Another Leak Touts iPhone 12 Event Date; Google Maps Gets COVID-19 Layer; TikTok Asks Court to Block Trump Ban Order; MS Office Sans Subscription Still Possible in 2021

Another leaker has identified October 13th as the date for the Apple iPhone 12 event. Appleinsider.com reports that Jon Prosser, a rather well-known and frequent leaker, was the source, and this confirms other leaks already out there. Prosser gave more detail…saying that Pre-orders will start on October 16th (which is also a date another earlier leak had), and said that the “iPhone 12 mini” and “iPhone 12 Max” would arrive in stores on October 23. As a number of other sources, Prosser says the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max will be shown at the event, but won’t launch until some time in November. Most Apple watchers point to the more complex part orders for the hero models, a well as the inclusion of LiDAR. Apple also did a split rollout with the iPhone X series a couple years ago.

Google has rolled out an update to Google Maps that brings a COVID-19 layer to help you better understand the number of cases in a particular area. According to techcrunch.com, user can enable the feature and see a color-coded map based on the number of cases per 100,000 people, and labels that indicate if the case numbers are trending up or down. The Maps feature will work in all 220 countries and territories that Maps currently supports. It’s a rolling update, but you should have it on Android and iOS sometime this week.

TikTok went to court late yesterday and asked for it to block Trump’s order requiring Apple and Google to remove their app from the respective app stores. Reuters.com notes that a federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction blocking a similar Commerce Department order from taking effect on Sunday that was aimed at WeChat. The Trump Administration has persistently expressed concern that personal data of up to 100 million Americans that use the app was being passed on to China’s government. Oracle and Walmart had agreed to collectively take a 20% stake in ByteDance’s TikTok Global, but the administration balked at ByteDance keeping 80% and effective control. Oracle claimed that the way the deal was structured, the investors would keep the 80%, and the Beijing based firm would actually have no stake in TikTok Global.

If you want nothing to do with having a subscription to Microsoft Office in the cloud (raises hand), here’s some possible good news. 9to5mac.com reports that Windows Central spotted a sentence in a Microsoft announcement confirming that the one-time purchase will survive into 2021. It reads: ‘Microsoft Office will also see a new perpetual release for both Windows and Mac, in the second half of 2021.’ It is most likely that it will be the same deal as with Office 2019, and should contain Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Skype for Business. No information was in the announcement concerning pricing or availability date.