Dennis Sellers

<p style="margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px">One of the advantages Microsoft's Word has over Apple's Pages is a good grammar checker. Pages' Proofreader feature just isn't as comprehensive. If you want to add better grammar checking features to Pages, try <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/1ooyQP9" rel="noopener noreferrer">Grammarian Pro2 X </a>($49.95) from Linguisoft. It checks grammar and spelling errors interactively (as-you-type) or batch checking (all-at-once).</p>

<p>According to the latest market share survey from <a target="_blank" href="http://netmarkeshare.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">NetMarketShare</a>, the market share for Mac OS X dipped in June, while iOS rose.</p>

<p>Yesterday <a target="_blank" href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2016/6/30/spotify-apple-is-using-its-app-store-as-a-weapon-against-us" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spotify accused Apple</a> of making it harder for the streaming music company to compete by blocking a new version of its iPhone app, hinting that the move was due to competition with Apple Music.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-in-talks-to-acquire-jay-zs-tidal-music-service-1467325314" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Wall Street Times</a> says Apple is in talks to buy Jay Z’s Tidal music service. The article says the Cupertino, California-based company is considering the possibility to beef up its own Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong tied to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/1GMVzut" rel="noopener noreferrer">Corduroy Code's Fileloupe</a> for Mac OS X Yosemite and El Capitan combines the features of a photo viewer, video player and document browser into a single, fast utility the complements several apps that come with the operating system. It can easily handle thousands of files with smooth scrolling and fluid window resizing.</p>

<p>There are several iOS apps that turn iPhones and iPads into document scanners, so why doesn't someone build a stand for iDevices that would allow them to replace dedicated scanners?</p>

<p>Let's be honest: the speakers that come with Apple laptops are tinny. Of course, so are the speakers in most laptops from any company. If you want to upgrade your audio a bit with some portable speakers, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.paloaltoaudio.com/shop-page/musik/musik-copy/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palo Alto Audio Design's $59.95 Musik</a> is one solution.</p>

<p>Apple CEO Tim Cook <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160630006346/en/NIKE-Phil-Knight-Complete-Planned-Chairman-Succession" rel="noopener noreferrer">has been named Nike’s lead independent director</a>. He’s been a Nike director since 2005, is chair of the Board’s Compensation Committee and serves as a member of the Nominating & Corporate Governance Committee.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.sling.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sling TV</a> — available on the fourth generation Apple TV — has unveiled new single-stream and multi-stream services, “Sling Orange” and “Sling Blue.” Sling Orange now includes BBC America and is still priced at $20 per month. Sling Blue now features NBC, USA, Bravo, NBC Sports Network, Syfy, BBC America and costs $25 per month for new customers. </p>

<p>If Apple really is ditching the 3.5mm jack in the next generation iPhone (and I think it is) and relying solely on Lightning and wireless headphones, perhaps they should kick things up a notch and release their own (earbud) versions of the Vi.</p>

<p>The folks at the streaming music service, Spotify, say Apple is making it harder for the streaming music company to compete by blocking a new version of its iPhone app, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.recode.net/2016/6/30/12067578/spotify-apple-app-store-rejection" rel="noopener noreferrer">re/code</a>. A letter sent this week by Spotify attorney Horacio Gutierrez to Bruce Sewell, Apple’s general counsel, said Apple is “causing grave harm to Spotify and its customers” by rejecting an update to Spotify’s iOS app.</p>

<p>Apple will be receiving the Robert S. Bray Award from the <a href="http://www.acb.org/">American Council of the Blind (ACB)</a> the company's continued innovations in accessibility. The award is given to a company or person who has improved communication technology or devices or which has expanded access to such devices for all blind people.</p>

<p>Another day, another lawsuit. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), a government agency supervising content production in the country, is suing the Apple for infringing the exclusive online broadcast right of a film it made, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2016/06/30/apple-sued-again-this-time-by-a-china-media-regulator/#55329d6c1540">reports Forbes</a>.</p>

<p>Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product, so here are today’s patent highlights: </p>

<p>Mail Drop is Apple’s solution to the problem of running into file size limits (usually between 10MB and 40MB) when trying to send attachments in various email clients. It basically detects when you’ve attached a large file in an email, and ask if you’d like to use the service instead of sending it through the email server. </p>