It was widely reported yesterday that iPhones assembled in China are safe from having tariffs placed on them by the Trump administration. Now the White House trade advisor says he’s unaware of any such exemption.
Import taxes placed on the import of iPhone units could significantly raise the cost of these devices, if Apple chooses to pass these costs on to consumers.
It shouldn’t shock anyone to hear that new Apple Watch models are coming soon. But a bit of confirmation is nice. That confirmation is buried in iOS 12 beta 2, released today.
There are four additional Watches in the offing. Their internal identifiers seem to indicate that Apple isn’t shaking up its wearable offerings this year.
T-Mobile and Sprint promised the FCC today that their proposed merger will lower costs for consumers and create more jobs. They also launched a website laying out the advantages of the New T-Mobile to the general public, including millions of iPhone users.
Combining the third and fourth largest U.S. carriers is a controversial idea. Megamergers typically lead to higher costs for consumers and significant layoffs, not the opposite. It’s up to the two companies to convince the FCC that things will be different this time.
Apple’s CEO has joined the chorus opposed to the Trump administration’s policy of separating the children of illegal immigrants from their parents at the U.S. border. He called the practice “inhumane.”
Tim Cook appears to have President Donald Trump’s ear. The two have met face-to-face, and Trump promised Cook there’d be no tariffs on iPhones assembled in China, even though trade barriers are going up on billions of dollars of Chinese products.
An Australian court levied a A$9M ($6.7M) fine against Apple for refusing to fix iPhones and iPads because they’d had third-party repairs. That’s against the law in that country.
The refusals happened in the midst of the “Error 53” mess, in which iPhone units became permanently disabled after having their Home button replaced by non-Apple repair techs.
The release of Apple’s next smartphones is apparently close enough that the Asian supply chain has detailed specifications on the design. These have been used to create 3D mockups.
A video comparing these to current iPhone models reveals new details about Apple’s plans.
Square provides cash registers for small businesses. For years, these were built around iPads, but the company now makes Square Register, its own Android-based point-of-sale terminal.
It hasn’t dropped the iPad version, but recommends its own system for businesses that take in over $125,000 per year.
Software developers filed a lawsuit years ago claiming Apple uses the App Store to enforce a monopoly on iOS software. Apple argues that developers don’t have the right to bring this lawsuit, only consumers do.
The legal maneuvering has dragged on, but U.S. Supreme Court just announced that it will take up the question during its next term, which starts in October.
4G LTE will soon be supplanted by something better, stronger, and faster. But before 5G can be rolled out, it had to pass an important hurdle: a final design needed to be agreed apron.
The 3GPP agreed on a standard this week, opening the way to significantly faster browsing and downloads.
Even though the iPhone X has proved very popular, its screen cutout nevertheless has critics. A rival phone maker unveiled a device that shows why Apple went with the design it did.
The Vivo NEX has a nearly edge-to-edge screen, with no notch in sight. This was accomplished by putting the front-facing camera on pop-out tab. An easily broken tab.
The FIFA World Cup, soccer/football’s quadrennial championship, kicked off this week in Russia, and literally billions around the world are watching. If you’re planning to actually attend one of the matches, be sure to leave behind your personal electronics.
This is the recommendation of both British and American government security services. They warn that the odds of your devices being hacked in Russia are very high.
Apple and Samsung are both supposedly working on foldable phones. The Korean company will get its out first though, but hold onto your wallet, it’s going to be shockingly expensive.
An analyst predicts that this device, allegedly called the Galaxy X, will cost about 2M Korean won, or $1815. That’s nearly double the iPhone X, which drew criticism for its $999 price tag.
Jaime Waydo is leaving Google’s Waymo for Apple. This should help silence anyone who doubts that Apple is serious about its autonomous car efforts.
Waydo describes her old job at this Alphabet subsidiary as “Helping make self driving cars a reality!” Presumably, that’s what she’ll be doing in her new position too.
There’s a new line of bags, totes, and sleeves on the Apple Store today. Rapha produced these just for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users.
Rapha is a sportswear brand focused on clothing and accessories related to road bicycle racing. Its new Apple offerings are aimed at commuters, though.
Apple put a feature in the first iOS 12 beta designed specifically to thwart iPhone unlocking tools that use the Lightning port to get access to the device. But Grayshift, maker of a prominent unlocking tool, says it already has a workaround.
This is good news for the many law enforcement agencies around the U.S. who’ve invested in Grayshift’s GrayKey unlocker. It’s not so good for anyone who wants to be sure their iPhone can’t be hacked.
Updates to all the apps in the Apple iWork for iOS suite boast many additional features. Pages’ and Numbers’ ability to record, edit, and play audio is just the start. In both those, and Keynote too, an Apple Pencil can be used to select and scroll. And the are plenty more.
There are also enhancements in iWork for Mac.
Verizon just created a new top tier to its unlimited data plans. It was designed for “super users who want the most,” according to the carrier.
The Above Unlimited plan offers 75GB of unthrottled 4G LTE data, and 20GB of unthrottled hotspot data, for $95 a month.
The 2018 iPhone models are rumored to have larger screens, better processors, and other enhancements. But there’s one feature that, even though we’ve heard nothing about it, we should strongly hope is in Apple’s next smartphones: 4×4 MIMO.
This is a cellular wireless data technology that gives the Samsung Galaxy S9 a substantial speed advantage over the iPhone X.
A Twitter redesign will put breaking news and sports events at the top of your timeline. Expect updated iOS and Android apps to emphasize current happenings over casual chat.
Apparently being brushed under the rug are pictures of your cat. Twitter seems to want people to be consumers of Tweets, not creators.
It’s official: Apple will implement an iOS feature designed to block iPhone unlocking tools that use the Lightning port. The company spoke publicly today about its plans for the first time.
The move is controversial because law enforcement uses these unlocking tools to access iPhone units involved in criminal investigations.
Ever since the days of Nancy Drew, girl detectives have been a staple of young adult fiction. But Hilde Lysiak is the real deal: at 9 years old, she solved a murder.
Apple purchased the TV rights to her story, and will turn it into a 10-episode series. The show, which is as-yet untitled, will be a mystery drama.
Neural machine translation (NMT) has made the online version of Google Translate more accurate for years. Today, this AI feature was added to the iOS and Android apps so it can be used offline.
NTM allows the software to learn over time to create better, more natural translations. And this function is available while traveling without a local data plan.
Verizon offers the fastest 4G LTE performance across the U.S., with Big Red coming in first in five of the six regions in a new nationwide study of wireless data speeds.
T-Mobile is not too far behind. It actually boasts the best LTE speed in the Southeast region, and sits in second place in all the rest.
Microsoft just introduced the commercial preview of Office 2019 for Mac, with the full release scheduled for the second half of this year.
New features include a roaming pencil case and ribbon customizations in all these Office apps. There’s a focus mode coming in Word, while Excel is getting new charts and functions, including CONCAT, TEXTJOIN, IFS, and SWITCH.
The 13-inch Touch Bar-less MacBook Pro 2017 has a problem that requires the solid state drive and the logic board to be replaced if either one fails.
This warning comes from Apple, who notified its stores and authorized repair providers of the issue.