Apple has also followed Google’s lead in disabling live traffic and incident reporting in Ukraine, in collaboration with local authorities.
Cook also mentions that Apple has been in contact with “every employee” based in Ukraine, and is working to help them and their families. Internally, some employees have discussed getting their families out of Ukraine.
“Apple has chafed under some of the pressures that have been placed on it prior to this very acute conflict,” Barker says, noting that last year both Apple and Google removed jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's voting app from their app stores. Last year Apple also agreed to show an extra step during the setup process on iPhones sold in Russia that prompted users to download state-run apps.
In doing so, Apple was compromised against its “core company values,” Barker says. “The geopolitical environment was already becoming extremely hostile. And now, this even more kinetic geopolitical overlay just made it intolerable.”
Apple used to give nearly two weeks between an invite and event back when reporters needed to travel to Cupertino and needed time for travel arrangements. Since the pandemic has forced events to be online, Apple has moved to a week-long lead between the invite and the event, which means the spring event will either be next Wednesday or later in the month.
If you ask the personal assistant “What is going to be announced at the Apple Event?” Siri gives you this answer: “You can’t hurry news. No, you’ll just have to wait.”
Despite Tuesday passing without the expected Apple March event announcement, an iPhone SE '3rd generation' case has shown up online, possibly indicating Apple still plans to release the new device soon.
So, to an extent, Apple’s safeguards work, and improvements have been promised. However, in their current form, they’re not enough. I tested these features in a safe environment, with consent built into every step of the process. Even in my bubble, these safeguards had too many loopholes. These obviously need to be fixed, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s this: any solution, if one even exists, needs the input of those who understand abuse best.
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But despite this fact, many of the advocates we spoke to do feel that the release of AirTags is a net positive. Their hyper-accuracy makes them more effective than any key tracker has been before — but there’s also a huge amount of scrutiny on Apple that there isn’t on the myriad other companies selling such products on Amazon. The safeguards we recommend won’t just make AirTags safer; they’ll push competitors like Tile to follow their lead.
Users of Apple Maps in France can now report accidents as the feature introduced to the US in iOS 14.5 continues to be rolled out internationally.
To win the International Women’s Day award, Apple Watch users will need to complete a workout of any kind with a length of at least 20 minutes.
The app has one of strongest keyboard-driven editing cores I’ve seen for organizing your thoughts into outlines.
One Switch lives in your menu bar and provides — you guessed it — one click access to a variety of settings. The app is customizable and even comes with hot key customization, ensuring you don’t even need to click to toggle certain system settings.
FigJam is a whiteboarding tool that launched in early 2021 that allows folks within an organization (not just designers) to brainstorm and work together on projects.
Apple Inc. plans to begin testing vaccinated retail staff twice a week for Covid-19, a step toward dropping its mask requirement for employees.
The company announced the plan in a memo to U.S. retail staff Tuesday, changing a policy that had required vaccinated workers to test once a week. Unvaccinated staff had already been required to test twice weekly. At the same time, the company is now allowing employees to verify their results independently rather than providing proof.
The ACM should build a better story, a better case, and ultimately impose better remedies--remedies that can clearly be enforced in a way that makes a positive impact. Apple is playing sort of a legalistic game, but it's a pretty universal rule--which the European Commission is also perfectly aware of--that if someone has to comply with a ruling, anything counts as compliance that is not based on a wholly unreasonable interpretation or application of the underlying decision. The standard is not whether another position may make more sense. I would even agree that the ACM's apparent position on what Apple should be doing in the Dutch dating-app market is more reasonable than Apple's--but that doesn't make Apple's wholly unreasonable.
Plain text is un-commercial. It removes you from the world of subscriptions and hype. There will always be plenty of free, non-commercial software in the public domain for reading and editing text files.
Press releases, then?
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Thanks for reading.