July 2, 2010: Apple opens up about “Antennagate,” addressing iPhone 4 reception problems for the first time publicly.
In a letter to customers, Apple admits to being “surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and … immediately began investigating them.” However, the company’s findings do little to dispel the growing Antennagate controversy.
Apple is giving out a free $50 to any new Apple Card users who use their fancy credit card to sign up to an Apple subscription service like Apple Music, Apple News+ or Apple TV+, or to spend money in the App Store.
The sign-up deal runs through the end of July. It applies to customers who are spending money on one of Apple’s services using their Apple-branded credit card for the first time.
Apple TV+ reportedly made big inroads while users were stuck home during the coronavirus lockdown, a recent study by Parks Associates claims.
The research firm notes that more than two in five U.S. households with broadband have trialed a streaming video service during lockdown. A surprisingly large 8% of households have trialed four or more. Among new subscribers to TV streaming services, Apple TV+ was sampled by 27% of households, the report states.
“Hey Siri” can be inadvertently activated by other wake words including “A city,” “Hey Jerry,” and more, reveal researchers from Germany’s Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Bochum Max Planck Institute.
Siri’s far from the only voice assistant with a weakness when it comes to false triggers, however. The study compiled a list of over 1,000 words that can accidentally activate different A.I. assistants.
Another developer is speaking out about Apple’s controlling behavior in the App Store by saying it had an app update rejected because it refused to auto-charge users for its service following a free trial.
“[Apple] can choose to steal from their customers who forget to cancel, but we won’t do the same to ours,” yoga app Down Dog wrote in a recent tweet, saying that this is a line it would not cross.
Time sure passes quickly! Today, Apple added its first-ever MacBook Pro with Retina display to its “obsolete” list around the world, meaning that it can and will no longer provide any hardware support for it.
Obsolete products are ones whose sales were discontinued more than 7 years ago. In the case of the MacBook Pro, it went on sale in June 2012 and was discontinued in February the following year.
The iPhone 12 is reportedly “facing delays of between four weeks and two months” when it comes to full scale production of its four 5G handsets for 2020, a report published Wednesday by Nikkei Asian Review notes.
However, Apple has been “aggressively” trying to reduce these delays which, at one point, could have pushed the new iPhone back to 2021. Suppliers have supposedly been working overtime to reduce a massive wait for this year’s iPhone refresh.
July 1, 2012: Apple shuts down its MobileMe web service, pushing users to switch to iCloud.
Launched in 2008, MobileMe was a subscription-based suite of online services and software created by Apple. It included features like Find my iPhone, a MobileMe photo gallery, chat facilities, online calendar, storage and other cloud-based services. After letting it limp along for four years, Cupertino finally decides to pull the plug, giving MobileMe users until the end of July to remove their data from the service.
A new macOS ransomware called EvilQuest is reportedly doing the rounds, spread largely through macOS pirate apps. A Mac infected with EvilQuest will suffer multiple problems, including the repeated crashing of the Finder. Most significantly, the ransomware will also hold your Mac hostage: encrypting files unless the user pays $50 to unlock them.
“Maybe you are busy looking for a way to recover your files,” reads an on-screen notification. “Do not waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption service. We guarantee however that you can recover your files safely and easily and this will cost you 50 USD without any additional fees. Our offer is valid for 3 days (starting now!)”
Bozoma Saint John, the former head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music, is joining Netflix as its new Chief Marketing Officer, Deadline reports.
Saint John joined Apple with the Beats acquisition in 2014. She left Apple in 2017 to join Uber as its Chief Brand Officer, before jumping to Endeavor to become its CMO.
