Dennis Sellers

<p>According to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, Chinese smartphone shipments slowed in the first quarter of 2018 with a year-over-year decline of 8% and sequential decline of 21%. Xiaomi (+51%) and Apple (+32%) were the fastest growing brands among the top five.</p>

<p>AmpMe is an iOS app that allows you to play music in perfect sync across multiple devices. Its “Offline Mode,” makes possible to create a party regardless of Internet connectivity. The free iOS app — available at the Apple App Store — also incorporates a predictive sync and auto-join feature to get the party started faster and easier.</p>

<p>Do you keep having to retype the same ol’ replies when using Mail in macOS High Sierra. No more! You can set up OS X Mail to respond automatically to incoming messages with a text you have pre-composed. </p>

<p>On a regular basis, Apple World Today 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 expects Intel to supply 70% of the modem chips inside the new iPhone models which will debut this fall, and plans to rely on the company for 100% of the modems in next year’s iPhones as the company ditches Qualcomm, reports <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40564327/intel-to-supply-70-of-iphone-modems-this-year-100-in-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Fast Company</em></a>.</p>

<p>Here’s some good news and some bad news. First the bad: the sub-par performance of the apps and social platforms industry continued in 2018; the industry again ranked 12th out of the 15 studied in MBLM’s Brand Intimacy 2018 Report, which is the largest study of brands based on emotions. The good news: Apple Music led the way followed by Facebook and Spotify.</p>

<p>Crowdfense, a startup company based in the United Arab Emirates is offering up to $3 million for anyone who can offer a zero-day exploit on macOS, iOS, Android or Windows. It’s the highest public price offered for such tools.</p>

<p>Early adopters of the iPhone X are very satisfied with the device, according to a new survey of iPhone X owners by Creative Strategies. However, they aren’t as enthusiastic about Siri, Apple’s “personal digital assistant.”</p>

<p>Robby Technologies, a developer of self-driving delivery robots, has announced that former Apple executive Saumil Nanavati has joined its management team to lead the business development and marketing efforts to help progressive businesses to move cargo, food or groceries using self-driving robots.</p>

<p>In an annual census of “billions” of premium video publisher apps, Conviva — a company that aides OTT [over-the-top] businesses use data-driven intelligence — found viewing hours of Internet-delivered video across mobile, connected TVs and desktop screens grew by 114% in the first quarter of 2018 over the same period last year, with the total viewing hours reaching nearly five billion. And the Apple TV saw 709% growth in viewing hours over the first quarter of 2017.</p>

<p>In a note to clients — as noted by AppleInsider — Guggenheim analyst Robert Cihra says Apple is apparently looking to simplify iPhone branding for its next gen smartphones due later this year.</p>

<p>Grayshift, the firm behind the GrayKey iPhone hacking tool, has been, well, hacked. According to Motherboard, leaked portions of GrayKey code online and demanded over $15,000 from the company to stop publishing the material. The code itself doesn’t appear to be particularly sensitive, but Grayshift confirmed to Motherboard the brief data leak that led to the extortion attempt.</p>

<p>After attending a state dinner on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook is staying in Washington for a closed-door meeting today in the Oval Office. The meeting is scheduled for 1.45 p.m. Washington, D.C., time. It will be closed to the press.</p>

<p>Apple has been granted a patent (number 9,953,088) for “crowd sourcing information to fulfill user requests.” Crow sourcing is the practice of obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people.</p>

<p>Smith Micro Software’s Clip Studio Paint Ex (the app once known as Manga Studio) includes frame-by-frame animation features and more that enables digital artists to create classical animations from their designs using a sequence of drawings that flow automatically to create the illusion of movement. However, it’s days are numbered, so you might want to grab a copy soon if it’s of interest to you.</p>