News in brief

Apple news in bite-size chunks

> Long-range charging?

According to a recent patent application, Apple may be working on a long-range wireless charger. The radio-frequency-based system has a few tricks up its sleeve, too: The charger could gather usage information from your iPhone and Apple account, use this to predict your usage patterns, then distribute power accordingly. That is, the charger could send enough power to your iPhone to get it through the day, based on how you use it, then automatically switch to charging your iPad. RF-based remote charging gets weaker the further your device is from the charger, so Apple’s application details a way to efficiently manage and prioritize charging devices. As always, there’s no way of knowing when or if this tech might become a reality.

> Microsoft Office for Mac gets a major update

Microsoft has released a new version of Office 2016 for Mac, introducing new online features that bring it closer in line with the cloud-first Office 365. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now feature automatic saving for documents stored in the cloud — which could stop you losing hours of work if you accidentally close a window or suffer a crash. All three apps also now offer live previews when you’re working on a shared document, with flag icons showing where others are working (much as in Google Docs). Office’s upgraded Version History tool shows a list of changes and lets you roll back to an earlier version.