Dennis Sellers

<p>The “will they or won’t they” speculation continues. Toshiba is spinning-off its core memory chip business and seeking outside investors in it. Apple is considering investing several billion dollars in a bid that would give it and partner investor Foxconn a more than 20% stake in the business, <em>Reuters</em> — citing a report from Japan's national broadcaster — says Apple <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-apple-idUSKBN17G085" rel="noopener noreferrer">is deciding</a> whether to take a decreased stake in the embattled Toshiba chip unit to skirt governmental regulations limiting the transfer of Japanese technology to outside companies. </p>

<p>In the three-month period ending February 2017, iOS accounted for 13.2% of smartphone sales in urban China, a decline of 8.9 percentage points from 22.1% a year earlier. This marks iOS’ lowest share since the three-month period ending July 2014, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.kantarworldpanel.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kantar Worldpanel</a>.</p>

<p>Apple has updated iMovie and Final Cut Pro X for the Mac. Both are available at the Mac App Store.</p>

<p>Apple has applied for a patent (number 20170105084) for a “directivity optimized sound reproduction system” that looks perfect for an Apple-branded HDTV should the tech giant every revisit that possibility — although it would be nice to image such a system with a next gen iMac or Mac Pro.</p>

<p>Apple has had a small team of biomedical engineers working on a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/apple-working-on-glucose-sensors-diabetes-treatment.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">secret initiative to develop non-invasive glucose sensors</a> in what it hopes would be a game-changer for diabetes treatment, <em>CNBC</em> reports.</p>

<p>Want to set up password protection for files you’ve created in Pages, Numbers or Keynote in macOS Sierra? It’s easy. </p>

<p>like “white noise" when I call it a day. Our household always has a fan going when we turn in for the night. When I travel, I can’t take a big fan with me, so I take a small one: the $34.95 <a target="_blank" href="http://lectrofan.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">LectroFan Micro</a>, a two-in-one pocket-sized white noise/fan sound machine with a wireless Bluetooth speaker.</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>Apple has released an <a target="_blank" href="https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04112017a" rel="noopener noreferrer">update to TestFlight</a>, its free iOS app testing platform that’s part of iTunes Connect. It now provides multiple build support, enhanced group capabilities, and improved tester management—making it even easier to test your apps.</p>

<p>Feral Interactive says Total War: WARHAMMER for macOS, powered by Metal, Apple’s new graphics API (application programming interface) will be released on Tuesday, April 18. The game was developed for Windows PC by Creative Assembly in partnership with Games Workshop, and published by SEGA.</p>

<p>You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you? Qualcomm has “slammed Apple with a slew of counterclaim”s in California federal court on Monday, alleging the iPhone maker is lowballing license terms for Qualcomm’s standard essential patent technology, breaching cooperation agreements and making billions of dollars off of other companies’ innovations, reports <a target="_blank" href="https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/912275/apple-hit-with-counterclaims-in-1b-qualcomm-royalty-row?nl_pk=ade0cf2b-ea3f-464b-bc93-d8e19277ac63&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=technology" rel="noopener noreferrer">Law360</a>.</p>

<p>Apple’s AirDrop feature is a great way to share files with macOS Sierra (as well as iOS). It lets you send documents, photos, webpages, map locations, and more to anyone near you, wirelessly. You can send and receive items between Mac s and iOS devices that are on the same network.</p>

<p>I’ll be taking a vacation (the first one in years) soon at the Grand Canyon, and I think I’ll take the <a target="_blank" href="https://sunnycam.co/activ-edition-video-recording-glasses/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sunnycam Activ</a> with me. It’s basically sunglasses equipped with a 1080p/30 frames-per-second video camera built “right between the eyes.”</p>

<p>Apple’s Mac saw its worldwide market share increase in the first quarter of 2017, according to reports from the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.gartner.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gartner</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.idc.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">IDC</a> research groups.</p>

<p>Apple’s new, free <a target="_blank" href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2017/4/7/a-quick-look-at-apples-clips-for-ios-devices-and-some-helpful-hints?rq=Clips" rel="noopener noreferrer">Clips app</a> saw between 500,000 and a million downloads, according to estimates from app store analytics firm App Annie — as noted by <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/apple-clips-scored-up-to-1-million-downloads-in-its-first-4-days/" rel="noopener noreferrer">TechCrunch</a>. Sound good, right? Still, Clips hasn’t yet broken into the top 20 apps by ranking in the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts.</p>