Years after Apple engineers gathered in a room to modify MacBook Airs to become the first Apple Silicon Macs, the company delivered the culmination of all that tinkering—well, the first step of the culmination, anyway.
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For now, though, Srouji seemed plenty confident. "There were many moments where it was hard and tough," he admitted. "But me personally, I never doubted that the decision we made was the right decision."
Facebook, Microsoft and Magic Leap are already exploring goggles and glasses that aim to blend the virtual and real, with more headsets coming in the future using Qualcomm chips. But Apple's AR mission right now, according to Mike Rockwell, Apple's head of AR, and Allessandra McGinnis, its senior product manager for AR, is to make everything work better on the device you already have in your pocket. Layering AR with real-world locations and popping up experiences automatically, while making creative tools and developing assistive tech based on AR's capabilities, could, in the long run, become the biggest killer apps.
"AR has enormous potential to be helpful to folks in their lives across devices that exist today, and devices that may exist tomorrow, but we've got to make sure that it is successful," Rockwell says. "For us, the best way to do that is to enable our device ecosystem, so that it is a healthy and profitable place for people to invest their time and effort."
Apple has criticised Facebook for trying to “collect as much data as possible” from users, saying it will push ahead with its planned launch of a new privacy feature despite objections from the advertising industry.
The company’s director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, made the criticism in a letter to a coalition of privacy groups, reassuring them that the feature, which will require users to actively allow developers to track how they use other apps, would still be launched.
Despite the uncertainties posed around Apple’s new framework, this move from the company is a step in the right direction. However, what users truly need is a solution to take back control over their data and manage it independently on an ongoing basis. Users should be able to quickly figure out which apps access every type of personal information, how they use it, whether or not these apps sell this information, and more. They should also have the tools to shut down any app’s access to their data anytime, no questions asked.
Microsoft and Apple are working together so the new Xbox Series X and Series S controllers will work on iPhones and iPads. Currently, the new controllers are not officially supported in iOS or iPadOS, but Apple says “Microsoft and Apple are working together to bring compatibility for the Xbox Series X controller to customers in a future update.”
For all of that, I’m here to tell you that the HomePod mini is great, and in many ways, better than the full-size HomePod. This is a case where I’d argue that Apple has made the right trade-offs—at least, if it’s goal is to make the HomePod popular.
Apple on Friday quietly released the hotly anticipated Leather Sleeve with MagSafe support for all new iPhone 12 models, completing the rollout of a line of MagSafe accessories announced in October.
The Windows Migration Assistant can be used by Mac users to transfer data from a Windows PC running Windows. Moveable data includes pictures, documents, contacts, calendars, email accounts, and more.
The staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks with the company took place in private meetings, said Apple was one of many U.S. companies that oppose the bill as it’s written. They declined to disclose details on the specific provisions Apple was trying to knock down or change because they feared providing that knowledge would identify them to Apple. But they both characterized Apple’s effort as an attempt to water down the bill.
“What Apple would like is we all just sit and talk and not have any real consequences,” said Cathy Feingold, director of the international department for the AFL-CIO, which has supported the bill. “They’re shocked because it’s the first time where there could be some actual effective enforceability.”
By emphasizing that data, rather than market size, gives Amazon an unfair advantage, the EU authorities are addressing the core challenge of Big Tech: It’s not their market value or their aggressive acquisitions that undermine competition, it’s the access to mountains of data. Reducing their scale through forced divestitures or curtailing their ability to acquire will satisfy bloodlust and may marginally restore competition, but unless the data market is restructured, it may all be for naught.
Apple Inc. and other technology companies said confidential material they provided for the U.S. government’s antitrust probe of Alphabet Inc.’s Google should not be shared with the search giant’s in-house lawyers because the information is too sensitive.
I'm glad that there are, seemingly, an infinite number of podcasts and audiobooks that I can listen to. They are good in blocking my brain from having bad thoughts.
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Thanks for reading.