Apple

The lawsuit between Oracle and Google is inadvertently revealing some confidential information about the companies. It has already been disclosed that Google paid Apple a $1 billion fee in 2014 to keep Google as the default search provider for iOS Safari, as well as a revenue sharing agreement where Google gives a substantial portion of the iPhone search ad revenue to Apple.

Another lawyer from Oracle has also stated that Google has generated $22 billion in profit and $31 billion in revenue from Android in its lifetime, via Bloomberg. Although any number in the billions is impressive, it pales in comparison to Apple’s mobile platform profiteering. As highlighted by Quartz, Apple made more revenue from the iPhone in one single quarter, raking in $32 billion dollars worth of iPhone sales from July – September.

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According to several sources, the Catholic Church Pope, Pope Francis, is meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook today for a private discussion. The exact agenda for the meeting is unknown, but ‘Signor Timothy Donald Cook’ is booked in for 11.30 as shown in the photo. The meetup is likely related to visits the Pope has been receiving from other tech giants. Francis met Eric Schmidt, Alphabet (Google’s) chairman last week. It could just be a cordial exchange of greetings.

Sky News reporter Tom Cheshire says the Pope shares Cook’s strong stance on the environment and ecology. Both Pope and Cook are frequently named in the “world’s most important leaders” lists, so they do share some common ground in regard to influence.

Tim Cook now meeting the Pope, which has been in works for some time. Both very keen environmentalists.

— Tom Cheshire (@Chesh) January 22, 2016

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Earlier this evening, the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit revealed Android’s revenues and profits for the first time. The same case has now revealed that Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 as part of its ongoing deal to be the main search provider—as in the one that resides in the search bar by default—on iOS devices.

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According to a new report out of the Financial Times, Apple has hired one of the top virtual reality researchers in the United States to expedite its efforts in the platform. The report claims that Apple has recently hired Doug Bowman, who most recently was a computer science professor at Virginia Tech before taking a sabbatical. At Virginia Tech, he was the director of the university’s human-computer interaction center for around five years.

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With iOS 9 being out for nearly five months now, you would’ve expected all the top video apps to already be including picture-in-picture for the iPad. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case with YouTube and a few others. If you’re feeling the hurt from not being able to catch up on your favorite YouTuber’s latest videos while multitasking around your iPad, then check out CornerTube, a new YouTube utility app focused on PIP. CornerTube lets users quickly jump into videos on YouTube, all the while enabling that missing PIP feature. It gets even better once you start utilizing the included Today widget in Notification Center and Action extension in other apps.

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Apple this morning has announced its first iOS App Development Center for Europe. The facility will be located in Naples, Italy and offer a place for students to learn  who to develop iOS apps. The App Development Center will feature on-site teachers and a curriculum to facilitate a strong and diverse development community.

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With the introduction of the first beta of iOS 9.3, Apple introduced a new feature called Night Shift that adjusts the color temperature of your device’s display at night as to make it easier to fall asleep. One qualm many have had with the feature, however, is that you have to go into the Settings app to turn it on and off. Apple’s iOS 9.3 Canadian preview page, however, hints that it make become easier to enable the feature with future iOS 9.3 updates…

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Following its onslaught of music updates this morning, Apple this evening has rolled out updates to two more of its Mac audio apps. First is Logic Pro X, which has been bumped to version 10.2.1 with this evening’s update. Next is MainStage 3, which is now at version 3.2.3 thanks to its most recent update. Both apps have received a handful of new features, under-the-hood changes, and performance improvements with their respective updates.

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This week Zac and Benjamin talk about the new versions of iOS and OS X along with some changes for iAds and iTunes Radio plus how Beats 1 can be improved. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242927027″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

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Apple today released a brand new app for iOS devices called Music Memos that allows songwriters to quickly and easily record audio and develop song ideas.

Apple’s press release for the new app notes that Music Memos was inspired by the fact that many musicians have long used the iOS Voice Memos app as a way of quickly capturing ideas in audio on their iPhones and iPads:
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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.

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Apple wanting to expand its presence in India isn’t a new development, but according to a new report from the India Times, the company has recently taken a major step in accomplishing that goal. According to the report, Apple has just filed an application with the Indian government to open its own branded retail stores in the company.

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It was only a few months ago that the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus were made available, but rumors regarding the upcoming iPhone 7 have been circulating for several months now. Rumors have ranged from design changes to new software features to new hardware features and more. While it’s certainly possible that Apple could go all out and introduce every rumored feature with the iPhone 7, it’s likely some of the speculated features are either not real or will be held for future generation devices. So, we want to know, which of the rumored features has you most excited for the iPhone 7? Participate in the poll below and read on as we discuss each of the rumored features…

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There’s a new iOS 9.2.1 update within the Settings app awaiting all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users today. Apple released the first developer beta version of the software update in mid-December after shipping iOS 9.2 earlier in the month. The second iOS 9.2 beta was later released at the start of January. Apple has since started testing iOS 9.3 with developers and public beta testers.

As the version number suggests, iOS 9.2.1 so far hasn’t included any major feature changes or enhancements, and the official release notes only reference bug fixes, security improvements, and an MDM server issue fix.

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Recent software updates have really turned me on to the new Apple TV by adding features previously available on the last generation set-top box. The new Apple TV has redesigned apps and a whole App Store for finding new channels and games, a new Siri Remote with voice search that pulls in content from a handful of services, and there’s the full Apple Music experience too. The tvOS 9.1 update added Siri search for Apple Music ahead of schedule and brought support for Apple’s Remote app on iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches. The upcoming tvOS 9.2 update goes even further by bringing over an updated Podcasts app and adding app folders and a refreshed app switcher user interface. But there’s still just one more piece of low-hanging fruit left for the Apple TV to grab …

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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.

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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 …

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Over the weekend, Apple posted its latest EEO-1 statement: the Equal Employment Opportunity form follows government regulations to note diversity of Apple’s employee base (via AppleInsider). The newly-released 2015 statement shows that 30 percent of Apple’s employees in the United States are female, a rise of 1% over the numbers posted in the 2014 statement. Black and Hispanic employees make up 8.6 percent and 11.7 percent of the workforce, respectively.

At an executive level, Apple continues to be heavily stacked towards white men. The report says that Apple’s senior officials, executives and managers are 83 percent are male, and 83 percent are white.

That being said, it’s worth noting that Apple refutes the EEO-1 process. It says that the federally-enforced survey is outdated and does not reflect reality. The company’s own numbers paint itself in a much better light, claiming >50% growth in employment of black, Hispanic and female hires.

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According to a new investigation performed by Amnesty International, Apple is one of several technology companies using cobalt mined by child labor in their lithium-ion batteries. The report claims that Apple, Sony, Samsung, and Microsoft are all using the cobalt mined by child labor, as are electric car makes like Volkswagen and Daimler.

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2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump today held a rally at Liberty University in Virginia during which he spoke about his normal wide range of topics. This time, however, Trump brought Apple into his speech when discussing how to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and away from countries like China.

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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.

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