Category: Apple Insider

By William Gallagher
Wednesday, July 10, 2019, 01:01 am PT (04:01 am ET)

Following a similar scheme in Bangalore, Apple has begun a Design and Development Accelerator program in Shanghai, which is designed to teach and support local developers.

Developers at Apple’s new Accelerator program in Shanghai

Apple has begun a series of lectures, workshops and networking sessions in the Pudong District of Shanghai as part of a program designed to help and support app developers in China. Called a Design and Development Accelerator, it sees local developers working alongside Apple experts.

“Developers here in China are leading the world with some of the most popular apps on the App Store, and we are proud to be providing this additional support for them,” said Enwei Xie, Apple’s head of developer relations, Greater China, in a statement.

“From education to health to entertainment, the innovation we see here is incredible,” he continued, “and we can’t wait to see what these talented developers will come up with next.”

The program is for developers across all of Apple’s platforms, and it began on Tuesday with a workshop dedicated to augmented reality. Alongside a lecture on ARKit 3, Apple provided one-to-one consultation sessions for attendees.

Apple says that Greater China has over 2.5 million app developers, and that since the 2010 launch of the App Store in the region, local developers have earned more than $29 billion. More than $10 billion of that was earned in the last year.

To attend the program, attendees must be registered members of the Apple Development Program and have an Apple ID registered in the region. Through Apple’s Developer site, they can then book sessions.

Apple has not said whether this is a short-term program, but it follows the similar App Accelerator scheme in India. That was launched in 2017 and is still running today.

This software development program comes as Apple, and very many other technology companies, are planning to move hardware production out of China.

By Amber Neely
Sunday, July 07, 2019, 02:22 pm PT (05:22 pm ET)

Bill Gates has spoken of Steve Jobs’ ability to mesmerize people an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS show, equating Jobs’ talent to magic.

According to Bloomberg, Bill Gates was impressed by Steve Jobs’ ability to take a firm that was “on a path to die” and turn it into one of the most valuable companies to date. He claimed that this was largely because Steve Jobs possessed an almost magical ability to mesmerize people.

“I was like a minor wizard because he would be casting spells, and I would see people mesmerized, but because I’m a minor wizard, the spells don’t work on me,” said Gates.

Gates also went on to discuss Jobs’ ability to innately understand what made both people and products a worthwhile investment.

“I have yet to meet any person who [could rival Jobs] in terms of picking talent, hyper-motivating that talent, and having a sense of design of, oh, this is good [or] this is not good,” Gates continued.

CNN’s segment is the latest in a series of interviews with many publications, in which Gates has spoken specifically about Apple. In one recent conversation, Gates expressed regret over not successfully competing with Apple in the mobile market.

“The greatest mistake is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is,” he said. “That is, Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform.”

CNN has not released the interview online yet, but has featured a prior Gates’ interview in which he discussed his thoughts on government regulation of technology firms, as well as what he would have done differently.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7O3oCWZgjE&w=560&h=315]

By Amber Neely
Saturday, July 06, 2019, 10:36 am PT (01:36 pm ET)

Mozilla, creator of the Firefox web browser, has begun testing the waters regarding a paid news subscription service it plans to offer later this year.

Mozilla has started probing users to gauge interest in a paid news subscription, stating that a user can “support the sites you love, avoid the ads you hate.”

The service, currently referred to as “Firefox Ad-free Internet” would be a direct competitor to Apple News+, which launched in March of this year, wrangling in over 200,000 subscriptions in the first 48 hours.

Mozilla has partnered with Scroll, an ad-free news startup to offer this service. Scroll is still in closed beta but says it has ad-free access to websites such as Vox, Gizmodo, The Verge, and Buzzfeed.

The service would include access to audio articles, bookmarks synced across devices, news recommendations, and a news-focused app. It also claims that it will work whether a user is reading news on mobile or desktop, suggesting that it will be tethered directly to the users Firefox account, allowing the service to be used on any browser they’ve signed into.

According to the teaser page, the service will cost $4.99 a month, which would undercut Apple News+ by about $5. The page includes a link to take a survey and be offered the ability to enter into the beta.

Silicon Valley monoliths Google and Facebook are once again facing government scrutiny over potential abuses of market power, with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority taking aim at the companies in a wide-reaching probe into online advertising platforms.

Source: Wikipedia

Announced on Wednesday, the CMA’s investigation, officially called a market study (PDF link), will concentrate specifically on Google and Facebook, both of which hold “leading positions” in the online advertising business, reports The Guardian.

The scope of the probe will assess market power of online platforms in consumer-facing markets, consumer control over data collection practices and competition in the supply of digital advertising in the UK, according to a synopsis.

“The market study will help us further lift the lid on how major online platforms work, especially how they collect and use personal data, how they monetize their content through digital advertising, and what this means for competition,” CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli said. “The findings from this work will be used to influence the direction of policy and regulation in the digital sector.”

The CMA believes that the probe’s concerns “might lead to direct consumer harm if firms are able to exploit consumers’ attention and data to earn excessive returns in digital advertising.” A more competitive market could yield circumstances in which consumers are paid for access to, or are granted better control over, their data.

CMA is operating on a call from Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to investigate the digital advertising market.

Hammond’s assignment is a response to recommendations outlined in an independent report prepared for the UK Treasury by Jason Furman, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. In his report, Furman found the market is “dominated by two players and suffers from a lack of transparency.”

The CMA is slated to file an interim report, which will include a determination as to whether a market investigation reference is needed, on Jan. 2, 2020. A final report is due on Jul. 2, 2020.

Google and Facebook are poster boys for unscrupulous consumer data collection tactics and have been the target of multiple international investigations.

Most recently, Google in March was fined $1.7 billion by the European Commission for favoring its AdSense platform in search engine adversing, adding to a previous $5 billion fine related to Android app restrictions.

In the U.S., Google faces an antitrust investigation from the Department of Justice. The sweeping probe also includes Facebook, Apple and Twitter.

Facebook is still embroiled in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the data of millions of users fall into the hands of the now-defunct consulting firm. The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices in March 2018, and the social network was bracing for an up to $5 billion fine for potential violations as recently as April.

By AppleInsider Staff
Tuesday, July 02, 2019, 09:49 pm PT (12:49 am ET)

Samsung has reportedly finished a redesign of its Galaxy Fold smartphone following an ignominious pre-launch promotional campaign that saw pre-release review hardware fail in droves.

Broken Galaxy Fold review unit. | Source: Steve Kovach via Twitter

According to people briefed on the matter, Samsung is in the final stages of producing a version of the Fold fit for commercial use, Bloomberg said in a report Tuesday.

The Korean tech giant spent the last two months tweaking the design of its folding smartphone after early review units succumbed to widespread screen failures.

Many reviewers found reliability issues with the 7.3-inch OLED panel, which folds along a central hinge line. After repeated folding and unfolding, users saw a noticeable crease in the display that brought with it corrupted graphics that in some cases resulted in one half of the panel becoming completely non-functional. Others attempted to remove a display layer they claim appeared to be a screen protector, breaking the OLED panel and rendering the device useless.

The unexpected hardware issues forced Samsung to call off a launch originally scheduled for April.

It seems Samsung is looking to combat user error by designing Fold’s top screen layer as a clearly integral part of the device. Sources say the “film” is stretched around the entire screen and continues into the outer bezels, making it impossible to remove by hand. Further, the hinge has been reconfigured to sit flush with the display, stretching the film when the device is opened.

With the added tension, the layer feels more like an original component rather than an accessory, the report said. The redesigned hinge mechanism might also prevent a crease from developing in the center of the screen.

Samsung will begin shipping components like the display and battery for final assembly in Vietnam in the near future, the report said. However, the redesigned Fold is unlikely to be ready in time for debut at Samsung’s upcoming Unpacked event on Aug. 7.

At Unpacked, Samsung is expected to unveil its next-generation Galaxy Note 10 phablet, a high-end device that stretches the boundary between smartphone and tablet. Rumors point to a multi-array camera system, 5G integration and a model that boasts a massive 6.75-inch screen.

News of the Fold’s redesign arrives some two weeks after Samsung Display Vice President Kim Seong-cheol at an industry conference said, “Most of the display problems have been ironed out” and that the device is “ready to hit market.” More recently, Samsung Electronics CEO D.J. Koh admitted the Fold was introduced prematurely.

“It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready,” Koh said in a statement this week. “I do admit I missed something on the foldable phone, but we are in the process of recovery.”