Dennis Sellers

<p>Apple has scheduled downtime for iTunes Connect from Dec. 23-27, so its employees can celebrate the holidays. iTunes Connect is a suite of web-based tools for managing content sold on iTunes, the iBooks Store, and the various app stores. </p>

<p>Rosenblatt Analyst Jun Zhang estimates that Apple sold six million iPhone X’s during Black Friday for a total of 15 million units so far, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/Apple+%28AAPL%29%3A+iPhone+X+Production+Ahead+of+Schedule%2C+6+Mil+Est+Sold+Through+Black+Friday+Weekend+-+Rosenblatt/13544265.html" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>StreetInsider</em></a>. </p>

<p>Apple is preparing to test autonomous vehicles at an old Fiat Chrysler testing ground in the Arizona desert near Phoenix, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://jalopnik.com/apple-might-be-leasing-chryslers-old-proving-grounds-to-1820782763" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Jalopnik</em> report</a>. Quoting an unnamed “source familiar with the matter,” the article says the tech giant is recruiting engineers and technicians to the site.</p>

<p>November 16th, 2017 was the date that I decided to purchase the iPhone X to get my son the free iPhone 8. I knew going into it that there would be a wait for the iPhone X. I definitely one that loves instant gratification so this was going to be tough. The sales rep at the AT&T store told me it would be mid December before it arrived. This contradicted what the AT&T website said though. The website said that it would ship between 11/29/2017 and 12/6/2017. This was still going to be a tough waiting period for me. Shortly after I finalized the order, I received an email and text that aligned with the AT&T website's initial estimated date. </p>

<p>Apple has opened registration for thousands of free <a target="_blank" href="https://www.apple.com/today/collection/hourofcode/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hour of Code sessions</a> available at all Apple Stores from Dec. 4-10. The company also introduced a new educational challenge in Swift Playgrounds and added new teacher resources to the Everyone Can Code curriculum to help teach Swift, Apple’s programming language.</p>

<p>Adobe has released its 2017 online shopping data for Cyber Monday and the holiday weekend overall. Apple’s AirPods were some of the hottest sellers during the online shopping day.</p>

<p>Apple has been granted another patent (number 20170185161) for a “gesture-based user interface” that hints at gesture controls for Macs. This one is dubbed “three dimensional user interface session using depth sensors.”</p>

<p>Currently, Apple’s augmented reality (AR) efforts focus on the iPad and iPhone. But a newly granted patent (number 9,830,844) hints that those efforts will expand to the Mac.</p>

<p>Apple has launched an official <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8xoRh-on8e3eFfaF8UcQjw" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Support YouTube channel</a>, which already has 1,513 subscribers. </p>

<p>Apple has emailed customers that they can donate to their favorite charitable causes using Apple Pay on Giving Tuesday (that’s today). The promotes six charities: the American Red Cross, charity: water, DonorsChoose.org, (PRODUCT)RED, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and the World Wildlife Fund. </p>

<p>The reasonably priced ($24.95) <a target="_blank" href="http://usa.just-mobile.com/tenc-iphone.html#.WgtUYLbMxBw" rel="noopener noreferrer">TENC for iPhone X</a> from Just Mobile— available in crystal clear, matte clear and matte black — perfectly lines up with the smartphone’s edges (the top two corners are completely covered, and the bottom two corners are covered to the curve). The no-frills case offers protection while offering easy access to all ports, buttons, switches. </p>

<p>macOS High Sierra's Safari lets you mute audio in any open tabs. You can do this right from the Smart Search field, so there’s no need to click through all your tabs to locate the one you want to silence. If you’re viewing a tab that’s not playing audio, the Audio button in the Smart Search field is white with a blue outline. If the tab is playing audio, the Audio button is solid blue.</p>

<p>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>Apple will $4.2 billion per year on original video content by 2022, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cultofmac.com/516111/apple-will-spend-4-2-billion-on-original-programming-by-2022/" rel="noopener noreferrer">a report</a> by Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster.</p>

<p>Have you noticed that more and more Mac gaming torrent sites are popping up? Clearly, the demand for Mac games is growing. </p>