The Ottawa Business Journal is reporting that Apple has leased a 22,000 ft space in Kanata, Ontario. Notably, the location is in close proximity to the BlackBerry QNX offices. Whether Apple is interested in attracting QNX employees for itself is not clear. It is definitely possible that the geography is coincidental. However, QNX is known to be working on autonomous driving and Apple may want to take some of this engineering talent for its own Apple Car research.
California is now presenting a new bill that, if passed into law, would stop Apple from selling iPhones on its home turf, via ZDNet. The bill requires smartphone manufacturers to sell devices that have backdoors to allow them to be decrypted. Naturally, this affects iPhones which use high-strength security methods and make it practically impossible for anyone including Apple to gain access without the passcode. If this proposed bill sounds familiar, there’s a reason for that. A nearly identical proposition was made in New York state earlier in the month.
Although the bill is only being proposed and isn’t law at this time, it poses a big issue for Apple which is facing pressure from politicians across the US to relax its stance on privacy in favor of security. The California case is especially problematic given the location of Apple’s HQ. It would be very awkward if Apple was barred from selling iPhones in the state where they’re designed.
iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has posted a $5.3 billion bid to buy Sharp, the Japanese display manufacturer who has faced financial difficulties in recent years. iPhone displays are currently manufactured by Sharp, Samsung and LG and assembled at Foxconn’s plant. A successful Sharp purchase puts Foxconn in the position to make iPhone display components, going beyond assembly.
According to data from Counterpoint Research, iPhone sales in India are booming. Apple reportedly shipped 800,000 units in the December quarter to the country, up from 500,000 a year ago. Apple has been aggressively promoting their phones with substantial discounts to sustain sales, given high prices for iPhone 6s in India (via Economic Times).
Even with price cuts, that 800,000 number is composed of older iPhone models too. The report indicates that iPhone 5s was responsible for 30% of the sales numbers. About half of the 800k number are made up of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Siri percolated throughout all of Apple’s platforms in 2015. It started with iPhone in 2011, iPad in 2012, debuted on Apple Watch in early 2015 and Apple TV with the new model a few months ago. It’s quickly becoming a premier feature on these platforms, with live-as-you-speak transcription and radically new features like ‘Remind me about this’ contextual tasks when inside apps. Except for one platform of course. Mac OS X has been ignored and left abandoned with regards to true voice searching and Siri. It’s 2016, and I want Apple to bring Siri to the Mac.
The iRig Keys Mini is an electronic MIDI music keyboard that connects to iPhone and iPad with a Lightning cable. Although it isn’t regularly advertised, iPhones and iPads have had great support for MIDI input instruments and other devices for a long time. Since iOS 4 in fact, Apple gave the developers the ability to interact with MIDI peripherals. Simultaneously, the App Store has bloomed a wide ecosystem of sophisticated music creation and audio production apps. This makes for a perfect storm of capability and functionality: not only are MIDI accessories possible, they can really be used to make music on iPhone and iPad.
Rumors of Apple Car (codename ‘Project Titan’) continue to swirl and there’s plenty time left for Apple to solidify or change its plans, given the expected launch of the new automobile is still five years away. However, that isn’t stopping car company executives weighing in on the rumors. Whilst GM execs diss the idea of Apple investing in an electric car as a ‘gigantic money pit’, an executive from Ford seems enthused by the prospect. In an interview with Trusted Reviews, Don Butler, Executive Director for Ford Connected Vehicles, said that they welcome competition and thinks technology companies can pull it off.
“We welcome others joining. We welcome the activity that’s in the space. We think it’s exciting. It’s actually changed that we are embracing,” said Butler, speaking to TrustedReviews at the CES 2016 tradeshow in Las Vegas. “So I think Apple can do it. I think Google can do it.”
Watch the full interview in the video after the break …
It’s easy to miss out on sports entertainment when you cut the cord and just rely on Apple TV, but ESPN president John Skipper tells The Wall Street Journal that may change in 2016. When asked about the potential streaming network Apple reportedly hopes to offer on its set-top box, the ESPN exec says that Apple has been “frustrated” with the process of building a service but that ESPN has been in past talks and continues to work with the company:
Apple continues to talk high praise of Apple Music, most recently leaking that the service has 10 million paying subscribers, but it has remained somewhat quiet about its Beats 1 online 24/7 radio station. Beats 1 launched to much fanfare with Zane Lowe leading the effort, and while it seems to be doing decently, it isn’t a sensation in the music business yet. It’s especially timely to talk about Beats 1 now that Apple has retired the iTunes Radio ad-supported stations, leaving Beats 1 as the only way to get free streaming music from Apple. I’m intrigued by the uptake of the station — there’s a poll to find out how often you tune in below the break — as it seems Beats 1 has an awareness issue.
I tend to like the music that is played but I just forget to tune in. I think Beats 1 is good but Apple needs to support it better within iOS and iTunes to make it stickier. Here are some suggestions …
The Super Bowl kicks off on February 7th at Levi’s Stadium, in close vicinity to the headquarters of major tech firms including Apple. Usually, the Super Bowl is funded by local government sponsorships. This year, tech companies are (at least partially) footing the bill. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has contributed free products and equipment to the host committee and has explicitly declined any company or product marketing in exchange. Apple joins other tech companies like Alphabet, Yahoo, Seagate and HP in funding the proceedings — the Super Bowl committee has raised about $50 million in total from these firms.
Apple has finally managed to secure a sales ban over some Samsung phone features that infringe on its patents and intellectual property. However, the victory is effectively meaningless despite the milestone in its continuing patent litigation suit with Samsung in ever-longer court battles.
Apple’s ban resides over three features encumbered by its patents: the controversial ‘slide to unlock’ patent, predictive text technology and autocorrect. Getting a ban is a huge symbolic achievement, but the effect it will have on day-to-day business of the two companies is minor. The ban is effectively useless as FOSS Patents explains …
CBC News is reporting that Apple would not disclose Apple ID passwords to a widow after presenting her late husband’s death certificates and her will. Instead, Apple demanded Peggy Bush, 72, to attain a court order in order to gain access to the account. See the video after the jump for the full story.
Initially, Apple said that a death certificate would suffice but the company changed its mind on followup calls, making this situation even more frustrating for Bush. She just wanted to play her iPad freemium card game in peace. Law regarding digital assets after death is murky, although Bush points out that death certificates enabled her to transfer pensions and benefits, making it seem ridiculous that Apple would also not cooperate with the same information.
Apple has notified developers that App Store prices in Canada, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and South Africa are increasing. Customers in these regions will see prices for apps and in-app purchases rise within the next 72 hours. If you have a renewing subscription, Apple will notify you with an email about the price change ahead of the next subscription payment, although customers in Russia and South Africa will have to resubscribe manually.
Last week, Apple was at the heart of a conversation during the Republican presidential debate over encryption and national security. Candidates such as Jeb Bush explained that, even if companies like Apple aren’t willing to give up user data, the government has “got to keep asking because this is a hugely important issue.” Last night, NBC held a Democratic presidential debate out of South Carolina, and once again, encryption and technology’s role in national security were hot button issues during the debate.
Today, WhatsApp has announced a pretty major shift in its business model. The popular chat client is going completely free. Facebook-owned WhatsApp used to run on a trial model: users could use the app for free for a year. Subsequent years would cost $0.99 cents each. The paid model notably made WhatsApp stand out from the crowd, as almost every other social networking is free to use from the customer perspective. Although WhatsApp will stop charging customers from today, it will take a few weeks for the payment UI in apps to go away as app updates roll out to the store.
WhatsApp says although a 0.99 cent charge is not onerous, it prevented growth as a lot of customers do not have access to credit cards. This is its major motivation for taking out the annual revenue model. Naturally, users of WhatsApp will wonder how the application plans to monetize going forward ….
February update: We have followed up with Apple numerous times since this original post for more clarification and have finally received a firm answer to explain the situation. The whole of the iAd network is going away — developers will not be able to include any ad banners in their apps after June 30. Developers will have to find a new ad company to continue monetizing their apps using ads, as iAd will no longer function. Original story below …
On its developer news blog, Apple has announced that it is closing the iAd App Network on June 30th. Targeted at smaller publishers, the iAd App Network let developers pay reduced rates to feature advertisements for their own App Store apps across the iAd publisher network.
The news follows a report from Buzzfeed that Apple is closing iAd campaign sales and converting all inventory to automated system. Apple says that if developers want to keep advertising on iAd until that time, they have to make a campaign from scratch using iAd Workbench. New apps will not be accepted into the iAd App Network Program.
Apple’s strongposition on privacy and encryption has been at odds with the United States government’s pressure to step up its national security efforts in the wake of recent terrorist attacks across the globe. In short, iPhones are encrypted to protect customer data from prying eyes, and law enforcement agencies believe that gives criminals a safe haven for communication that can’t be traced.
The Obama administration including the former and current attorney general and FBI director have strongly voiced opposition to Apple’s position, and Tim Cook reportedly pressed the White House to back strong encryption as recently as this week. So it’s no surprise that Tim Cook and Apple came up at the end of last night’s Republican presidential debate hosted by the Fox Business channel where at least one candidate was asked to address his position on the subject.
The New York Post reports that Apple is closely following the situation with Time Warner; the company is facing pressure from investors to put itself up for sale and Apple is interested in acquiring it. Many investors believe Time Warner stock is trading far below its asset value and many investors believe that a buyout or spinoff of some kind is the best option.
Apple could use the company to accelerate its efforts to launch a digital streaming cable service for Apple TV. Time Warner controls a vast content library, including popular shows like Game of Thrones as well as entities like CNN News. More importantly perhaps, it has deals in place with every channel that Apple would need to become a full TV platform.
Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has struggled to create a skinny bundle of programming from existing content partners. A deal with Time Warner would give Apple most of what it needs: CNN news, Turner Sports and such hugely popular shows as “Game of Thrones” and “Sesame Street” from HBO — not to mention Warner Bros. movies and TV shows.
Although there is a chance Apple could buyout the whole company, Time Warner may end up spinning off parts of the business, although the CEO is resistant.
If you’re feeling jealous of any friends grandfathered into an existing AT&T unlimited data plan (especially since ‘unlimited’ was redefined from ‘5GB before throttling kicks in’ to ’22GB before throttling if congested’), the company has good news: it is launching a brand new version of unlimited data tomorrow.
Pricing starts at $100/month for a single line, plus $40 for each individual line. Unfortunately, there’s bad news too. As The Verge notes, there are some pretty big catches – the biggest of which is that you need to be a DirecTV or U-Verse subscriber to even be eligible, which of course adds to the cost if you don’t already have a subscription …
[Update 1/11: This is one rumor Apple is happy to deny. Here’s a statement to Buzzfeed:“There is no truth to this rumor,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “We are entirely focused on switching users from Android to iPhone, and that is going great.”]
Apple launched a Move to iOS app in September, pictured, that enables Android users to quickly transfer documents, photos, contacts and other personal data to a new iPhone. This eases the pain for Android users to switch to iOS, which clearly benefits Apple. Interestingly, the Telegraph is reporting that Apple is now developing a similar tool that goes in the opposite direction, letting iPhone users more easily transfer to Android devices.
The trend of carriers ending contract pricing continues today. According to an internal leaked document obtained by Android Central, Sprint smartphone subsidy options are now limited to customers who wish to add a line to an existing account or upgrade their existing phone. This move follows AT&T’s announcement that it will stop offering two-year contracts this week, as well as Verizon, who simplified its offerings last August.
At its CES keynote, Samsung announced that its Gear S2 smartwatches will come in two new metal finishes and will get iOS compatibility later this year.
Before Christmas, the Apple community spurred a huge controversy as Macotakara claimed that the iPhone 7 will ditch the 3.5 mm standard headphone port completely, to enable further thinness and internal space savings for other components. The 3.5mm jack is a hundred-year old technology based on analogue signals, so although it is ripe for replacement, almost all headphones sold today rely on the 3.5mm jack. Cutting the port for the iPhone 7 could be a painful transition. Today, the Chinese media has posted further news confirming the original story, claiming that Apple will drop the next-gen iPhone’s 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of wireless headphone standards and Lightning …
Apple has seeded the second beta of iOS 9.2.1 for developers and pre-release testers, a minor enhancement and bug fix release for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The new seed has a build number of 13D14, a small bump over the previous seed. iOS 9.2.1 was released to developers on December 16th. The same build is also available to Apple Beta Program members.
As always, we’ll update this post if we spot anything new and notable …
