Jeff Gamet

iOS 12 developer beta 5 pretty much confirms Apple has a thin-bezel iPad without a Home button coming soon. Guilherme Rambo dug through the code and found icons for the new iPad model, along with evidence it’ll also support Face ID. Writing at 9to5Mac he says,

A new asset found in iOS 12 developer beta 5 seemingly confirms a new bezel-less iPad for the fall. The asset is part of the battery usage UI and it shows an iPad with no home button and thinner bezels. It wouldn’t be the first time a tiny glyph found in an OS reveals an unreleased product, last year the rumors about an iPhone with thin bezels were confirmed by the HomePod software leak.

Presumably this is an iPad Pro refresh. Since it’s showing up in iOS 12 beta code now, odds are we’ll see the new model some time this fall. My first generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro is suddenly looking a little long in the tooth.

Apple’s resistance to Cupertino’s proposed “head tax” on employees paid off because the city backed down from putting it to a vote in November. Mayor Darcy Paul says the city wants more input from businesses before revisiting the tax. Now he wants Apple to help fund a hyperloop line in Cupertino. From the Silicon Valley Business Journal:

[Mayor Paul] said he believes there’s a strong possibility that Silicon Valley tech companies like Apple would ‘heavily subsidize’ construction of a cutting-edge transportation solution in their own back yard and that no new tax should be imposed until that possibility is fleshed out.

Apparently Paul thinks Elon Musk’s hyperloop concept—a sealed tube that transports people at high speed—is the way to bring in more tax revenue.

CNET looked at Apple’s track record over the past few years to pick the most likely date for the new iPhone announcement and came up with Wednesday, September 12th. That takes into account the days of the week and time in September Apple usually chooses for its iPhone events. Next, they looked at prior announcement proximity to Labor Day. They say,

For the last six years, Apple held its iPhone announcements on either a Tuesday or Wednesday, and usually no later than the second full week of September…For 2018, Labor Day falls on Monday, September 3. So, if Apple follows its recent pattern, the company would announce its new iPhones the following Tuesday or Wednesday: September 11 and September 12.

Considering the negative connotations that go along with September 11th in the United States, that leaves the 12th. Since first deliveries follow about a week and a half later, that means we’ll have new iPhones in our hands on September 21st.

Flash is dead and any remaining support for the former king of online multimedia officially ends in 2020, so Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is urging U.S. government agencies to drop the platform. In a letter to the National Institute of Standards and Technology he said,

While Flash will continue to exist past this point, it will no longer receive necessary technical support, significantly magnifying its existing cybersecurity deficiencies.

Considering the ridiculously long list of security flaws in Flash, ditching the platform is something the government should’ve done long ago.