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Luke Dormehl - page 180

iPhone X app measures your face to find the perfect glasses

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glasses
Another use case for the iPhone X's new smart camera.
Photo: Warby Parker

Now that the iPhone X is out and into the hands of customers, developers are eager to roll out new app updates, taking advantage of the handset’s new TrueDepth camera system.

One of the first is glasses manufacturer Warby Parker, which is already employing the Face ID facial mapping data feature to make suggestions about which glasses would suit people’s face shape.

Walmart Pay inches closer to beating out Apple Pay

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WP
Walmart launched its mobile payment service one year after Apple.
Photo: Walmart

Walmart Pay, the mobile payment system launched by the retailer in late 2015, may be on the verge of overtaking Apple Pay usage in the United States, a new report claims.

The service is available for both iOS and Android, across 4,774 Walmart stores, and is currently enrolling “tens of thousands of new users” per day. Two-thirds of them utilize the service for a second time within 21 days, Walmart claims — thereby giving it impressive repeat business.

Wistron looks to scale up iPhone manufacturing in India

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Apple supplier is increasing its ability to build masses of iPhones in India
iPhone manufacturing in India is apparently going well.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple manufacturer Wistron reportedly wants to expand its iPhone SE manufacturing in India. The company is currently scouting for 100 acres of land to help it do so.

Wistron has quietly shortlisted several possible locations in Bangalore for its new facility, including one close to the nearby airport. In addition to Apple, the new facility may also be used to supply other brands.

Apple responds to Paradise Papers: We’re world’s largest taxpayer

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Apple could be a $2 trillion company by end of 2021
Apple says that it pays all the tax that it owes.
Photo illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple has denied that it moved some of its operations from Ireland to Jersey, one of the largest of the Channel Islands, as an offshore tax haven so as to keep hold of its low tax rate.

The company issued a statement in the wake of the “Paradise Papers” reveal, showing details about how wealthy individuals and companies move large quantities of money overseas to bypass taxes. However, Apple says that no actual operations or investments were moved from Ireland.

Neat Animoji hack doubles the length of your videos

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animoji2
Apple debuted Animojis at its recent iPhone X event.
Photo: Apple

Users have only been able to play around with the iPhone X’s surprisingly compelling Animojis feature for a few days, but already one developer has broken its out from its iMessages ghetto and made it its own app.

He’s even made it so it doubles the length of your cute animated creations!

Apple is turning to India to recruit its next AI whiz kids

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Latest AI acquisition shows Apple isn’t sacrificing privacy for machine smarts
Gain great A.I. graduates and grow your market in India? That's what's called a win-win.
Photo: Universal

To help with its machine learning and artificial intelligence research, Apple is reportedly scouting for possible new employees straight out of an engineering college in India.

It’s a move which not only helps further Apple’s A.I. ambitions, but also shows its continued focus on India, a market which Apple is desperate to expand into.

Foxconn wants a piece of growing Apple Watch business

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apple watch
Apple is broadening its supply chain for the Apple Watch.
Photo: Apple

The Apple Watch Series 3 experienced a 50 percent sequential increase in sales over the July to September quarter, and Apple is looking to bring in new suppliers to help deliver on the increased demand.

One of the companies that reportedly wants in? Foxconn, a.k.a. the manufacturer which already builds Apple’s iPhones and iPads, but now hopes for a piece of its wearables business assembly too.

Weird iOS 11 bug robs users of the letter ‘i’

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iOS 11 keyboard
Users temporarily can't take advantage of words with the letter 'i' in them.
Photo: Apple

Many people who upgraded to the latest version of iOS 11 find themselves unable to type the letter “i” due to a software bug.

For some reason in iOS 11.1, the letter “i” sometimes gets autocorrected to the letter “a” and a strange symbol, which usually appears as a question mark inside a box. Luckily, there’s a workaround while Apple scrambles to push out a software fix.

Sprint and T-Mobile merger talks are dead

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t-mobile
T-Mobile CEO John Legere shared the news with staff in an email.
Photo: T-Mobile

A possible merge between Sprint and T-Mobile has officially collapsed, based on a disagreed about which entity would have control over the merged companies.

A new report suggests that the talks broke down over a recent dinner in Tokyo, Japan, at which T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom made Sprint parent company SoftBank an offer — and had it shot down.

Samsung mocks iPhone’s slow catch up

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phone
Apple is always one step behind. Apparently.
Photo: Samsung

The iPhone X may be racking up good reviews and big sales across the board, but whatever Apple achieves with smartphones, Samsung managed first.

Or at least that’s the narrative portrayed in a new Samsung ad which, shockingly, decides to focus less on what Samsung is doing doing right now than on taking shots at Apple.

Check it out below.

Sky Gamblers: Infinite Jets, and other awesome apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
Have an 'appy weekend!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

A fun dogfighting flight sim that sees you shoot down enemy jets and gunships in scintillating styles is just one of our picks for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup. We’ve also got a superb grammar-oriented third party keyboard, a brilliant augmented reality update to a big retail app, and a fun RPG that’ll keep you busy for days.

Check out our picks below.

Siblings claim they fooled Face ID on iPhone X

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pic
Spot the difference.
Photo: Rinat Khanov

With the iPhone X making its way into customers’ sweaty hands, users can finally start putting the new handset through its paces. First priority? Coming up with a way to beat Face ID, apparently.

One developer claims to have already done it. But don’t get too concerned about any “Face-gate” just yet!

First iPhone X owners just can’t stop smiling

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tokyo 2
An iPhone X customer celebrates in Tokyo.
Photo: Apple

If you weren’t already excited about today’s iPhone X launch, maybe a bunch of pictures of grinning Apple fans will get you psyched for Apple’s smartphone of the future.

All over the world, the iPhone X party is raging as people pop into Apple stores to pick up their purchases. Check out a selection of the photos below.

Qualcomm sues Apple again, accuses it of helping rival Intel

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Qualcomm patents
It looks like the battle between Apple and Qualcomm isn't close to over.
Photo: Qualcomm

In the latest twist in the Apple versus Qualcomm battle, Qualcomm has sued Apple yet again — this time claiming that it has taken advantage of its access to Qualcomm code to help rival Intel by giving it information about Qualcomm’s technology.

The lawsuit lends credibility to a previous story suggesting that Apple may be planning to drop Qualcomm chips for new iPhones and iPads which will ship in 2018, and replace them chips made by Intel and MediaTek.

AAPL passes another milestone on its way to $1 trillion market cap

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What’s it like to have your startup bought by Apple? Stressful
Apple is a $900 billion company and counting.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple’s spectacular quarterly earnings, which had previously seemed like they’d be the calm before the iPhone X storm, have pushed Apple over the $900 billion valuation in pre-market trading, making it the first company in history to do so.

AAPL shares were marked 3.2 percent higher in after-hours trading, indicating a record high opening price of $173.49 for Friday.

Apple may keep face data locked down, but devs can still get it

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Michael Cohen Face ID
There's a (sort of) loophole in Apple's privacy stance.
Photo: Apple

Apple might have been praised for ensuring that Face ID data stays securely on the iPhone X, but privacy experts are concerned that the same thing isn’t true for the apps which use iPhone face data,

According to a new report, apps which use facial data for their services — such as offering fun masks for selfies or having animjoi-style video game characters who mirror the expression of gamers — are not subject to the same privacy terms and conditions. In fact, so long as they ask customer permission and don’t sell the data, they are free to take it off the phones and store it on their own networks.

Apple joins other tech giants in opposing plans to end DACA

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President Trump: Apple encryption could protect ‘criminal minds’
Apple is clashing with President Trump over calls to end the DACA program.
Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr CC

Apple has added its name to a letter of support for a legal challenge to President Trump’s attempts to end DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. when they were minors.

Other tech companies to sign the brief include IBM, Google, Lyft, Microsoft, Twitter, and others.

Tim Cook: Russian ads aren’t to blame for U.S. election results

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Tim Cook
Cook thinks there are bigger issues to deal with.
Photo: NBC

The tech and political worlds may be buzzing over claims that Russian ads helped influence the U.S. presidential election, but one person who’s not so quick to jump on board with the theory is Apple CEO Tim Cook.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, which aired Wednesday night, Cook poured cold water on the suggestion by arguing that such ads make up an absolutely tiny part of the larger issue as to why people in the U.S. are so divided in their politics.

Apple hypes good iPhone X reviews

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iPhoneX
Apple is clearly hoping for big things with the iPhone X.
Photo: Apple

Apple is following an unorthodox word-of-mouth marketing campaign for the iPhone X, and that has continued with a new press release issued by Apple — showing off the best review soundbites from the first reviews for its next-gen handset.

The press release is accompanied by a movie-style poster with quotes from outlets such as Mashable, TechCrunch, and others.

High Court rejects objection to Apple’s Irish data center

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Politicians receive frightening threats about cancelled Apple data center
A mock up of Apple's proposed data center in Ireland.
Photo: Apple

Ireland’s High Court has rejected an appeal against Apple’s plans to build an 850 million euro ($960 million) data center in Athenry, County Galway. The rejection means that the project should finally, after much stalling, go ahead.

The appeal filed by several local residences objected to Apple’s plans due to their belief that it would have a negative impact on the environment. The judge said there was no basis for the objection being valid.

iPhone X price could hurt it in Greater China region

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iPhone sales
The iPhone X is even pricier in Greater China.
Illustration: Cult of Mac

Having experienced declining iPhone sales in the Asia Pacific region, Apple is confident that the iPhone X will help turn things around — although local retailers are still fearing the worst.

According to a new report, iPhone X pre-orders have exceeded one million units in China, representing more than 1/6 of the total 5.5 million+ units supposedly already demanded by customers. Those kind of brisk sales are good for Apple, but sources in the Taiwanese retail channels think that this kind of “phenomenal demand” could soon fade away.

Apple originally planned iPhone X for 2018

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iPhone X
Think you're having to wait to get an iPhone X? You could've been waiting even longer.
Photo: Apple

Does it seem strange that Apple would release two markedly different iPhone models, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and the radically different iPhone X, in the same year? If so, a new interview with Apple executives may help explain it: it wasn’t Apple’s original plan.

According to Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, the company originally planned to deliver the iPhone X in 2018, a full twelve months later than it wound up introducing it. However, “with a lot of hard work, talent, grit, and determination we were able to deliver them this year.”

Apple denies it tried to put Touch ID in iPhone X

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Touch ID
Rumors claimed Apple was trying to embed Touch ID into the iPhone's display.
Photo: Apple

Apple has denied that it ever considered embedding its Touch ID sensor into the display for its iPhone X, before running into problems and adopting Face ID instead.

In an interview with  Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, Riccio “flatly counters the narrative” that Apple ever considered using Touch ID for its tenth anniversary iPhone.