Dennis Sellers

<p>Apple held onto fifth place in the Chinese smartphone market for the first half od 2016, ahead of Samsung, with around a 9% market share, according to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.canalys.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">Canalys</a>. The iPhone SE has done little to increase overall shipment numbers in China, claims the research group.</p>

<p>Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, has joined the Illumina board of directors. <a href="http://www.illumina.com">Illumina</a> is a company devoted to “improving human health by unlocking the power of the genome.”</p>

<p>Earlier this week, mobile phone blogger, Evan Blass, said the “iPhone 7” would launch the week of Sept. 12. Now <a target="_blank" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/07/28/iphone-7-preorders-rumored-to-kick-off-on-sept-9-" rel="noopener noreferrer">he adds</a> that pre-orders will start on Friday, Sept. 9. I think he’s right. I’m also predicting that the second generation Apple Watch will arrive at the same time.</p>

<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>