Apple and Facebook representatives met with lawmakers today where senators pushed for the companies to compromise their users’ security by including encryption backdoors. In particular, Sen. Lindsey Graham said:
My advice to you is to get on with it. Because this time next year, if we haven’t found a way that you can live with, we will impose our will on you.
“Encryption backdoors for thee, but not for me.”
The Mac Pro and Pro XDR Display are now available to order from Apple.com. This is an update to the 2013 Mac Pro.
Throughout 2019, EU Lawmakers have regularly look at antitrust issues around so-called Big Tech. Reuters reported that they are likely to increase those efforts in 2020.
EU antitrust regulators are considering taking a tougher line against tech giants by forcing them to do more to ensure a level playing field, a senior European Commission official said on Tuesday, a move which could affect Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google. The four U.S. tech companies are currently in EU competition enforcers’ crosshairs, with rivals complaining about being shut out of key markets. The Commission has traditionally ordered companies to halt anti-competitive practices.
There has been much talk about Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra. Much of that has focussed on the effect in Western markets. However, Wired noted it could be a significant player in China.
In China, the vast majority of consumer commerce runs on WeChat, which has transitioned from a simple chat app to a platform for just about everything. Most of the rest of the world lacks this kind of fully integrated experience, which is hugely valuable to the platform, but also a great experience for consumers: the convenience, access and range of available services is unparalleled. Of course, the key to offering a fully-baked platform like this is scale, and Facebook has that in spades. The company has leveraged that scale time and again to launch new products to great success, even in cases where it lacks a first mover advantage. With Libra’s initial integration across WhatsApp and Messenger – and eventually, likely also Instagram – it could instantly be ready for use by billions.
iTunes and App Store customers are used to getting emailed receipts for their subscriptions and purchases. However, 9to5Mac reported that some users are no longer receiving them.
Apple has regularly sent email receipts for all digital purchases made in the App Store and iTunes, but that seems to have changed at some point recently. It seems likely that this is a bug rather than a purposeful feature change, though. A growing thread on Apple’s support website indicates that this problem has become rather widespread… The key here is that users are still being charged, they just aren’t receiving receipts for those charges. This can be rather confusing, especially when many users have multiple monthly subscriptions.
Tim Cook has been spending some time in Japan, he posted images of him meeting key suppliers, developers, creators, and an Apple Store.
The Apple Card Pay Monthly plan for iPhones is live, meaning users can purchase a new device, interest free, and pay for it over 24 months.
VSCO recently acquired Rylo, a company founded by two former Apple engineers who worked on iPhoto for iOS.
Apple is suing a former employee claiming he broke his employment agreement when he launched his own firm and hired former colleagues.
Apple is giving customers a special deal. Through December 31 you can get 6% cash back on Apple purchases, instead of the usual 3%.
The Federal Trade Commission is considering a revamp of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Google wants to help them change the rules, and asked the agency to eliminate rules that categorizes anyone watching kids content online as actual kids.
In September, Google agreed to pay US$170 million to the FTC to resolve claims that YouTube violated COPPA by serving targeted advertisements to children under 13…After the FTC settlement, YouTube told creators that they would have to identify when videos are aimed at children under 13. When that happens, YouTube now turns off ads that rely on web browsing behavior and other targeting data, which earn more for YouTube and creators.
Charlotte Henry is a London-based technical journalist. A self described media junkie, she writes about Apple – and now for the Mac Observer as well as our UK Associate Editor. She has also written for City A.M. (London’s daily business tabloid,) Computer Business Review, the Independent on Sunday and CapX. Her new book is: Not Buying It.
In this special holiday edition of BGM, Charlotte and I chat about our favorite Christmas movies and what makes them so great for us. There are also some honorable mentions. We finish with a diagnosis of Apple TV+ The Morning Show.
Sleeping computers are good, until they don’t wake up. Thankfully, John and Dave are here each week to answer your questions, including this one. But that’s not all! Listen for answers to questions about Apple Watch hourly chimes, registering Apple devices, and tips on using the camera adapter between two iPhones, opening windows in new tabs, and more. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things on this week’s episode of Mac Geek Gab.
While Yubico has a security key that plugs into your iPhone via Lightning, the app also supports NFC YubiKeys now.
Instead of storing the time-based one-time passcodes on a mobile phone or computer, Yubico Authenticator generates and stores one-time codes on the YubiKey. A user must present their physical key in order to receive the code for login. This not only eliminates security vulnerabilities associated with a multi-purpose computing device, but also offers an added layer of convenience for users that work between various machines.
Procreate is one of the most popular drawing apps on iOS, and it got a bunch of new features today with Procreate 5. Here are just some of them: Animation Assist helps you create rich illustrative animations, animatics and looping GIFs to share with others. Brush Studio lets you create your own brush has never been easier with the new seamless textures generator. An expanded Drawing Pad sets you free to experiment. Save a reset point at any time and keep on refining. You can also import ABR Photoshop brushes. The new Valkyrie engine gives artists the most flexible and versatile painting system on iPad. If you want to make a glazed brush that wet mixes, has color dynamics, and also has wet edges with burnt edges? You can. And all with Procreate’s trademark performance. App Store: US$9.99 (Offers In-App Purchases)
Swiss company Salt has launched an Apple TV remote alternative with more buttons and less touch pad.
Thanks to Apple’s input, the alternative remote doesn’t require any pairing with Apple TV and works out of the box. It includes directional arrows in place of the Siri Remote’s glass Touch surface, a power button in addition to a Menu button, along with separate volume and channel rockers and traditional media playback buttons.
Supposedly Apple even worked with Salt to create this.
Charlotte Henry and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to discuss alternate email apps on macOS and iOS, and John’s Mac Pro successor.
Redditor u/j1ggl did a test to compare Finder and Files using a folder of 2048 texture files. The folder was only 1MB, but iOS Files still handled different tasks way worse than Finder. For example, using the app’s built-in zip function, zipping the folder took 3 seconds with Finder and 38 seconds with Files. Unzipping took 7 seconds versus 42 seconds, respectively.
Conclusion: The Files app for iPhone/iPad is badly optimized and not ready to handle a larger amount of files, even though they take up just 1MB in total. It is also worth noting that the iPad required several reboots to even achieve the zipping and unzipping of the folder.
We have another opportunity for you to get a discount on the bundle of Mac apps called the 2020 Limited Edition Mac Bundle. This bundle has 13 Mac apps, including Parallels, iMazing, and TextExpander. You’ll also find PDF Expert, Windscribe VPN Pro, RapidWeaver 8, Disk Drill Pro, Aurora HDR 2019, and more. Which is probably why Stack Commerce has already sold 10,000 of these bundles. The 2020 Limited Edition Mac Bundle is $59.99 through our deal, but coupon code GREENMONDAY20 brings it down to $48.
A report suggests that Safari users are less valuable to advertisers due to the browser’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention technology.
Apple spy Jizhong Chen was changed with stealing files form Apple for a Chinese startup. But he also had a file from a missile program.
5G is on the way, probably including a compatible iPhone in 2020. ArsTechnica has a good rundown of the state of the rollout of the superfast network.
The first thing to know about 5G is that it’s a family affair—and a sometimes-dysfunctional one. Wireless carriers can deploy 5G over any of three different ranges of wireless frequencies, and one of them doesn’t work anything like today’s 4G frequencies. That’s also the one behind the most wild-eyed 5G forecasts. Millimeter-wave 5G occupies bands much higher than any used for 4G LTE today—24 gigahertz and up, far above the 2.5 GHz frequency of Sprint, hitherto the highest-frequency band in use by the major US carriers.
The 16-Inch MacBook Pro arrived with relatively very little fanfare. At Forbes, Ewen Spence asked why the device is not being more heavily promoted.
Following its launch event in October 2018 for the new MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro models, Tim Cook was expected by many to hold an October event. This could have amplified the launch of the iPhone 11, given the iPad a springboard into the festive gift-buying period, and allowed the 16-inch MacBook Pro a moment in limelight as the largest screened MacOS laptop launched in the last seven years. But there was no event. Apple declined to push forward its hardware, instead focusing on the launch of Apple TV – one of the many services that Apple’s management believe is the future for the company. Reinforcement of the iPhone 11 was not a necessity and Apple snuck out the seventh generation iPad in late September. It was the MacBook Pro that lost out on a significant push with the mainstream media.
Apple has received its first Golden Globes nominations for ‘The Morning Show’ in the Best Drama Series and Best Actress categories.
