AppleInsider News
This Office for Mac license is on sale for $39.99
Ringing in as a top software deal leading up to Black Friday, Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Business 2021 is discounted to $39.99 for a limited time only.
To take advantage of the discounted price, simply shop through this activation link. No subscription is required, making the offer a great way to score the Office suite of tools without having to manage a monthly subscription.
Credit: Twitter
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Elon Musk has officially completed his acquisition of Twitter, and his first order of business was to “clean house.”
The on-again, off-again story of Musk buying the social media platform has finally concluded, with Musk taking control of the company in the final days of October.
On Tuesday, Musk began moving ahead with his acquisition of Twitter, a deal that has been up in the air for months. He pledged to provide $46.5 billion in equity and debt financing, covering the acquisition price and closing costs.
On Wednesday, he was spotted on Twitter’s campus speaking to engineers and executives. By Thursday, he closed the deal to buy the social media platform.
However, the transfer of power has been anything but peaceful. According to The New York Times, four top executives were fired on Thursday, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and former general counsel Sean Edgett.
Musk has also claimed that substantial layoffs could be necessary to limit Twitter’s operational costs.
The billionaire plans to radically overhaul how Twitter is managed in the name of free speech. He has stated that he would reverse the permanent ban of former President Donald J. Trump from the service.
He’s also suggested that he’d transform Twitter into an “everything app,” which would be called X.
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022
He told investors Twitter would reach an annual revenue of $26.4 billion and have over 930 million users by 2028.
In 2021, Twitter had an annual revenue of just over $5 billion and around 200 million users.
However, Musk decided to back out of the deal in July, claiming that Twitter lied about the number of fake accounts on the platform. That same month, Twitter sued Musk in an attempt to force the billionaire to acquire the platform at full price.
Save up to $800 on MacBook Pros.
Delivering record-low prices in many instances, Apple resellers are pulling out all the stops in an effort to capture your business before Black Friday.
The AppleInsider Price Guide is tracking even more aggressive markdowns on MacBook Pros at Apple Authorized Reseller B&H this week, with 86 configurations discounted by as much as $800. The configurations range from a simple bump up in storage all the way up to tricked-out M1 Max models with 64GB of memory.
You can further extend the savings at B&H Photo with the Payboo Card, which delivers a sales tax refund in select states or no-interest financing options. With the sales tax refund, shoppers can put anywhere from $150 to $425 back in your wallet on the MacBook Pros below using an average sales tax rate of 8%.
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Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing confirms that Apple will swap out the Lightning connector for USB-C to comply with EU regulations.
Greg Joswiak, known as “Joz,” spoke at the Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Live event on Tuesday evening.
He said Apple agreed with the European Union’s decision to require a standardized charger for consumer devices.
“We’ll have to comply,” he stated.
On Monday, the European Union gave its final approval to the standard charger directive, a plan that will force Apple and other electronics producers to use USB-C by the end of 2024.
The hope is that the move will improve consumer convenience and reduce electronic waste significantly.
A new report claims that the forthcoming iPhone 15 range will switch to USB-C charging, and that Apple will still produce four models, with bigger feature differences than the iPhone 14 family has.
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Third-party MagSafe chargers are about to become much more varied, as Apple is now offering an updated MagSafe module to manufacturers that isn’t the bright white circle that has been standard since launch.
To date, accessory makers have expressed frustration to AppleInsider about their lack of ability to create MagSafe chargers with other colors or different surface materials. They all have to have a white silicone charging surface which doesn’t always mesh with a product’s aesthetic.
That is about to change.
AppleInsider has been able to confirm that Apple has made some changes to its MFi program and introduced a new MagSafe module that can be covered and styled with different materials.
Any third-party manufacturer that hopes to create an accessory that uses any of Apple’s connectivity methods needs to use Apple’s official components and complete a rigorous certification process.
Consider the Apple Watch charging puck — Apple supplies the proprietary charging module directly to the manufacturers to build into their products. And, the same goes for the Lightning connector.
Then Apple takes the product and runs it through various safety and performance tests before certifying it and assigning it a dedicated ID.
Apple’s coveted MFi branding logos
This ensures the charger is safe for your device, performs to Apple’s standards, and is the same quality as if you’re buying from Apple directly. You’ll know one of these tested and certified devices by the tell-tale Made for iPhone (or Made for Apple Watch) logo on the side of the box.
Manufacturers go to great lengths — and significant expense — to get this badge of honor and is a sign of reliability to consumers.
Because MagSafe falls into this category, until recently Apple-certified MagSafe chargers to date have the same bright white, soft-touch, MagSafe surface. The charger you get from Nomad or Belkin works, looks, and feels just like Apple’s but with a different design.
With MagSafe, things can be confusing. Apple offers two methods of wirelessly charging iPhones with users having the choice between Qi and MagSafe.
MagSafe components
If you’ve ever come across a magnetic wireless charger that doesn’t carry the Made for iPhone badge, it’s just a 7.5W Qi charger with a ring of magnets. This differs from MagSafe which can charge at up to 15W.
Now, Apple is introducing a new official MFi MagSafe component. As it is an official part, it has fast charging speeds but Apple will now allow the charging surface to be covered.
This will pave the way for a whole new world of MagSafe chargers that don’t have to be stark white and instead can be styled in all sorts of different ways. We can have MagSafe with dark profiles, premium leather surfaces, or covered in fun patterns.
Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe
We’ve already seen the first of these chargers in Anker’s new 3-in-1 MagSafe cube. This ditches the white circle for a more seamless top surface with a raised rubber ring.
This is the only MagSafe charger that delivers 15W of power with a non-white surface. Other accessory makers that have spoken to AppleInsider with the promise of anonymity have said they’re already working on new devices with hidden MagSafe chargers.
MagSafe didn’t gain any new features with the iPhone 14 series but at least accessories will be getting a whole new look.
Tim Cook waving the checkered flag at the U.S. Grand Prix.
Apple CEO Tim Cook made an unexpected appearance at the U.S. Grand Prix on Sunday, waving the checkered flag at the finishing line in an unusually slow manner.
The Formula 1 United States Grand Prix took place on Sunday, held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. After 56 laps of racing, the checkered flag was waved by none other than Tim Cook.
Cook was one of the famous faces in attendance at the race, which also saw Shaquille O’Neal, Brad Pitt, Serena Williams, and Ed Sheeran at the venue. However, Cook was the one to hold and wave the flag at the end.
The CEO was shown holding and waving the flag on ESPN, wearing a dark polo shirt and sunglasses, however he did quickly become the target of ridicule from online critics. Rather than a fast or enthusiastic waving, Cook is shown to be gingerly and slowly moving the flag from side to side.
Commentary was quickly inbound on Twitter, suggesting that someone tell Cook he’s “not surrendering in a war,” and declaring “Hey grandpa, calm down.” Even ESPN joined in the fun with its social postings.
The race saw Max Verstappen pass Lewis Hamilton to win the race, his 13th for the year, and equalling the record for number of wins in a season.
Apple CEO Tim Cook with U2 in 2014
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U2 frontman Bono takes the blame for the ill-fated iTunes album giveaway of 2014, an extract from his memoir reveals, but while Apple took heat for the endeavor, CEO Tim Cook apparently wasn’t fazed by the response at all.
Apple’s gift of a free copy of the U2 album “Songs of Innocence” was seen as a massive blunder for the music-selling service, with complaints from many forcing Apple to come up with instructions to remove the album from user libraries.
In extracts from Bono’s memoir “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” published in The Guardian, the rock frontman recounts meetings between the band and Apple executives in 2014. In the meeting, Bono spoke with manager Guy Oseary, Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller, and Tim Cook, with the suggestion of a giveaway being from Bono’s side of the table.
“You want to give this music away free? But the whole point of what we’re trying to do at Apple is to not give away music free. The point is to make sure musicians get paid,” Bono was told.
Bono instead insisted that Apple should pay U2, but then give it away as a gift. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?,” he added. When Cook pressed, Bono compared it to how “Netflix buys the movie and gives it away to subscribers.”
“But we’re not a subscription organization,” Cook fired back, before Bono offered “Not yet. Let ours be the first.”
Cook was apparently still skeptical about the deal, and asked further if this was just to those who liked U2. “I think we should give it away to everybody,” Bono proposed, “I mean, it’s their choice whether they want to listen to it.”
On the reception the album had, Bono states he takes full responsibility. “Not Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue.” Bono believed that if the music was made available for listening, people “might choose to reach out toward it.”
Bono has previously apologized for the incident, which saw automatic downloads of the album to millions of users, in the weeks after it occurred.
“At first I thought this was just an internet squall. We were Santa Claus and we’d knocked a few bricks out as we went down the chimney with our bag of songs,” he offers. “But quite quickly we realized we’d bumped into a serious discussion about the access of big tech to our lives.”
Bono takes a moment to commend Cook on his actions afterward. “You talked us into an experiment,” the CEO said to the rockstar. “We ran with it. It may not have worked, but we have to experiment, because the music business in its present form is not working for everyone.”
Bono then points out the “probably instinctively conservative” leadership style of Cook, and that while he wanted to try and solve a problem, he was still ready to take responsibility.
The extract also discusses another Apple CEO interaction ten years prior, with Bono and Edge visiting Steve Jobs with Jimmy Iovine in tow. While U2 didn’t do commercials, it was proposed that the band was a good fit for Apple’s ad style at the time.
For remuneration, Jobs didn’t think Apple had the budget such a band would expect. Bono countered by saying they just wanted to be in the commercial, however while the band wasn’t looking for cash, they suggested a “symbolic amount” of Apple stock, though Jobs called it a “dealbreaker.”
As an alternative, a customized U2 iPod in black and red was suggested, though Jobs insisted “You wouldn’t want a black one. I can show you what it would look like, but you will not like it.”
Later, after the band were shown the first version and found it favorable, design chief Jony Ive was invited to look at the device’s design a second time. Eventually, the special edition iPod in red and black saw public release.
Apple Watch
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A young girl’s family credits the Apple Watch’s heart monitoring features with saving her life — by helping to discover cancer rarely seen in children.
One evening, Imani Mile’s Apple Watch began alerting the 12-year-old to an abnormally high heart rate.
Mile’s mom, Jessica Kitchen, took her to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with appendicitis. During the procedure, they discovered a neuroendocrine in her appendix, which is rarely seen in children.
The doctors then learned that the cancer had already spread to other parts of Mile’s body. She had surgery at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital to remove the remaining cancer.
“If she didn’t have that watch, it could have been so much worse,” Kitchen told Hour Detroit.
In July, the Apple Watch helped doctors discover a rare tumor in a woman’s heart after she received multiple warnings that her heart was in atrial fibrillation.
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Apple users who are paying for the YouTube Premium Family Plan via in-app purchase will see a substantial price hike on top of an already steep increase for the service.
YouTube has begun informing customers that they will see a price hike on YouTube Premium family subscriptions starting November 21. The subscription will jump from $17.99 to $22.99.
However, it seems that those who subscribe through the App Store will be hit even harder. Instead of paying $22.99 per month, they’ll pay $29.99 per month.
For many years, YouTube has been charging Apple customers paying with in-app purchases extra for YouTube Premium. The company is now explicitly saying that that it charges more to offset the 30% or 15% cut Apple takes from in-app purchases.
This may be the first time that the company is clear in the subscription dialog that the service is cheaper on the website itself, though.
YouTube was testing a program where it limited 4K video to Premium subscribers. That test has been stopped without any clarity from the service what its future intentions are regarding 4K video.
Credit: Tesla
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During Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk is re-upping previous claims that the company could at some point “far exceed Apple’s current market cap.”
Tesla announced quarterly earnings after the bell on Wednesday. While Tesla didn’t meet its revenue expectations for Q3 2022, it did beat its own earnings expectations.
After the results were released, Musk announced that the company’s board discussed a share buyback program of between $5 to $10 billion. However, the plan hasn’t been finalized yet.
Musk also discussed Tesla’s valuation — which currently sits at $700 billion.
“A while ago,” Musk said on Wednesday, “I said on an earnings call that I thought it was possible for Tesla to be worth more than Apple, which was worth $700 billion at the time.”
A “while ago” refers to May 2017. Apple was worth $772 billion when the remark was made, and Tesla trailed at $51 billion. Apple is now valued at $2.3 trillion and is currently considered the most valuable company in the world.
“Now I’m of the opinion that we can far exceed Apple’s current market cap,” he continued. “I see a path for Tesla to be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined.”
Saudi Aramco, a petroleum and natural gas company, has a current value of $2 trillion. In May, the company briefly surpassed Apple as the most valuable company in the world.
Tesla’s stock is down more than 5% after Wednesday’s earnings call. It started the year at $399.93 and is not presently at the year-low, but isn’t far away from it, amidst a large tech stock contraction.
Musk has most recently been in the financial and tech news for his on-again, off-again Twitter deal. At present, it appears that the new terms of the deal may be completed soon — but a chancery court deadline for the package is approaching.
