Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple is less about App Store rules and more about reviving “flagging interest in Fortnite,” according to a court document filed Thursday by Cupertino’s lawyers.
In a court filing with the US District Court on Thursday, Apple argues that Epic just wants “to free-ride on Apple’s innovation” by being allowed in the App Store without having to pay Apple a cut of earnings.
Venture capitalist, early Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel criticized Apple for being too close to China.
At a virtual event held Tuesday by California nonprofit Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel said the United States should put a “lot of pressure” on Apple because of its links to the Asian country.
Dummy mockups of the next-gen iPad Pro and iPad mini suggest that they could look very similar to their predecessors. According to the images, the next-gen iPad mini boasts the same design as the iPad mini 5, released in 2019, although it may be slightly thicker.
Meanwhile, the next-gen iPad Pro resembles the last generation model, with a possible slightly less protruding camera bump on the larger 12.9-inch model.
MacBooks and iPads could face severe delays later this year due to a global chip shortage. While Apple has done its best to insulate itself, the company is “not immune” from the “unprecedented supply crunch,” Nikkei Asia reports.
The lack of key computer components initially stemmed from factories shuttered at the start of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, boosted demand resulting from “changing habits fueled by the pandemic” appear to have compounded the problem.
A massive 88% of U.S. teenagers own an iPhone, and 90% expect their next phone to be an iPhone, a new Piper Sandler survey of more than 7,000 teens suggests.
It’s an impressive showcase of just how popular Apple is among young people — especially so considering that this is a relatively fickle demographic that frequently shies away from things their parents are into. The oldest teen today was only 5 when the first-gen iPhone debuted in 2007. The youngest weren’t even born yet.
Ahead of the launch of the new App Tracking Transparency iOS 14 feature, Apple on Wednesday published a report titled A Day in the Life of Your Data.
It details the “$227 billion-a-year industry” made up of websites, apps, social media companies, data brokers, and more who harvest user personal data for profit — and what Apple is doing about it.
iOS 14 adoption tops 90%, according to figures published by analysts at Mixpanel. The firm’s most recent data shows 90.45% of users with an iPhone or iPad run either iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 on it. That’s an incredibly impressive feat, considering Apple only made the operating systems available in mid-September.
Last time Apple released its own figures, back in late February, the company reported that 80% of iPhones and 70% of iPads ran the new operating systems. Those figures increased to 86% and 84% respectively when focusing on devices from the past four years.
In a Tuesday note to clients, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty raised her services-related revenue forecast for Apple through 2022 even as she lowered the overall price target for AAPL stock.
“Following strong March quarter App Store results and an analysis of the key drivers of Apple’s Licensing & Other segment, we raise our already above-street FY21 and FY22 Services revenue estimates by 3% and 5% respectively, and are increasingly convinced that consensus Services forecasts over the next 2+ years are too low,” Huberty wrote.
Apple’s foray into podcasting continues with a new series called The Line that debuted Tuesday.
The podcast, which follows the true-crime blueprint successfully laid out by Serial, tells the story of former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of war crimes. The first two episodes are now available to listen to.
Apple manufacturer Foxconn’s first quarter revenue soared by 44%, Bloomberg reports. The publication pins the increased cashflow on “robust demand” for the iPhone 12.
Revenue for the first three months of 2021 increased to $47 billion, Foxconn reported Tuesday. In addition to the massive success of the latest iPhones, the high earnings also reflect demand for devices like video games consoles, servers, electric vehicles as well.
Steve Jobs didn’t turn off his phone often. But if he did, it probably meant that he was in Jony Ive’s Industrial Design department, where Jobs relaxed by scouring prototypes of future Apple products.
That’s according to Jobs’ former assistant, Naz Beheshti, in a new book titled Pause. Breathe. Choose: Become the CEO of Your Well-Being. While the book focuses mainly on Beheshti’s practice as a wellness coach, it includes a few memories of her time at Apple. Including how Apple staffers would go into meltdown when they couldn’t reach Jobs — and how they eventually figured out where this meant he was.
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TikTok topped the App Store charts for another month as the top non-gaming app worldwide. Across both iOS and Android, the popular video-sharing app racked up more than 58 million installs.
The No. 1 audience for TikTok is China, where the app is called Douyin. China accounted for 11% of downloads, followed by the United States with 10%.
Today marks 45 years since a little outfit called the Apple Computer Company was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Apple set out to build and sell personal computers. Since then, it’s risen from a hobbyist startup to a tech giant valued at more than $2 trillion.
In the last four and a half decades, Apple changed the tech world in all kinds of ways — some big, some small. Here, in no particular order, are 45 of the most notable ways Apple put a ding in the universe.
The indie Opera browser, one of the oldest browsers still operating today, has been updated with native support for Apple Silicon Macs. The update means that the Opera browser now runs 2x faster on M1 Macs.
Opera first debuted on Mac way back in 1996. That’s approaching a decade before Safari made its debut. One of Opera’s first big claims to fame was that it made it easier to browse several web pages at once. Today, its big appeal is its minimalist aesthetic, innovative sidebar design, and (now faster than ever) performance.
Russia’s “anti-Apple” law came into force today, meaning that all smartphones, tablets, and computers sold in the country must offer local software and apps as part of the setup process.
Apple reportedly “strongly opposed” the law, and even went so far as to threaten to pull out of the Russian market over it. However, as was the case with a government-created “Do Not Disturb” app in India, it eventually relented.
The app ecosystem did very, very well during the global pandemic. While many businesses struggled, the app industry experienced a massive boom in sales, as people were stuck home with, in many cases, a lot more time on their hands.
It seems the 2020 rise in sales isn’t slowing down, either. According to a new App Annie, consumer spending on apps achieved a new record high in the first quarter of 2021. Across both iOS and Android, customers spent $32 billion on apps in the quarter. That’s a 40 percent increase from the same period last year — and the biggest quarter on record.
Apple frenemy Samsung has achieved its goal of using 100% reusable energy in its factories in the USA, Europe, and China. It announced the sustainability drive in 2018, and achieved 92% reusable energy by the close of 2019.
Samsung has not yet revealed whether it plans to try and push this same focus on reusables to other parts of the world that it operates — including its home turf of South Korea.
Apple is investing millions of dollars in UnitedMasters, a music distribution platform for independent artists. The company makes an app that’s designed to help indie musicians release music to streaming platforms.
UnitedMasters lets users upload their music to platforms like Apple Music within seconds. They can then get paid royalties through PayPal.
Apple hasn’t yet provided details of the subscriber numbers for Apple TV+. However, based on analysis it would be highly surprising if Apple’s not losing a whole lot of money on the service.
Back in my misspent youth I pumped no shortage of spare (and non-spare) change into arcade machines to play Mortal Kombat II. Jump forward more than a quarter-century and MK fans eager to empty their pockets faster than that can shell out for a new custom iPhone 12 Pro model.
Made by the company Caviar, the handset features an image of the Kunai harpoon weapon belonging to everyone’s favorite undead yellow-clad ninja Scorpion. It’s also emblazoned with the immortal words “Get over here!”
And all it will cost you is somewhere north of $6,140.
The battle between Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games rages on as the latter has filed a complaint with the UK’s competition regulator, complaining about Apple’s alleged anticompetitive behavior.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority earlier this month revealed that it had opened an investigation of Apple. This followed complaints from app developers that its conditions are not fair. Now Epic is chiming in to add its support to the complaint.
Apple will kick off this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7. And, for the second year running, this will be an all-virtual event, the company said Tuesday.
The WWDC festivities will run through that week, offering what Apple calls “unique insight into the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.”
Production on Apple’s next-gen A15 chips will reportedly start up in May, using the same 5-nanometer fabrication size as last year’s A14 chip. However, this year’s A-series chip refresh will boast an “enhanced” manufacturing process that should result in superior performance next to the A14 processor.
This is approximately what you would expect to see in terms of both the schedule and nanometer jump between iPhone models. Apple typically is underway with production by around May, ready for the September iPhone launch. There is also usually an upgrade (or, in terms of minimum feature size, downgrade) in nanometers every couple of years.
Apple is working on a new remote for its next-gen Apple TV, 9to5Mac reports. While the story doesn’t share specific details about the rejigged remote, it suggests Apple might move away from the controversial Siri Remote that debuted with the fourth-gen Apple TV.
People often single out the Siri Remote as one of the more controversial designs in Apple history. It sits alongside the “hockey puck” mouse of the iMac G3 and the dodgy, upside-down charging of the Magic Mouse 2 in Apple’s hall of infamy.
A ruggedized version of Apple Watch could take the device’s lifesaving smarts to new extremes.
The so-called Apple Watch Explorer Edition, rumored to be in the works with a possible release as early as this year, could be Cupertino’s answer to Casio’s ultra-popular G-Shock watches. The benefits of implanting Apple Watch’s advanced sensors into such a beefy body seem like a no-brainer.
Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensors, heart rate monitors and fall detection can make a difference in the daily life of average folks. But they could prove far more valuable to wearers snowboarding down frigid slopes, climbing up sand dunes or mountains, scrabbling over mud and rocks or diving the ocean’s depths.
Such extreme environments, in which adventurous humans test their limits, are just dying for an injection of Apple Watch smarts.
