Apple has been fined 25 million euros by a French consumer fraud group for intentionally slowing down some iPhone models with a software update.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud (DGCCRF), which is part of the country’s economy ministry, concluded that Apple had failed to inform users that iOS updates to older iPhones could slow down their devices.
The investigation followed Apple’s admission in 2017 that it slows down some older iPhones with degraded batteries during times of peak power usage in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns.
Apple was damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. The biggest error was in not being more open and forthcoming about this decision as it was happening. That being said, this fine is likely an intentional slap on the wrist.
The chairman of Disney said on Thursday that the company is apologizing to a California elementary school that was asked to pay for a license after it showed “The Lion King” at a fund-raiser organized by students’ parents in 2019.
Robert A. Iger, the chairman, said in a post on Twitter that the company “apologizes to the Emerson Elementary School P.T.A. and I will personally donate to their fund raising initiative.”
The event on Nov. 15 was meant to be a fun night at the movies for students at Emerson Elementary School in Berkeley, Calif., with pizza and a showing of “The Lion King.” Students were encouraged to bring blankets and wear pajamas to the fund-raiser.
But on Tuesday, Emerson’s parent-teacher association said it had been asked by Movie Licensing USA, a licensing company representing Disney, to pay $250 for a screening license, a request that pitted the school against a corporate behemoth and set up a broader conversation about public school funding.
There’s just so much dumb in this story. The school should have known better (you can’t just publicly show a movie without paying the rights holder) and Disney’s legal department handled it in the worst possible way. They could have simply said, “Don’t do it again.” but they ended up embarrassing their company and causing a lot of ill will and hurt feelings.
“The identity plays upon the three aspects of the restaurant’s name by unifying the swan and the mallard through the positive and negative space within the ampersand. A limited colour palette and minimalistic style helps create a simple yet balanced feel.”
I saw this absolutely stunning graphic design on Twitter yesterday but I can’t find the tweet anymore.
I posted a link to this a while back. It’s an AI that generates computer-generated faces.
In the last incarnation, the faces are realistic, but I could easily pick out artifacts from each face, blurry hair, odd shapes, unrealistic facial features.
That has all changed. To my eye, these artificial people are eerily perfect. Fake people, for your consideration.
Ryan Christoffel, MacStories, lays out his fix for iPad multitasking. This is some thoughtful, detailed feedback for Apple, a proposal to fix a system that is certainly problematic.
Personally, I find iPad multitasking to be confusing at best. So much so, I’ve just avoided it. There have been times when I’ve gone to swipe a second app off the screen, only to have the swipe get processed by the app and, on more than one occasion, swipe-deleted something from an app accidentally.
That said, I see the massive potential in iPad multitasking. It’s not an easy system to design, and I hope the team at Apple takes Ryan’s thoughts to heart, is willing to take a step back and consider some design changes to address user confusion.
A collaboration between Michael Tompert and photographer Paul Fairchild with this special tribute to the Apple brand. A destruction of products such as the iPad, iPhone and Macbook, presented destroyed or crushed in the form of 12 large format photographs.
Just what it says. A dozen photos of destroyed Apple products. It’s art.
1.Illumination of the part of the facility, located at 1 Apple Parkway, Cupertino, CA with a GPS signal to allow for the testing and experimentation indoors for continued exploration of utilizing GPS technologies within their devices to provide innovative applications and continue to provide safe products.
2.Further design, development and enhancement of existing GPS applications to provide greater efficiency and more effective means of utilizing GPS derived information.
Came across this on Reddit this morning. Wonder what this is for?
Recently, Motherboard obtained a copy of the contract businesses are required to sign before being admitted to Apple’s IRP Program. The contract, which has not previously been made public, sheds new light on a program Apple initially touted as increasing access to repair but has been remarkably silent on ever since. It contains terms that lawyers and repair advocates described as “onerous” and “crazy”; terms that could give Apple significant control over businesses that choose to participate. Concerningly, the contract is also invasive from a consumer privacy standpoint.
In order to join the program, the contract states independent repair shops must agree to unannounced audits and inspections by Apple, which are intended, at least in part, to search for and identify the use of “prohibited” repair parts, which Apple can impose fines for. If they leave the program, Apple reserves the right to continue inspecting repair shops for up to five years after a repair shop leaves the program. Apple also requires repair shops in the program to share information about their customers at Apple’s request, including names, phone numbers, and home addresses.
Anyone involved with Apple’s “Authorized Service Provider” program will recognize some of the restrictions here. Apple is notorious for the stringency of its terms and the unequal restrictions placed on those who want to do business with the company.
Pro tools for iPadOS and iOS? You betcha. Video and Film makers can create pro storyboards fast with Previs Pro, then share in AR, digitally or in print. Get the Free trial here.
You can quibble with the grades, but no doubt the discussion of each category is worth the read.
Two A’s, deserved in my opinion: Wearables (AirPods and AirPods Pro are home runs) and Hardware Reliability (surprising A, but my experience in recent hardware has been rock solid).
I think Jason Snell and John Gruber should consider adding Apple Store/Customer Service grades. Lots to discuss there.
I’ve seen a few apps do similar things, but this is now baked into macOS.
Makes me think of possibilities, of future AirPods that pick up your brain’s alpha waves, let you move your cursor, or control your iOS device with your mind.
The ability to use your mind to control a mouse has been around for a long time, but requires very specialized hardware. Imagine if Apple could find a way to embed that hardware in your AirPods or, perhaps, in an AppleHat?
Anyone who is interested in learning how to play chess, who’s just getting started, or who already loves to play: Watch The Magic of Chess. This charming short film by Jenny Schweitzer Bell, presented by The US Chess Federation, was filmed at the 2019 Elementary Chess Championships at the Nashville Opryland resort.
The short film is filled with excellent advice, “uninhibited, philosophical insights” by kids who seem to love playing chess
I learned how to play chess when Bobby Fischer was World Champion (yes – I’m old) but I bet every one of these kids could still beat me.
I love the first beta of a new iOS version. It’s where you get a peek at the newest features. Some good stuff here, beyond the CarKey API covered in the last post.
iOS 13.4 contains references to a “CarKey” API, which will make it possible to use the iPhone and also the Apple Watch to unlock, lock, and start a car. According to the system’s internal files, users will be able to use CarKey in NFC-compatible cars, as they only need to hold the device near the vehicle to use it as a key.
I would absolutely love this feature.
I recognize this might not be possible with existing hardware, but imagine if you could get a text or your phone could ring if someone unlocked your car and your keys were nowhere near the car.
Or how about a camera built into the car that took a snapshot every time your car was unlocked? If you live in or near a city, car break-ins are a way of life, and these two features might help reduce these.
The unification of the car and the smartphone ecosystem moves ever closer.
Maps is one of the very few products I use, equally, in both the Google and Apple ecosystems. Apple doesn’t have a counter to Google search. I use Gmail, not Mail. But I use Google and Apple Maps interchangeably.
I definitely prefer Apple Maps, purely for the ecosystem support, and especially for those turn-by-turn Apple Watch taps that I don’t get with Google Maps.
But I am not a fan of Yelp, and I find Google Maps’ crowd-sourced restaurant reviews more accurate than what I experience with Apple Maps’ Yelp tie-in.
So a Google Maps update is nice news. Follow the headline link to scan through the new features. A welcome redesign, some nice new ideas.
Last week I set up my tablet on my new laptop. As part of installing its drivers I was asked to accept Wacom’s privacy policy. Why does a device that is essentially a mouse need a privacy policy? I wondered. Sensing skullduggery, I decided to make an exception to my anti-privacy-policy-policy and give this one a read.
In section 3.1 of their privacy policy, Wacom wondered if it would be OK if they sent a few bits and bobs of data from my computer to Google Analytics.
Wacom didn’t say exactly what data they were going to send themselves. I resolved to find out.
Wacom will undoubtedly offer a heartfelt apology and explanation as to why they do this but the big question will be, for how long have they been doing this and what do they do with the data? The other part of this is I wish I had half the technical chops this guy does.
As first spotted by Steve Troughton-Smith, release notes for the latest beta build of Xcode include a major development: Mac apps can soon be included as universal purchases with their iPhone and iPad companions.
Universal apps currently enable you to make a single purchase to gain access to both iPhone and iPad versions of an app. Nearly all cross-platform developers default to this option, though some still sell separate iPhone and iPad apps. macOS has never been included as part of universal apps though, even after Mac Catalyst launched last year. That sounds like it’s going to change when the latest OS updates – iOS and iPadOS 13.4 and macOS 10.15.4 – arrive this spring.
My day was completely ruined yesterday when I stumbled upon a fun fact that absolutely obliterated my mind. I saw this tweet yesterday that said that not everyone has an internal monologue in their head. All my life, I could hear my voice in my head and speak in full sentences as if I was talking out loud. I thought everyone experienced this, so I did not believe that it could be true at that time.
Literally the first person I asked was a classmate of mine who said that she can not “hear” her voice in her mind. I asked her if she could have a conversation with herself in her head and she looked at me funny like I was the weird one in this situation. So I began to become more intrigued. Most people I asked said that they have this internal monologue that is running rampant throughout the day. However, every once in a while, someone would say that they don’t experience this.
I would tell them that I could look at myself in the mirror and have a full blown telepathic conversation with myself without opening my mouth and they responded as if I had schizophrenia. One person even mentioned that when they do voice overs in movies of people’s thoughts, they “wished that it was real.”
This is kind of mindblowing. I also didn’t realize not everyone could “hear the voices in their head.”
Unlike on iOS and iPadOS, Apple is quite permissive about running full web browsers on macOS. Mac browsers can use their own technologies to render webpages and set themselves to be the default web browser. On iPhone or iPad, they can’t do either of those things.
There’s nothing wrong with sticking to Safari, but depending on your own particular needs, it might not be the best browser. Some services, like YouTube TV, won’t run on Safari at all. And some features, like YouTube’s support for 4K video, don’t work with Safari. So you’ll need to try another browser. Here are five other Mac browsers worth trying out.
News+ was never going to work as a stand-alone subscription offering from Apple. With the news today of a key departure from the group, perhaps the company now sees that. But the writing has been on the wall from day one.
So, what to do?
It’s so obvious that it’s already rumored. Make News+ a part of an Apple bundle. Yes, yes, “Apple Prime” as it were. Flip the script so that News+ isn’t yet another cognitive load on us. Something that may be a good deal but will I really have time for that? To: oh wow, this is included in what I already pay for? Awesome.
This is a no-brainer that many of us have been saying from the start. In light of today’s departure of a key executive, I’ve been told Apple will announce a News+ bundle at or before WWDC this June.
kiboko, a video editor who focuses on drum tracks, took the iconic Toronto Pearson Airport inspired instrumental “YYZ” by Rush and brought the audio of Neil Peart‘s drumming to the forefront while quieting Geddy Lee‘s bass and Alex Lifeson‘s guitar.
Beautifully done. Really showcases the complexity of Peart’s iconic drumming style.
At first blush, this post’s title, “One very bad Apple”, gave the impression of pure trolling. But reading through (which is worth your time, IMO), I found it to be an informed take on Apple’s evolving privacy model, full of detail and solidly sourced links.
Bottom line:
So, here we are, in 2020, with Apple in a bit of a pickle. It’s becoming so big that it’s not prioritizing security. At the same time, it needs to advertise privacy as a key differentiator as consumer tastes change.
Not sure I’d agree that Apple is “not prioritizing security”. But Apple’s massive growth has certainly made supporting privacy a far more complex problem than in Steve Jobs’ time, when Apple was small enough that he had complete control.
> The head of business for Apple Inc.’s news app stepped down less than a year after launching a high-profile subscription product that has struggled to attract paying readers. > > Liz Schimel, the outgoing executive, joined in mid-2018 after serving as the president of international business at magazine publisher Conde Nast, said people familiar with the move who asked not to be identified discussing personnel matters. At Apple, Schimel oversaw relationships with advertisers and news publishers.
Of all Apple’s services, News+ seemed to me the toughest win for Apple. When Apple took on the music space, it had a stronger financial model, with consumers very willing to pay for songs to bring from CD to their hard drives and then pay again for the monthly all-you-can-eat of Apple Music. Incorporating strategies inspired by online sweeps cash casinos, such as offering exclusive content and regular incentives, could have enhanced News+’s ability to attract and retain subscribers. Apple also had Steve Jobs building and cementing those initial relationships.
Much has changed since the iTunes Store launched back in 2003. Liz Schimel had an unenviable, difficult task convincing publishers that News+ was their savior. Too much competition in news aggregation, much of it free.
To me, this is not a sign of doom for Apple News+. More a sign that change is needed. And if the Bloomberg report is correct, change is coming. However, if you suspect your business may face financial challenges during such transitions, don’t hesitate to seek Business Insolvency Help: Take Action to safeguard your business and secure its future.
I especially appreciate the discussion of full-array local dimming (FALD), which Pro Display XDR uses, vs OLED, microLED, and mini LED. Well written, worth the read.
Bottom line:
Apple’s Pro Display XDR provides exceptional color accuracy and build quality at a price that’s quite competitive with those of reference-grade pro monitors. It’s exquisite enough that swallowing the wildly extravagant cost of its Pro Stand is worth it.
The chief executive of developer Mobicip, Suren Ramasubbu, told Reuters he was interviewed in November by a U.S. investigator who asked about the company’s interactions with Apple. The app, which has nearly a million users worldwide, allows parents to control what their children see on their iPhones.
Ramasubbu said the Mobicip app was temporarily removed from the iPhone app store last year for a failure to meet requirements imposed by Apple.
And:
Six executives of parental control app companies interviewed by Reuters said they had a comfortable relationship with Apple until mid-2018. That is when Apple introduced its own, similar software giving parents oversight of their children’s phone screen time and searches.
When Reuters reports that a “handful of app developers had been contacted”, I suspect (no inside info here, just intuition) that they are all connected to the parental control space.
General Motors used to be, for a time, America’s largest car manufacturer with a peak market share of 50.7% in the US in 1962. In 2016? 17%.
It doesn’t matter whether the Photoshop is still king, because kingdoms usually revolt when the king becomes tyrannical. Even if Adobe’s brand presence is such that it has become a verb, it doesn’t garner loyalty. In fact, if the ubiquitousness of the phrase is so great, it can eventually become a generic word like ‘aspirin.’
Now, yes it is true, Photoshop is the industry standard — but when a majority of your customers aren’t reliant on industry standards as they are sole proprietors, freelancers, and students, standards aren’t important, because cash flow is.
I don’t know if Adobe is paying attention or cares (because they know their business model better than anyone else) but there’s certainly a groundswell of dissatisfied photographers (and others) who are looking for alternatives.
Less than 10% of Apple customers eligible for 12-month free trials of the company’s Apple TV+ streaming video service have taken the offer, a Wall Street analyst said Monday.
Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimates that under 10 million Apple customers have accepted the free trial offer. He calls that a “surprisingly low take rate.”
So much of the media is unquestioningly accepting Sacconaghi’s numbers without asking how he came about them or being critical of the report in general.
Sacconaghi based his estimate on an analysis of Apple’s fiscal first-quarter results, released last week. Apple did not give specifics on the Apple TV+ service, which launched on Nov. 1. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple TV+ “is off to a rousing start.”
Sacconaghi sees three possible explanations for a low initial take rate for Apple TV+ free trials.
Here’s a fourth possibility – Sacconaghi is talking out of his posterior and has no actual data to base this on. The Mac and Tech media should at least entertain that idea instead of going off half-cocked and making pronouncements like “consumers might not be interested in Apple TV+ because of its limited content offerings.” While that may be true, everyone likes “free.”
Your notion of the typical YouTuber might be anything from a Twitch streamer sharing clips of game streams to beauty vloggers, influencers and all manner of other loud, brash, in-your-face personalities — with the kind of persona focused on keeping people entertained and amassing millions of followers. And then there’s Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast. An altogether different sort of YouTube presence who’s known not so much for his personality or his antics, as … his philanthropy? That’s right, this guy loves to give away stuff, and yes, on one level the giveaways work very much as attention-getting stunts. But take his latest video, which you can watch above.
It may very well be “just a stunt” but as stunts go, it’s pretty cool. And sure, it may be an indictment of our consumer culture but wouldn’t it be great to have the money to be able to do this for people?
