Weeks ago, Apple was sued on accusations that its FaceTime app contributed to the highway death of a young girl in Texas. The girl’s family claims that the iPhone maker should have deployed technology to prohibit motorists from using the app.
Now there’s another lawsuit targeting Apple’s decision not to deploy a lock-out mechanism. This one—from an injured Southern California motorist—concerns locking out drivers from texting.
This lawsuit from accident victim Julio Ceja, who was rear-ended by a texting driver, does not seek any monetary damages. Instead, it demands that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge block Apple from selling iPhones in the Golden State until the devices are updated to include Apple’s patented technology to lock drivers out of their phones while driving.
I feel for the victims of these accidents but Apple can’t be held responsible for the actions of other drivers who ignore common sense and the law.
The 89th annual Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday, January 24, honoring the best films of 2016 as chosen by members of the film industry. The awards themselves will be held Sunday, February 26. The broadcast airs on ABC at 8:30 pm Eastern.
This year’s nominations are led by the musical La La Land, whose 14 nominations tie it for the record for most nominations for a single film, currently held by 1997’s Titanic and 1950’s All About Eve. It’s followed by sci-fi drama Arrival and the sensitive coming-of-age story Moonlight, both with eight nominations. War film Hacksaw Ridge, “based on a true story” drama Lion, and the grief-stricken Manchester by the Sea have six nominations apiece.
I know all the arguments (many of them valid) against the Oscars but I still like the pomp and circumstance of the show and the discussions about the movies.
Apple on Tuesday released macOS Sierra 10.3 developer beta 1 and a new iOS beta, giving developers a chance to test out the new features of the OSes. There are quite a few changes, so let’s jump in.
If you lose one or both of your AirPods, you can use the Find My iPhone app to locate them. It will locate them to within Bluetooth range of any of your iOS devices that are signed in to iCloud. If your AirPods aren’t in range of your device or need to be charged, the app will show you the last known location. This feature will be available via Find My iPhone app on iOS 10.3 or later and from any computer on iCloud.com.
Siri gets a few updates as well. If you’re a cricket fan, Siri now gets cricket sports scores and stats for Indian Premier League and International Cricket Council.
SiriKit expands with support for paying and checking status of bills with payment apps and scheduling with ride booking apps. SiriKit is also expanding to Apple Watch, so watchOS developers will soon be able to integrate Siri into their watch apps.
iOS Maps will now display EV charging stations, which will be a great help for many people. Maps also gives you more weather information—3D Touch on the weather icon in Maps and you will get hourly forecasts, chance of rain and daily high and low temperatures. If you press on the weather icon, it will go to the weather app.
There are a lot of changes in the new versions, and Apple is moving quickly on the updates, which is a great sign for users.
The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday it will investigate a complaint by Nokia Technologies alleging that Apple Inc has imported smart phones, tablet computers and other electronics that infringe upon its patents.
It’s important to note that they haven’t even made a decision on the merits of the case yet.
Amazing find. Take a look at both the image at the beginning of the post, as well as the zoomed in image towards the middle. The latter gives a better sense of the surface of the meteorite. Very cool.
Alex Marshall, writing for the New York Times, pulled together a fascinating piece, a bit of a survey of the current state of artificial intelligence and songwriting.
My 2 cents: All of this music is on the wrong side of the uncanny valley, but it is definitely getting closer. And I do think it will get there. Which is a scary proposition, given how difficult it already is for humans to make a living as musicians.
Adam Engst asked TidBITS readers to share their automation stories, and they did. Adam published 73 of them to show how important automation is to Mac users.
Apple on Tuesday was granted a patent detailing a modular accessories system for Apple Watch that disguises electrical components like batteries, biometric sensors, solar cells and more as links in the wearable’s metal band.
Great concept, though this concept is inherently limited to link-style Apple Watch bands. No way to add accessories to sports, nylon bands, for example.
Start with Recode’s take on the Qualcomm/Apple tiff: Lawsuits need to be hammered out, but both sides want to continue the relationship.
Apple hit Qualcomm with a $1 billion lawsuit on Friday, saying the chipmaker had improperly withheld rebates in retaliation for Apple’s complaints to regulatory authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere. Apple’s suit followed a separate antitrust complaint earlier in the week from the Federal Trade Commission.
For its part, Qualcomm says Apple is trying to turn a simple contract dispute into a regulatory issue.
Sources close to Qualcomm say the company is considering filing its own lawsuits in response, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, as well as trying to get Apple’s case dismissed.
One thing Qualcomm doesn’t plan to do, though, is to stop supplying modem chips to the iPhone maker.
Apple Inc. is piling onto lawsuits that attack the way Qualcomm Inc. licenses technology for mobile phones in a widespread effort to rake back profits in a slowing market.
The latest suit by Apple, filed Friday, alleges that Qualcomm has unfairly used the power of its patents, which cover the fundamentals of phone systems, and its chip business to prop up its dominant position in the industry. Apple’s legal actions follow regulatory investigations and fines on three continents, including a lawsuit announced last week by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
“It feels like another coordinated attack on Qualcomm,” said Mike Walkley, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity. The mobile phone business is “a mature industry, they’ve got to get their margins higher.”
At the core of all this is Qualcomm’s incredibly strong position at the center of mobile:
Underpinning the government actions is a drive to shake loose Qualcomm’s grip on the smartphone business. In its last five fiscal years, Qualcomm has turned $37 billion of licensing revenue into $32 billion of pretax profit. Its gross margin, or the percentage of revenue remaining after deducting the cost of production, is 61 percent and is predicted by analysts to widen.
Those numbers are simply incredible. Not a fan of the term margin grab, but the Bloomberg points are well made. Better margins are certainly at the heart of this rift.
Chris Lattner isn’t the only high profile Apple executive who departed for Tesla over the past month, rather than sticking around to work on Titan. 9to5mac has learned that Matt Casebolt, a high profile Senior Director of Design for Apple’s Mac lineup left the company last month for a role at Tesla as Sr. Director Engineering, Closures & Mechanisms. A job meant for a man named Casebolt …
In The Coming of Fairies, Arthur Conan Doyle claimed to be setting out the evidence for a race of magical beings, visible only to a chosen few. For the past five years, the writer and doctor had been studying a series of photographs that appeared to have captured this ‘subhuman race’ frolicking in a brook in Yorkshire – and he was now convinced of their authenticity.
The photos were a hoax – a schoolgirl prank that duped many people besides Conan Doyle. But how could someone so intelligent have fallen for such an obvious scam?
I’ve read various versions of this story for years. It’s always fascinating and an instructive lesson that everyone can be fooled if they want to be.
The first thing you’ll notice about the updated Google Voice apps is a cleaner, more intuitive design that keeps everything organized. Your inbox now has separate tabs for text messages, calls and voicemails.
As part of the partnership, Sprint will acquire 33 percent of TIDAL. JAY Z and the artist-owners will continue to run TIDAL’s artist-centric service as it pioneers and grows the direct relationship between artists and fans. The formidable pairing of Sprint and TIDAL will grow customers on both platforms by offering exclusive access for customers who subscribe to TIDAL. Sprint’s chief executive officer, Marcelo Claure, will also join TIDAL’s Board of Directors.
Everyone wants in on music streaming, so this makes sense for Sprint—it’s an extra it can offer its customers. It also makes sense for Tidal because things haven’t been going well for them. Even Kanye West was begging Apple to buy Tidal.
The received wisdom in the Valley is that the technology for self-driving cars is already here — we just have to wait a few years while the slowpokes in Washington get with the program. Within five years, we’ll all be autopiloted around — free to spend our otherwise unproductive driving time answering email, Snapchatting, or writing code.
Except, come on, there’s no way that’s gonna happen. Not in five years, anyway.
It’s the messy human bits which will slow it all down.
The optimism for self-driving cars is great. It will drive innovation and excitement. But it must be tempered with reality.
The Kemper Profiler is quite an interesting machine. I haven’t talked to anyone that doesn’t like it and at NAMM they released some new delays, along with other software. Delays in the hands of an expert, like in this video, sound incredible.
From powerful new loop-based music creation and trying ideas via Revision History, to timesaving workflows that simplify editing and post production, Pro Tools enables you to create at the speed of your imagination—without limits.
The new version of Pro Tools looks impressive. I watch a couple of demos at NAMM last weekend and was impressed with what I saw—I’ll be getting the update.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd indicated on Monday that its latest flagship Galaxy S smartphone could be delayed as it pledged to enhance product safety following an investigation into the cause of fires in its premium Note 7 devices.
There are people (I’m looking at you, my dear wife) who love to set their clocks and watches ahead a few minutes to make sure they won’t be late.
Well, there must be enough of these people, since Apple has baked that capability into the Apple Watch settings. If this appeals to you, or you know someone with that particular bent, read the post for the details.
The linked article is a detailed criticism of Apple, and ends with this quote from Phil Schiller, from his appearance on John Gruber’s WWDC Talk Show, back in June of 2015:
We don’t need to be told how great we are, and how big we are. It’s not about that, and we don’t want it to become about that. It’s not about P/Es, and it’s not about market value. I mean, sure, the finance team has to worry about that. But for the rest of us, it’s about: Are we making the best product? Do people love what we do? Is it changing lives? And if it isn’t, then beat us up until it is.
Take some time to read the whole piece. There are some common themes (notably, the way Apple approaches UX and content discovery), and the sense is that the author is truly trying to help spot problems, rather than (as the title suggests), point to Apple’s inevitable doom.
On Friday, we reported on Apple’s billion dollar Qualcomm lawsuit.
Qualcomm has since released this official comment:
“While we are still in the process of reviewing the complaint in detail, it is quite clear that Apple’s claims are baseless. Apple has intentionally mischaracterized our agreements and negotiations, as well as the enormity and value of the technology we have invented, contributed and shared with all mobile device makers through our licensing program. Apple has been actively encouraging regulatory attacks on Qualcomm’s business in various jurisdictions around the world, as reflected in the recent KFTC decision and FTC complaint, by misrepresenting facts and withholding information. We welcome the opportunity to have these meritless claims heard in court where we will be entitled to full discovery of Apple’s practices and a robust examination of the merits,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel, Qualcomm Incorporated.
There was a bit of a snafu on Friday, as people found themselves following both the @POTUS account (the official account of the President of the United States) and the @POTUS44 account (the account specific to the 44th administration).
This would typically not be that big a deal, just unfollow the account you don’t want to follow, but clearly these are not normal times, and this issue rose to the CEO level.
Regardless of how you feel about the story notability, the thread Jack Dorsey started is an interesting read, for the comments on this specific situation and the details on @POTUS transition.
Key iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry is mulling a joint investment with Apple topping $7 billion for a highly automated display facility in the U.S., Chairman Terry Gou said Sunday.
Note that Hon Hai Precision Industry, Ltd, trades as Foxconn. They are one and the same.
And:
“Apple is willing to invest in the facility together because they need the [panels] as well,” Gou told reporters after the company’s annual year-end party in the Nankang district of Taipei. The U.S. production site eventually would create 30,000 to 50,000 jobs, the Taiwanese tycoon said.
And:
In addition to the proposed display facility, Gou said Foxconn plans a new molding facility in the U.S., with the state of Pennsylvania a possible site following investment discussions with local officials.
And:
Gou also said Smart Technologies, a Foxconn-controlled interactive display startup based in Canada, may move south of the border now that U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled his intent to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Very interesting. This seems just the beginning of the evolution of Apple’s production process.
This is a showdown between four of the best backup utilities and there will be a winner. However, the winner isn’t going to be one of these, it’s going to be you. We’re not looking for app we can crown the best and walk away for a year, we’re looking for the very best app for you and exactly what you need to do.
Any of these would do the job —but there is one that is better at it for you than either of the others. That said, there is a different one that’s better for your friend, colleague, partner, spouse, or relative. Let AppleInsider save you time picking from one of these four.
I agree that Time Machine is the easiest backup to do and the one I recommend to people who don’t do other backups but I’ve been burned a couple of times with it so I also do backups with SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner – both great apps.
A fun little side project-cum-startup from two of the founders of Soundwave, the social music company acquired by Spotify, wants to turn patents into art. Launching today, Retro Patents lets you buy prints of famous patents to hang on your office wall, or at home, if that’s your thing.
The patent prints for sale include games consoles, such as the original Nintendo Gameboy and Sony PlayStation, mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone and original BlackBerry, and more ubiquitous inventions like the humble calculator or computer mouse.
If you or someone you know is a gadget geek, these would make really interesting gifts.
