Dennis Sellers

<p>In the <a href="http://images.apple.com/legal/privacy/transparency/requests-2016-H1-en.pdf">latest edition of its biannual report on Government Information Requests</a>, Apple says that governments across the globe are making ever more frequent requests for access to customer data — and the U.S. makes six times as many account requests as China. The report covers the first six months of 2016. </p>

<p>Apple has been granted a patent (number 9,516,442) to improve the audio quality of earbuds used with smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. The company says that under typical environmental conditions, the microphones in eabudds may do a poor job of capturing a sound of interest (e.g., speech received from a user's mouth) due to the presence of various background sounds. </p>

<p>The AWT News Update is on hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a road trip. 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>Apple’s AirPods are still not available. The reason is the the company is still working to ensure that both earpieces receive audio at the same time, according to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-airpod-shipping-delay-causes-holiday-disappointment-1481299202" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Wall Street Journal.</a></p>

<p>ReSound has announced the U.S. launch of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.resoundpro.com/en-SG/hearing-aids/up-smart" rel="noopener noreferrer">ReSound Up Smart</a>, a pediatric Smart Hearing aid with Made for iPhone capabilities, providing new ways to support speech and language development, educational skills, and social interaction.</p>

<p>Inspiring-Life Technologies has introduced Day Planner 1.0, a “to-do” application for macOS. Its interface is sub divided into dedicated sections for entering specific information for a given day. </p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://exolens.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer">ExoLens</a> is shipping the ExoLens PRO with Optics by ZEISS Wide-Angle and Telephoto Kits for the iPhone 6 family and the iPhone 7. The kits are exclusively available at Apple retail stores in the US and Canada and Apple.com. </p>

<p>If you’re setting up a smart home, one item to check out is TP-Link’s $24.99 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tp-link.com/us/products/details/cat-5609_LB110.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb with Dimmable Light</a>. It’s useful, but loses points because it doesn’t work with Apple HomeKit. Instead it uses the TP-Link Kasa app, which is a free download from the Apple App Store.</p>

<p>How much personal details of yours are online? You obviously have profiles on social networks like Facebook, accounts on email services like Google Mail and platforms like YouTube which is also owned by Google and you have subscriptions for Apple services and different kinds of memberships of products and services offered through the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook.</p>

<p>The AWT News Update is on hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a road trip. 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="margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px">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>AppYogi Software has introduced Wifi Signal Strength Status 1.0, its new utility developed exclusively for macOS. The app prominently displays the wireless signal strength with network name, "neat icon" or "percentage" on the menu bar. </p>

<p>Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, the world’s largest wind power turbine maker, has struck a joint venture agreement with Apple to supply clean energy to the company’s production partners in China, reports the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2052643/wind-turbine-giant-goldwind-power-joint-venture-apple" rel="noopener noreferrer">South China Morning Post.</a></p>

<p>We know that Apple <a target="_blank" href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2016/12/3/apple-acknowledges-that-its-working-on-self-driving-cars?rq=Mansfield" rel="noopener noreferrer">has sent a letter</a> to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) acknowledging that it is working on self-driving cars. Its timing could be impeccable. Now the company has filed for a patent for an autonomous vehicle collision avoidance system.</p>

<p>Apple has added ABC and Disney to its Single Sign-on feature in tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/7/13876146/apple-single-sign-on-tv-abc-disney" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Verge</a>. Both the Watch ABC and Watch Disney apps for Apple TV and iOS will now automatically log you in if you’ve entered your cable or satellite credentials into the new settings menu.</p>