<2018 ∕ 6>

Headlines

This is how a small group of friends lost control of the leaked iBoot source code. The story behind one of Apple’s most embarrassing leaks.

Apple’s Apple Music is adding subscriber accounts in the U.S. at a higher rate than Spotify, and is on track to pass the No. 1 streaming service this summer, according to people familiar with the services’ figures.

News

We could begin seeing fewer emojis in the world as Apple has begun cracking down on how its iconic emoji designs are used. Over the past few years, Apple has come to embrace its emojis as a fully-fledged part of its brand. Press releases have led with the emoji updates

Veteran music journalist Alex Gale has been named head of editorial for Apple Music, based out of Los Angeles.

Apple is developing Little America, a half-hour anthology series from Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, Lee Eisenberg and Alan Yang.

Reviews

Apple’s HomePod delivers superior sound quality and solid Siri performance but still lags behind competition on breadth of voice commands.

The HomePod is Apple’s answer to the Amazon Echo, the Google Home, the Sonos One, and every other smart speaker out there with a built-in voice assistant. The HomePod is a $349 speaker with Siri built in — the basic idea is pretty simple. It comes in two colors, it’s covered in a spongy fabric with a touch display at the top, and it’s surprisingly heavy. The HomePod will be released on February 9th.

I’ve been testing Apple’s new HomePod for the last week or so, and this is the first product review I’ve written that could be accurately summarized in the length of a tweet, and an old-school 140-character tweet at that: HomePod does exactly what Apple says it does, doesn’t do anything more than what Apple says it does, and costs $349. There.

Rumors

An app for Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre glucose reader is said to be the first third-party iOS title to make use of the NFC chip in Apple’s iPhone, previously reserved only for Apple Pay.

Others

Learn how a device responds to “Hey Siri” when there are multiple devices that support “Hey Siri” nearby.

Finally

Nothing reveals the curious disposability of consumer technology more than this feeble, aging device.