Tag: Apple

After months of anticipation and delays, Apple iTunes is now officially available in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users.  The iTunes app is identical to the independent download that you have access to today but is managed through the Store for updates and all the benefits of being in the store.

The app leverages Microsoft’s Desktop Bridge technology which allows for traditional Windows desktop apps to be integrated and managed through the Microsoft Store.

The short of it is, Apple Podcasts are doing well.  The service, which launched way back in 2005 as a part of iTunes, has slowly been building both content and users of the now independent app for iPhone and iOS.  Now, according to a report from Fast Company, the Cupertino company has now seen some 50 billion all time downloads on the service.

In all, there are some 18.5 million podcast episodes available for download in Apple Podcasts with over 100 languages supported in those episodes.  It is a staggering number on the whole and is a proof point that Apple has positioned itself well as being the go-to place to find a podcast on virtually any subject out there.

On the Apple Developer site, the Cupertino company has released the latest update of iOS distribution figures and it is pretty astounding.  For the report which is dated April 22, 2018, 76% of all iPhones and iPads coming to the App Store were running a variant of iOS 11, the latest version of the mobile platform.  A further 19% were running iOS 10, meaning that stunning 95% of all devices are running the last two major updates to the platform.

The numbers stand in stark comparison to Android Oreo, the latest version of Android from Google.  There, you will find just 4.6% of Android devices coming to the Google Play Store.  In fact, if you add up Oreo and Nougat, the version prior, you only get to 35.4%.  While it is easy to point the finger at Google, the reality is that the blame for the lack of updates to the majority of devices in the Android ecosystem lies with manufactures, a problem Apple clearly doesn’t have with iPhones and iPads.

In addition to the security update released for iOS 11.3.1 today, Apple also released a minor security update for MacOS 10.13.4.  The update to High Sierra brings two patches to two vulnerabilities on the platform in a 1GB update.  It is available to all Macs running High Sierra.

The first patch has to do with a memory corruption issue in the Crash Reporter that could allow for an application to gain elevated privileges.  This issue was found by the Google Project Zero team, Google’s security team that finds issues within Google’s products as well as Apple and Microsoft products.

The 4″ iPhone SE, based on the chassis of the iPhone 4 and 5 series, looks to be getting a significant update as soon as early as next month.  The news is exciting for those who love the compact iPhone SE as it hasn’t been updated since 2016.  While there is as much rumor as anything around the 2nd generation SE, it does look like a few things seem to be pretty solid.

First, spec-wise, it looks like the new SE is going to be powered by the Apple A10 SoC.  That is the generation found in the iPhone 7 series and a significant bump up in speed, performance and power consumption over the current SE’s A9 SoC.  It also looks like that the 3.5mm headphone jack is going to go the way of the Dodo.  Instead, it will have the same headphones that were introduced with the iPhone 7 series which connect via the lightening connector.

Google has released an update to Chrome for iOS, bringing it up to Chrome 66 and bringing the ability to export your passwords from the mobile browser.  The update is already in the App Store and if you have Chrome for iOS installed on your iPhone or iPad, you likely already have received the update.

The new build brings the mobile browser up to speed with the Android version as well as the desktop versions by basing it on Chrome 66.  The ability to export passwords was actually in the iOS version in Chrome 65 but it had to be enabled through the changing of a flag in the browser.  In this update, it is fully supported and no flag changes are required.