Ever wonder what would happen if Tim Cook decided to go evil and use everyone’s iPhone data for nefarious purposes?
That’s basically the plot of Tom Hanks’ new movie, The Circle, which is set at an infinite-loop-shaped campus in Silicon Valley where everything looks absolutely perfect from the outside (just like Apple).
Alternative facts and fake news have become so pervasive in the the we consume lately that Apple CEO Tim Cook says it’s “one of today’s chief problems.”
During an interview this week in the U.K., Cook talked about the challenges tech companies face on how to combat stories that perpetuate false information without hurting the free flow of ideas on the internet.
Apple will join other tech companies, including Alphabet, Facebook and Uber, in penning a letter opposing President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban.
News of the letter comes shortly after an interview Apple CEO Tim Cook gave to The Wall Street Journal, in which he described the “heart-wrenching” messages he had received about Trump’s executive order, which potentially affects hundreds of Apple employees.
Check out the draft of the open letter to Trump below:
With 2016 coming to a close, Nielsen has ranked the year’s most popular mobile apps in the U.S. and — wouldn’t you know it! — Facebook takes the top two spots with its Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps.
Despite the growth of other social media services, Facebook saw growth of 14 percent from last year, with more than 146 million average unique users each month. Facebook Messenger also picked up over 129 million unique users every month.
Apple has launched a new Facebook page to promote its Beats 1 worldwide radio station, which broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week exclusively on Apple Music.
The page features small sharable video clips of Beats 1 action, currently including snippets from Zane Lowe’s interview with Lady Gaga. Oh, and a whole lot of hashtags, too.
Facebook Messenger can be a real data hog if you’re a frequent user — especially if you send and receive a lot of GIFs, images, and videos. But that’s going to change thanks to a new Data Saver feature that’s currently being tested on Android.
U.S. Supreme Court justices appear to be confused over how much Apple’s patented iPhone design should worth.
Lawyers for Apple and Samsung faced off this morning at the nation’s highest court. The two sides argued whether breaking a design patent should be worth most of a product’s profits, or if the thousands of other patents that go into a smartphone should be viewed as equally valuable to the contribution of profits.
Billions of dollars and the future of patent law is at stake in the case that hinges on a law written in 1887. But the justices didn’t give much indication which side they’ll take.
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Facebook is on a quest to cure your boredom with its newest standalone app that is focused solely on events.
Available only on iOS (for now), the new app dubbed Events from Facebook helps you find things to do in your area by giving you a filtered feed of what your friends are up to.
Two of the biggest names at Apple made it onto Vanity Fair‘s 2016 ‘New Establishment’ list that ranks the top names in Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street. But instead of including designer Jony Ive, the fashion mag bumped him for ugly-shirt-lovin Eddy Cue.
The first debate between U.S. presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is set to kick off tonight at Hofstra University in New York — and you can catch all the action on any Apple device.
Apple updated its “Watch the Debate Live” section today on both App Stores for iOS and Apple TV, giving users multiple places to catch what is expected to be the most-watched political debate in history.
Here’s how to livestream it:
Apple’s next big venture could be to go head-to-head with Snapchat and similar content-sharing services. The company is expected to integrate new video features into iOS that would be developed by the engineers behind Final Cut and iMovie.
But is this a good idea? Apple failed miserably when it tried to take on social networks before, and some would argue that many of its products already suffer as a result of its expansion into new areas.
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over whether Apple is wasting its time trying to fight Snapchat.
Today marks Tim Cook’s five-year anniversary as the CEO of Apple after Steve Jobs resigned, and as a reward for making it this long in the top spot he just unlocked a monster bonus.
Sex offenders in New York who are addicted to Pokémon GO just got some bad news from Governor Andrew Cuomo who has asked the game’s developers to help ban players from the state’s sex offenders list.
The governor takes particular issue with the game’s “PokéStops” that can be equipped with lures to attract pokémon as well as other players to a certain spot. Cuomo believes that sexual predators will use these spots as a way to lure in children, so he’s demanding the makers add extra protections.
Silicon Valley is uniting against presumed GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in an open letter today that calls out the candidate for his “anger, bigotry, fear of new ideas and new people, and a fundamental belief that America is weak and in decline.”
The letter is signed by some of the biggest names in the tech industry, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mark Pincus at Zinga, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Vint Cerf and dozens of others.
Facebook Messenger is now even more awesome on iPhone 6s.
Thanks to the app’s latest update, you can now take advantage of useful 3D Touch gestures that let you Peek and Pop into all your ongoing conversations — and into all the media shared within them.
If you’ve noticed a serious lack of actual news in your Facebook News Feed since the beginning of July, you’re not alone.
The social network recently made big changes to its News Feed algorithm to emphasize posts from friends and family, and fewer posts from the sites and pages you’ve liked. The end result has transformed many users’ feeds into an endlessly scrollable collection of baby pics, birthday posts and political drama no one wants to touch.
Thankfully, there’s a way to take back some control of your page so that important posts from news sites show up more frequently.
Facebook has begun testing end-to-end encryption with a new feature called Secret Conversations. Users will have the ability to chat confidentially without having to worry about being snooped on — but not everyone can enjoy super secure messaging just yet.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took shots at Apple, Google and Amazon during a speech in Washington today, claiming Silicon Valley’s big fish are making it impossible for the small fry to compete.
“The opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors,” said Warren. During her rant against Apple, the senator specifically mentioned the unfair advantages Apple Music enjoys against its competitors.
After the speech, Spotify rallied behind Warren with some Apple bashing of its own.
Facebook is updating its news feed to bring the focus back to your friends. Users will begin to see more posts from the people they care about, rather than a flood of articles and videos from media publishers.
Apple is one of the top 5 companies in the U.S. when it comes to attracting and keeping talent, but its rivals Facebook and Google are even better.
LinkedIn has come out with its first ever Top Attractors list based on insights from tracking billions of data points of its 433 million members and discovered that in the employee perks arm race, few can top Google.
Facebook Messenger wants to make chatting with your closest friends even faster with a redesigned Home tab. Within it, you’ll find recent conversations, favorite contacts, friends who have birthdays coming up, and more.
Facebook is giving up on its attempt to be your go-to news outlet. Just seven months after it made its initial debut, the standalone Notify app, which provided push notifications for breaking news, is no more.
Facebook is finally giving its Messenger emoji characters a much-needed overhaul.
Starting today, users will see all-new emoji designs with support for skin tone selection inside the official Messenger apps on all platforms.
Facebook plans to tighten security on its popular Messenger platform this summer, but it won’t be turned on for all users by default.
Messenger will add a new end-to-end encryption feature that prevents hackers and the government from being able to read your text messages. Facebook won’t be able to read your messages either though, and that will seriously hurt its ability to make bots great if you decide to opt-in to better security.
Mainland China is Apple’s second biggest market, and will one day be its first. The company is making a big push on the mainland, opening new stores and investing in home-grown companies. Why the interest? Because China is the new Japan — it’s where the future is happening. All this week we take a look at the cutting-edge apps that define mobile life on the mainland.
SHANGHAI CITY, China — Just like their U.S. counterparts, Chinese youth obsess over their smartphones. But while the phones they use look the same, the apps are quite different: China has its own must-have apps that keep users’ eyes glued to screens at all hours of the day.
Some Chinese apps seem quite similar to their Western counterparts, but others boast innovative and intriguing features. Apple’s clearly interested: While slowing growth in China put a dent in APPL stock, Cupertino recently made a strategic $1 billion investment in Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing.
What other apps in China might grab Apple’s attention? Tim Cook could start his due diligence with this list of powerhouse Chinese iPhone apps. The country’s young people use these apps to listen to music, make purchases, get around town, interact with others and maintain their online identities.
These Chinese apps are impressive and convenient, and they are showing us the future of mobile: a world where everything is at our fingertips.
