We’ve already heard the 2018 iPhone lineup will come in three sizes and look pretty much identical to the iPhone X. We can expect faster processors and improved battery life from the new models. The mid-size 6.1-inch LED screen model will have an aluminum frame instead of steel and gets the iPhone 8 single camera instead of the dual cameras we’ll see in the 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch OLED phones. Bloomberg says,

Perhaps the most significant phone will be a new, cheaper device destined to replace the iPhone 8. Codenamed N84, it will look like the iPhone X, but include a larger near 6.1-inch screen, come in multiple colors, and sport aluminum edges instead of the iPhone X’s stainless steel casing. It will also have a cheaper LCD screen instead of an OLED panel to keep costs down.

News of this year’s iPhone name scheme hasn’t leaked yet. Some insiders say Apple is considering iPhone Xs. Regardless of what the new line gets called, it’ll certainly be more colorful.

Apple’s macOS photography app, Aperture, had a storied and difficult past. Over at MacStories, author Stephen Hackett, recounts the history of this troubled app, its rise and fall. We tend to think of Apple’s wealth as enabling guaranteed success, but, in the end, apps are built and nurtured by human beings in competition with other companies. This is a well-told story.

Monument Valley is a popular game on the iPad thanks to its beautiful graphics and clever puzzles. Now it’s going to be a movie, too. Paramount Pictures is developing a movie based on Monument Valley, and it’s sequel Monument Valley 2. Deadline says,

Paramount Pictures and Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures have set Patrick Osborne to develop to direct Monument Valley, hoping to launch a live action/CG hybrid family franchise based on the Ustwo Games’ international mobile game phenomenon. Osborne won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar for Feast and is currently directing Nimona for Fox and Blue Sky. The mobile game and its sequel take place in a surreal, Escher-esque landscape, where established laws of space and time do not apply. The film will send contemporary live-action characters into the game’s extraordinary, mind-bending world.

I love the Monument Valley games and the idea of a movie set in that world sounds intriguing. Still, I’d rather see the movie focus on the game characters instead of tossing real people into their world.

At first blush, this looks like a weird idea. Maybe a dumb idea. But on further inspection, this move by Amazon has all kinds of advantages. A Bloomberg article explains all, including the previous U.S. law that has banned film studios from having ownership in the movie theater industry, the so-called «Paramount Decree.»  Things in this market are very likely to change. Does Apple have to play this game too?