Dennis Sellers

<p>The worldwide wearables market reached a new all-time high as shipments reached 33.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016 (4Q16), growing 16.9% year over year. Shipments for the entire year grew 25% as new vendors entered the market and previous champions refreshed their product lineups. </p>

<p>MCE Technologies (MCE) is shipping what it says is the world's fastest 1TB Internal PCIe-based SSD Upgrade for the Mac Pro (late 2013). Based on 4-Lane PCIe bandwidth, the <a target="_blank" href="http://tinyurl.com/jk52wo7" rel="noopener noreferrer">MCE 1TB SSD Upgrade</a> features read speeds of up to 1400MB/sec and write speeds of up to 1150MB/s. </p>

<p>Future iPhones and iPads — and perhaps even Macs — could have displays that fold like paper. Apple has filed for a patent (number 20170060183)<strong> for “electronic devices with retractable displays.”</strong></p>

<p>iCloud Keychain keeps the website login information and credit card information you use with AutoFill in Safari on macOS Sierra (and iOS). The Wi-Fi network information up to date across all your Macs running macOS 0.9 or later) and iOS devices running iOS 7.0.3 or later.</p>

<p>Questions about data sovereignty, data security and cloud computing may seem most appropriate for corporations and governments, but the issues are important for every person who has an email account. Technichor's Horcrux Email Backup is a Mac app that lets email users automatically keep their data rather than surrendering it to third party services. And it’s useful because it runs in the background, so you don’t have to give it a lot of thought.</p>

<p>A federal appeals court has tossed a jury verdict that had required Apple to pay $533 million to Smartflash, a patent holding company (which some might calla a “patent troll”), which claims that claimed the Cupertino, California-based company’s iTunes software infringed its data storage patents, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-lawsuit-patent-idUSKBN1685D5?utm_source=applenews" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a>.</p>

<p>The AWT News Update is on hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a trip. In its place, I’ll offer a text-only (no podcast) summary of breaking stories with a tip o’ my hat to my former website, <em>Apple Daily Report</em>.</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>Coming off the smartphone market's lowest year-over-year growth of 2.5% in 2016, a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.idc.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer">IDC</a>) <a target="_blank" href="http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=37" rel="noopener noreferrer">Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker</a> shows worldwide smartphone shipments rebounding in 2017 and beyond. </p>

<p>Quark has announced <a target="_blank" href="http://www.quark.com/2017" rel="noopener noreferrer">QuarkXPress 2017</a>, the next major release of the company’s graphic design and layout software for professional print and digital production. It’s due in the second quarter of this year.</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 both macOS and iOS was down in February.</p>

<p>Apple has activated a two month-long Apple Pay promotion offering cash back, points and more to users of its digital payments service, just in time to take advantage of six new supporting card issuers, reports Japanese blog <em>Ata Distance</em> — as noted by <a target="_blank" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/03/01/apple-pay-japan-gains-support-for-six-new-credit-cards-launches-limited-time-promotion" rel="noopener noreferrer">AppleInsider</a>.</p>

<p>Apple has placed 20th on the 2017 Global RepTrak 100, a list of the top companies with the best reputation in the world, as determined by the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reputationinstitute.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reputation Institute,</a> a proper of stakeholder measurement, membership and management services. </p>

<p>If Apple releases new iPads anytime soon, I’ll likely sell my current Apple tablet. Preparing iPads for resale is a breeze. Why can't preparing my Mac for sale be just as easy?</p>

<p>The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.supertooth.net/EN/DISCO2/#page=page-1" rel="noopener noreferrer">DISCO 2</a> from Supertooth is a portable wireless stereo speaker with decent audio quality and an attractive design.</p>