In this week’s Awesome Apps roundup, we have a synthesizer app that brings back the sound of the ’80s, a solid VPN for safely surfing the Web, an app for testing external drives for recording high-res video, and a guide to the best eateries in Italy.
Italy’s competition authority has fined Apple 10 million euros ($12 million) for allegedly misleading customers about just how water-resistant iPhones are.
Apple claims that several of its iPhone models can withstand being submerged for up to 30 minutes. However, the competition body says that this is only with pure water in a lab. Such tests supposedly yield different results from real-world scenarios in which a phone may be dropped into water.
Italy has opened the latest investigation into potential Apple antitrust violations. Announced by the Italian antitrust authority Monday, this investigation will look into Apple’s iCloud cloud computing services.
Similar investigations will be carried out investigating Google parent company Alphabet and Dropbox.
Italy has opened another antitrust investigation into Apple, adding to the number of current antitrust investigations the company faces.
This time the investigation will explore Apple’s relationship with Amazon and whether they reached what Reuters calls an “anti-competitive agreement” over the sale of Apple devices and Beats headphones.
[Update 9:30 am, 05/14/2020: Since our original story ran, the one Apple Store in Italy reportedly planning to reopen next week has changed its hours back to fully closed. We will monitor the situation and report any more details, if warranted.]
Apple reportedly will reopen 10 of its 17 retail store locations in Italy beginning May 19.
As in other locations around the world that have reopened, security measures will be in place to protect customers and employees.
The Disney+ mobile app is off to a roaring start in Europe and the UK just days after it launched earlier this week.
Third-party app analytics firm App Annie revealed that the Disney+ app has been downloaded over 5 million times on launch day, possibly thanks to millions of residents having to shelter-in-place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Apple is set to shutter all of its stores in Italy beginning Thursday until further notice as the country goes into total lockdown due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.
All 17 stores in Italy have updated their webpages showing that doors will close early Wednesday and the company isn’t saying when they will be reopened.
Apple on Friday cancelled its “Today at Apple” sessions across all stores in Italy amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
Apple Oriocenter, a store in Italy’s Bergamo Province, is also closed temporarily as Apple makes efforts to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. It is currently out of action until March 8.
Apple retail stores in China are slowly getting back to business as 38 of the company’s 42 retail stores are now open in an attempt to normalize business despite coronavirus concerns.
A review of the company’s retail web pages by Cult of Mac reveals Apple will expand business hours at 19 locations over the next couple of days and at least 6 stores will return to normal hours of operation.
As Italy fights to halt the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, Apple is temporarily closing a single store location in Italy on orders of the Italian government.
The mall-based Apple Oriocenter store, located in the province of Bergamo, will be closed on March 7 and 8. This is the result of a decision by the President of the Council of Ministers that medium and large retail stores, as well as commercial outlets in shopping centers, must close this weekend.
Apple has added more travel restrictions for employees this week due to concerns of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Italy and South Korea have been added to Apple’s list of banned destinations, according to a report from Bloomberg. The company instituted a similar restriction on travel to China earlier this month to protect employees’ health.
As part of the fallout from a decision in Italy, Apple has added a statement to its homepage in the country, describing how it did not provide adequate information to customers.
The statement concerns the “iPhone throttling” controversy, in which Apple slowed down iPhones with aging batteries, via an iOS update.
Italy is the latest country to throw its hat into the ring when it comes to investigating Apple for its purposeful slowing down of older iPhone devices.
In doing so, it joins countries including Brazil, South Korea, China and France, which have all questioned Apple about its iPhone-throttling software update. In a new twist, however, Italy is also investigating Apple rival Samsung.
An Italian clothing company going by the name of “Steve Jobs” has won its long-standing legal battle with Apple for the right to sell jeans with Jobs’ name on them.
Apple Pay is officially open for business in Italy, with Visa and MasterCards issued by Boon, Carrefour, and UniCredit all able to used by customers. Additional banks are set to be added later on in 2017.
Apple is adding a spectacular new retail store to its collection — but you’ll have to visit Milan to see it.
Located in the city’s Piazza Liberty, the store will take a note out of Apple’s iconic Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York by being located underground, with access via a special elevator. Or, in this case, a spectacular staircase entrance located between two waterfalls.
Check out a couple more pictures below.
Apple Pay may be set to arrive in two new markets, as Apple has updated the local support document pages for both Germany and Italy.
The pages now include translations of the “About Apple Pay” document which can be found in other markets where Apple Pay is already active. The pages were both updated last week.
An Apple executive has avoided jail as part of an Italian investigation into Apple’s failure to pay corporate tax in the country.
The executive in question, the head of Apple’s Irish-based Apple Sales International, was being investigated as part of the case. Apple agreed to pay 318 million euros last year to close the investigation, but the exec could still have been forced to spend six months in prison for his part in it.
The doors of Apple’s first-ever iOS developer academy in Italy are set to open to students tomorrow, but according to a new report, getting through the doors is harder than getting into Harvard.
The first-ever iOS development center in Europe created by Apple is set to open later this year, providing aspiring developers with the practical skills and training necessary to make killer apps.
Apple revealed today that the center will officially be named iOS Developer Academy to be located at Università di Napoli Federico II.
For years, Apple has been under pressure to open an Apple museum. The company’s rich and storied past has its fans clamoring for a central repository of that history.
Word from the company: No. Apple’s leaders say they are more interested in the future than the past.
In fact, the most complete historical collection of all things Apple is nowhere near Cupertino. The serious Apple fan must travel to, of all places, Savona, Italy.
Tim Cook met with Pope Francis today. The 15-minute appointment reportedly took place from 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. local time, as can be seen from viewing the pope’s daily schedule, which describes a meeting between the Holy Father and “Signor Timothy Donald Cook, Amministratore Delegato di Apple.”
Apple constantly talks about how many jobs its created through the App Store, and it’s putting its money where its mouth is by creating Europe’s first iOS App Development Center in Italy — designed to give students the practical skills and training necessary to help them develop apps for the iPhone and iPad.
We’re still waiting for an official decision from European Commission regulators about Apple’s alleged tax avoidance through its Irish subsidiary, but in the meantime the company has agreed to pay €318 million ($347 million) to settle a tax investigation in Italy.
My family and I just got back from a too-short vacation in Italy, and we learned something important while we were there: Real vacations don’t have e-mail.
See, my wife was worried about us racking up unspeakably high bills while we were abroad, so we ended up almost completely disabling our iPhones for the entire trip. How we fared without them is the subject of this week’s Kahney’s Korner.