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What's up?
Brian Tong here, and welcome to the Apply Byte for everything good and bad inside the world of Apple.
Follow up reports by the Wall Street Journal and others, confirm Apple is indeed working on an electric vehicle of their own, with hundreds of Apple employees working to design an Apple branded minivan like electric vehicle, under the code name Project Titan.
Yes the Apple minivan, the van for everyone.
Now this is a serious project for Apple, that was approved by Cook in 2014.
And Apple VP of Product Design and former Ford engineer Steve Zadesky is reported to be heading the Apple Car development.
Now, when the world hears news like this everyone has a reaction, including former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson who said about the Apple Car project, they have no idea what they are getting into.
And you know, he has a point.
He adds, they'd better think carefully if they want to get into the hard core manufacturing.
We take steel, raw steel, and turn it into a car.
Now, this smells like history repeating itself.
When a market that apple wants to get into feels threaten, immediately criticizes them, and warns them of the difficulties.
Apple's not phased by this at all and clearly it didn't stop Tesla.
And yes, for everyone in the YouTube comments that love saying this, the Apple car will come loaded with Windows.
Alright, Apple paid support continues to roll out after adding 19 new banks this month, bringing the total to over 80 financial institutions.
Even Samsung just acquired mobile payments company LoopPay to get into the game.
So what's Apple's next step?
Well, Taiwanese rumor site, Apple Club, which has a solid track record, claims that touch ID is coming to Mac this yer and will enable Apple Pay functionality.
They report the upcoming 12-inch retina Macbook Pro Air and future Macbook Pros will integrate the component above the standard track pad because of the lack of space on Apple laptops for a dedicated touch ID sensor.
They also.
They also report for desktops like the iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini, Touch ID will be enabled by the way of an upgrade in Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad.
Now, yeah, this sounds like a bit of a stretch without a doubt, Apple is at least thinking about it.
Touch ID on a desktop primarily would be best for unlocking your computer, and great for password management even more than Apply Pay transactions, so we'll wait and see.
In Apple Watch news, a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Claims several of the original health features Apple hoped to incorporate were dropped due to consistency problems.
The report said the big A originally featured sensors that measured the conductivity of skin to detect stress levels and heart rate monitoring similar to an EKG, and also experimented with blood pressure readings, but ended having to scrap them because of inconsistent results.
Depending on.
How tight the watch was worn or how dry someone's skin was or even how hairy they were.
And real talk, you know fanboys would be getting bikini waxes on their wrists just to wear an Apple watch.
Now the features were dropped and that's why.
Pretty much gathers all the same info any other wearable fitness band does right now.
We know the watch is coming in April and the Wall Street Journal report also says Apple will make 5 to 6 million in the first quarter, half of the units will be for the Apple sport edition.
One third will be the middle tiered stainless steel ones, and the rest will be the 18 carat gold ones which.
Some are projecting to be Apple's most expensive product ever.
Alright in news from patently Apple, Apple's been granted a video headset patents and really, who isn't doing one these days.
In the patent Apple would provide a video headset frame that allows a user to slide an iPhone or iPod into it to watch video.
There would also be a picture and picture mode feature so you can check on your actual surroundings in case you get caught up watching a movie in public with the head set on.
And you would also get alerts or notifications for things like messages and emails.
The system appears to have some physical controls or a remote- But also could be controlled via Siri, so get ready guys and gals.
The future is now.
And Apple has also been awarded from a patent from their prime sense acquisition for a 3D virtual keyboard that would enable users to type.
In air.
Now with three capturing device with multiple cameras would be able to detect the user's hand movements and then the user would be able to type and control a virtual keyboard by using their fingers.
Now Apple's application would have to feature cameras accurate enough to detect subtle fingertip movements for this to work.
So we've had the air guitar for years and guys have been getting girls with this go to move, well at least I have.
There's even a world championship competition for this.
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Yeah, you didn't think I'd prove it, huh?
And coming soon to a home near you, the air keyboard.
All right.
In some fun news, if you aren't a fan of Modern Family by now, you've got to check out their February 25th episode titled Connection Lost, where the entire episode happens from a Mac OS10 Yosemite desktop and yes, they fake some effects to make it work properly.
But even cooler.
The entire episode was shot with Apples iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 tablets.
Now the format of the show was inspired by a 17 minute short film called Noah that took place entirely on a computer screen.
Apple and ABC's parent company Disney are tight friends.
Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, and SJ sat on the studio's board of directors, so clearly there is some cross-promotion back scratching going on here.
But it's a cool idea either way.
All right, you can email us at theapplebyte@cnet.com or tweet me @briantong and I'll respond when I can.
Thanks for watching, and I promise my voice will return next week for another Byte of the Apple.
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