software and network engineering, most recently working in the U.S. in senior engineering roles at both Apple and Amazon.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">OWC has released its free <a href="https://www.owcdigital.com/products/dock-ejector" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dock Ejector app,</a> which allows users to safely disconnect from all OWC docks with one click. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Epson America has added voice-activated printing compatibility with Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant. The Epson EcoTank, WorkForce, and Expression printers are now compatible with three popular voice assistant platforms, including Amazon Alexa.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Despite a 10.4% decline in the fourth quarter, Apple continues to dominate the smartphone market in Japan. According to the <a href="http://www.canalys.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Canalys research group</a>  its market share exceeded 50% for the first time in 2018. That’s up from 48% in 2017 and 48.2% in 2016.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Apple’s HomePod sales rose 45% in the fourth quarter, but its market share fell back to 4.1%, according to <a href="http://www.strategyanalytics.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Strategy Analytics</a>. The firm’s latest research shows that quarter four (Q4) shipments grew 95% to 38.5 million units. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Future Apple Watches may be flexible and/or sport a magnetic wristband, according to two recently granted Apple patents.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">With services like Amazon, UPS, USPS ,and FedEx delivering thousands of products to front doors every day in this age of online shopping, lots of folks are getting ripped off by “porch pirates” — thieves who snatch and run with goodies they didn’t pay for.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">iOS 12 has some very useful keyboard shortcuts yet. They’re especially useful for iPad users who have a keyboard attached. </p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">A new report from <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-executive-shake-up-readies-it-for-life-after-iphone-11550503767?mod=e2twd" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Wall Street Journal</em></a> notes that Apple is shaking up leadership and reordering priorities across its services, artificial intelligence, hardware and retail divisions as it works to reduce the company’s reliance on iPhone sales. If today’s <a href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2019/2/18/heres-my-take-on-todays-plethora-of-apple-rumors" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rumors are true</a>, it seems there could be a renewed focus on the Mac.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">As part of its Community Education Initiative, Apple says it will partner with Oakland, California-based non-profit organization Dream Corps to bring educational and workforce development opportunities to young adults with a goal of career placement in the tech sector.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">On Feb. 7, Apple released iOS 12.1.4, which offers a fix for the Group FaceTime glitch. However, there’s still a problem.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In a note to clients — as noted by …. well, pretty much every website that covers Apple — analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has made a plethora of predictions for products to be released this year. Here’s a round-up of them and the chances the Sellers Research Firm (that’s me) thinks they have of coming true.</p>

<p style="white-space:pre-wrap;">You can use your Apple Watch and watchOS 5 to control music on your iPhone, or you can enjoy music on your Apple Watch without the smartphone.</p>