Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Synology has launched the $799.99 <a href="https://www.synology.com/products/DS1618+" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DiskStation DS1618+</a>, a 6six-bay NAS designed for file serving, application hosting, data backup, and real-time collaboration.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.StarTech.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">StarTech</a> has announced two new Thunderbolt 3 Mini Docking Stations that allow users to connect two DisplayPort or HDMI monitors with 4K resolution without the need for additional adapters. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has filed for a patent (number 20180137864) for “multi-microphone speech recognition systems and related techniques.” The goal seems to be to improve the accuracy of Siri, it’s personal digital assistant.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, I'm going to talk about our #1 requested topic right now: the top Mac games of 2018 so far.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">When you use Family Sharing in iOS 11, it's easy to share your location with family members in Find My Friends or the Messages app. You can even help family members locate their missing devices in Find My iPhone.</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;">The U.S. government can’t help in Apple’s court fight against the European Union’s order to pay Ireland a record 13 billion euros (about $15.3 billion) in unpaid taxes.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Steve is out of pocket this week, so the AWT News Update is on a brief hiatus. In its place, I’ll offer a text-only (no podcast) summary of breaking stories with a tip o’ my hat to my former website, <em>Apple Daily Report</em>.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">According to the latest quarterly research from <a href="http://www.strategyanalytics.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Strategy Analytics</a>, global smart speaker shipments reached 9.2 million units in the first quarter (Q1) of 2018. The research group says Apple shipped about 600,000 HomePods to garner 6% of the market.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">In a note to clients — as noted by <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/17/apple-glasses-ar-headset-could-launch-in-2021-says-gene-munster" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>AppleInsider</em></a>, Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster — says Apple’s augmented reality (AR) headset  will arrive in 2021 and sell more than 10 million units in its first year.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has been granted a patent (number 20180136800) for “user interfaces for browsing content from multiple content applications on an electronic device.” The goal: present media items such as music, movies, and TV shows from different media applications in a unified media browsing app on Apple devices such as Macs, iPads, Apple TVs, and iPhones.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t exactly a shock, but Chinese consumers prefer home-grown smartphone maker Huawei over Apple's iPhone, according to a survey from Reputation Institute, an independent research company. The Cupertino, California-based company places 12th on the country’s list of favorite global companies.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple is teaming up with Instacart and offering free delivery of groceries using its <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instacart/id545599256?mt=8&ls=1&app=itunes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">free mobile app.</a></p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple is teaming up with educators for blind and deaf communities across the U.S. to bring accessible coding to their schools. Beginning this fall, schools supporting students with vision, hearing or other assistive needs will start teaching the <a href="https://www.apple.com/everyone-can-code/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Everyone Can Code</a> curricula for <a href="https://www.apple.com/swift/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Swift</a>, Apple’s programming language.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">With Family Sharing on macOS High Sierra, you can start a new family group and invite people to join, or you can join someone else's family group.  This makes it easy for up to six people in your family to share iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family membership, and an iCloud storage plan, without sharing accounts. </p>