New York Times:

The stocks of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook, the five largest publicly traded companies in America, rose 37 percent in the first seven months this year, while all the other stocks in the S&P 500 fell a combined 6 percent.

And:

Those five companies now constitute 20 percent of the stock market’s total worth, a level not seen from a single industry in at least 70 years. Apple’s stock market value, the highest of the bunch, is nearly $2 trillion — double what it was just 21 weeks ago.

And:

“Covid was the perfect positive storm for these guys,” said Thomas Philippon, a professor of finance at New York University.

And let’s not forget about the billionaires. Jump to this Statista post and scroll down to the chart showing the massive growth in billionaire wealth since March 18th.

The App Store is designed to be a safe and trusted place for users and a great business opportunity for all developers. Epic has been one of the most successful developers on the App Store, growing into a multibillion dollar business that reaches millions of iOS customers around the world. We very much want to keep the company as part of the Apple Developer Program and their apps on the Store. The problem Epic has created for itself is one that can easily be remedied if they submit an update of their app that reverts it to comply with the guidelines they agreed to and which apply to all developers. We won’t make an exception for Epic because we don’t think it’s right to put their business interests ahead of the guidelines that protect our customers.

Good, there should not be an exception for Epic.

A funky little tip from OSXDaily. This is not how to force reboot your Apple Watch but, rather, how to force quit a misbehaving app.

This is akin to swiping up on an app on your iPhone to force quit it.

Apple:

Apple today announced two new live global radio offerings on Apple Music, now available to music fans in 165 countries. Beginning today, Beats 1, the flagship global radio station, will be renamed Apple Music 1, and two additional radio stations will launch: Apple Music Hits, celebrating everyone’s favorite songs from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, and Apple Music Country, spotlighting country music.

Interesting that Apple has stepped back from the Beats brand here. Note that Apple purchased Beats on August 1st, 2014. I wonder if the Beats 1 branding was part of that contract and time just ran out on that requirement. Pure speculation on my part.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Consumers currently have a chance to sign up to the warranty-and-support program within 60 days of buying an Apple product. This subscription window is increasing to up to a year now in the U.S. and Canada.

“This gives customers another opportunity to protect their device and have access to all the AppleCare+ benefits,” Apple wrote in a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg News. The company told employees the offer is available to customers who pay for AppleCare+ in full versus monthly payments, or for those that subscribe via installments on the Apple Card credit card.

Keep that change in mind. Looks like you’ll now have up to a year after you buy Apple Hardware to sign up for AppleCare+.

AppleCare is what you get for free, AppleCare+ is what you pay for. Note that you’ll have to have your device screened by an Apple retail employee to make sure it is not damaged before they’ll let you sign up.

Nellie Andreeva, Deadline:

I hear filming on the remaining two episodes started today on the Sony lot in Culver City.

Indie studio Sony Pictures TV has been at the forefront of efforts to safely return scripted series to production. The studio’s CBS show S.W.A.T. became the first broadcast drama to start filming new episodes, Its daytime drama The Young and the Restless has been back in production for weeks, its ABC comedy The Goldbergs is eying a production restart in a week; while studio’s drama The Good Doctor is looking to get filming underway in Vancouver at the end of this month.

I’ve been reading about production on many different projects slowly ramping up, with lots of actor/crew testing, mannequins and family stand-ins subbing for other actors when filming hugs, etc.

Good to hear about more and more shows coming back to life.

Apple:

Apple has ordered its first competition series, “My Kind of Country,” a groundbreaking global search for unconventional and extraordinary country music talent that will be produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Emmy-nominated Hello Sunshine, Jason Owen and Emmy Award nominee Izzie Pick Ibarra. Emmy Award-nominated Adam Blackstone will serve as musical director of the series, which will be executive produced by Done + Dusted.

First competition series? Planet of the Apps will not be forgotten!

“My Kind of Country” will revolutionize the music competition genre with a fresh, new documentary sensibility. The hybrid series will break down cultural and musical barriers in the country music space, inviting innovative musicians to unleash their authentic voices and take center stage.

Apple TV+ continues to flesh out its offerings, expanding its reach while trying to make all shows appealing, in some way or other, to a very wide audience. Difficult road to walk, so far so good.

And if you’ve avoided Ted Lasso because you couldn’t connect to the trailers, ignore them, watch the show. It’s really good.

Apple Inc said on Monday it had expanded a program that provides parts and training to independent repair shops to cover its Mac computers.

Apple initially launched the program last year, but it only covered iPhones, the company’s biggest-selling product. Mac users previously either had to use Apple or an authorized warranty service provider to get fixes with parts directly from Apple.

This is going to make a lot of independent repair shops very happy.

Beginning today, Apple TV+ subscribers in the US can take advantage of a unique benefit — access to a bundle of CBS All Access and SHOWTIME for only $9.99 per month after a seven-day free trial. By subscribing through Apple TV channels, customers can watch content from all three services online and offline, ad-free and on demand, only on the Apple TV app. Through Family Sharing, up to six family members can share the subscriptions to Apple TV+, CBS All Access, and SHOWTIME using just their personal Apple ID and password.

I mention that this was a possibility last week and here it is. I’ll be adding this to my Apple TV+ channels today.

David Shayer, TidBITS:

It was a gray day in late 2005. I was sitting at my desk, writing code for the next year’s iPod. Without knocking, the director of iPod Software—my boss’s boss—abruptly entered and closed the door behind him. He cut to the chase. “I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn’t know about it. You’ll help two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a special iPod. Report only to me.”

This is an unbelievable read. But totally believable, since it’s from David Shayer, who worked as a software engineer at Apple for about 18 years. Look him up. Then follow the headline link and read the whole thing.

MIT Technology Review:

At the start of the week, Liam Porr had only heard of GPT-3. By the end, the college student had used the AI model to produce an entirely fake blog under a fake name.

It was meant as a fun experiment. But then one of his posts reached the number-one spot on Hacker News. Few people noticed that his blog was completely AI-generated. Some even hit “Subscribe.”

This is remarkable. AI has come incredibly far, to the point where AI-generated content is indistinguishable from the human created. At least if you don’t look too hard. And that’s part of the issue.

Most people don’t look for signs of fakery. Part of this is how overwhelmed we all are with the river of content that inundates us. And part of this is confirmation bias. We want to believe!

Here’s a link to the fake blog if you want to see this for yourself.

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac:

One of the exciting features of watchOS 7 is the ability to easily share and download Apple Watch faces with a direct link. But what about thinking bigger than just sharing directly with others? buddywatch is a neat new platform dedicated to sharing, discovering, and downloading new watch faces.

You’ll need the iOS 14 and watchOS 7 betas to share on BuddyWatch but, presumably, we’re just a few months away from the public release of both.

And even if you don’t have either beta installed, you can still check BuddyWatch out.

Google, in their Open letter to Australians:

We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube.

A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia.

There is so much to read into these words. There’s a feeling of worry, of being under threat. There’s the sense that Google is warning us, a sense of alarm. And there’s the irony of one of the biggest companies on the planet alerting us about losing our data to “big news businesses”.

Read the piece, draw your own conclusions. But do read about Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code.

From the announcement:

The Government has instructed the ACCC to develop a mandatory code to address commercial arrangements between digital platforms and news media businesses. Among the elements the code will cover include the sharing of data, ranking and display of news content and the monetisation and the sharing of revenue generated from news.

The mandatory code will also establish appropriate enforcement, penalty and binding dispute resolution mechanisms.

The way I read this, the News Media Bargaining Code is trying to shift control of the news back into the hands of the publishers and creators. Is this a good thing? Will this hurt Google and other aggregators? Will this help push money back into journalism? That last bit is what I am hoping for.

This morning, the ACCC (creators of the News Media Bargaining Code) responded to Google’s open letter:

Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.

Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.

The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work that is included on Google services.

This will address a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.

A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.

This is important stuff.

Facebook wants Apple to waive its 30 percent fee taken from in-app purchases or let Facebook process event payments with Facebook Pay, both of which Apple has refused.

“We asked Apple to reduce its 30% ‌App Store‌ tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs will only be paid 70% of their hard-earned revenue. Because this is complicated, as long as Facebook is waiving its fees, we will make all fees clear in our products.”

Facebook is just a creepy company that does everything it can to take advantage of its users for profit. It’s laughable that Facebook is making these claims against Apple.

I laughed so hard when I saw this. I need to buy this person a beer.

Not that bad yet, but they did add Google to the list of lawsuits.

Epic Games has filed suit against Google over alleged antitrust violations, just hours after seeing Fortnite dropped from the both the Google Play Store and iOS App store and filing a similar lawsuit against Apple. Epic’s complaint alleges that Google’s payment restrictions on the Play Store constitute a monopoly, and thus a violation of both the Sherman Act and California’s Cartwright Act.

Epic’s hit game Fortnite was removed from the Google Play Store earlier today.

Idris Elba and Simon Kinberg have teamed up for a yet-to-be-titled spy film, which after an intense bidding war, has landed at Apple.

Elba will star and produce the film, which is described as a “spy movie with romance” set in Africa. Kingberg and Audrey Chon, president of Kinberg’s Genre Films will produce. The film’s script comes from Travon Free, best known for “Black Monday” and “The Daily Show”.

I love spy movies, and I really like Idris Elba, so this should be a great movie for me. This film also shows how Apple is going after a variety of shows and movies instead of focusing on just a couple of genres.

Om Malik:

Uber and Lyft, in response to a California court ruling that all drivers must be reclassified as employees with benefits, are threatening to quit doing business in the state. Putting the news, and the legal posturing of Uber and Lyft aside, the judgment and its possible impact on other gig-economy companies that rely on independent contractors will be a quagmire. But it raises more profound questions that go far beyond these startups, and our society.

Admittedly, there are many more questions than answers right now.

Starting as early as Monday, Apple TV+ subscribers will be able to access both the CBS and Showtime channels in Apple’s TV app for $9.99 per month combined. CBS All Access and Showtime normally cost $9.99 and $10.99 per month respectively, so the deal would be a significant savings.

Now that is a good deal. If Apple does this, I will add this bundle to the Apple Channels I already purchased, and I’ll feel great about the price. Basically, I’ll be paying for Showtime and getting CBS for free, which is about how much it’s worth.

First things first, here’s the link to Fortnite on the App Store. Unless the change has not yet propogated, this link should now be dead. Do a search for Fortnite on the App Store, that’s a dead-end too.

If you are new to this fast moving story, a bit from this backgrounder from CNBC’s Kit Leswing:

Fortnite maker Epic Games on Thursday announced new payment options that allow customers to buy in-game tài xỉu online uy tín credits direct from Epic Games on both Android and iPhone.

The direct payment option to Epic appears to skirt Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store rules, which require Epic to give those firms a 30% cut of revenue made through the app.

Push came to shove, Epic challenged Apple (and Google), and Apple pushed back.

And now Epic Games has responded with this just-filed legal action.

Feels like a boiling pressure cooker, about to blow.

First things first, credit where credit is due, I lifted this straight from this Daring Fireball post.

That said, this really is remarkable. I love this format, lets you see the meticulous shot recreation. For example, about 40 seconds in, watch how well Lydia matches the footfalls of the original. Exquisite.

And if you’ve never seen the original, carve out some time this weekend to watch. It is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Nice find, Gruber.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is readying a series of bundles that will let customers subscribe to several of the company’s digital services at a lower monthly price, according to people with knowledge of the effort.

The bundles, dubbed “Apple One” inside the Cupertino, California-based technology giant, are planned to launch as early as October alongside the next iPhone line, the people said. The bundles are designed to encourage customers to subscribe to more Apple services, which will generate more recurring revenue.

Follow the headline link for details, but this has been long-rumored, and definitely seems believable.

I think it would bring in people who like one particular service and are willing to bump their monthly payout to get other services at a discount. Same with people on the fence about subscribing to any one service.

I love this idea, hope it’s true, can’t wait for the October event.

New York Post:

News Corp. will continue to allow tech giant Apple to disseminate its news articles through the Apple News platform because the arrangement is helping introduce new readers to The Wall Street Journal, CEO Robert Thomson said.

Thomson said Apple News is connecting new readers to WSJ, ­including women and young people who might not otherwise be aware of its breadth of news coverage ­beyond business news.

That goes to the core of Apple’s argument for News+, that it will bring new awareness and a new audience to a news publisher.

As to the makeup of that audience, CEO Thomson continues:

It is a genuinely different audience. It’s actually, of late, more women than men. For The Wall Street Journal ­itself, it’s more men than women.

Certainly good news for Apple News+. Turning point? At the very least, validation of their model.

From the iOS 13.6.1 update that just dropped:

Addresses an issue where unneeded system data files might not be automatically deleted when available storage is low.

If memory is an issue for you, this is a much needed fix. See also, this related Apple support article on solving the chicken and egg problem where you don’t have enough space to download the update that solves the you don’t have enough space problem.

Apple:

Apple TV+ today announced a series order for “Harriet the Spy,” the first animated adaptation of the iconic children’s novel that chronicles the coming-of-age adventures of the irrepressible Harriet M. Welsch.

More fruit from this past May’s Apple TV+ deal with the Jim Henson Company, the deal that rebooted Fraggle Rock.

This Apple IIe product video is a real slice of history. The whole thing is worth watching, but the highlight is at 3:23, Steve Jobs as you’ve likely never seen him before.

Nice find from Justin Miller.

Deadline:

Two and one-half months after it stepped up to become the producers of Killers of the Flower Moon, Apple has inked a first-look deal with its director, Martin Scorsese. The master filmmaker will base his Sikelia Productions banner at Apple in a multi-year deal for film and television projects Scorsese will produce and direct for Apple TV +.

Great move for Apple. Yet another reason I am bullish on Apple TV+.

Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac:

In addition to Listen Now, the beta version of the Apple Music website now features a refreshed design to reflect the changes made to the Music app on iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur. The sidebar icons are all highlighted in red and the Mix playlists have been updated with new animated artworks.

Unfortunately, Apple Music Web still lacks important features such as the ability to edit playlists and song lyrics. Despite that, the Apple Music website is a convenient alternative to access Apple Music on other devices without the Music app or iTunes.

The official Apple Music web site is at music.apple.com. The new beta site is at beta.music.apple.com.