Dennis Sellers

<p>The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.808audio.com/speakers/hex-sl/" rel="noopener noreferrer">808 Audio Hex SL</a> packs a lot of audio punch for an "ultra-portable" speaker. And the price is reasonable: about $60.</p>

<p>Bits&Coffee' BatchPhoto is a useful all-in-one photo manipulation program for Mac OS X and PC systems; it lets photographers, web designers, business people, and families enhance photos. It adds an updated visual drag-and-drop zones for the Annotate filters and an enhanced Auto Crop filter to show the original image in the background.</p>

<p>At an employee meeting in Cupertino, California, this morning, CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple recently sold the billionth iPhone.</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>As shown in <a href="http://investor.apple.com/sec.cfm">Apple's SEC 8-K</a> filing, Apple's R&D spending increased by over 25% year-over-year in its latest fiscal quarter to $2.56 billion. As a percentage of revenue (at 6%) it’s the highest it's ever been. It’s spent $7.5 billion on research for the year, and is on track to outpace last year’s spend, according to its <a href="http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q3fy16consolidated-financial-statements_v2.pdf">earnings statement</a>.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160726PD206.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">DigiTimes</a> is reporting that the USB Type-C interface that debuted with the 12-inch MacBook will be added to the MacBook Air. I think the publication is wrong; here’s why.</p>

<p>Although the Apple Car — which, remember, Apple has never even confirmed — reportedly wont’ <a href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2016/7/21/well-darn-the-apple-car-wont-roll-out-until-at-least-2021?rq=2021">roll out until 2021,</a> according to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ihs.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">IHS Automotive forecasts</a>, 55% of annual global new vehicle sales in 2020 will be vehicles that are connected.</p>

<p>Parkopedia, a global parking services provider, says it’s providing its parking services to Apple Maps on OS X and iOS devices. Apple Maps users will be able to view key information about parking garages and lots around the world.  </p>

<p>Apple plans to open its first retail store in Mexico later this year at the Centro Santa Fe mall, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/07/27/apple-preps-first-mexican-apple-store-ahead-of-push-into-latin-america)" rel="noopener noreferrer">AppleInsider</a>. </p>

<p>Australia's three biggest banks, including the top lender, National Australia Bank, have lodged a joint application with anti-trust regulators seeking approval to collectively negotiate with Apple to install their own electronic payments applications on iPhones, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-banks-apple-idUSKCN10709W" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a>.</p>

<p>Questions about data sovereignty, data security and cloud computing are important issues are important for every person who has an email account — and that includes you. Technichor's Horcrux Email Backup for Mac users lets you automatically keep you data rather than surrendering it to third party services.</p>

<p>Digital payments using wearables devices such as the combination of Apple Pay and the Apple Watch will drive more than $500 billion in transaction volume annually by 2020, according to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tractica.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tractica</a>. That will be up from $3.1 billion in 2015.</p>

<p>During a conference call about Apple’s latest financial results, CEO Tim Cook was asked about the Apple TV and its plans regarding the larger streaming TV/video content scenario.</p>

<p>Mac sales for the fiscal 2016 third quarter that ended June 25 were down, but the news wasn’t all bad. Apple sold 4.25 million units during the period, down from from 4.8 million units in the year-ago quarter. However, Mac sales were up 5% from the previous quarter and revenues were up 3% sequentially. </p>

<p>However, though unit sales were down 3% from the previous quarter, revenues were up 10% thanks to the iPad Pro. About half of iPad Pro buyers are purchasing them for work, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. </p>