Uber

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Uber puts the brakes on Apple Watch app

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Uber puts the brakes on Apple Watch app
No more calling for an Uber from your Apple Watch.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

If you want to call an Uber, you’ll have to do it from your iPhone — the Apple Watch app was disabled on Monday. Apparently permanently.

Uber gave no reason for the change.

The next Mac revolution: Companies rush to buy new M1 machines

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Adobe Photoshop does support the MacBook Pro notch.
"Engineering hours are much more expensive than laptops."
Photo: Apple

The new MacBook Pro lineup is an exceptional upgrade over its predecessors, with new M1 Pro and M1 Max chipsets that offer more mobile computing power than ever before. And big companies are scrambling to reap the benefits.

The likes of Reddit, Twitter and others are rolling out 2021 MacBook Pro units to employees so that they can take advantage of the massive performance gains. “Engineering hours are much more expensive than laptops,” one said.

Apple Card adds new rewards as it becomes available to all (in the US)

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Apple Card
Just spend it.
Photo: Apple

Apple Card is now available to all iPhone users in the United States.

You can sign up for yours through the Wallet app. Users will enjoy 2% daily cash back on Apple Pay transactions, and 3% daily cash back on purchases made directly from Apple.

As the Apple credit card launched Tuesday, Cupertino also expanded its 3% daily cash back offer to include Uber and Uber Eats.

You can now use Apple Pay inside Uber Eats

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Uber Eats Apple Pay
Ordering food just got even easier.
Photo: Uber Eats

It’s now easier than ever to pay for Uber Eats orders, thanks to the arrival of Apple Pay.

The food delivery service has finally adopted Apple’s mobile payments platform in almost 20 countries. It makes completing a transaction as easy as tapping your finger or scanning your face.

Apple Maps gets turn-by-turn navigation in another key market

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Updated Apple Maps rolls out in Pacific Northwest and Midwest
Enjoy turn-by-turn navigation in India today.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Turn-by-turn navigation in Apple Maps has expanded its reach to one of Apple’s most important markets. Users in India can finally take advantage of the feature when driving or walking.

Apple has also added the ability to book a cab through Uber or Ola from within the Maps app.

Self-driving car kills pedestrian for first time

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Uber - Entry #80 by sankalp - India
Uber’s autonomous car program just recorded its first fatality.
Photo: Uber

Uber’s self driving car program in Arizona has suffered a fatal setback after one of its autonomous vehicles hit and killed a female pedestrian.

The woman was crossing the street in Tempe around 10pm last night but wasn’t using a cross walk when the accident occurred.

Apple pledges $1 million to help fire-ravaged wine country

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Extreme winds and dry weather are making the wildfires in California's wine country hard to contain.
Extreme winds and dry weather are making the wildfires in California's wine country hard to contain.
Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture/Flickr CC

The fire-relief efforts in Northern California are getting a boost from some of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Smoke from the wildfires ravaging wine country are currently choking out residents in San Francisco’s bay area, so Apple, Google and Facebook are stepping up by donating local efforts.

Apple Music loses top exec to Uber

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Bozoma Saint John
Bozoma Saint John is in charge of hyping Apple Music.
Photo: Apple

This story has been updated to include comments from Bozoma Saint John.

Bozoma Saint John, one of Apple’s most entertaining keynote presenters, is leaving the company to work for Uber as the ride-sharing startup’s chief brand officer.

Her task? Fixing Uber’s tarnished image in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and other recent turmoil

Why Uber’s rule-breaking app tactics got Tim Cook so upset

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How much would you pay for lunch with Tim Cook? Photo: Apple
Tim Cook threatened to ban Uber from the App Store.
Photo: Apple

Tim Cook dressed down Uber CEO Travis Kalanick — and even threatened to boot Uber out of the App Store — for violating Apple’s privacy rules, claims a new report.

Uber broke iOS privacy laws in an attempt to crack down on a certain kind of fraud in China, in which some drivers would earn incentives by booking fake rides on iPhones, which they then wiped. This allowed them to earn more money.

Apple training documents leak details of self-driving car project

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lexus
The 2015 Lexus RX450h is Apple's vehicle of choice.
Photo: Lexus

Getting behind the wheel of one of Apple’s self-driving cars requires drivers to pass a series of tests, based on new information about the secretive project that leaked out today.

Details of Apple’s self-driving car program have been revealed by documents filed with the California DMV that shed light on the “Apple Automated System” currently under development.

Didi Chuxing may cure world of traffic jams, says Tim Cook

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tim cook in a car
Tim Cook catches a cab with Didi Chuxing's Chuxing's Jean Liu.
Photo: Tim Cook/Twitter

Apple CEO Tim Cook had nothing but high praise for Didi Chuxing CEO Jean Liu in an exert he wrote about her for Time magazine.

Liu was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2017. Cook, who sits on Didi’s board, was asked to write about Liu and said that her taxi-hailing startup is changing how people in China connect and commute with its convenience and flexibility.

Cloudbleed bug may have exposed your passwords

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Another nasty internet bug may have exposed your data.
Another nasty internet bug may have exposed your data.
Photo: Cloudflare

Get ready to change all your passwords again.

A huge new memory leak from web services company Cloudflare may have left data from thousands of domains exposed, including some very high-profile sites. Cloudflare says it fixed the problem, which was caused by a bug known as Cloudbleed, but not before users’ sensitive data got cached by search engines.

Apple signs Silicon Valley’s open letter bashing Trump’s travel ban

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Donald Trump signing document
President Trump signing an executive order.
Photo: The White House/Facebook

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:

App makers take stand against Trump’s immigration ban

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Donald Trump signing document
App makers are stepping up to fight Donald Trump's executive order on immigration.
Photo: The White House

President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from some Islamic countries from entering the United States has been met with a flood of tech companies making record-breaking donations to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Apple VP Lisa Jackson joins federal committee overseeing automation

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Jackson
Lisa Jackson presenting at an Apple keynote.
Photo: Apple

The U.S. Department of Transportation revealed that it has established a new advisory committee that will make recommendations in the field of automation.

Apple’s VP of environment and policy, Lisa Jackson, will be one of the committee’s 25 members that will work on some of the most important issues facing transportation, including self-driving cars.

Apple joins board of ‘Chinese Uber’

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Didi Chuxing is China's answer to Uber, but is much bigger. Apple just made a $1 billion 'strategic' investment in the company.
Apple's "strategic" investment is paying off.
Photo: Virginia Werner / Cult of Mac

Apple has scored a seat on the board of Didi Chuxing, the Chinese Uber rival that Apple invested $1 billion in earlier this year.

Although Didi Chuxing denied it at the time, regulatory filings show that Apple took the board position in late June, one month after it made its generous investment — designed to aid Apple’s continued push into China and interest in shaking up the automotive industry.

Apple hits reboot button on electric car project

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apple car
A rendering of an Apple car with a different kind of bumper
Photo: Motor1

Project Titan, Apple’s secret electric car program that was greenlit by Tim Cook two years ago, is facing a serious crisis.

The iPhone maker has reportedly laid off dozens of employees that were working on the auto project, even though the company has already started testing a couple of autonomous vehicles the team built.

Google has a secret plan to take over public parking and transit

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Google is coming for your city.
Google is coming for your city.
Photo: Google

A shadowy subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is planning to completely revolutionize public parking and transportation, according to a new report that shines a light on the ambitious initiative.

The mysterious company is Sidewalk Labs, and it has begun offering cities its high-tech services, which claim to make it easier to drive and park by creating a hybrid of public and private transportation options that utilize ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.