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News - page 662

iPhone sales finally show signs of life in China

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China iPhone sales
Apple CEO Tim Cook meets with Apple Store employees in China.
Photo: Apple

The latest round of iPhone price cuts on China have accomplished their goal, according to an analyst with Wedbush. Demand for Apple handsets has increased in that country.

That’s very good news for the company, as CEO TIm Cook said early this year that slow sales in China were the entire reason Apple saw a revenue decease at the end of 2018.

Spotify’s fight against increased rates is good for Apple Music

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Apple Music
The #CancelSpotify movement is a win for Apple.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Spotify’s efforts to avoid paying higher rates is giving Apple Music a big advantage, according to a new report.

Apple is the only major music streaming company that isn’t appealing a decision to increase the rate paid to songwriters. As a result, Apple Music is getting all the love on social media.

How Apple’s Operations department works [Cook book outtakes]

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Two Apple operations workers in a factory
Apple's operations, which Tim Cook headed up, is one of the company's secret weapons.
Photo: Apple

Tim Cook book outtakes: How Apple's Operations department works This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on geeky details of Apple’s manufacturing operations.

Apple is famous for design and marketing, but a large part of the company’s success is due to the incredibly complex and efficient manufacturing organization Tim Cook masterminded with Steve Jobs.

No matter how beautiful its products are, the company would go nowhere without a world-class manufacturing and distribution operation that can make millions of devices in the utmost secrecy, to the highest possible standards, and deliver them efficiently all over the globe.

It’s an operation unprecedented in the history of industry. When Jobs and Cook started in 1998, Apple was doing $6 billion in business annually. It now does that every 10 days.

Apple will soon require all macOS apps to be notarized

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iMac
Apple wants to make macOS as safe as possible.
Photo: Apple

Apple has confirmed that all macOS apps will need to be notarized to be accepted by Gatekeeper after its Mojave 10.14.5 update.

The requirement applies to new and updated apps and all software from developers who are new to distributing with Developer ID. In a future version of macOS, notarization will be required by default.

AirPods might not like busy city streets

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Earphones
Just don't blame Apple for it!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

AirPods are great. But that doesn’t mean that they’re without their problems as a replacement for your traditional wired headphones.

Some users on Twitter have been observing that their AirPods can be prone to cutting in and out, or occasionally producing static sounds. The reason? Bluetooth interference. This can come from having the signal blocked by physical barriers. It could also be due to using a frequency that’s too overcrowded.

Apple stock could do something it’s not managed for 8 years

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apple stock price
Apple stock has had a whirlwind year!
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

It can’t be said that Apple stock has had a boring last year. In twelve months, we’ve seen Apple hit $1 trillion in value. Then the stock tanked and AAPL entered the sinister-sounding “death cross.”

Now it’s rebounded and, if things continue to go well through today, it will achieve a feat it hasn’t managed since October 2010. That’s back when Steve Jobs was running Apple.

Classic Marathon trilogy gets updated for iOS 12

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First-person shooter Marathon gave Mac gamers something to be proud of.
First-person shooter Marathon gave Mac gamers something to be proud of.
Photo: Bungie

Marathon is a game which will be as familiar to long-time Mac owners as Doom. A sci-fi first-person shooter from the 1990s, it was a Macintosh exclusive which introduced numerous important FPS features. Bungie, the team which developed it, later went onto create the Halo series.

While Marathon has been available on iOS for several years, it hadn’t been updated in half a decade. Fortunately, that all changed recently.

Image shot on iPhone 6 takes top prize in photography contest

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Colleen Wright
The winning moody pic in all its grandeur!
Photo: Friends of the Columbia Gorge/Colleen Wright

The iPhone 6 is a few years old now. However, its 2014-era, 8-megapixel camera is still enough to capture the hearts of judges in a photography contest.

That’s based on the recent Friends of the Columbia Gorge photography contest, held in Portland, Oregon. Despite the professional camera equipment used to shoot many of the entries, the Grand Prize was awarded to a moody image shot using an iPhone 6.

Apple could adopt mini LED backlighting for a giant iMac

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iMac
It's about time the iMac was redesigned.
Photo: Apple

Apple is expected to adopt mini LED backlighting technology this year to further improve color gamut, contrast ratio, and high dynamic range in its displays.

A brand new 31.6-inch iMac will be the first machine to offer the new display technology, sources claim. It will then make its way to the iPad and other Apple computers in 2020.

WhatsApp may finally be getting its own iPad app

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WhatsApp on iOS
WhatsApp will no longer be limited to iPhones.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging apps. More than 1 billion people use it every single day. But until now it’s not been available on the iPad without using a WhatsApp Web workaround.

That may be about to change, however, as WhatsApp is reportedly working on an official iPad app. It’s about time!

Twitter cuts follow limit to crack down on spam

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Twitter logo
Twitter just made life harder for spammers.
Photo: Twitter

Twitter has reduced its limit on the number of people you can follow in one day in an effort to crack down on spammers.

The new limit, which is 400, is designed to prevent new accounts from following a large number of people and then removing them in a “bulk aggressive or indiscriminate manner.”

Stephen King bringing haunting Lisey’s Story to Apple TV+

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Julianne Moore will star in a series of love and horror on Apple TV+.
Julianne Moore will star in a series of love and horror on Apple TV+.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Horror master Stephen King will adapt his favorite novel, Lisey’s Story, into a TV series staring Oscar-winner Julianne Moore. This will be presented on the recently unveiled Apple TV+ service.

Lisey’s Story combines romance and psychological horror, and earned King a nomination for the World Fantasy Award in 2007.

Huawei ready to provide modems for a 5G iPhone

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Huawei launched the Balong 5000 5G modem in January.
Huawei launched the Balong 5000 5G modem in January.
Photo: Huawei

Apple apparently has another option for 5G modems. Huawei reportedly is willing to provide future iPhones with these chips.

If true, this significantly improves the chances that a 5G iPhone will launch in 2020. Still, there are reasons to question the wisdom of any such deal.

Smartphones keep twisting the knife on camera sales

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camera sales
iPhone photography is still incredibly good.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

When the CEO of one of the biggest brands in cameras said his company was in a losing battle against smartphones, he was dismissed by some of his contemporaries who insisted on a brighter future.

Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai today probably wishes he was wrong.

A new report by Japan’s Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), shows camera sales for February dropping by 35 percent compared to the second month of 2018.

Biggest MacBook in years could debut in 2021

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The days when you could get a 17-inch MacBook Pro like this one could be returning.
The days when you could get a 17-inch MacBook Pro like this one could be returning.
Photo: Apple

A trusted analyst says Apple is working on a MacBook Pro that’s bigger than any released in years. The downside is this model won’t be out until 2021.

This device, as well as a new iPad and an external display, will all supposedly use a new type of display: microLED.

Apple health care plans are potentially more lucrative than iPhone

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Apple health care
Apple's health-tracking features have been a game changer.
Photo: Lewis Wallace/Cult of Mac

Apple is poised to create an entirely new ecosystem in health care with a value that could be three times greater than the global smartphone market, according to a Morgan Stanley report.

Apple devices and a growing number of App Store apps are in the early stages of what the 14 analysts predict will be a digital disruption to the health care industry worth as much as $313 billion by 2027.

iOS 13 concept proposes Split View for iPhone 11

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An iOS 13 concept suggests working with two apps at once on an iPhone screen.
An iOS 13 concept suggests working with two apps at once on an iPhone screen.
Photo: Gunho Lee/ConceptsiPhone

An artist dreaming up ideas for Apple’s next handset suggests bringing side-by-side multitasking from the iPad to the iPhone. He also proposes Apple create a super-slim wireless clip-on battery.

Watch his video previewing these features and more:

Toddler renders iPad unusable for 49 years

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A toddler till be eligible for AARP before he can unlock his dad’s iPad.
A toddler till be eligible for AARP before he can unlock his dad’s iPad.
Photo: Pexels

A New Yorker writer discovered the dangers of allowing his young child to play with his iPad. The toddler entered so many unsuccessful unlock attempts that the tablet can’t be accessed until 2068.

New French tax law could take on tech giants like Apple

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Image of the old Apple Inc. rainbow logo atop American cash money.
The EU has been trying to solve the problem of taxing the tech giants.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The EU has gone after companies like Apple as part of a crackdown on what it views as unethical tax avoidance. As part of that mission, France is today debating a draft GAFA tax law.

An acronym derived from Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, the proposed GAFA law could put a 3 percent tax on revenues for tech companies with annual revenue of more than 750 million euros ($842 million). From the name of the proposed law, it’s no secret which companies that would involve.

Apple can start designing its 5nm A-series chips

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Gather_Round_A12Bionic 2
Apple's A12 Bionic chip was great. Next year's chip will be, err, greater.
Photo: Apple

If you thought the 7-nanometer iPhone’s A12 Bionic chip was impressive, you haven’t seen anything yet! Apple supplier TSMC has reportedly reached a major milestone with the development of its 5-nanometer chips.

As per a previous report, Apple plans to use the next-gen chips for its 2020 iPhones. These could potentially debut with Apple’s first 5G handset.

Proposed U.K. laws could crack down on ‘harmful’ apps

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Apple removes 17 malware apps which secretly clicked on ads
Censorship or common sense? Expect to see this issue heavily debated.
Photo: Apple

Apple could be among the companies having to censor certain apps and websites as a result of new proposed U.K. laws. Designed to combat “harmful” content online, the new laws would give censorship power to independent regulators tasked with overseeing apps and websites.

The view of “harmful” content is a broad one, including terrorism, self-harm, hate speech, child abuse, and more. It would mean that the U.K. government could have a say on the content that Apple sells or offers to customers in the United Kingdom.

How Apple is like the army [Cook book outtakes]

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Army badges and logos
Apple is a functional organization, like the army.
Photo: Mike McDonald, royalty-free image

Tim Cook book outtakes This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on geeky details of Apple’s manufacturing operations.

Apple is a functional organization. It’s not organized along business lines, split into divisions like the iPhone division, the Mac division and the Apple TV division, the way, say a company like Ford has the Lincoln division for its luxury cars, a trucks division, a parts division and so on.

Instead, Apple is organized around functions: design, hardware, software, internet services. In this way, Apple operates like the biggest functional organization on the planet: the military.