Editor's Desk: iOS 13.4 beta, "Mythic Quest" now streaming, AirPods shortages and coronavirus

From the new features in iOS 13.4 and other OS betas to Apple TV+’s “Silicon Valley” moment to the impact felt in Apple’s supply chain over the coronavirus outbreak and beyond, this is iDownloadBlog’s regular Editor’s Desk content roundup column for the week of February 3-9, 2020.

Let’s talk iOS

In the latest episode of iDB’s “Let’s Talk iOS” podcast series, our host Sebastien discovers Door Dash while Cody (for a change) is the one ranting about something. Listen to the episode as the two friends cover the week’s topics such as Apple’s monstrous financial quarter, the impact of the coronavirus on the company and, of course, iPad multitasking.

Be sure to follow our hosts @Sebastien and @melvco and don’t forget to send a tweet to @LTiOS_fm if you’d like your question to be answered at the end of next week’s podcast. You can subscribe to “Let’s Talk iOS” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or via RSS.

Wallpapers

Thank @jim_gresham, our Vice President of Wallpapers, for this awesome collection of polygon-based multi-color backdrops for your iPhone. The 15-wallpaper wallpaper collection offers five color variations for your iPhone, iPad and desktop.

Polygon wallpaper desktop Arthur1992aS mock up

Each color is an original creation by @Arthur1992aS.

Be sure to browse our Wallpapers of the Week collection populated with images found around the internet, photo repositories and original graphics from fans of the site.

News that’s been making rounds

Here are the most important Apple stories that were making rounds in the past week.

Coronavirus: As Apple shut down all of its facilities in mainland China (possibly beyond February 10), analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts a ten percent quarterly drop for iPhone shipments due to the coronavirus. Meanwhile, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has temporarily shut down its factories in response to the virus outbreak and AirPods are experiencing supply shortages as the virus spread impacts manufactures.
Apple TV+: Season 1 of Apple’s first scripted comedy “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet” is now available for binge-watching. Questionable research has it that fewer than ten percent of eligible Apple TV+ customers have signed up with the free year of service so far. This week, we also got to enjoy a behind the scenes look at three episodes of the anthology series “Little America and learned that O’Shea Jackson Jr. is taking over the starring role in the upcoming basketball drama “Swagger”. Oh, and LG’s select 2019 models now include the Apple TV app (Dolby Atmos support and AirPlay 2 will be rolling out to LG’s compatible TVs later this year).
Apple News: Special coverage of the 2020 presidential election is live on Apple News and the editorial team is now accepting questions for the Democratic presidential candidates. The paid Apple News+ service, however, continues to perform poorly so we’re not surprised that the Cupertino tech giant fired Apple News+ head Liz Schimel.
Apple Music: Genius’s video series “Verified” is now on Apple Music.
Spotify: The company announced reaching 124 million paid subscribers.
Disney+: An impressive 28+ million sign-ups since launch in November 2019.
iPhone: Testing suggests iPhone 11 Pro emits more than twice the FCC’s legal limit of radio frequency emissions and Night Mode gets shown in Apple’s new promo video.
Legal: While the DoJ questions app makers as part of its Apple antitrust probe in the United States, France fines Apple over iPhone throttling.
HomeKit: The Philips Hue vulnerability proves the smart home is a work-in-progress.
Developers: Universal iOS/macOS/tvOS purchases are coming. First betas of iOS 13.4, iPadOS 13.4, watchOS 6.2, tvOS 13.4 and macOS Catalina 10.15.4 are now available.
OS updates: iOS 13.4 brings a new CarKey feature and 9 new Memoji stickers, fixes the Mail toolbar while iCloud Drive folder sharing makes a comeback. In-app purchases are launching on watchOS 6.2, iPad gets hardware modifier key remapping, tvOS 13.4 hints at an unreleased models while Catalina gains Communication Limits in Screen Time and a cool new feature that lets you control the cursor with head movements. Code strings suggest AMD chips might be coming to the Mac.
Security: Apple has squished a nasty bug that showed unencrypted snippets of encrypted emails on Catalina. Wacom tablets have been found to log every Mac app you launch and upload that information to Google Analytics without users consent.
Streaming: Viacom will launch a streaming service built on CBC All Access later this year. The Apple TV Channels feature is now offering access to A&E Crime Central and you can finally turn off autoplaying previews on Netflix across all devices.

Deals you should know about

As we reported earlier in the week, Apple boosted its own trade-in offers for the Series 2 and Series 3 models by up to a hundred bucks. To save money and stay on top of the latest not-to-be-missed deals, visit our Deals Store and be sure to follow iDB’s Deals of the Day series.