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The Country-Interoperability Edition Saturday, August 1, 2020

Apple And Google's COVID-19 Exposure Notification API Updated With Improvements, Brazil Launches App With Alerts, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

While the first version of the API didn’t allow different apps to communicate with each other, this new version now supports interoperability between countries. The update also promises to provide better debugging tools so developers can perform more in-depth testing in order to create more reliable apps.

Updated Apple Style Guide Available On The Web And In Apple Books, by Adam Engst, TidBITS

It’s an informative look inside the heads of at least the authors and editors at Apple who care about clarity and consistency in the written word.

Apple Store Badges Are Back With Memoji, Here’s How To Make Your Own, by Michael Steeber, 9to5Mac

The next time you visit an Apple Store, expect to see a lot more Memoji. After today, Apple’s retail teams will greet you wearing custom new badges printed with their likeness — in Memoji form. If you’d like a virtual badge in the same style, there’s now a way to make your very own tag.

Adding Features (Not Apps)

Tim Cook Says Apple Buys Innovation, Not Competitors, by Kif Leswing, CNBC

"If you look at the things behind the investigation, the things are acquisitions, and if you noticed, we didn't get any questions on acquisitions because our approach on acquisitions has been to buy companies where we have challenges, and IP, and then make them a feature of the phone," Cook said in the interview.

Cook is making the argument that Apple doesn't buy competitors — it buys companies which have products or other technology that Apple can turn into features.

Apple Buys Startup To Turn iPhones Into Payment Terminals, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Mobeewave’s technology lets shoppers tap their credit card or smartphone on another phone to process a payment. The system works with an app and doesn’t require hardware beyond a Near Field Communications, or NFC, chip, which iPhones have included since 2014.

Stuff

Microsoft Shutting Down Cortana App For iOS And Android, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Microsoft is ending all support for third-party Cortana skills and eliminating the Cortana apps for iOS and Android devices. Third-party Cortana skills will be deprecated on September 7, while the iOS and Android apps will stop being supported in early 2021.

Notes

For Once, The Mac And iPad Lead Apple's Record Financial Results, by Jason Snell, Macworld

However, a few of the analysts on the call with Apple struck some warnings about the great quarter for the Mac and iPad. Doesn’t this sales bump just mean that Apple pulled forward some sales that would otherwise have been made during the back-to-school and holiday quarters? Cook says that Apple expects strong performance in the back-to-school period, but his attitude toward the holiday quarter seemed a bit more… iffy.

Apple’s Partners And Samsung Apply For India’s $6.6 Billion Local Smartphone Production Program, by Manish Singh, TechCrunch

South Korean giant Samsung, Apple’s contract manufacturing partners Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, and Indian smartphone vendors Micromax and Lava among others have applied for India’s $6.6 billion incentive program aimed at boosting the local smartphone manufacturing, New Delhi said on Saturday.