Dennis Sellers

<p>Apple has filed for a patent (number 9,609,450) for a <strong>“method and system for monitoring temperature for speaker protection.”</strong> The goal is to prevent possible damage to speakers in Apple’s macOS, iOS and watchOS devices.</p>

<p>Siri — Apple’s digital personal assistant — will gain contextual learning abilities and deep integration with iMessage and iCloud in iOS 11, according to Israeli site<a target="_blank" href="http://theverifier.co.il/2017/03/27/exclusive-siri-ai-wwdc-2017/" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Verifier</em></a> — as noted by <a target="_blank" href="http://MacRumors.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>MacRumors.com</em></a>.</p>

<p>Susquehanna Financial Group semiconductor analyst Christopher Rolland says in a note to clients — as noted by <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2017/03/27/apple-cellular-watch-iphones-usb-c-among-among-susquehanna-tidbits/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Barron’s</a> — that the next gen Apple Watch will include a SIM card and support LTE (a standard for high-speed wireless communication for mobile phones and data terminals).</p>

<p>Have some private files that you don’t want to risk anyone else seeing? You canhide ‘em with macOS Sierra, though you’ll have to use Terminal. The tool provides text-based access to the operating system, in contrast to the mostly graphical nature of the user experience of macOS, so not everyone wants to tamper with it.</p>

<p>It's time to address one of the major problems of our time for anyone not using wireless earphones such as Apple AirPods: earbud tangle. You know what I'm talking about. </p>

<p>Along with iOS 10.3 and macOS Sierra 10.12.4, Apple has posted updates for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on both the iOS and macOS platforms.</p>

<p>To accompany iOS 10.3, Apple has updated the Apple TV Remote app for the fourth generation Apple TV. The 1.1 upgrade adds a specific iPad interface for the first time.</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 has released iOS 10.3 and macOS Sierra 10.12.4 after weeks of public and developer beta testing.  <strong>iOS 10.3</strong> updates the file structure on an iOS device to the Apple File System (APFS). </p>

<p>President Trump will unveil a new White House office — the Office of American Innovation — today with “sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions,” reports the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-taps-kushner-to-lead-a-swat-team-to-fix-government-with-business-ideas/2017/03/26/9714a8b6-1254-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.6cc7f299515c" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Washington Post</em></a>. And Apple CEO Tim Cook will be involved.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.wellsfargo.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wells Fargo Bank</a> says customers now have card-free access to all of its 13,000 ATMs, coast-to-coast. The company’s One-Time Access Code technology allows customers to authenticate at an ATM using an 8-digit token and their debit or ATM card Personal Identification Number (PIN), instead of a physical card.</p>

<p>B-Eng has announced SSD Health Check for NVMe, a hard drive utility for macOS. It delivers data and insights for NVMe Solid State Drives that are built in the newest generation of Apple's MacBook Pro. </p>

<p>Apple is now more interested in augmented reality eyesore than an auto project, according to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ft.com/content/eac83150-10db-11e7-a88c-50ba212dce4d" rel="noopener noreferrer">Financial Times</a> (subscription required). Any retail launch is thought to be at least a year away, however.</p>

<p>Following last week’s terrorist attack in London, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd (pictured) tells the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39396578" rel="noopener noreferrer">BBC</a> that Apple can’t allow apps on its online stores that offer unbreakable encryption. </p>

<p>The annual Ranking Digital Rights <a target="_blank" href="https://rankingdigitalrights.org/index2017/assets/static/download/RDRindex2017report.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer">survey</a>, funded by the Open Technology Institute, a think tank focused on online and technological issues, found that companies like Apple, Google and Facebook still score much better on privacy and free expression issues than, for instance, China’s Baidu and Russia’s Yandex.</p>