Steve Sande

<p>It’s time to save some of your hard-earned money with our <a href=""https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/?tag=deals">Daily Deals</a>, featuring highlighted deals for AWT readers, hardware discounts and our own handpicked iOS and OS X sales. All prices are USD and subject to change. Please check prices before you purchase as some deals may expire quickly.</p>

<p>Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. Today’s notable apps include a discount on Toca Life: Town; the new Count Days Pro; and an update to 5by.  All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.</p><p> </p>

<p>Venezuela was once a country with a robust oil economy and a population that, while predominantly poor, was beginning to crawl out of the abyss of poverty. Then came the economic policies of Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, who spent the fortunes of the country on ill-advised social programs that didn't help the abjectly poor and ruined the rest of the economy. Now it's a country where you can -- if you can find one -- buy an iPhone 6 for $47,678. </p>

<p>Developers who are working on future versions of their apps for iOS, Mac OS X and watchOS got a nice gift from Apple today, with the latest betas of each of the major operating systems being made available for download.</p>

<p>Filmmaker Paul Trillo  chronicles the life of the iPhone in <a href="https://vimeo.com/131046102">a clever 7-minute video</a> that was shot and edited on an iPhone. The story presents the iPhone's point of view starting with its birth on the factory floor in China. The adventure ends when the device is dropped, shattering its screen. That's not the end of the iPhone -- it is reincarnated on the black market following a trip to the repair shop. </p>

<p>Using the  <a href="http://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/">Mini vMac emulator</a>, developer Nick Lee was able to run Mac OS 7.5.5 on his Apple Watch with watchOS 2.  An accompanying video showcases the surprisingly snappy performance of the legacy desktop OS on the watch wearable.  </p>

<p>Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. Today’s notable apps include a discount on SkySafari 4; the new Panna Cookbook; and an update to Artsy.  All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.</p>

<p>It’s time to save some of your hard-earned money with our<a href="https://appleworld.dreamhosters.com/?tag=deals"> Daily Deals</a>, featuring highlighted deals for AWT readers, hardware discounts and our own handpicked iOS and OS X sales. All prices are USD and subject to change. Please check prices before you purchase as some deals may expire quickly.</p>

<p>Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6605573/fallout-from-taylor-swifts-letter-apples-eddy-cue-answers-9-burning-questions">sat down with Billboard</a> to discuss his company's recent experience with singer <a href="http://taylorswift.com">Taylor Swift</a>. The musician refused to make her current album, <em>1989</em>, available to Apple Music streaming as long as artists were  unpaid during the forthcoming service's three-month trial period. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-22/cook-says-chinese-tastes-considered-in-apple-product-designs">In a new interview published by the Chinese edition of <em>Bloomberg Businessweek</em></a>, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that his company keeps the Chinese consumers' tastes in mind during the design process. For example, gold is a popular color among Chinese consumers, and that fact influenced the gold iPhone, which debuted with the 5s in 2013.</p>

<p>The Apple Watch has only been available for a very short time, but it’s already attracting more developer interest than the iPhone or iPad did early on. That’s the message Apple CEO Tim Cook gave to an interviewer from the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-22/cook-says-chinese-tastes-considered-in-apple-product-designs">Chinese-language version of Bloomberg Businessweek</a>.</p>

<p><a href="http://thnkdev.com/QuickShot/">QuickShot</a> from thnkdev (free) is one of those utilities you don't realize how much you've needed it until you try it. It's a minimal menu bar item that offers access to all of the screenshots you've taken. For the work I do, it's tremendously useful. </p>

<p>Recording artist Taylor Swift is NOT happy with Apple's refusal to pay musicians their percentage during the upcoming three-month free trial of Apple Music.<a target="_blank" href="http://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/122071902085/to-apple-love-taylor" rel="noopener noreferrer"> In an open letter to Apple on her Tumblr blog</a>, Swift said "It's not about me," stating that she can afford to support her band, crew and management team through live shows. Her concern is with "the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt." As she notes, that's a quarter of a year during which artists won't be getting paid.</p>

<p style="margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; text-align:justify"><a href="http://omnigroup.com">Omni Group</a> is a very respected name in the Apple software world, creating such classic OS X and iOS productivity titles as <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/">OmniFocus</a>, <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle/">OmniGraffle</a>, <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner/">OmniOutliner</a>, and <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omniplan">OmniPlan</a>.</p>

<p>The English-speaking world tends to forget that there are a lot of different languages around the planet. You don't need to speak English to be a rabid fan of Apple, and no website we know is quite as enthusiastic and knowledgeable as the Polish language site <a target="_blank" href="http://myapple.pl" rel="noopener noreferrer">MyApple.pl</a>. Many of us from the old TUAW crew first met the bloggers at MyApple at past Macworld Expos, and we got to know editor-in-chief Krystian Kozerawski (@mackozer) and the rest of the crew very well. MyApple is expanding <em>big</em> time, and one of its first new directions is <a target="_blank" href="http://files.myapple.pl/magazyn/myapple-mag-2015-1.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer">MyApple Magazyn</a>, a beautiful PDF-format electronic magazine with an initial audience of about 200,000 readers.</p>