Charlotte Henry

LONDON – The Apple Store in Bordeaux, France, was robbed and vandalized on Saturday by rioters involved in the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ movement. These protests were originally against a new motoring tax but have morphed into a larger movement. There have been protests in France over the last 4 weekends.  9to5Mac reported that protestors also damaged two Apple Stores in Paris, including the new Champs-Élysées flagship.

Apple Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux, France was robbed and looted Saturday night by French “yellow vest” protestors. The vandals smashed the store’s windows before flooding through the building and ripping MacBooks, iPhones, iPads and more from product tables. While the rioters refrained from completely destroying the property, the damage done will require extensive and time consuming repairs. By Sunday morning, plywood sheeting had been placed over the store’s windows to prevent further attacks.

LONDON – The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe brought the issue of data transparency to the fore. Not all firms handled this change as well as others. Apple, however, is an example of a company that improved its data transparency, launching a portal that made it easier for customers to find out what data the company has on them. The stance also had commercial benefits, according to IT Pro. Here’s a snippet:

Apple is a prime example of a major tech giant taking steps to improve data transparency for its users. It recently launched a portal where customers can sift through all the data the company has on them, and CEO Tim Cook has been very vocal about data protection. He recently called it a “fundamental human right” and commended the implementation of GDPR, calling on tech companies to not only embrace the spirit of the EU laws, but to support the introduction of similar legislation across the US.

Google announced that it is shutting down its Allo messaging app. Analyzing the development, Engadget’s Nick Summers noted that Allo “has struggled to coax users away from established messaging apps such as iMessage and Facebook Messenger.” The app will stop working in March 2019.

Google’s new lineup will be simpler, but not necessarily better. There’s a chance, of course, that every carrier and OEM will add RCS support before March 2019, making Messages a viable option. The uptake over the last seven months, however, doesn’t fill me with confidence. If RCS remains a niche, I’ll have to stick with Whatsapp to communicate with most people. Which is a shame, because I liked Allo and believe a semi-popular, Google-run messaging app could be good for the wider industry. It would give Apple and Facebook some much-needed competition in the West, at least.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber noticed something interesting when he was going through Apple’s Best of the Year awards. When talking about its iOS app of the year, Procreate, Apple had to explain how to Undo and Redo. This would not be necessary on a desktop – there are established conventions for these functions. While there are conventions iOS, they are not implemented with anywhere near the force they are on desktops and so for some apps something so seemingly basic required explanation.

What it comes down to, I think, is that the menu bar has become a vastly underestimated foundation of desktop computing. Once heralded, the menu bar is now seen as a vestige. I’m not arguing that iOS should have a Mac-style menu bar. I’m simply pointing out that without one, iOS is an 11-year-old platform that is still floundering to establish consistent conventions for some basic features, let alone complex ones, that are simple and obvious on the Mac.

There has been a lot of Apple Store news recently – from major new openings in Bangkok and Paris to makeovers at Covent Garden in London. On Tuesday, the Guardian published an interesting extract of an article that appeared in Logic, a new tech magazine. It puts forward a more uncomfortable view of life in an Apple Store and the psychology behind the hugely successful retail outlets.  I don’t buy the author’s argument entirely, but it certainly got me thinking.

When we think of “tech,” we rarely think of retail stores, and when we think of “tech workers” we rarely think of the low-waged “geniuses” who staff them. Most media coverage of tech companies encourages us to forget that the vast majority of their employees are not, in fact, coders in Silicon Valley: they’re the suicidal assemblers of your phone, the call-center support staff, the delivery drivers and the smiling shop floor staff who make up the majority of Apple’s workforce.

For years Apple led the race to be the world’s most valuable public company thanks to the huge profits it generated. However, powered by cloud computing, its competitors are now in hot pursuit. As Therese Poletti points out in her latest MarketWatch column, both Microsoft and Amazon have recently managed to take the lead, albeit briefly. Google-owner Alphabet is not far away either. The battle between “steady and solid cash and earnings” from Apple and potential growth from the cloud is then in full swing, but what will investors back?

Investors betting on Apple’s competitors for the top spot are not looking at results, however, as much as growth rates and tech trends. Namely, the growth of cloud computing, which is dominated by the other three companies at the top of the valuation list. The two companies closest to Apple’s spot are reporting huge growth in their cloud-computing businesses, where they offer cloud services for a huge range of customers, large and small. Staid old Microsoft, which has never been an official part of the much-vaunted FAANG grouping of tech stocks, surged into a zone of its own this year, propelled by hefty growth in the cloud.

Lightning to USB-C cables from third-party accessory makers look set to arrive in early 2019.  MacRumours has seen relevant. documentation that was given to Hong-Kong based website ChargerLabs. The paperwork indicated that firms in Apple’s Made for iPhone program should have the required parts by the middle of January 2019. This means the Lightning to USB-C products could arrive in shops in February or March.

Last week, Apple informed members of its Made for iPhone or “MFi” licensing program that Lightning to USB-C cables for charging and syncing are now permitted to be manufactured. These cables require a new Lightning connector with part number C94, which Made for iPhone program members can now order. Apple is selling the new Lightning connector to eligible hardware manufacturers for $2.88 per, and it is estimated to ship in six weeks, according to documentation shared with MacRumors by Hong Kong website ChargerLab.