Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Gene Munster and Andrew Murphy, analysts at <a href="http://www.loopventures.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Loup Ventures</a> say that despite short launch day lines, the iPhone Xr isn’t a “disappointment,” as some are calling it. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple is teaming up with TouchTunes, in-venue interactive music and entertainment platform, on a “festive” Apple Pay promo. Use Apple’s mobile payment service to make a purchase of $10 or more in the TouchTunes jukebox app — available at the Apple App Store — and get three free bonus credits.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has filed for another patent (number 20180308413) that hints at upcoming iPhones with curved screens; other patents from the company include numbers 20180120903, 20180152551, 20160320806, and 9,367,095. The latest is for a “display with pixel dimming for curved edges.”</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has updated its Apple Events tvOS app for the Apple TV with a link to a live stream of the Oct. 30 “There’s more in the making” event.  It will be held Tuesday, Oct. 30, 10 a.m. (Eastern) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Gilman Opera House. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Linksys has released its latest addition to the Linksys family of Velop Whole Home Mesh WiFi Systems: the Velop Plug-In. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple News has reached 90 million regular readers, three years after the app launched on iPhones and iPads, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">a story this morning in </span></a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>The New York Times</em></span></a>. And it’s now on the Mac as of macOS Mojave.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Let the Apple Car rumors continue. Apple has filed for a patent (number 20180304727) for an “active glare suppression” system designed to prevent glare from blinding a vehicle’s driver.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><em>shots</em>, the “international source of news, trends and inspiration for advertising creative,” has announced the winners of its annual shots Awards for exceptional creative work. Apple won two awards for its “Welcome Home” ad. You can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=305ryPvU6A8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">view it here</a>.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has been granted two patents (number 20180307375 and 20180307374) for “finger tracking in wet environment” with the goal of making iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches work better even if their screens are wet. Hopefully, that will include sweat, something that sometimes makes it difficult to quickly operate my smartwatch when I’m running. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple will almost certainly introduce new iPad Pros at its Oct. 30 “There’s more in the making” media event. Some pundits are predicting the tablets will ditch the Lightning connector for USB-C. Will that make it possible to use a mouse with an iPad Pro? Probably not, but I can dream, can’t I?</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">“Turn your dated digital rocks into diamonds” is the tagline for Diamond Assets, one of the two top (Petabyte) sponsors at this week’s Jamf Nation User Conference (JUNC) 2018. Diamond Assets works with both enterprise and education customers to enable complete upgrading to new Apple devices.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple wants you to know that reviewers really, really love the iPhone Xr. So the company has posted a round-up of enthusiastic reviews on its <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/iphone-xr-the-reviews-are-in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Newsroom web page</a>.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">As noted by <a href="https://consomac.fr/news-9503-apple-depose-ses-nouveaux-macs-doctobre-2018.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Consomac</em></span></a> and <a href="https://www.mysmartprice.com/gear/apple-macbook-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>MySmartPrice</em></span></a><em>,</em> regulatory details filed with the Eurasian Economic Commission indicate that three new Mac desktops and one new laptop is on the way. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The Autorit Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), Italy’s anti-trust agency, is fining Apple and Samsung 5 million euros (about $5.7 million) each following complaints they used software updates to slow down their mobile phones, reports <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-samsung-italy-antitrust/italian-watchdog-fines-apple-samsung-over-software-updates-idUSKCN1MY1CN" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Reuters</em></a>.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,108,335) for a “touch-based, interactive learning environment” using iPads and Swift Playgrounds, the company’s app designed to teach basic programming concepts like loops and conditionals using an animated character that the budding programmers direct by writing code.</p>