News items you should check out: April 8

Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, occasionally we’ll direct your attention to articles from various other sources worth your time.

° Ya gotta love Intel. In a promoted post on Reddit, Intel touted its Intel Core i7-1185G7 chip as the “world’s best processor on a thin and light laptop.” However, as several sites have noticed the ad uses an image of a person using what appears to be a 15-inch MacBook Pro or 16-inch MacBook Pro. The Intel Core i7-1185G7 is not available on any current Apple portable Mac. And this follows a series of Intel ads trashing the Apple M1 Mac processor.

° LG has announced the worldwide rollout of its 2021 sound bar lineup, complete with AirPlay 2 support for wirelessly streaming audio from Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. 

° As Disney+ viewers wait to learn who “The Power Broker” really is in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” some of them believe they know the answer — because of a tiny piece of Apple-related trivia, according to AppleInsider.

° TechCrunch notes that Apple has launched a new app, Find My Certification Asst., designed for use by MFi (Made for iPhone) Licensees, who need to test their accessories’ interoperability with Apple’s Find My network.

° Apple has posted a new version of its “A Day in the Life of your Data” document that offers more details on two privacy-preserving ad measurement technologies that advertisers can use to measure the impact of their ad campaigns without tracking users.

° In a note to clients — as noted by MacRumors — Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says Apple is on a trajectory to sell a record-breaking 240-250 million iPhones in the 2021 fiscal year, topping a previous record of 231 million smartphones sold in the 2015 fiscal year.

° Kosta Eleftheriou has uncovered another app scam on the App Store that grosses $1 million a month exemplifying Apple’s troubled review process.

° Venture capitalist, early Facebook investor, and conservative donor Peter Thiel criticized big U.S. technology companies for being too close to China, reports CNBC. He also said that Apple was unlikely to confront China because of its massive supply chain to manufacture iPhones and other products in the country.

° According to Fox Business, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he “aggressively” opposes Americans casting ballots via their mobile devices, after Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested this week that voters should be able to vote on iPhones.

° On the new MacVoices Live the panel of David Ginsburg, Jeff Gamet, Mark Fuccio, Guy Serle, Jim Rea, Andrew Orr, Kelly Guimont, and host Chuck Joiner wrap up their discussion of chat apps and security by taking the larger view of security, examining why so many users don’t practice good security, the misunderstandings surrounding security, and why adopting a new, more secure chat app meets with so much resistance.