Dennis Sellers

<p>Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product, so here are today’s patent highlights:</p>

<p>You may not know it but when you "buy" digital content such as books, music and movies from Apple and Amazon, you're not actually buying them but renting them. As more people realize this, it's unlikely they'll reconsider making physical purchases instead of digital ones. But this needs to change. </p>

<p>LibertyApp has introduced Server Ranger 1.0, a website and server monitoring solution for OS X. It scales to monitor the performance and uptime of any number of servers, as well as any type of server, including web, mail, file, routers and more. </p>

<p>I’ve never had any problems with malware, adware, ransomeware or any sort of nasty-ware on any of the many Macs I’ve owned. However, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2459197-bit9-carbon-black-threat-research-report-2015.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">a study by the Bit9 + Carbon Black Threat Research Team</a> says that five times more OS X malware appeared in 2015 than in the previous five years combined, so I guess precautions are needed.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/chde/apple-pay/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple has announced</a> that Apple Pay, is mobile payment system to customers in Switzerland, offering initial support for both Visa and Mastercard credit cards, as well as Bonus Card, Cornercard or Swiss Bankers credit and prepaid cards.</p>

<p>I like my coffee hot. Really hot. Since I sip on a cup of java for a long period of time, I thought the cool-looking Hot Cookie could replace the Thermos mug I keep on my desk. Unfortunately, it can't.</p>

<p>I "love" my Apple products, but this is taking things a little too far: attorney Mark "Chris" Servier is attempting to take Rowan County Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis to court for denying him the right to marry his <a target="_blank" href="http://www.edgemedianetwork.com/?200509" rel="noopener noreferrer">MacBook</a>.</p>

<p>Apple is king of the hill when it comes to enterprise mobile security; however, Samsung is catching up through the strength of its KNOX platform among others, according to a new <a target="_blank" href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-winning-the-enterprise-security-race-samsung-makes-push/" rel="noopener noreferrer">research report</a> released by Tech Pro Research – a joint venture between <em>TechRepublic</em> and <em>ZDNet.</em></p>

<p>Apple retains pole position for the 5th year in a row in <a target="_blank" href="http://www.poandpo.com/business-as-usual/us-clear-leader-in-pwcs-global-top-100-companies-ranking-672016476/" rel="noopener noreferrer">PwC’s Global Top 100 ranking</a>; however, a $121 billion (17%) decrease in market cap sees the gap with second ranked Alphabet narrow from $350 billion last year to just $86 billion Alphabet, a subsidiary of Google, briefly dethroned Apple in February 2016.</p>

<p>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>iPhones and iPad users spend lots more money on apps than Android users and the gap is widening, according to new research from Citigroup Global Markets analysts Mark May and Jim Suva — as noted by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-app-store-revenue-per-user-versus-android-2016-7" rel="noopener noreferrer">Business Insider</a>.</p>

<p>Apple has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/07/apple-lzfse-lossless-opensource" rel="noopener noreferrer">open-sourced its lossless compression algorithm</a>, LZFSE, which was introduced along with iOS 9 and OS X 10.10. What is LZFSE?</p>

<p style="margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px">Apple is among several tech companies are fighting the European Union's so-called "Cookie Law," lobbying the organization for more refined laws that aim to strike a balance between user privacy and data collected by providers, according to <a target="_blank" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/07/06/apple-joins-wide-array-of-tech-companies-in-fight-to-kill-eus-cookie-law" rel="noopener noreferrer">AppleInsider.</a></p>

<p>The iPhone dropped to fifth place in Chinese smartphone shipments. The Apple smartphone made up 10.8% of devices sold in May, down from 12% a year earlier, according to Counterpoint— as noted by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-06/apple-drops-to-fifth-in-china-s-mobile-market-as-locals-rise" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bloomberg</a>.</p>

<p>Bitdefender has <a href="https://labs.bitdefender.com/2016/07/new-mac-backdoor-nukes-os-x-systems/">posted a blog</a> about a new piece of Mac malware they are calling “Backdoor.MAC.Elanor.” This is only the only the second piece of true Mac malware spotted so far in 2016, the first being the KeRanger ransomware. </p>