Dennis Sellers

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has launched its annual Back to School promotion in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and in many European and Asian countries. Education customers who order certain Macs or iPad Pros can get Beats headphones for free along with their education discount. But where are the updated 12-inch MacBook Pros and iMacs?</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Kano has teamed up with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to launch the Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit, the first-ever Harry Potter STEM product.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Yikes! Morning Consult released a list of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/millennials">millennials</a>' top beloved brands and Apple didn’t make the list.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, at the end of each week day, we’ll offer this wrap-up of news items you should check out.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If you don't mind adding a smidge of size to your new MacBook Pro or a 12-inch MacBook, Twelve South's BaseLift makes typing a little more comfortable. If you can find one. Evidently, it's no longer being manufactured, but you should be able to find one at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-South-BaseLift-MacBook-Integrated/dp/B00OLTK024" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon</a> for about half of the original $39.99 price.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">A HomePod private beta could be testing the ability to enable Apple’s wireless speaker to allow users to make phone calls and use it as a speakerphone for a wirelessly-connected iPhone. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.law360.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Law 360</em></a> notes that there are several recent legal decisions that could affect Apple. <strong>One</strong>: in a partial dissent from a decision handing Google, Apple, AOL and Yahoo a win in a patent infringement suit, a Federal Circuit judge on Friday slammed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice decision, expressing frustration with its definitions of “abstract ideas” and “inventive concepts.”</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has applied for a patent (number 20180205728) for “biometric device pairing,” the technology behind Touch ID.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Cisdem's <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pxctdms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BetterUnarchiver</a> is a Mac archive manager app that makes it easy to compress and decompress archive files. It supports unzipping files like Zip, 7z, Rar, ISO, Tar, Cab, Wim, xz, CHM, com, Hfs, Nsis, Udf, and more.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple <a href="https://support.apple.com/homepod-event-july-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has announced</a> that it will be holding a live chat with HomePod specialists on Wednesday, July 25 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Pacific).</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, at the end of each week day, we’ll offer this wrap-up of news items you should check out.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,028,397) for an “electronic device with liquid-resistant SIM tray and audio module,” which shows that it’s working on further ways to make iPhones and iPads even more water resistant.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The Omni Group's <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OmniFocus</a> is a handy task management tool for macOS, iOS, and the Apple Watch. And they work together.</p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Macs and PCs use different file systems, which can make it tricky to put data from your Mac on a flash or hard drive and give it to a Windows user. Tricky, but not impossible. </p>

<p style="white-space: pre-wrap;">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>