Apple Juices the iPhone 🍏📱

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover a host of new Apple updates. Hot on the heels of the iPhone 15 comes the latest OS updates for Apple devices, including iOS 17. There are some neat new features in there, including NameDrop and 3D scanning, but might the OS be a drain on your battery life? Some users have said so. We also have news on X this week, with Elon Musk suggesting everyone might have to pay to use the platform. Our Stat of the Week looks at streaming’s role in record revenues for the music biz. And What’s dAppening has a look at Chainlink, which could change banking forever.

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Takes 🎬️

🍏📱 Apple – iOS 17 Arrives With Host of New Features

Apple released the latest update to the iPhone operating system late last night. In truth, we knew that most of the new features on iOS 17 were coming – as Apple showcased them at WWDC 23 in June – but it’s still cool to see them in the wild. Among the highlights are the new StandBy Mode, which displays full-screen widgets, welcome changes to AirDrop, the addition of NameDrop for sharing contact details, and improvements to the keyboard and FaceTime. Something that caught our attention was the capability of 3D scanning, something that was immediately picked up by Shopify as a useful tool for merchants. You can see how the 3D scanning works here. Not everyone is happy, though, as many users reported a draining effect on their batteries having downloaded iOS 17. Away from the iPhone, Apple has released updates for its TV operating system, meaning you can now FaceTime from your Apple 4K TV. #AppleUpdates Read more here.

🌍💸 X – Musk Hints at Universal Subscription Fees

As ever, proposed major changes to the Twitter/X platform have come not from an official communication, but from a snippet of an Elon Musk conversation. This time, it was during a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, where Musk claimed he envisaged everyone paying a small amount each month to use the X platform. Musk claimed it is the only solution he could think of to stop bots, you know, a problem he claims he has already fixed. Anyway, the reaction has been quite frosty, and we can’t picture users falling over themselves to hand over financial details, even if, as Musk claims, the fee would be tiny. It would, however, provide some eye-opening detail to the number of ‘real’ users on the platform. #PayForX Read more here.

🗞️ News - Stories That Caught Our Eye This Week

🎮 Microsoft will launch the new Xbox – in 2028. Microsoft has predicted that the next generation of Xbox will come in five years, and it will launch an era of what is known as hybrid gaming. Find out the details here.

🎧 Hip-hop digital experience with, er, Walmart. The Cultureverse has launched to provide a metaverse-like gaming experience to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop, backed (for some reason) by Walmart. Get the story here.

⚖️ Irish regulators slap TikTok with huge fine. Ireland, acting as a proxy for the EU, has hit TikTok with a $350 million fine over the sharing of children’s data on the platform. Expect an appeal from TikTok, although tough talk from the Irish regulator might mean platform changes. Read about it here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 84%

🎵↗️ Streaming - Music Industry Has Record Revenue with 84% from Streaming

The music industry had a record $8.3 billion revenue in the first half of 2023, and much of it is down to the streaming industry, which provided 84% of that revenue. Money from subscriptions alone provided $5.5 billion to the music sector in the United States. While the figures all go up, the report from RIAA also suggested the pie is not equally shared and is very much weighted in favor of artists and labels at the top of the streaming pyramid. #DreamStream Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

⛓️🏦 Chainlink – Partnership with Swift Hints at Banking’s Blockchain Future

Chainlink, founded in 2017, is far from being a new blockchain project, nor is it the biggest, but its recent partnerships with Trad-Fi (traditional finance) institutions have some believing it could one day rival Bitcoin and Ethereum as one of the pillars of web3. Its most recent partnership is with Swift, the banking system used to transfer money between banks worldwide. Chainlink and Swift will use the former’s infrastructure to start tokenizing financial assets, effectively providing banks with access to blockchains, both private and public. Chainlink, as the name suggests, links disparate blockchains, fostering interoperability in web3. Swift handles around $5 trillion in transfers daily – about five times the size of the entire crypto market – but in Chainlink, it sees a partner that will kickstart the banking blockchain revolution. #BankLink Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance…

Let’s welcome our latest hires! 🎉 Well, you might know these fine folks already, but this week we officially welcome Jose Munoz and Jackson Jost to the full-time roster. Jose, an experienced Senior Web Developer has worked as an engineering contractor since last year, and Jackson is a startup entrepreneur who recently graduated from our Product Manager training program (interested? apply here to be our next trainee!). Jose is originally from the Dominican Republic, and Jackson grew up right here in the DMV. Both have made a huge impact at 3A these past few months - in particular through the work we do with AARP Foundation. Jackson (far left) and Jose (front-middle) got together recently with Paul (and Matt, Jingdi & Gabe) to seal the deal. We’re excited to start a new chapter of 3Advance history with these fine fellas!

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