Dennis Sellers

<p>A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld nondisclosure rules that allow the FBI to secretly issue surveillance orders for customer data to communications firms and companies such as Apple, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-idUSKBN1A21XJ?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtechnologyNews+%28Reuters+Technology+News%29" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a>.</p>

<p>Australia’s Attorney-General George Brandis will meet with Apple this week in an effort to reach an agreement to allow police and intelligence agencies access to encrypted information from suspected terrorists and criminals, according to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/07/16/brandis-to-hold-encryption-talks-with-apple.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sky News.</a> The article says the government will be seeking voluntary cooperation as a “first preference.”</p>

<p>Apple is running the largest Apple Pay promotion in China since the service launched there almost 18 months ago, reports <a target="_blank" href="https://9to5mac.com/2017/07/17/apple-pay-china-competition/" rel="noopener noreferrer">9to5Mac.</a></p>

<p>Are you an owner of multiple Apple Watches? Apple wants you to be able to switch between them with ease when it comes to syncing with an iPhone (or iPhones). The company has filed for a patent (number 20170201612) for “switching between watches or other accessories.”</p>

<p>Bits&Coffee' BatchPhoto is a handy, all-in-one photo manipulation program for Mac and PC that lets photographers, web designers, business people, and families enhance photos. To use it, you select a group of photographs, and, with a single operation edit, resize, convert, watermark, and rename every image in the group.</p>

<p>You can use the Disk Utility in macOS Sierra to create a disk image from a disk or a connected device. A disk image (.dmg file) is a file that looks and acts like a mountable device or volume. </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>Parks Associates has announced <a href="http://parksassociates.com/industry-reports">new connected entertainment research deliverables</a> showing that over 50% of U.S. broadband households now watch Internet video on a television screen. </p>

<p>Future Apple Watches may be even more accurate in measuring your walking and running workouts. The company has been granted a patent (number 9,702,899) for systems, methods and computer-readable storage mediums for a “pedometer with lag correction.”</p>

<p>A significant streaming milestone was reached in March when weekly on-demand audio streaming surpassed seven billion thanks to services like Apple Music, according to Nielsen. For the first six months of the year, there have been 184.3 billion on-demand audio streams — a 62% increase over the same period in 2016.</p>

<p>The AWT News Update is on a one-day hiatus while my compadre, Steve, takes a road 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><a target="_blank" href="http://www.theinvestor.co.kr/view.php?ud=20170714000483" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Korea Herald</a> reports that Apple has spent “tens of millions of dollars” to buy production equipment to avoid delays in circuit boards for the upcoming “iPhone 8.”</p>

<p>B-Eng has released File Manager Pro for Mac. Offered as a replacement for the Finder app, it sports a double window layout.</p>

<p>I don’t think this will happen, but Apple has been granted a patent that shows an iMac with a recharging slot of a removable battery for an iPhone, iPad, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Mouse. The patent (number 20170200988) is for a “battery charging system and mobile and accessory devices.”</p>

<p>Cheap portable speakers are all about compact size and mainly focus on making the music streaming from a phone louder, without a strong focus on sound quality.</p>