Dennis Sellers

<p>Nintendo has “major plans” to focus on smart device development, including possibly designing its own controller for mobile gaming on, among other things, iOS devices, Shinya Takahashi, general manager of entertainment planning and development, told <a target="_blank" href="http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/5/12096816/nintendo-smartphone-mobile-films" rel="noopener noreferrer">Polygon</a>.</p>

<p>You can use Siri, Apple’s “personal digital assistant,” to establish relationships using your iPhone or iPad. It’s easy. Here’s how:</p>

<p>My biggest problem with the $69.99 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jays.se" rel="noopener noreferrer">a-JAYS Four by JAYS of Sweden</a> was getting them out of their hard plastic case. That little sticker that says to remove it so you can press the tab beneath? Well, do as instructed, and you'll save some time. </p>

<p>MakeProg Technologies has introduced Colors + Shapes 1.0. It’s a $0.99 colors and shapes matching game for kids and adults where players must match shapes with colors as they continuously move. You can increase/decrease the speed of scrolling and bouncing; the difficulty of the game gradually increases with each level. You have more than 2000 levels to play and enjoy.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.firstib.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">First Internet Bank</a> has enhanced its mobile app to include smartwatch capabilities. Customers with an Apple Watch can securely access account information through their smartwatch, without logging in.</p>

<p>U.S. consumption of music continued to grow in the first half of 2016, even as sales of most formats declined, according to Border City Media’s state-of-the-industry data service, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzzanglemusic.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">BuzzAngle Music</a>. With the pace of audio streaming more than doubling activity tracked over the same period last year, total industry consumption was up by 6.5%.</p>

<p>Apple wants your iOS device — mainly your iPhone — to assist you when emergency calls (such as those to 911) are made. The company has applied for a patent (number 9,386,414) for “location support for emergency calls.”</p>

<p>Applebot, the RSS fetcher for the Apple News service, faces problems when it visits websites that uses encryption certificates from the <a href="https://www.slightfuture.com/security/letsencrypt-experiences">Let’s Encrypt</a> certificate authority, notes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.slightfuture.com/webdev/excessive-applenewsbot-requests" rel="noopener noreferrer">Slight Future</a>.</p>

<p>Apple wants to encourage millions of iPhone owners to register as organ donors through a software update that will add an easy sign-up button to the health information app that comes installed on every iPhone, reports <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/05/the-associated-press-apple-urges-organ-donation-via-new-iphone-software.html)" rel="noopener noreferrer">CNBC</a>.</p>

<p>If you’re like me, you probably have several devices charging at any given time. This requires multiple USB ports and/or chargers, which results in a bit of desktop clutter. Satechi’s $29.99 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.satechi.net/index.php/satechi-60w-6-port-multi-port-usb-desktop-charging-station-524" rel="noopener noreferrer">Multi-Port USB Charging Station</a> helps alleviate this problem. </p>

<p style="margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px">One of the advantages Microsoft's Word has over Apple's Pages is a good grammar checker. Pages' Proofreader feature just isn't as comprehensive. If you want to add better grammar checking features to Pages, try <a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/1ooyQP9" rel="noopener noreferrer">Grammarian Pro2 X </a>($49.95) from Linguisoft. It checks grammar and spelling errors interactively (as-you-type) or batch checking (all-at-once).</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 Mac OS X dipped in June, while iOS rose.</p>

<p>Yesterday <a target="_blank" href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/blog/2016/6/30/spotify-apple-is-using-its-app-store-as-a-weapon-against-us" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spotify accused Apple</a> of making it harder for the streaming music company to compete by blocking a new version of its iPhone app, hinting that the move was due to competition with Apple Music.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-in-talks-to-acquire-jay-zs-tidal-music-service-1467325314" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Wall Street Times</a> says Apple is in talks to buy Jay Z’s Tidal music service. The article says the Cupertino, California-based company is considering the possibility to beef up its own Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong tied to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.</p>

<p><a target="_blank" href="http://bit.ly/1GMVzut" rel="noopener noreferrer">Corduroy Code's Fileloupe</a> for Mac OS X Yosemite and El Capitan combines the features of a photo viewer, video player and document browser into a single, fast utility the complements several apps that come with the operating system. It can easily handle thousands of files with smooth scrolling and fluid window resizing.</p>