Apple and other companies in recent months have been subjected to reviews that target encryption and the data storage of tech products, said people briefed on the reviews who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the reviews, Chinese officials require executives or employees of the foreign tech companies to answer questions about the products in person, according to these people.

This must be worrisome for foreign companies. This isn’t an Apple specific issue, so I hope people don’t overreact to this news.

As merchants like Walmart move ahead on their own mobile payment strategies, a consortium that once counted Walmart — along with a number of other big retailers and brands — behind it, has taken a step back. Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) today announced it would postpone a nationwide rollout of CurrentC, a smartphone payment initiative originally conceived as a mobile wallet rival to smartphone-led services like Apple Pay and Android Pay. As a result, MCX said it would lay off 30 people as it shifted its focus to working with financial institutions.

It’s dead, just cancel it.

Billy is one of my favorite guitar players—such great style.

I would totally wear one of these.

The change could happen in the next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The company declined to comment.

Of all the changes that Twitter has talked about, I love this one. It’s a small, but significant change.

Cook’s visit, following a trip to China, comes at a crucial time as Apple looks for new growth markets after posting its first ever decline in iPhone sales, and as India has denied it permission to sell refurbished phones – a move seen as key to appealing to price-sensitive local consumers.

This makes perfect sense considering how much Tim has talked about India lately.

The gamble hints at Berkshire’s confidence in Apple’s ability to create new products that reignite revenue growth. That may either come with the iPhone 7, set to be introduced later this year, or in new product categories such as autonomous driving or virtual reality hardware.

I think that’s a good bet.

You can get the new Mac version by opening the Mac App Store and checking for updates. Version 12.4 adds some navigation and menu changes that Apple characterizes as a “simpler design.”

The European Union has accused Google of promoting its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services in a case that has dragged on since late 2010.

Several people familiar with the matter told Reuters last month they believed that after three failed attempts at a compromise in the past six years Google now had no plans to try to settle the allegations unless the EU watchdog changed its stance.

I joined Dan Lizette on The Podcast Digest last week. We had a great discussion about podcasts, history, and some other interesting topics.

I use Siri all the time to confirm the NHL schedule and simple things like that. It works well, even though looking up a schedule isn’t the most difficult task in the world. Or maybe it is. […]

Some good points here from Viticci, but I can still see why Apple turns off access to the microphone.

Apple on Friday contacted The Loop with a statement regarding reports that iTunes is deleting music from people’s library without permission. […]

Great video showing the tonal differences between some iconic guitars.

It looks like drivers in the UK could soon be able to store their driver’s license within Apple’s Wallet app on iPhones as CEO of the country’s Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) today shared the image of the work in progress feature above.

This is pretty cool.

VocaLive lets you create amazing vocal effects by chaining up to 4 effects procesors into a single effects chain, just like you would in the studio. Use VocaLive on stage as your own personal controllable vocal effects processor adding lush reverbs, delays, multi-part harmonies, creative effects and more, all at your fingertips. VocaLive also lets you record up to 8 tracks of audio simultaneously and is perfect for tracking vocals with multi-track class compliant USB audio interfaces.

IK makes some great software and hardware for iOS and Mac.

Apple Inc. has cut the approval time for new submissions to its App Store from more than a week to less than two days.

Phil Schiller.

Some interesting notes that Gruber found in Gboard’s privacy policy—it seems it is private, which is great. The emoji tip is awesome.

Instructions in the documents appear to contradict Facebook’s earlier denials of a Gizmodo article that said Facebook editors directly inserted headlines into the trending news widget. It also contradicts what Facebook told Recode last summer.

Farhad Manjoo:

Facebook is the world’s most influential source of news.

That’s true according to every available measure of size — the billion-plus people who devour its News Feed every day, the cargo ships of profit it keeps raking in, and the tsunami of online traffic it sends to other news sites.

But Facebook has also acquired a more subtle power to shape the wider news business.

It’s scary how powerful Facebook is these days.

Having lost a referendum over whether they would be regulated by the local government, the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft followed through on their threat to effectively fire 10,000 drivers and strand thousands of customers who had come to rely on them for transportation in this hot, spread-out, car-centric city.

I love Uber and Lyft. I use both services quite often.

Very interesting post from Rian Van Der Merwe about building Postmark.

Hilarious!

Based on several Apple Support threads, it appears that the most recent version of iTunes 12.3.3 contains a database error that affects a small number of users, and can potentially wipe out their music collection after the update.

Holy. Sweet. Shit.

I don’t care if it’s iTunes or Apple Music—this is my music library! Fix this shit.

Forbes named Apple the world’s most valuable brand, followed by Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Facebook.

A product team at Google is working on a hardware device that would integrate Google’s search and voice assistant technology, akin to the Amazon Echo, Recode has learned.

This segment of the market is starting to heat up and it’s getting very interesting.

Comey indicated that the debate involving both legal and privacy issues over whether the federal government can compel tech companies to unlock personal devices in the interest of national security is far from over in a briefing with reporters at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I don’t think this is a big surprise to anyone. The FBI needs overwhelming support from the public and government to win, but they don’t currently have that.

“This is not true,” Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr told to BuzzFeed News, rebutting to a Digital Music News report claiming the company “is now preparing to completely terminate music download offerings on the iTunes Store” in two years — or possibly “the next 3-4 years.”

Not a big surprise. I don’t know why people thought it was true.

Keep important information about the items in your home in one place. Store make, model, serial numbers, purchase price and date, photos, receipts, warranty information (manufacturer’s, extended, and other types of warranties), and much more. Use the dated notes feature to make notes about modifications and repairs. Attach files, such as digital copies of owner’s manuals. No more digging through file folders and junk drawers to find the information you need.

Everyone really should be doing this, I think.

“This goose came up and started pecking on the side of the car,” Givens told The Dodo. “I threw some food out for her, but she didn’t take it. She just kept pecking and quacking. Then she walked away, stopped and looked back. Then came over again and pecked some more.”

Wow.