Technology 16 Gigabytes of Apple News

[ParadiseLost]

The real reason they cut the chargers is because it saves an insane amount on shipping costs.

 

[Husky_Khan]

On March 21st, Apple lost a lawsuit to a Texas based Licensing company known as 'Personalized Media Communications' or PMC. A federal jury awarded PMC over $308 million for the violation of seven patents pertaining to various DRM technology that Apple uses. The DRM covered here is called FairPlay and is used in iTunes, Apple Music and the Apple App Store.

Endgadget and other media outlets have reported that PMC could be a 'patent troll' company whose main revenue stream is lawsuits of varying amounts of validity. Apple plans on appealing. Notably Google fended off a PMC lawsuit along similar grounds recently and PMC has an ongoing lawsuit against Netflix as well pertaining to patents.

U.S. jury tells Apple to pay $308.5 million for patent infringement

A federal jury in Texas said Apple Inc must pay about $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) for infringing a patent associated with digital rights management.

www.reuters.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

The European Commission has charged Apple with breaking European Union competition rules from the EC's Anti-trust regulators.

Apple charged over 'anti-competitive' app policies

The tech giant faces a huge fine and may be forced to make changes to the App Store.

www.bbc.com

This is related to the charges brought against Apple two years by Spotify which claimed Apple was stifling innovation in the industry.

EC and US regulators have a series of ongoing investigations into Apple's App Store including more widely considering whether the 30% commission it charges for in-app purchases is fair.

Developers have become increasingly frustrated by the so-called Apple tax.

Under pressure from both developers and regulators, Apple has cut its commission rate to 15% for any developer than earns less than £1m in annual revenue.

A complaint was filed to the EC by e-commerce firm Rakuten in March 2020, alleging that it was anti-competitive to take a commission on e-books sold through the App Store while promoting its own Apple Books service. This case will be looked at separately.

Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, also filed a similar complaint as part of an ongoing dispute with Apple over its 30% cut on in-app purchases.

 

[Husky_Khan]

HP for once surpasses Apple in sales of "individual PC units" for the first quarter of 2021.

US PC shipments soar 73% in the first quarter as Apple falls from top spot | TechCrunch

With increased demand from the pandemic, Canalys reports that U.S. PC shipments were up 73% over the same period last year. That added up to a total of 34

techcrunch.com

This was likely boosted by the sales of low cost Chromebooks which was in high demand thanks to WuFlu lockdowns for schools and businesses and this in turn had negative effects on higher priced Apple products.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Been a rough eight days for Apple ever since they said they'd be scanning the private photos in their iCloud for objectionable imagery, in this case suspected child pornography and Apple hasn't backed down from their decision yet despite the backlash. In fact, as they explained and refined their stance, they've stated that it's actually a victory for privacy.

Nonetheless, privacy advocates feel like they’re making a difference. “Even if they don't ultimately nix the plan, we're forcing them to do the work they should've done by consulting us all along,” tweeted Stanford University surveillance researcher Riana Pfefferkorn. “Keep pushing.”

Most recently, Apple VP of software engineering Craig Federighi told the Wall Street Journal that Apple’s new policies are “much more private than anything that's been done in this area before.”

“We, who consider ourselves absolutely leading on privacy, see what we are doing here as an advancement of the state of the art in privacy, as enabling a more private world,” he said. Adding that the system had been developed “in the most privacy-protecting way we can imagine and in the most auditable and verifiable way possible,” he painted the company’s solution as preferable to its cloud storage rivals, which look and analyze “every single photo.”

Apple: It takes 30 child abuse images to trigger a warning

Apple adds details to its iPhone photo scanning policy as privacy concerns grow

www.tomsguide.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

Apple Suffers Loss in Lawsuit Against Security Experts

Tech giant Apple has suffered a loss in its recent lawsuit against a security start-up that offered "virtual" iPhones to researchers for testing purposes. The judge wrote that Apple's copyright claims were "puzzling, if not disingenuous."

www.breitbart.com

Apple lost a lawsuit against a security startup named Corellium that offered "virtual iPhones" to research groups that could be used to find bugs in their software. Florida Judge Rodney Smith threw out Apple's lawsuit which was based on copyright violations for being "puzzling, if not disengenious" due to the fact that Corellium heavily vetted all of its customers and Apple actually made an attempt at purchasing the security company back in 2018 before negotiations fell through. The Judge determined Corelliums operations constituted fair use.

An update on this story that had been ongoing since August of 2019.

The Cupertino-based company continued to seek an injunction to stop Corellium from selling virtual iOS devices, but now Apple has decided to drop the case.

The case was finally dropped, two years after it shouldn't of been brought up in the first place of course... but better late then never.

Apple drops copyright lawsuit against Corellium - 9to5Mac

Following its first defeat last year, Apple is now dropping the copyright lawsuit against Corellium and its iOS virtualization software.

9to5mac.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

In response to various lawsuits and even a $100 million dollar settlement agreement Apple has proposed several changes to its App Store and how its operating.

In a proposed settlement of a 2019 class-action lawsuit from developers, Apple agreed to allow app makers to direct their consumers to payment options outside the App Store, which could allow them to avoid paying fees of up to 30% that Apple charges developers for online purchases in iOS apps. The company also agreed to a democratic approach to the App Store’s search function, greater pricing freedom and an annual transparency report about the companies’ app-review policies and their effects.

Perhaps the biggest concession from Apple would let developers finally communicate directly with customers about alternative payment options, with their permission, using information collected inside their apps.
The changes apply to developers worldwide — not just small developers in the U.S. covered by the settlement.
The fees charged to developers, and the rules Apple has enforced that require Apple’s payment option be used in apps with no direction to other payment options, were at the heart of a separate lawsuit, Epic Games Inc. v. Apple. That landmark antitrust case, brought by the maker of the “Fortnite” videogame, is being decided by the same judge who will now weigh this proposal, with a ruling in the Epic case expected soon.

Apple will change its App Store practices in legal settlement

Apple Inc. will change its App Store policies in a legal settlement, the first major concession the iPhone maker has made amid multiple antitrust...

www.marketwatch.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

Apple is clearing out a homeless encampment that resided on 55 acres of its private property near North San Jose and possessed a population of about 35-70 individuals living in RV's, mobile homes and wooden shacks. Those being relocated have been offered beds at an emergency shelter, a 'safe parking spot' or motel rooms as well as twelve months of free counseling at Apple's expense. This is part of Apple's $2.5 billion dollar California Housing Project which aims to see low income housing made more available in the state. The site of the homeless encampment in fact is to be cleared for the construction of low income housing.

Crews clear encampment, relocate homeless living on Apple land | AppleInsider

A homeless encampment on 55 acres of Apple's land is now being cleared, with an estimated 60 people relocated at the company's expense.

appleinsider.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

A proposed new EU edict will compel Apple (and other companies) to use a universal charger across the EU for their iPhones, the USB-C one common with many Android phones specifically. Apple has blasted the proposed edict as stifling innovation since their lightning cable is proprietary.

Apple would have to redesign iPhone under proposed EU charger rule

Apple’s current slate of iPhones would be illegal to sell in the European Union under a new proposed rule requiring smartphones and electronics to come with standardized charging ports.

nypost.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

Google criticizes EU Regulators for hitting them with large fines while ignoring Apple for similar violations.

"The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry, that between Apple and Android," Google's lawyer Meredith Pickford told the court.

"By defining markets too narrowly and downplaying the potent constraint imposed by the highly powerful Apple, the Commission has mistakenly found Google to be dominant in mobile operating systems and app stores, when it was in fact a vigorous market disrupter," he said.

Pickford said Android "is an exceptional success story of the power of competition in action".

Commission lawyer Nicholas Khan dismissed Apple's role because of its small market share compared with Android.

"Bringing Apple into the picture doesn't change things very much. Google and Apple pursue different models," he told the court.
Khan cited Google's agreements which forced phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser and the Google Play app store on their Android devices, and payments to pre-install only Google Search as conduct that did not allow for competition.

He said Google's dominance as an incumbent and the immense barriers for rivals resulted in "a virtuous circle for Google but a vicious circle for anybody else".

Android, free for device makers to use, is found on about 80% of the world's smartphones. The case is the most important of the European Union's three cases against Google because of Android's market power. Google has racked up more than 8 billion euros in EU antitrust fines in the last decade.

Google, in fight against record EU fine, slams regulators for ignoring Apple

 

[Bear Ribs]

Apple has, at China's request, removed the Bible and the Quran from their app store. This is rather notable because the guy in charge of the removal, Tim Cook, was rather outspoken in his criticism of Trump over the "Muslim Ban" but became rather compliant when it was China doing rather more than shutting down flights temporarily.

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[BlackDragon98]

Apple has, at China's request, removed the Bible and the Quran from their app store. This is rather notable because the guy in charge of the removal, Tim Cook, was rather outspoken in his criticism of Trump over the "Muslim Ban" but became rather compliant when it was China doing rather more than shutting down flights temporarily.

MSN

www.msn.com

Mask on, mask off.

When it comes to money, these Cabalists drop their masks instantly.

 

[Husky_Khan]

How is PC gaming on one of those powerful M1 chip Macbooks?

We tried playing PC games on MacBook Pro M1 Max via Parallels — it’s bad

Results were less than optimal

www.tomsguide.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak passed on the Apple iPhone 13.

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Thinks There Is No Difference Between the iPhone 13 and Previous Models

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak claims that there is virtually no difference between the iPhone 13 models and the ones released prior

wccftech.com

 

[Husky_Khan]

Another privacy based lawsuit directed towards Apple.

The complaint [PDF], filed in Northern California District Court on behalf of plaintiff Julie Cima, claims Apple captures iPhone customer data despite device settings declaring a preference that information should not be shared.

"Apple records consumers’ personal information and activity on its consumer mobile devices and applications ('apps'), even after consumers explicitly indicate through Apple’s mobile device settings that they do not want their data and information shared," the complaint, filed this week, says. "This activity amounts to an enormous wealth of data that Apple collects and uses for its financial gain."

The legal filing cites research published last November by a two-person firm developer team called Mysk that claimed Apple collects analytics data even when iPhone users have set a preference disallowing data collection. Those claims led to a similar sueball shortly after they appeared, and to another such case filed earlier this month.

Apple sued for promising privacy, failing at it

What's allowed for Cupertino is verboten for everyone else

www.theregister.com