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Apple's Right-To-Repair Policy Was Forced By Green Investors and Regulatory Pressure (theverge.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the under-pressure dept.
"In the past, Apple has taken an opposing stance on letting consumers repair their devices. Some of that is changing with Apple's new announcement," writes Slashdot reader wakeboarder. "Apple will sell components like batteries and screens to allow consumers to repair their own devices. This will help reduce e-waste, but will also allow Apple to control the market for parts -- not exactly what right-to-repair activists have fought for."
With that said, Apple "didn't change its policy out of the goodness of its heart," writes The Verge's Maddie Stone. The timing of this announcement was "deliberate," considering Wednesday was a key deadline in the fight over a shareholder resolution environmental advocates filed with the company in September asking Apple to re-evaluate its stance on independent repair. The issue would've likely ended up at the Securities and Exchange Commission. From the report: Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy told The Verge that the program "has been in development for well over a year," describing it as "the next step in increasing customer access to Apple genuine parts, tools, and manuals." Leahy declined to say whether the timing of the announcement was influenced by shareholder pressure. Activist shareholders believe that it was. "The timing is definitely no coincidence," says Annalisa Tarizzo, an advocate with Green Century, the mutual fund company that filed the right-to-repair resolution with Apple in September. As a result of today's announcement, Green Century is withdrawing its resolution, which asked Apple to "reverse its anti repair practices" and evaluate the benefits of making parts and tools more available to consumers.
Apple's initial response to the Green Century resolution was less than conciliatory. Tarizzo says that on October 18 (30 days before the self service announcement), Apple submitted a "no action request" to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the investor oversight body to block the proposal. According to Tarizzo, Apple's argument before the SEC was that the proposal -- that the company "prepare a report" on the environmental and social benefits of making its devices easier to fix -- ran afoul of shareholder proposal guidance by infringing on Apple's normal business operations. However, earlier this month, the SEC issued new guidance concerning no-action requests that includes a carve-out for proposals that raise "significant social policy issues." In other words, shareholders can bring resolutions that affect a company's day-to-day business operations if those proposals raise issues with significant societal impact. Tarizzo believes that this change made it much more likely the SEC would side with Green Century rather than Apple, particularly since the mutual fund company connected the dots between increased access to repair and the fight against climate change. (Using devices as long as possible through maintenance and repair is one of the best ways to reduce the climate impact of consumer technology since the majority of the emissions associated with our gadgets occur during the manufacturing stage.)
"It wasn't a guarantee that the SEC would side with us, but the new guidance indicates it's very likely we would prevail," Tarizzo says. "It effectively took away a lot of Apple's leverage in the process." Now, Apple seems to have regained some leverage by announcing its new Self Service Repair program on the same day that Green Century was required to respond to the no-action request. Instead of arguing that the SEC should allow the shareholder resolution to move forward, Green Century is now withdrawing the resolution entirely.
Apple Employees Will Return To Offices February 1 in a Hybrid Work Pilot (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Apple employees will return to offices starting February 1st as part of a hybrid work pilot and will be able to work remotely for four weeks a year. From a report: First reported by The Information, employees learned of the news Thursday via an internal memo from CEO Tim Cook. The company had previously offered two weeks of remote work per year but added two more weeks to give "more opportunity to travel, be closer to your loved ones, or simply shake up your routines," Cook's memo said. The pilot will start workers at one or two days in the office, then in March, workers will come to the office to work on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. They'll be able to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays. Some employees may be asked to come into the office four or five days a week if their roles require more time in the office.
Apple Accelerates Work on Car Project, Aiming for Fully Autonomous Vehicle (bloomberg.com)
Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Apple is pushing to accelerate development of its electric car and is refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, aiming to solve a technical challenge that has bedeviled the auto industry. From the report: For the past several years, Apple's car team had explored two simultaneous paths: creating a model with limited self-driving capabilities focused on steering and acceleration -- similar to many current cars -- or a version with full self-driving ability that doesn't require human intervention. Under the effort's new leader -- Apple Watch software executive Kevin Lynch -- engineers are now concentrating on the second option. Lynch is pushing for a car with a full self-driving system in the first version, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
It's just the latest shift for the car effort, known as the Special Projects Group or "Project Titan," which has endured strategy changes and executive turnover since starting around 2014. In September, the former head of the team, Doug Field, left for a job at Ford Motor after three years in charge. In picking Lynch as his replacement, Apple went with an internal executive who isn't a car veteran. In trying to master self-driving cars, Apple is chasing a holy grail within the industry. Tech and auto giants have spent years on autonomous vehicles, but the capabilities have remained elusive.
Epic Calls For a Single Universal App Store (macrumors.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the back-at-it-again dept.
Long-time tlhIngan writes: Tim Sweeney is at it again. The CEO of Epic Games blasts Apple and Google and calls for a universal app store that works across all platforms. Naturally, he's proposing that Epic Games manage the store across iOS, Android, Xbox, PC, Nintendo and Sony. Bloomberg (paywalled) has more details. "What the world really needs now is a single store that works with all platforms," said Sweeney in an interview at the Global Conference for Mobile Application Ecosystem Fairness in Seoul, South Korea. "Right now software ownership is fragmented between the iOS App Store, the Android Google Play marketplace, different stores on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch, and then Microsoft Store and the Mac App Store." Sweeney added that Epic Games is working with developers and service providers to create a system to allow users "to buy software in one place, knowing that they'd have it on all devices and all platforms."
"There's a store market, there's a payments market, and there are many other related markets. And it's critical that antitrust enforcement not allow a monopolist in one market to use their control of that market to impose control over unrelated markets." He went on to accuse Apple of complying "with oppressive foreign laws" while "ignoring laws passed by Korea's democracy." "Apple must be stopped," he says.
Qualcomm's Next-gen CPU for PCs Will Take on Apple's M-series Chips in 2023 (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Qualcomm is looking to seriously beef up its PC processors, with the company announcing plans for a next-generation Arm-based SoC "designed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PCs" that would be able to go head to head with Apple's M-series processors. From a report: Dr. James Thompson, Qualcomm's chief technology officer, announced the plans for the new chips at the company's 2021 investor day event, with the goal of getting samples to hardware customers in about nine months ahead of product launches with the new chip in 2023. The new chip will be designed by the Nuvia team, which Qualcomm had bought earlier this year in a massive $1.4 billion acquisition. Nuvia, notably, was founded in 2019 by a trio of former Apple employees who had previously worked on the company's A-series chips. The company is making big promises, too: in addition to offering competition to Apple's stellar M-series chips (which power its latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops and iMac and Mac Mini desktops), Qualcomm is aiming to lead the field for "sustained performance and battery life," too.
'If Apple Keeps Letting Its Software Slip, the Next Big Thing Won't Matter' (macworld.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the do-better dept.
If Apple can't improve the reliability of its software, the next big thing won't matter, argues Dan Moren in an opinion piece for Macworld. From the report: Uneven distribution: As sci-fi writer William Gibson famously said, "the future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed." While Gibson's comment resonates mostly on a socio-economic level that is borne out by Apple's not inexpensive technology, it's also embodied geographically by the company's work: if you're interested, you can see which Apple features are available in which regions. Many of these, of course, are due to restrictions and laws in specific regions or places where, say, Apple has not prioritized language localization. But some of them are cases where features have been rolled out only slowly to certain places. [...] It's surely less exciting for Apple to think about rolling out these (in some cases years old) features, especially those which might require a large degree of legwork, to various places than it is for the company to demonstrate its latest shiny feature, but it also means that sometimes these features don't make it to many, if not most of the users of its devices. Uneven distribution, indeed.
To error is machine: It's happened to pretty much any Apple device user: You go to use a feature and it just doesn't work. Sometimes there's no explanation as to why; other times, there's just a cryptic error message that provides no help at all. [...]
Shooting trouble: Sometimes what we're dealing with in the aforementioned situations are what we call "edge cases." Apple engineers surely do their best to test their features with a variety of hardware, in different places, with different settings. [...] Nobody expects Apple to catch everything, but the question remains: when these problems do arise, what do we do about them? One thing Apple could improve is the ease for users to report issues they encounter. Too often, I see missives posted on Apple discussion boards that encourage people to get in touch with Apple support... which often means a lengthy reiteration of the old troubleshooting canards. While these can sometimes solve problems, if not actually explain them, it's not a process that most consumers are likely to go through. And when those steps don't resolve the issues, users are often left with a virtual shrug.
Likewise, while Apple does provide a place to send feedback about products, it's explicitly not a way to report problems. Making it easier for users to report bugs and unexpected behavior would go a long way to helping owners of Apple products feel like they're not simply shouting their frustrations into a void (aka Twitter). If Apple can't improve the reliability of its software [...] it at least owes it to its users to create more robust resources for helping them help themselves. Because there's nothing more frustrating than not understanding why a miraculous device that can contact people around the world instantaneously, run incredibly powerful games, and crunch data faster than a supercomputer of yesteryear sometimes can't do something as simple as export a video of a vacation.
While Moren focuses primarily on unfinished features to help make his case, "there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse," says HN reader makecheck. "When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They're in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps, not creating huge new ones."An example of this would be the current UX of notifications. "A notification comes up, I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it," writes noneeeed. "But then some time later I unlock my machine or something happens and apparently all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multiple groups."
"Don't get me started on the new iOS podcast app," adds another reader.
Apple is Sticking Taxpayers With Part of the Bill for Rollout of Tech Giant's Digital ID Card (cnbc.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Apple is making U.S. states foot part of the bill and provide customer support for its plan to turn iPhones into digital identification cards, according to confidential documents obtained by CNBC. From the report: The company requires states to maintain the systems needed to issue and service credentials, hire project managers to respond to Apple inquiries, prominently market the new feature and push for its adoption with other government agencies, all at taxpayer expense, according to contracts signed by four states. Apple announced in June that its users could soon store state-issued identification cards in the iPhone's Wallet app, billing it as a more secure and convenient way for customers to provide credentials in a variety of in-person and remote settings. The feature, when combined with Apple's biometric security measures like Face ID, could cut down on fraud.
But the move has brought questions from industry observers about why local authorities are ceding control of citizens' identities to a $2.46 trillion private corporation. Beyond that, the integration of identity into powerful mobile devices has drawn concern from privacy experts about the risk of dystopian scenarios involving surveillance. The contracts between Cupertino, California-based Apple and states including Georgia, Arizona, Kentucky and Oklahoma provide a rare glimpse into the dealings of the powerful company. Apple is known for its obsession with secrecy. It typically forces potential partners to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent its documents from spilling into public view.
Apple-1 Computer Fetches $400,000 At US Auction (cnn.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the going-once-going-twice-sold dept.
The Apple-1, one of Apple's first computers, fetched $400,000 at auction in the U.S. earlier this week. Slashdot reader schwit1 first shared the news with us. The BBC reports: The rare Hawaiian koa wood-cased Apple-1 -- still functioning -- is one of only 200 made and sold in kit form. The computer has only had two owners, a college professor and his student to whom he sold the machine for $650, said John Moran Auctioneers in California. The sale included user manuals and Apple software on two cassette tapes.
The koa wood case of the auctioned model was added by a pioneering early computer retailer, ByteShop, in California, which took delivery of around 50 of the Apple-1 machines. In 1976, the machines were sold for $666.66, reportedly because Wozniak liked repeating numbers. It is believed there are around 20 such computers in the world still capable of functioning. The auctioned machine is not the highest-grossing Apple-1 computer -- that distinction belongs to a working version that sold for $905,000 at a Bonhams auction in New York in 2014.
Apple Patent Fights Lookie-Loos With Glass-Activated Screen Blur (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the your-eyes-only dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A patent filed by Apple and published Thursday by the US Patent and Trademark Office details the tech giant's interest in creating "privacy eyewear" that blurs content on a device's screen unless someone is wearing special glasses to look at it. As spotted by Patently Apple, the patent, which focuses on creating different FaceID profiles for various visual impairments, explores a new type of privacy screen. The patent doesn't specify any Apple product by name. Instead, it refers to electronic devices in general, including smartphones, watches, laptops, TVs, and car displays. Drawings in the patent show the feature working on a smartphone-like device. The technology would use a face scan to determine if the user is wearing the required glasses. It could recognize the headgear by a specific graphic, such as a QR or bar code.
If you're worried about someone looking at your phone over your shoulder, you could activate the feature "to make the graphical output illegible." Your privacy eyewear, meanwhile, would "counteract the intentional blur." "The blurred graphical output may compensate for the distortion created by the privacy eyewear vision of the user by, for example, blurring a portion and/or the entirety of a standard graphical output; generating an overlay over the standard graphical output; and/or making elements of the standard graphical output larger, brighter, and/or more distinct," Apple's patent reads. "In some embodiments, the blurred graphical output may only replace certain graphical elements presented in the standard graphical output. The blurred graphical output may be a default graphical output designed to compensate for the privacy eyewear."
Further reading: Apple Aiming To Announce Mixed-Reality Headset In 'Next Several Months'
iOS 15.2 Beta Blurs Nude Images For Kids Using Messages App (macrumors.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
iOS 15.2 has been released today, bringing a new feature called Communication Safety in Messages that is able to detect and automatically blur nude images that are sent or received by children. It's one of several Child Safety features Apple announced over the summer. As MacRumors notes, it's "not the same as the controversial anti-CSAM feature that Apple plans to implement in the future after revisions." From the report: Communication Safety is a Family Sharing feature that can be enabled by parents, and it is opt-in rather than activated by default. When turned on, the Messages app is able to detect nudity in images that are sent or received by children. If a child receives or attempts to send a photo with nudity, the image will be blurred and the child will be warned about the content, told it's okay not to view the photo, and offered resources to contact someone they trust for help. When Communication Safety was first announced, Apple said that parents of children under the age of 13 had the option to receive a notification if the child viewed a nude image in Messages, but after receiving feedback, Apple has removed this feature. Apple now says that no notifications are sent to parents.
Apple removed the notification option because it was suggested that parental notification could pose a risk for a child in a situation where there is parental violence or abuse. For all children, including those under the age of 13, Apple will instead offer guidance on getting help from a trusted adult in a situation where nude photos are involved. Checking for nudity in photos is done on-device, with Messages analyzing image attachments. The feature does not impact the end-to-end encryption of messages, and no indication of the detection of nudity leaves the device. Apple has no access to the Messages.
Apple Will No Longer Break Face ID On Repaired iPhone 13s (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the crisis-averted dept.
Apple says it will back off its plan to break Face ID on independently repaired iPhones. Ars Technica reports: The company's often contentious relationship with the repair community was tested again when "unauthorized" iPhone 13 screen replacements started resulting in broken Face ID systems. A new report from The Verge says that Apple "will release a software update that doesn't require you to transfer the microcontroller to keep Face ID working after a screen swap." Screen replacements are the most common smartphone repairs. Apple included a new microcontroller in the iPhone 13's display that pairs each screen with other components in the phone. As iFixit reported, if a third-party repair shop replaced the iPhone 13 display, Apple would disable the phone's Face ID system. [...] After a wave of bad press, it's "crisis averted" for the repair community. It would be nice if this was never an issue in the first place, though.
Apple Can't Delay App Store December Deadline As Epic Legal Battle Continues (bloomberg.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the clock-is-ticking dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple failed to persuade a federal judge to push back a December deadline to change the lucrative business model for its App Store while the iPhone maker's legal fight with Epic Games is appealed. Unless the iPhone maker wins a reprieve from an appeals court, it will soon have to start allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could cost the tech giant a few billion dollars annually. Apple asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers to put on hold a part of the injunction that said the company must undo its rule forbidding developers from using web links or other means within apps to inform consumers about payment methods outside the App Store. "Apple's motion is based on a selective reading of this court's findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction," Rogers said in an order Tuesday. "The motion is fundamentally flawed."
"Apple believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals in this case are resolved," the company said in a statement. While Apple largely won its showdown with Epic, the world's most valuable technology company isn't out of danger from challenges to its role as a gatekeeper to the digital economy. The iPhone maker continues to face a plethora of antitrust lawsuits in and outside the U.S seeking to open up the App Store to competition, monopolization enforcement investigations brought by federal and state agencies, and legislative bids to restrict its business practices. Bloomberg Intelligence has said that pressure on Apple to lower its App Store commissions on developers, which currently run as high as 30%, could squeeze revenue by $2 billion to $4 billion in a worst-case scenario.
Tim Cook: Users Who Want To Sideload Apps Can Use Android (macrumors.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Amid a heightened amount of scrutiny and tension surrounding the App Store and how users download and install apps on the iPhone, Apple CEO Tim Cook said today that customers who wish to sideload apps should consider purchasing an Android device as the experience offered by the iPhone maximizes their security and privacy. From a report: Speaking at The New York Times "DealBook" summit, Cook said that customers currently already have a choice between wanting a secure and protected platform or an ecosystem that allows for sideloading. "I think that people have that choice today, Andrew. If you want to sideload, you can buy an Android phone." Cook drew the comparison of sideloading to a carmaker selling a car without airbags or seatbelt, saying it would be "too risky." "I think that people have that choice today, Andrew, if you want to sideload, you can buy an Android phone. That choice exists when you go into the carrier shop. If that is important to you, then you should buy an Android phone. From our point of view, it would be like if I were an automobile manufacturer telling [a customer] not to put airbags and seat belts in the car. He would never think about doing this in today's time. It's just too risky to do that. And so it would not be an iPhone if it didn't maximize security and privacy," he said.
Tim Cook Has Invested in Cryptocurrency Personally, But Apple Has No Immediate Plans To Do So. (nytimes.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
While Apple might not offer users a way to pay with cryptocurrency anytime soon, its leader has invested in it personally. From a report: Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, said at the DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday that he has bought cryptocurrencies. "I think it's reasonable to own it as part of a diversified portfolio," Mr. Cook told DealBook's Andrew Ross Sorkin, quickly adding that he wasn't giving investment advice. He said he has done some research on crypto and has been interested in it for "a while." The revelation came as Mr. Cook said that Apple itself did not intend to join a growing number of big businesses incorporating crypto in their operations. Mr. Cook said, however, that Apple didn't plan to buy any Bitcoin with its roughly $200 billion in cash -- "I don't think people buy Apple stock to get exposure to crypto," he said -- and added that it had no plans to make crypto an accepted method of payment anytime soon. "It's not something we have immediate plans to do," he said. But never say never: Mr. Cook added, cryptically, "There are other things that we are definitely looking at."
Peloton Joins Companies Blaming Lower Earnings on Apple's Tracking Restrictions (gizmodo.com)
Posted by EditorDavid from the bicycle-tired dept.
Peloton, the makers of an internet-connected exercise bike, saw their stock price drop 35% overnight on Thursday, reports CNBC. "At least four Wall Street investment firms downgraded the stock following Peloton's dismal fiscal first-quarter financial report... Peloton's stock has fallen 63% year to date."
The company had cut its annual revenue forecast — by $1 billion — and lowered its projections for both profit margins and paying subscribers. Bloomberg reports: At best, Peloton currently expects to have 3.45 million connected fitness subscriptions by the end of the fiscal year. It had previously called for 3.63 million. And gross profit margin will be 32%, compared with an earlier forecast of 34%. All that will add up to a loss of as much as $475 million, excluding some items....
On a more upbeat note, the company hinted that it plans to launch new products in the coming weeks and months. Peloton has been working on a rowing machine and a heart-rate monitor that attaches to a wearer's arm, Bloomberg News has reported.
The article suggests Peloton's business was hurt by the end of lockdowns, supply-chain constraints, and the cost of freight. But they also point out another factor. "Like several other companies, Peloton also blamed Apple Inc.'s ad-related privacy changes, which have made it more difficult to target shoppers based on their interests." Apple's new Ad Tracking Transparency feature (or "ATT") now first asks users to deny or allow apps to track their activity for the targeted advertising which had apparently been boosting Peloton's business.
And tlhIngan (Slashdot reader #30,335) tipped us off to a larger trend, since Gizmodo reports that Peloton "isn't the only company that has pointed accusingly at Apple lately." When reporting its third quarter earnings at the end of October, Facebook (now called Meta) — which depends on targeted ads for almost 98% of its revenue — said that ATT had decreased the accuracy of its ad targeting. The feature also increased "the cost of driving outcomes" for advertisers, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explained, and made it harder to measure those outcomes. "Overall, if it wasn't for Apple's iOS 14 changes, we would have seen positive quarter-over-quarter revenue growth," Sandberg said.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that ATT had cost Snap, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube an estimated $9.85 billion in lost revenue in the second half of this year. That's an 87% increase year over year.
The iPhone 13 Screen Is a Repair Nightmare That Could Destroy Repair Shops Forever (vice.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the earth-shattering-for-the-repair-industry dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A tweak to the iPhone's repairability that has been long prophesied and feared has finally come to pass, giving staggering new urgency for legislation that makes repair more accessible: The iPhone 13's screen cannot be replaced without special software controlled by Apple. This is a devastating blow to independent repair shops, who make the vast majority of their money doing screen replacements, and, specifically, make the vast majority of their money doing iPhone screen replacements. According to iFixit, replacing the screen on an iPhone 13 disables Face ID functionality. That's because the screen itself is paired to a small microcontroller attached to the display. Replacing a cracked screen with a new screen will disable this pairing, thus breaking a core piece of functionality in the phone. An authorized Apple repair tech can pair a new screen to an iPhone with the click of a few buttons using proprietary Apple tech. Everyone else will have a much harder time. "It is still possible to change a screen on an iPhone 13," notes Motherboard. "The difference is that in order to do so now, this microcontroller needs to be removed from the broken screen and resoldered onto the new screen (after the existing microcontroller on that screen is removed). Doing this requires microsoldering, which requires the use of a microscope and a highly skilled technician."
In an email to Motherboard, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said: "This is a clear case of a manufacturer using their power to prevent competition and monopolize an industry. Society loses: small repair shops will wither and fade away and consumers will be left with no choice but to pay top dollar for repairs or replace their device."
Future Apple Silicon Macs Will Use 3nm Chips With Up To 40 Cores, Report Says (theinformation.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The Information today shared alleged details about future Apple silicon chips that will succeed the first-generation M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips, which are manufactured based on Apple chipmaking partner TSMC's 5nm process. MacRumors adds: The report claims that Apple and TSMC plan to manufacture second-generation Apple silicon chips using an enhanced version of TSMC's 5nm process, and the chips will apparently contain two dies, which can allow for more cores. These chips will likely be used in the next MacBook Pro models and other Mac desktops, the report says. Apple is planning a "much bigger leap" with its third-generation chips, some of which will be manufactured with TSMC's 3nm process and have up to four dies, which the report says could translate into the chips having up to 40 compute cores. For comparison, the M1 chip has an 8-core CPU and the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips have 10-core CPUs, while Apple's high-end Mac Pro tower can be configured with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon W processor.
Apple Software Exec Warns European App Store Regulation Would Open 'Pandora's Box' (cnbc.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Proposed European regulation that could force Apple to allow iPhone users to install software from the web would open '"Pandora's box" and could pose threats to entire networks of computers, Apple software senior vice president Craig Federighi said in a speech on Wednesday. From a report: The remarks at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal represent an escalation in Apple's rhetoric about what could go wrong if Apple is forced to change its App Store policies. [...] "European policymakers have often been ahead of the curve," Federighi said. "But requiring sideloading on iPhone would be a step backward. Instead of creating choice, it could open up a Pandora's Box of unreviewed malware and software."
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, presented the Digital Markets Act last December. The Act is designed to stop companies like Apple, Google and Meta, the company previously known as Facebook, from abusing their power. It contains a series of rules that would require them to open up their platforms to competitors. Failure to comply could result in fines as high as 10% of the companies' worldwide annual revenue. In a report filed with the U.S. SEC last month, Apple specifically named the Digital Markets Act and said that, if enacted, it could require changes to Apple's App Store that might harm the company's financial results. On Wednesday, Federighi didn't address the potential financial impact to Apple. Instead, he argued sideloading would cause users to be tricked into downloading malware. "Even if you have no intention of sideloading, people are routinely coerced or tricked into doing it," Federighi said, citing malware on Google's Android, which allows sideloading. Google warns users against doing so in system messages and pop-ups, however. Federighi argued that although technically skilled people might be able to identify malware on the internet, their parents or children might still be fooled, making everyone's iPhone data less secure.
Future iPad Pro and MacBook Pro Models Rumored To Feature Ultra-Bright Double-Stack OLED Displays (macrumors.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Apple is in discussions with Samsung and LG over applying OLED displays with a two-stack tandem structure to future iPad and MacBook models, but the devices are likely several years away from launch, according to Korean website The Elec. MacRumors reports: The report indicates that a two-stack tandem structure would consist of two layers of red, green, and blue emission layers, allowing for the future iPad and MacBook models to have significantly brighter displays with up to double the luminance. Apple's current OLED devices like the iPhone have a single-stack structure, the report adds. Given that OLED technology is expensive, it's likely the displays will be used on future iPad Pro and MacBook Pro models specifically. The report claims the future iPads will come in 11-inch and 12.9-inch sizes, which are indeed the current iPad Pro sizes.
The report claims the two-stack iPad displays will also be low-power LTPO panels, which could allow for a wider ProMotion refresh rate range between 10Hz and 120Hz, in line with the iPhone 13 Pro models. iPad Pro models have already supported ProMotion since 2017, but with a refresh rate between 24Hz and 120Hz. Timing remains a big question mark. While some earlier reports claimed the first iPad with an OLED display was slated for release in 2022, today's report claims the timeframe has been pushed back to late 2023 or 2024. The first MacBook with an OLED display might follow in 2025, but this plan could be postponed further, the report adds.
New Report Says Apple's AR Headset Will Have Wi-Fi 6E, Arrive in 2022 (cnet.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Apple's long-rumored AR-VR headset may be arriving next year. According to a new report from notable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone-maker is aiming to put Wi-Fi 6 and 6E support into the device, which could arrive at some point towards the end of 2022. From a report: In a note to investors, spotted by MacRumors, Kuo writes that Meta (formerly Facebook), Sony and Apple will all have new virtual reality or augmented reality headsets of some kind next year, which will support the latest Wi-Fi standards. He expects that Meta's product will launch in the second half of the year, Apple's in the fourth quarter of 2022 and Sony's sometime in the second quarter. Last week during its Facebook Connect event Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased a new, higher-end headset dubbed Project Cambria that the company says will arrive next year. Sony, meanwhile, has been teasing a successor to its PlayStation VR headset that is designed for the PlayStation 5. It too is aiming to launch its VR product in 2022. Kuo writes that using Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E will be a "basic requirement for head-mounted displays to improve the wireless experience," adding that "Wi-Fi 6 is significantly better than Wi-Fi 5 in transmission speed and power consumption."
Some Older Macs Reportedly Bricked After Installing macOS Monterey (macrumors.com)
Posted by msmash from the oops dept.
macOS Monterey, released last week as the latest version of macOS, is bricking older Mac computers, rendering them unusable and unable to even turn on, according to a number of reports from users across social media and online forums. From a report: If this sounds oddly familiar, it may be because last year, with the launch of macOS Big Sur, similar reports surfaced about that update bricking older MacBook Pro models. Less than a year later, similar issues are now seemingly taking place once again. At least ten separate posts on Apple Support Communities contain users complaining that as they were attempting to update their Mac to macOS Monterey, the Mac went completely black and they're unable to turn it on. One post in specific includes several comments from users also reporting similar issues. Reports on Twitter are also plentiful.
Apple Wants iPhones To Detect Car Crashes, Auto-Dial 911 (wsj.com)
Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Beginning next year, iPhone users who are in a car accident could have their phone dial 911 automatically. From a report: Apple plans next year to roll out a product feature called "crash detection" for iPhones and Apple Watches, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the feature. Crash detection uses data from sensors built into Apple devices including the accelerometer to detect car accidents as they occur, for instance by measuring a sudden spike in gravity, or "g," forces on impact. The feature would mark the latest move by Apple and its competitors to use motion-sensor technology to build safety functions into their devices. Apple introduced a fall-detection feature in its smartwatch several years ago that senses when wearers have taken a hard fall and dials 911 if they don't respond to a notification asking if they are OK. The company this year added a feature to the newest version of its iPhone operating system that assesses the walking steadiness of users. The timing of the new feature could change, or Apple could choose not to release it, people familiar with the company's development process said.
Apple has been testing the crash-detection feature in the past year by collecting data shared anonymously from iPhone and Apple Watch users, the documents show. Apple products have already detected more than 10 million suspected vehicle impacts, of which more than 50,000 included a call to 911. Apple has been using the 911 call data to improve the accuracy of its crash-detection algorithm, since an emergency call associated with a suspected impact gives Apple more confidence that it is indeed a car crash, according to the documents. The documents don't specify how Apple users are sharing information with the company so it can test its new crash-detection algorithm.
What Happens When You Use Bluetooth Tags to Track Your Stolen Items?
Posted by EditorDavid from the making-trackers dept.
"The third time my 1999 Honda Civic was stolen, I had a plan," writes Washington Post technology reporter Heather Kelly. Specifically, it was a tile tracker hidden in the car, "quietly transmitting its approximate location over Bluetooth." Later that day, I was across town hiding down the block from my own car as police detained the surprised driver. When the Tile app pinged me with a last known location, I showed up expecting the car to be abandoned. I quickly realized it was still in use, with one person looking through the trunk and another napping in the passenger seat, so I called the police...
In April of this year, one month after my car was stolen, Apple released the $29 AirTag, bringing an even more effective Bluetooth tracking technology to a much wider audience. Similar products from Samsung and smaller brands such as Chipolo are testing the limits of how far people will go to get back their stolen property and what they consider justice. "The technology has unintended consequences. It basically gives the owner the ability to become a mini surveillance operation," said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at the American University Washington College of Law...
Apple has been careful to never say AirTags can be used to recover stolen property. The marketing for the device is light and wholesome, focusing on situations like lost keys between sofa cushions. The official tagline is "Lose your knack for losing things" and there's no mention of crime, theft or stealing in any of the ads, webpages or support documents. But in reality, the company has built a network that is ideal for that exact use case. Every compatible iPhone, iPad and Mac is being silently put to work as a location device without their owners knowing when it happens. An AirTag uses Bluetooth to send out a ping with its encrypted location to the closest Apple devices, which pass that information on to the Apple cloud. That spot is visible on a map in the Find My app. The AirTag owner can also turn on Lost Mode to get a notification the next time it's detected, as well as leave contact information in case it's found. Apple calls this the Find My network, and it also works for lost or stolen Apple devices and a handful of third-party products. The proliferation of compatible Apple devices — there are nearly a billion in the network around the world — makes Find My incredibly effective, especially in cities. (Apple device owners are part of the Find My network by default, but can opt out in settings, and the location information is all encrypted...)
All the tracker companies recommend contacting law enforcement first, which may sound logical until you find yourself waiting hours in a parking lot for officers to address a relatively low-priority crime, or having to explain to them what Bluetooth trackers are.
The Times shares stories of two people who tried using AirTags to track down their stolen property. One Seattle man tracked down his stolen electric bike — and ended up pedalling away furiously on the (now out of power) bicycle as the suspected thief chased after him.
And an Ohio man waited for hours in an unfamiliar drugstore parking lot for a response from the police, eventually travelling with them to the suspect's house — where his stolen laptop was returned to the police officer by a man holding two babies in his arms.
Some parents have even hidden them in their childrens' backpacks, and pet owners have hidden them in their pet's collars, the Times reports — adding that the EFF's director of cybersecurity sees another possibility. "The problem is it's impossible to build a tool that is designed to track down stolen items without also building the perfect tool for stalking."
Apple's Most Back-Ordered New Product Is Not What You Expect
Posted by msmash from the think-different dept.
Apple this month unveiled an array of new gadgets: more powerful MacBook laptop computers, AirPod wireless headphones with longer battery life and HomePod Mini speakers in three more colors. But a different and unheralded Apple release is garnering so much interest that it has become the company's most back-ordered new product: a $19, 6.3-by-6.3-inch cloth to wipe smudges and fingerprints off screens. From a report: The cloth, imprinted with the Apple logo in the corner, is made with "soft, nonabrasive material" to clean the screens of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks "safely and effectively," according to the product page. The listing adds that the Polishing Cloth -- capital P, capital C -- is "compatible" with 88 different Apple products. For most U.S. shoppers, shipment is delayed until Jan. 11, at the earliest. Charging $19 for a piece of cloth about the size of two stacked dollar bills is bold even by Apple's standards, a company whose legions of loyal customers are conditioned to stomach steep prices. An Apple-branded set of four wheels to "improve mobility" for the Mac Pro, the company's most expensive desktop computer, is priced at $699, for instance.
Microsoft Passes Apple To Become the World's Most Valuable Company (cnbc.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft passed Apple in market cap on Friday, making it the world's most valuable publicly-traded company, after Apple missed earnings expectations on Thursday. From a report: As of 10:30 a.m. ET Microsoft had a market cap of $2.45 trillion while Apple's stood at about $2.41 trillion. Apple reported revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations during the company's fiscal fourth-quarter on Thursday, a result of supply chain constraints. CEO Tim Cook told CNBC's Josh Lipton the revenue shortfall is estimated at $6 billion, but he expects worse supply chain issues in the December quarter. iPhone sales at the company were up 47% year-over-year but also fell short of analyst expectations. The company's fourth-quarter only included a few days of iPhone 13 sales. Microsoft beat revenue expectations during its fiscal first quarter, which climbed about 22% year-over-year. That was the fastest growth since 2018, CNBC previously reported.
iOS 15.2 Beta Includes App Privacy Report and Auto Call Updates
Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Just a few days after releasing iOS 15.1 and iPadOS 15.1, Apple has seeded the first betas of iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2 to developers for testing purposes, with the update adding promised iOS 15 features like App Privacy Report. MacRumors reports: App Privacy Report is one of the iOS 15 additions that Apple showed off at WWDC. It's a new privacy feature that's designed to allow users to see how often apps have accessed their sensitive info like location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts across the last seven days. It's also set up to show which apps have contacted other domains and how recently they've contacted them so you can keep an eye on what apps are doing behind the scenes.
Auto Call, the feature that lets call emergency services with a series of button presses, has been updated in iOS 15.2. You can now press the side button rapidly multiple times to initiate, or hold down the side button and the volume button together. There's now a longer eight-second countdown before a call is placed, which is up from the prior three-second countdown.
Other features and/or changes include a new card-style appearance to Notification Summary and the Communication Safety feature. "Communication Safety is built into the Messages app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and it will warn children and their parents when sexually explicit photos are received or sent from a child's device, with Apple using on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments," reports MacRumors. Microsoft Closes on Apple in Race for World's Most Valuable Listed Firm (bloomberg.com)
Posted by msmash from the catch-me-if-you-can dept.
A blowout first quarter has brought Microsoft back into contention in the race for the world's most-valuable listed company. From a report: The software behemoth is less than $60 billion away from dethroning Apple for the first time since May 2020, based on a 3.1% gain in early U.S. trading. That gives Microsoft a market value of $2.40 trillion compared with $2.46 trillion for Apple. The stock was boosted after Microsoft reported estimate-topping results for an 11th straight quarter. Several analysts raised their price targets, saying the earnings were very strong across the board.
Apple's iPod Came Out Two Decades Ago
Posted by BeauHD from the trip-down-memory-lane dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: On October 23, 2001, Apple released the iPod -- a portable media player that promised to overshadow the clunky design and low storage capacity of MP3 players introduced in the mid-1990s. The iPod boasted the ability to "hold 1,000 songs in your pocket". Its personalized listening format revolutionized the way we consume music. And with more than 400 million units sold since its release, there's no doubt it was a success. Yet, two decades later, the digital music landscape continues to rapidly evolve.
The iPod expanded listening beyond the constraints of the home stereo system, allowing the user to plug into not only their headphones, but also their car radio, their computer at work, or their hi-fi system at home. It made it easier to entwine these disparate spaces into a single personalized soundtrack throughout the day. [...] The rise of touchscreen smartphones ultimately led to the iPod's downfall. Interestingly, the music app on the original iPhone was called "iPod." The iPod's functions were essentially reappropriated and absorbed into the iPhone. The iPhone was a flexible and multifunctional device: an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator all in one -- a computer in your pocket. And by making the development tools for their products freely available, Apple and Google allowed third-party developers to create apps for their new platforms in the thousands.
As of this year, mobile devices are responsible for 54.8% of web traffic worldwide. And while music piracy still exists, its influence has been significantly reduced by the arrival of streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube. These platforms have had a profound effect on how we engage with music as active and passive listeners. Spotify supports an online community-based approach to music sharing, with curated playlists. [...] As of February this year, more than 60,000 tracks were being uploaded to Spotify each day. The experience of listening to music will become increasingly immersive with time, and we'll only find more ways to seamlessly integrate it into our lives.
AnandTech Reviews Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max Chips (anandtech.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
AnandTech reviews the recently unveiled M1 Pro and M1 Max chips : The M1 Pro and M1 Max change the narrative completely -- these designs feel like truly SoCs that have been made with power users in mind, with Apple increasing the performance metrics in all vectors. We expected large performance jumps, but we didn't expect the some of the monstrous increases that the new chips are able to achieve. On the CPU side, doubling up on the performance cores is an evident way to increase performance -- the competition also does so with some of their designs. How Apple does it differently, is that it not only scaled the CPU cores, but everything surrounding them. It's not just 4 additional performance cores, it's a whole new performance cluster with its own L2. On the memory side, Apple has scaled its memory subsystem to never before seen dimensions, and this allows the M1 Pro & Max to achieve performance figures that simply weren't even considered possible in a laptop chip. The chips here aren't only able to outclass any competitor laptop design, but also competes against the best desktop systems out there, you'd have to bring out server-class hardware to get ahead of the M1 Max -- it's just generally absurd.
On the GPU side of things, Apple's gains are also straightforward. The M1 Pro is essentially 2x the M1, and the M1 Max is 4x the M1 in terms of performance. Games are still in a very weird place for macOS and the ecosystem, maybe it's a chicken-and-egg situation, maybe gaming is still something of a niche that will take a long time to see make use of the performance the new chips are able to provide in terms of GPU. What's clearer, is that the new GPU does allow immense leaps in performance for content creation and productivity workloads which rely on GPU acceleration. To further improve content creation, the new media engine is a key feature of the chip. Particularly video editors working with ProRes or ProRes RAW, will see a many-fold improvement in their workflow as the new chips can handle the formats like a breeze -- this along is likely going to have many users of that professional background quickly adopt the new MacBook Pro's. For others, it seems that Apple knows the typical MacBook Pro power users, and has designed the silicon around the use-cases in which Macs do shine. The combination of raw performance, unique acceleration, as well as sheer power efficiency, is something that you just cannot find in any other platform right now, likely making the new MacBook Pro's not just the best laptops, but outright the very best devices for the task.
It's a comprehensive review, and Intel should be panicking.
Apple Very Likely to Face DOJ Antitrust Suit (theinformation.com)
Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Apple so far has avoided the worst outcome in its U.S. legal battle with Epic Games, but its antitrust woes remain. The Information: In the last several months the U.S. Department of Justice has accelerated its two-year-old antitrust probe of the iPhone maker, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation, increasing the likelihood of a lawsuit. Since summer, there has been a flurry of activity on the investigation as DOJ lawyers have asked Apple and its customers and competitors questions about how the company maintains its strict control over the iPhone, the people said. That includes a new round of subpoenas sent to Apple's business partners over the summer, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investigation is very likely to lead to a lawsuit, though the specifics are still in flux, one of the people said. The DOJ has also assigned more staff to the probe, that person said. In late July two insurance companies abandoned their merger following a DOJ lawsuit, and some of the lawyers on that case moved to the Apple probe, the person said. DOJ lawyers are uncovering what they believe are serious issues and the investigation remains ongoing, the person said.
macOS Monterey is Now Available To Download (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
The latest version of macOS, Monterey, is now available to download, according to Apple. The software has been available in public beta for several months, but today's release means Apple thinks the software is ready for everyday use. From a report: As is tradition, Apple announced its latest version of macOS at WWDC in June. New features include the ability to set Macs as an AirPlay target to play content from iPhones and iPads, as well as Shortcuts, Apple's iOS automation software. There have also been improvements made to FaceTime, as well as a new Quick Note feature. For a full rundown of what's on the way, check out our preview from July, as well as Apple's own feature list.
Unfortunately, some of Monterey's biggest new additions, Universal Control and SharePlay, don't seem to be available at launch. Apple notes that both features will be available "later this fall." Universal Control allows files to be dragged and dropped between several different machines, as Apple's Craig Federighi demonstrated at WWDC. It also will let you control multiple Apple devices including Macs, MacBooks, and iPads, with the same mouse and keyboard. SharePlay will enable shared experiences of music, TV shows, movies, and more while connected over FaceTime. Once it's available, Apple says you can use the feature with Apple Music, Apple TV+ and unnamed "popular third-party services." It's better news when it comes to Safari's redesign, which by default now uses a more traditional interface rather than the controversial new tab design introduced at WWDC.
Apple Once Threatened Facebook Ban Over Mideast Maid Abuse (apnews.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Two years ago, Apple threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram from its app store over concerns about the platform being used as a tool to trade and sell maids in the Mideast. From a report: After publicly promising to crack down, Facebook acknowledged in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press that it was "under-enforcing on confirmed abusive activity" that saw Filipina maids complaining on the social media site of being abused. Apple relented and Facebook and Instagram remained in the app store. But Facebook's crackdown seems to have had a limited effect. Even today, a quick search for "khadima," or "maids" in Arabic, will bring up accounts featuring posed photographs of Africans and South Asians with ages and prices listed next to their images. That's even as the Philippines government has a team of workers that do nothing but scour Facebook posts each day to try and protect desperate job seekers from criminal gangs and unscrupulous recruiters using the site.
Apple Updates App Store Guidelines To Permit Devs To Contact Customers About Other Payment Methods (techcrunch.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the buying-direct dept.
TechCrunch's Sarah Perez writes about the new set of App Store Guidelines that Apple introduced today: One of the changes is the result of a previously announced settlement agreement with a class of U.S. app developers. It clarifies that developers are allowed to communicate with their customers about other payment methods available outside their app. Related to this, another new guideline explains that apps may request customer information like name and email, but the request must be optional for the user and shouldn't prevent them from using the app. The third guideline is unrelated to legal action, and simply details how developers can use a new App Store feature, called in-app events, which rolls out next week.
Specifically, Apple deleted a clause from guideline 3.1.3 which had previously said developers were not permitted to use information obtained within their app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than Apple's own in-app purchases. The old rule had also said this would include sending out emails to the address on file obtained when the customer signed up for the app. With this clause gone, developers are no longer barred from those sorts of communications. Apple also added a new section to guideline 5.1.1 (x) which explains further how developers may go about requesting user contact information. It says: "Apps may request basic contact information (such as name and email address) so long as the request is optional for the user, features and services are not conditional on providing the information, and it complies with all other provisions of these guidelines, including limitations on collecting information from kids."
New 16-Inch MacBook Pro With M1 Max to Feature 'High Power Mode' for Intensive Workloads (macrumors.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the please-and-thank-you dept.
The new 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max Apple Silicon chip will feature a new High Power Mode for intensive, sustained workloads, according to Apple. MacRumors reports: This new setting is the opposite of "Low Power Mode," which aims to decrease system performance to prolong battery life. The new mode will only be available on the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip, not the 14-inch model or models with the M1 Pro. Text within the macOS Monterey beta reads, "Your Mac will optimize performance to better support resource-intensive tasks. This may result in louder fan noise." The new mode is not likely to be used in typical work cases, but instead when users may be rendering larger files or graphically intensive tasks that require an added boost of performance. The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros both include improved thermal architecture, but Apple says the new and improved fans are not likely to be used by most users in day-to-day use.
Apple's Product Design Has Improved Since Jony Ive Left (bloomberg.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Bloomberg: There was a sense that, without the moderating influence of the late Steve Jobs, perhaps Jony Ive started to prioritize aesthetics a little too much. Since he stepped down as chief designer at the end of 2019, Apple seems to have reemphasized function. From the iPhone to Apple TV to the Macbook, gone are the days of "The user be damned, we think this looks cool." Monday's unveiling of a new Macbook Pro lineup of laptops provides evidence of the shift. Headline features released five years ago under Ive's aegis have been scrapped. Gone is the so-called "butterfly" keyboard, which rendered the device thinner but whose clunky mechanics made typing more difficult; farewell too to the Touch Bar, a touch sensitive strip display along the top of the keyboard which could show functions for the web browser one moment and mixing tools for music apps the next, but was almost impossible to use without looking; back are HDMI ports, which let you plug the computer into high-definition displays without using an adapter. Perhaps this would have happened under Ive, but Evans Hankey, who now heads the industrial design team, has overseen plenty of other tweaks that seem to indicate a change of philosophy.
[...] But there is merit in sometimes listening to your customers, particularly when the pendulum has swung too far away from function and towards form. After all, you're liable to lose professional customers -- architects, musicians, film-makers -- if they can't plug their laptops into external monitors. And professional users can afford to pay for the top-of-the-range devices that are more profitable to Apple. Dieter Rams, a significant influence on Ive, compiled 10 principles for "Good Design." Number three was "good design is aesthetic." Apple seems to have remembered numbers two and four: "good design makes a product useful" and "good design makes a product understandable."
The New MacBook Pro Seems To Have an HDMI 2.0 Port, Not 2.1 (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the better-than-nothing dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The newly announced 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models have HDMI ports, but they have a limitation that could be frustrating for many users over the long term, according to Apple's specs page for both machines and as noted by Paul Haddad on Twitter. The page says the HDMI port has "support for one display with up to 4K resolution at 60 Hz." That means users with 4K displays at 120 Hz (or less likely, 8K displays at 60 Hz) won't be able to tap the full capability of those displays through this port. It implies limited throughput associated with an HDMI 2.0 port instead of the most recent HDMI 2.1 standard, though there are other possible explanations for the limitation besides the port itself, and we don't yet know which best describes the situation.
MacOS Monterey Will Have the Old Safari Tab Design (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the fixing-things dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple debuted a controversial new Safari tab design this summer at WWDC 2021, and since then, it has tweaked that look and even let you turn off many of the changes. With macOS Monterey, however, the company is going back to the way tabs looked before. On Apple's official page for the upcoming software update, if you scroll down to the section titled "Access Tab Groups anywhere," you can just barely see Safari's older (and arguably better) design in the example screenshots on both a Mac and on an iPad (via Daring Fireball). From earlier this month: Daring Fireball's criticism of the Safari tab design.
macOS Monterey Is Finally Rolling Out On October 25th (gizmodo.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the mark-your-calendar dept.
Along with new MacBook Pro models, Apple announced during its Mac event today that macOS Monterey will be available on Monday, Oct. 25. Gizmodo reports: As with macOS Big Sur before it, Monterey represents a renewed effort by Apple to streamline its operating systems, with new Focus profiles for limiting notifications and helping you be more productive just like in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Shortcuts, Apple's automation app, is now available on desktop for the first time. Monterey also represents the first time users will be able to AirPlay content from a Mac, a function that iPhone users have long enjoyed. If you've already downloaded iOS 15, updating to Monterey just makes sense -- these devices are so much more functional when they work seamlessly with each other.
But perhaps the most anticipated feature Monterey is supposed to bring us is Universal Control, which allows you to use a single mouse/trackpad and keyboard to control multiple Macs and iPads simultaneously. While the new feature wasn't initially included in the public beta rollout of Monterey, that omission has only allowed the hype to grow. It's unclear when Universal Control will come to macOS, only that it won't be available to use at launch. FaceTime's new SharePlay feature, which is also expected to arrive in iOS 15, will also not be ready to try at launch. That feature will allow you to share music or watch shows with folks over FaceTime.
The devices that support macOS Monterey include: iMac (late 2015 and newer), iMac Pro (2017 and newer), Mac Pro (late 2013 and newer), Mac Mini (late 2014 and newer), MacBook Pro (early 2015 and newer), MacBook Air (early 2015 and newer), and MacBook (early 2016 and newer).Further reading: macOS Monterey Release Candidate Undoes Safari Changes, Reintroduces Old Tab Design
Apple's 3rd-Generation AirPods Arrives Next Week With a New Design, Spatial Audio (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the inspired-by-AirPods-Pro dept.
At its Fall Mac event today, Apple announced the new third-generation AirPods, featuring a slightly revamped design with shorter stems and touch-based "force sensor" and support for spatial audio. Ars Technica reports: The new AirPods retain their usual hard plastic finish and do not have in-ear tips like the AirPods Pro, though Apple says they are now officially IPX4-rated for sweat and water resistance. Apple says the earbuds have six hours of battery life and up to 30 hours when including the charging case. (That's compared to five and 24 hours, respectively, on the second-gen model.) The included case supports MagSafe and wireless charging, though the earbuds do not feature active noise cancellation or a transparency mode like their pricier siblings.
Though the second-gen AirPods were renowned more for their ease of use than their audio quality, Apple says it has updated them with a redesigned driver and an adaptive EQ feature that automatically tunes your music based on the AirPods' fit in your ear. The earbuds will also use Apple's spatial audio tech, which makes audio sound like it is coming from around the user's head. To help with that, the new AirPods support dynamic head tracking like the AirPods Pro and the over-ear AirPods Max. The third-gen AirPods cost $179 and are available to order online today, with in-store availability starting October 26. Notably, Apple will continue to sell the existing second-gen AirPods for $129 alongside the new pair.
Apple Introduces M1 Pro and M1 Max (apple.com)
Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Apple today announced M1 Pro and M1 Max, its new chips for the Mac. Apple: M1 Pro and M1 Max introduce a system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time. The chips feature fast unified memory, industry-leading performance per watt, and incredible power efficiency, along with increased memory bandwidth and capacity. M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth -- 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1 -- and support for up to 64GB of unified memory. And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16GB of graphics memory, having this huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook. The efficient architecture of M1 Pro and M1 Max means they deliver the same level of performance whether MacBook Pro is plugged in or using the battery. M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing. M1 Pro and M1 Max are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built.
Utilizing the industry-leading 5-nanometer process technology, M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors, more than 2x the amount in M1. A new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, is up to 70 percent faster than M1, resulting in unbelievable pro CPU performance. Compared with the latest 8-core PC laptop chip, M1 Pro delivers up to 1.7x more CPU performance at the same power level and achieves the PC chip's peak performance using up to 70 percent less power. Even the most demanding tasks, like high-resolution photo editing, are handled with ease by M1 Pro. M1 Pro has an up-to-16-core GPU that is up to 2x faster than M1 and up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip.1 Compared to a powerful discrete GPU for PC notebooks, M1 Pro delivers more performance while using up to 70 percent less power. And M1 Pro can be configured with up to 32GB of fast unified memory, with up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling creatives like 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before.
M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors -- 70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1 -- M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.2 This means less heat is generated, fans run quietly and less often, and battery life is amazing in the new MacBook Pro. M1 Max transforms graphics-intensive workflows, including up to 13x faster complex timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro. M1 Max also offers a higher-bandwidth on-chip fabric, and doubles the memory interface compared with M1 Pro for up to 400GB/s, or nearly 6x the memory bandwidth of M1. This allows M1 Max to be configured with up to 64GB of fast unified memory. With its unparalleled performance, M1 Max is the most powerful chip ever built for a pro notebook.
Apple Introduces New Polishing Cloth For All Devices, Sold Separately for $19 (9to5mac.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Alongside the new MacBook Pros, Apple has added a new first party polishing cloth to the Apple Store. The new polishing cloth is a soft white with an embossed Apple logo. From a report: Apple does not specify what material it is made out of. It's priced at $19.00 and Apple says it's compatible with every single device they make.
Apple's MacBook Pro Models Get a Redesign, New Chips and MagSafe Charging (techcrunch.com)
Posted by msmash from the new-gadgets dept.
Apple just dropped a new version of the MacBook Pro that draws a much clearer line between the system and its perennial favorite thin-and-light sibling. From a report: The new system is powered by the new M1 Pro and Max, souped up versions of the chip the company unveiled at today's event. The company says the 10-core chip is capable of allowing up to 3x the memory bandwidth and up to of the M1, coupled with a 16 core GPU. The Max, meanwhile, bumps the GPU up to 32 cores. What's clear is that the company is targeting its bread and butter creative pro demographic in ways it didn't with last year's models. Unlike last year's model, the new models, which are available in 14- and 16-inch models offer entirely new redesigns. They also feature built-in fans for high-performance applications, though the company says it will rarely turn on. The system also marks the end of the middling-received Touchbar, with a full function key in its place.
As one feature leaves, an old favorite returns. Magsafe is back. The third-gen charger sports a proprietary port, but users will be able to continue charging via the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports. And, yes, this thing has ports. Three thunderbolt 4, HDMI and an SDXC card slot, to be exact. The bezel has been reduced, instead opting for an iPhone-style notch at the top to house the webcam. The camera has -- thankfully -- been upgraded for these teleconferencing days at 1080p (no 4k, sadly, but an improvement over the long-standing model) with a larger sensor and wider aperture.
The 14-inch starts at $1,999, while the 16-inch runs $2,499. The Max version of the M1 is available as an upgrade, adding an additional $200 for the 24-core GPU and $400 for the 36-core version. South Korea Targets Apple Over New App Store Regulation (reuters.com)
Posted by msmash from the stand-off dept.
Apple was on a collision course with South Korea on Friday over new requirements that it stop forcing app developers to use its payment systems, with a government official warning of a possible investigation into the iPhone maker's compliance. From a report: The development comes after South Korea amended the Telecommunication Business Act in August to try to curb the tech majors' market dominance and stop the big app store operators such as Apple and Alphabet's Google from charging commissions on in-app purchases. The law went into effect last month but Apple had told the South Korean government that it was already complying and did not need to change its app store policy, a Korea Communications Commission (KCC) official in charge of the matter told Reuters. "This goes against the purpose of the amended law," the official said, requesting anonymity as the KCC was still in talks with Apple on compliance.
Apple Takes Down Koran App in China (bbc.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Apple has taken down one of the world's most popular Koran apps in China, following a request from officials. From a report: Quran Majeed is available across the world on the App Store -- and has nearly 150,000 reviews. It is used by millions of Muslims. The BBC understands that the app was removed for hosting illegal religious texts. The Chinese government has not responded to the BBC's request for comment. The deletion of the app was first noticed by Apple Censorship -- a website that monitors apps on Apple's App Store globally. In a statement from the app's maker, PDMS, the company said: "According to Apple, our app Quran Majeed has been removed from the China App store because it includes content that requires additional documentation from Chinese authorities."
"We are trying to get in touch with the Cyberspace Administration of China and relevant Chinese authorities to get this issue resolved." The company said it had close to one million users in China. The Chinese Communist Party officially recognises Islam as a religion in the country. However, China has been accused of human rights violations, and even genocide, against the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang. Earlier this year the BBC reported that Uyghur imams had been targeted in China's Xinjiang crackdown. Apple declined to comment, but directed the BBC to its Human Rights Policy, which states: "We're required to comply with local laws, and at times there are complex issues about which we may disagree with governments."
PowerPC Fork of Firefox Reaches End of the Road (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the now-entering-hobby-mode dept.
Andrew Cunningham writes via Ars Technica: It has been well over a decade since PowerPC Macs roamed the earth -- so long that the Intel Macs that replaced them are themselves being replaced by something else. But to this day, there's a small community of people still developing software for PowerPC Macs and Mac OS 9. One of those projects was TenFourFox, a fork of the Firefox browser for G3, G4, and G5-based PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5. Maintained primarily by Cameron Kaiser, the TenFourFox project sprang up in late 2010 after Mozilla pulled PowerPC support from Firefox 4 during its development. And amazingly, the browser has continued to trundle on ever since.
But continuing to backport Firefox features to aging, stuck-in-time PowerPC processors only got more difficult as time went on. And in March of this year, Kaiser announced that TenFourFox updates would be ending after over a decade of development. The final planned release of TenFourFox was earlier this month. Kaiser's full post is long, but it's worth a read for vintage-computer enthusiasts or anyone who works on software -- Kaiser expresses frustration with the realities of developing and supporting a niche app, but he also highlights TenFourFox's impressive technical achievements and ruminates on the nature of the modern Internet and open source software development [...].
Kaiser doesn't intend to fully halt work on the browser, but he is downshifting it into what he calls "hobby mode." He will continue to backport security patches from newer ESR releases of Firefox and post them to the TenFourFox Github page, but anyone who wants to use these will need to build the app themselves. Kaiser also won't commit to providing support for these additions or providing them on any kind of schedule. Other developers are also welcome to continue to release TenFourFox builds on their own.
Apple Joins Blender's Development Fund To Support 3D Graphics Tool (macrumors.com)
Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Blender today announced that Apple has joined the Blender Development Fund to support continued development of the free open source 3D graphics tool. From a report: Alongside a contribution to the Development Fund, Apple will provide engineering expertise and additional resources to Blender and its broader development community to help support Blender artists and developers, according to the announcement. Blender CEO Ton Roosendaal said the announcement means that "macOS will be back as a complete supported Blender platform."
Apple Argues Against Allowing App Sideloading By Pointing Out Android's Malware Figures (therecord.media)
Posted by BeauHD from the compare-and-contrast dept.
Apple said today that one of the reasons it does not allow app sideloading or the use of third-party app stores on iOS is because of privacy and security reasons, pointing to the fact that Android sees between 15 to 47 times more malware compared to its app ecosystem. The Record reports: Apple says that the reason its iOS devices are locked into the App Store as the only way to install applications is for security reasons, as this allows its security teams to scan applications for malicious content before they reach users. Apple cited statements from multiple sources (DHS, ENISA, Europol, Interpol, NIST, Kaspersky, Wandera, and Norton), all of which had previously warned users against installing apps from outside official app stores, a process known as app sideloading.
Apple's report then goes on to list multiple malware campaigns targeting Android devices where the threat actors asked users to sideload malicious apps hosted on internet sites or third-party app stores. [...] The list includes a host of threats, such as mundane adware, dangerous ransomware, funds-stealing banking trojans, commercial spyware, and even nation-state malware, which Apple said threat actors have spread by exploiting the loophole in Android's app installation process that allows anyone to install apps from anywhere on the internet. Today's 31-page report (PDF) is the second iteration of the same report, with a first version (PDF) being published back in June, shortly after EU authorities announced their investigation.
Apple Set to Cut iPhone Production Goals Due to Chip Crunch (bloomberg.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the sure-blame-the-chip-shortage... dept.
Apple is likely to slash its projected iPhone 13 production targets for 2021 by as many as 10 million units as prolonged chip shortages hit its flagship product. Bloomberg reports: The company had expected to produce 90 million new iPhone models in the last three months of the year, but it's now telling manufacturing partners that the total will be lower because Broadcom and Texas Instruments are struggling to deliver enough components [...]. The technology giant is one of the world's largest chip buyers and sets the annual rhythm for the electronics supply chain. But even with strong buying power, Apple is grappling with the same supply disruptions that have wreaked havoc on industries around the world. Major chipmakers have warned that demand will continue to outpace supply throughout next year and potentially beyond. Apple gets display parts from Texas Instruments, while Broadcom is its longtime supplier of wireless components. One TI chip in short supply for the latest iPhones is related to powering the OLED display. Apple also is facing component shortages from other suppliers.
Robotics Engineer Adds a Working USB-C Port To An iPhone (appleinsider.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the taste-of-what's-to-come dept.
Ken Pillonel, a robotics engineer on YouTube, replaced an iPhone's Lightning port with a working USB-C port. AppleInsider reports: In a YouTube Short titled "World's First USB-C iPhone," Ken Pillonel claims to have installed the component into the iPhone X, replacing Lightning in the process. In the video, the iPhone is said to receive power via the connection, as well as being able to handle data transfers over a USB-C cable. In the description of the video, Pillonel says he reverse-engineered Apple's C94 connector, in order to make a PCB with a female USB-C port. After the schematics were set in place, it then became a challenge to shrink it down and install it into an iPhone.
Pillonel has spent a few months on his creation, with a blog post from May showing the thinking behind the replacement, and the challenges of replacing the Lightning port itself. A video at that time showed a DIY prototype that worked and laid out the work ahead to make it small enough to work within an iPhone enclosure. A late September update advised he had designed and ordered a flexible PCB, a key component in enabling the port switch to occur. He adds a future video is in production, explaining how the board was made and squeezed into the iPhone itself.
Apple Announces October 18 Event After Months of Mac Rumors (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Apple's next hardware event will take place on October 18th, according to invites it sent out today. From a report: The company is widely expected to use its second fall event to launch a pair of new MacBooks, a redesigned higher-end Mac Mini, and possibly a pair of third-generation AirPods. The invite video teases one word: Unleashed.
[...] There have been reports for months that Apple is on the cusp of releasing new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. The new MacBooks would be the latest step in Apple's transition away from Intel chips, replacing them with an Arm-based processor called the M1X that Apple designs itself. The new chip could boost performance compared to the M1 chip that debuted last year. Other anticipated features include the return of fan-favorite MacBook features like magnetic MagSafe charging, an HDMI port, and an SD card slot. The maligned OLED touch bar, mercifully, could be on the way out. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently noted that stock of the company's existing MacBook Pro appears to be running low.
"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS
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Source: https://apple.slashdot.org/?issue=20211121
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