Category: Apple

Apple Purchases Akonia Holographics⇢

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Stephen Nellis at Reuters reports that Apple has purchased Akonia Holographics, a Colorado company that has done work on lenses for AR glasses:

Akonia said its display technology allows for “thin, transparent smart glass lenses that display vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images.” The firm has a portfolio of more than 200 patents related to holographic systems and materials, according to its website.

Apple has been rumored to looking at AR glasses some time now. Maybe I just lack imagination, but I cannot get excited about this sort of technology when I think about it in my life. There’s no doubt, AR has uses in various industries, but I don’t think anything like this would be for me.

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802.11n AirPort Express Gains AirPlay 2 Support⇢

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

After downloading the firmware update, AirPort Express users have reported being able to target the AirPort Express right alongside other AirPlay 2 devices when running iOS 11.4.1 or iOS 12. With the AirPlay 2 update, 2012 AirPort Express models offer support for multi-room audio and are able to work with other AirPlay 2 devices such as the HomePod, the Apple TV, and Sonos speakers.

This is great news for people using AirPort Expresses to power home audio setups. Good on Apple for brining support for AirPlay 2 to a device that has been discontinued.

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Back to My Mac Removed from Mojave⇢

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Apple Support:

Back to My Mac will not be available on macOS Mojave. You can get ready now by learning about alternatives for file access, screen sharing, and remote desktop access.

This showed up as part of .Mac way back in the Mac OS X Leopard days. Apple hasn’t offered much of an explanation as to why Back to My Mac is going away, but the linked support document offers suggestions on how to replicate its features, including the use of iCloud Drive for file syncing, Screen Sharing for remote control over a local network and Apple Remote Desktop. 1

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Gurman: New MacBook, Mac mini Coming This Year⇢

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Mark Gurman, with Debby Wu:

The new laptop will look similar to the current MacBook Air, but will include thinner bezels around the screen. The display, which will remain about 13-inches, will be a higher-resolution “Retina” version that Apple uses on other products, the people said.

[…] The current MacBook Air, which costs $1,000, remains Apple’s only laptop without a high-resolution screen. The MacBook Air was last updated with a faster processor option last year, but hasn’t seen a major overhaul in several years. The 12-inch MacBook launched in 2015 was seen as a replacement to the MacBook Air, but its $1,300 starting price put it out of reach for some consumers.

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Breathing New Life Into an Aging iMac

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My wife has been using a first-generation 12-inch MacBook since its debut back in 2015. Despite picking one up with the best specs available at the time,1 it is feels like Mac much older than its three years.

She uses it docked to an external display with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I don’t know the last time it was used as an actual notebook, and after seeing the SSD was nearly full, I decided it was time to do something.

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‘I Don’t Really Think About It’⇢

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This morning, Apple became the first American company to reach a $1 trillion market cap.

Mark Gurman has a piece up about it:

Apple was worth about $350 billion when Jobs died, so Cook has led the creation of even more stock-market value than his former boss and mentor. Bloomberg News asked him about the $1 trillion target in a February interview.

“I don’t really think about it,” he said, suggesting that if the company keeps making successful products, financial success will follow. “I still view Apple as a pretty small company, the way that we operate. I know it’s not numerically, but the way we function is very much like that.”

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Apple Removing iOS and Mac Apps from Affiliate Program

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Apple:

With the launch of the new App Store on both iOS and macOS and their increased methods of app discovery, we will be removing apps from the affiliate program. Starting on October 1st, 2018, commissions for iOS and Mac apps and in-app content will be removed from the program. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) remain in the affiliate program.

This is not totally surprising after Apple cut the rate for in-app purchases last year. However, this is going to hurt a lot of people in the media ecosystem around Apple.

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