Luke Dormehl - page 19

There’s a global semiconductor shortage, but Apple’s got a leg up on some of its rivals. According to a Tuesday report from Digitimes, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip fab, says it will prioritize Apple orders.

TSMC builds the A-series chips for iPhones, as well as the M1 chip for Macs and the latest iPad Pro. The company is currently working on the new A15 chips for this year’s iPhone refresh. Beyond that, it’s gearing up to produce next year’s A-series chips, which will be made with either a 4-nanometer or 3-nanometer process.

To the surprise of roughly no-one, Apple doesn’t like the spate of anti-Big Tech antitrust bills being proposed in the United States.

In a letter sent Monday, a number of nonprofits — including ones connected to Apple, such as TechNet, the Consumer Technology Alliance, and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation — urged the House Judiciary Committee to reject the bills.

A massive 74% of people surveyed think Apple’s next iPhone should be called something other than “iPhone 13.” And triskaidekaphobia — aka fear of the number 13 — could stop one in five Apple users from buying the next-gen smartphone if it bears that name.

SellCell surveyed 3,000 Apple users in the United States this month, asking what name they would rather Apple uses. While “iPhone 13” scored 26% of the vote, the winning entry is the clean, simple-sounding “iPhone.”

Brett Goldstein, a writer on Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso, who also plays footballer Roy Ken, has shared a new trailer for the upcoming second season of the show on Twitter.

The trailer for the second season comes one month ahead of its July 23 launch. Set to the strains of David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure,” the trailer suggests the laughs — and surprisingly uplifting drama — will continue for another crop of episodes. Check it out below.

Germany’s antitrust watchdog said Monday it is launching an antitrust investigation to see whether Apple has a “paramount significance across markets.”

According to Reuters, the probe by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office was partly prompted by advertising and media industry complaints over Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature.

“Based on this first proceeding, the (FCO) intends to assess in more detail specific practices of Apple in a possible further proceeding,” notes the investigatory paperwork. “In this regard, the authority has received various complaints relating to potentially anti-competitive practices.”

Apple says it looks forward to “discussing our approach with the FCO and having an open dialogue about any of their concerns.”

The European Union vs. Apple

One of the leading countries in the European Union, Germany previously announced investigations into Facebook, Amazon and Google over different complaints. And given how much scrutiny the EU has placed Apple under, it’s no surprise to hear Germany begin its own investigation.

The European Union is already probing Apple’s control of the App Store. Another EU investigation is looking into Apple Pay. Another is eyeing Apple’s potential to be a “gatekeeper” in the smart home industry.

Source: Reuters

Apple and other tech giants may have to open new offices in Russia or face “punitive measures” if they want to continue doing business in the country, Reuters reports.

This is part of an effort to enhance Russia’s control over services offered within the country.

As governments around the world scrutinize Apple’s App Store policies, the U.S. Congress is pondering legislation that could stop the company from preinstalling default apps on iPhones.

Apple critics suggest that such a move would level the playing field and give smaller developers a chance to compete. But would it actually benefit consumers, the purported goal of such antitrust legislation?

I’m not sure it would. In fact, it might simply make owning an iPhone a lot less enjoyable.

Intel will experience a big decline in market share in 2022 as Apple further shifts away from Intel processors to Apple Silicon, Digitimes reports. It suggests that Intel will lose close to half its Apple orders this year. This is en route to Apple ditching all its Intel orders in the near future.

Looking for a fun brain-teaser this weekend? Look no further than Letter Rooms, a letter-jumblingly fun word game created by award-winning developer Klemens Strasser, maker of Subwords, Asymmetric and Elementary Minute.

The new $1.99 anagram-based game boasts more than 200 puzzles, broken down into a dozen topics — including animals, sports, pop culture, and more. What better way to dust off your mind after lockdown?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is already looking beyond the A15 chip that will come with this year’s iPhone 13. According to a Friday report, the world’s biggest chip fab is “fast advancing” its 4-nanometer and 3-nanometer processes ready for mass manufacturing.

Digitimes reports that TSMC’s 4-nanometer process will move into risk production in the third quarter of 2021. Risk production is a smaller production run of new hardware to sort out any problems. If there are none, TSMC  can then progress to volume production. The same report also claims that TSMC’s 3nm production process will commence volume production in the second half of 2022.

As part of the podcasting arms race between tech giant, Spotify has acquired Podz, an AI podcast discovery service for an undisclosed amount of money. Podz generates (or generated) short audio clips that populated a Instagram Stories-style timeline users could flip through to find podcasts they were likely to enjoy listening to.

Apple has awarded $5 million in “Innovation Grants” to four historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States. Alabama A&M University, Howard University, Morgan State University, and Prairie View A&M University will all receive funds from Apple as part of its $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative.

The money, given over three years, will be used to help prep students for future careers in both hardware technology and silicon chip design. In other words, while there’s no guarantee of this, Apple could be helping provide the training that will up-skill future Cupertino employees. If that pays off, it’s a great investment on Apple’s part, as well as being a positive social contribution.

LG Electronics threw in the towel on manufacturing smartphones earlier this year. Now, according to a new report, it’s considering stocking Apple products in its 400 LG Best Shops stores in South Korea.

The companies supposedly are negotiating for an Apple store-within-a-store setup that will sell iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches. This sounds similar to when Apple set up mini-stores inside CompUSA outlets around the United States in the late 1990s. As with the CompUSA mini-stores, the new LG outlets might be staffed by Apple employees.

Facebook is gearing up to launch its own podcast platform later this month. Facebook’s podcasts feature will launch June 22, an attempt by the social media giant to muscle in on the incredibly popular and fast-growing podcast market.

Facebook confirmed the news in an email to podcast page owners, seen by The Verge. Users will be able to listen to podcasts directly on Facebook, as well as via a new podcasts tab that has yet to launch. Facebook is also working on a feature that will let listeners create clips from their top shows.

Smart sensors in future AirPods possess “all kinds of potential” for health tracking, according to Apple VP of Technology Kevin Lynch.

While he surely knows the company’s goals in this area, Lynch doesn’t spill the beans in a new interview with TechCrunch. However, the Apple exec hints (or, rather, doesn’t exactly deny) that the health-tracking technology already found in iPhones and Apple Watch could arrive in next-gen AirPods.

Beats co-founders Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and Jimmy Iovine, both of whom previously held high profile roles at Apple, are working to transform a public high school to welcome pupils who feel “disconnected from, [or] unmotivated by, the typical school experience.”

The public high school will supposedly mirror the format of the USC’s Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation, which they donated $70 million to start in 2013. The USC academy has since expanded due to its popularity. Some graduates have even gone on to work at Apple.

Apple has successfully fixed a problem that was stopping some Apple Card users from using Apple Pay with the Apple-branded credit cards in stores. On its System Status page, Apple noted that “Some users were affected,” although it does not provide details of the problem — or the fix that the company employed.

The issue was marked as revolved at 6.41 am ET/3.41 am PT on Wednesday, June 16. This was two days after Apple first noted it had a problem. No other problems were highlighted on the Systems Status page, which showed green lights across the board.

Apple reportedly considered launching its own subscription-based primary care medical clinics with Apple-employed doctors, says the Wall Street Journal. The plan — part of Apple’s push into health and wellness — was supposedly conceived in 2016. However, it’s not clear whether it is still on the cards today.

Apple has confirmed that its Apple Music Lossless and Spatial Audio features will be coming to India. The features debuted elsewhere for users in May at no added cost.

Apple’s Support Twitter page notes that “We appreciate your interest. Dolby Atmos on Apple Music will be coming to India soon. Keep an eye out here.” Meanwhile, the Apple Music page for India also makes mention of the feature. No official launch date has yet been announced.

The global pandemic was bad for many industries. One sector it was good for was the worldwide tablet market, led by Apple’s iPad. According to a new report by Counterpoint Research, Apple sold a third more iPads in 2020 than it did in 2019. In the first quarter of 2021, it expanded its share to a massive 37% of the global tablet market — including hitting an all-times sales record in Japan.

“The basic iPad models accounted for 56% of the overall iPad shipments in Q1 2021,” said Senior Analyst Liz Lee said. “The iPad Air and iPad Pro series came next with 19% and 18% shares, respectively. Since consumers are constantly concerned about prices and portability, the latest iPad 8 emerged as the top-selling model. Launched in October 2020, the iPad Air 4 ranked second on the bestseller list as it was a huge hit with consumers looking for cost-effectiveness as well as high specifications.”

In a new video aimed at the European market, Apple CEO Tim Cook talks about how “privacy is a fundamental human right” that his company works hard to embed into every new product it makes. The six-minute video comprises various clips from Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference related to the topic of privacy. Cook also recorded new bookends in which he shares some of his own thoughts.

Check it out below.

Apple Podcasts Subscriptions went live Tuesday, allowing podcasters around the world to charge monthly subscriptions for their shows. When announced at Apple’s Spring Loaded event in April, the company billed the feature as a “global marketplace for listeners to discover premium subscriptions offered by their favorite creators.”

The premium podcasts show up in Apple’s Podcast app, complete with the ability to subscribe, in more than 170 countries and regions, Apple said. And the new option gives podcasters a fresh way to cash in on the craze Apple helped start.

Apple quietly reduced the one-year Apple TV+ free trial for customers who buy new Apple devices to three months.

The company made the change in a note on its Apple TV+ website. While customers who buy and activate an eligible device (that’s an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac) before July 1 will get the one-year trial, those who do so from July 1 onward will qualify only for three months.

Set to a breathy cover of “New York, New York,” a new trailer for The Morning Show’s second season offers clues about how the Apple TV+ show will continue to explore the #MeToo movement and other key themes.

The dramatic new trailer, released Monday, also reveals that new episodes of The Morning Show will return to Apple TV+ on September 17. Check it out below.

Japan is the latest country to turn its antitrust attention on Apple. The Japan Times reports that the Japanese government is set to investigate both Apple and Google over their dominance in mobile operating systems.

The report, which cites a Nikkei article, is short on details. It notes that nine out of 10 phones sold in Japan run either Android or iOS. But it does not explain where the problematic aspect of this is. Typically, antitrust involves situations in which a market leader, or collusion between market leaders, results in a monopoly of a particular market. Breaking up these monopolies is intended to give customers more choice.