MacRumors

Apple has filed a response to Spotify's anticompetitive complaint about the App Store in Europe, noting that Spotify pays Apple a 15 percent commission for only about 0.5 percent of its paying subscribers, according to CNET.

That figure equates to around 680,000 users who subscribed to Spotify through its iOS app, via Apple's in-app purchase system, between 2014 and 2016. This is because Apple only collects a 30 percent commission for the first year of a subscription, at which point the fee drops to 15 percent.

Apple's response comes three months after Spotify announced it had filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the European Commission over unfair ‌App Store‌ practices. Spotify took particular issue with Apple charging a 30 percent "tax" on ‌App Store‌ purchases, calling it "discriminatory":

Apple requires that certain apps pay a 30% fee for use of their in-app purchase system (IAP) – as is their prerogative. However, the reality is that the rules are not applied evenly across the board. Does Uber pay it? No. Deliveroo? No. Does Apple Music pay it? No. So Apple gives the advantage to its own services.

Apple only charges a commission on in-app purchases tied to digital goods, which is why apps like Uber and Deliveroo are exempt.

Apple also forbids Spotify and other developers from alerting users that they can sign up for a subscription or complete a purchase outside of its iOS app, and disallows Spotify from advertising deals to its customers in the app or by email, as these practices would circumvent Apple's in-app purchase system.

Apple has faced increasing scrutiny as of late over the way it runs its ‌App Store‌. In response, Apple said the App Store "welcomes competition," noting that it was created to be "a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps" and "a great business opportunity for all developers."

Apple previously labeled Spotify's complaint as "misleading rhetoric" and claimed that "Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free."

European Commission regulators will now review Apple's response as part of its probe.

At a recent event hosted by venture capital firm Village Global, highlighted by TechCrunch, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates lamented on losing to Android, calling it "one of the greatest mistakes of all time."

Skip to the 11:40 mark:

Transcript:

In the software world, it's very predictable for platforms. These are winner-take-all markets. The greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is. Android is the standard phone platform — non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. It really is winner take all. If you're there with half as many apps, or 90 percent as many apps, you're on your way to complete doom. There's room for exactly one non-Apple operating system. […]

It's amazing to me having made one of the greatest mistakes of all time… our other assets, Windows, Office, are still very strong… we are a leading company. If we'd gotten that right, we'd be the leading company.

In fairness to Gates, it was Steve Ballmer who served as Microsoft's CEO between 2000 and 2014. Ballmer infamously laughed off the iPhone, but Apple had the last laugh, as Windows Phone failed to ever gain any significant market share among mobile operating systems and is ultimately being abandoned.

Gates added that there is room for exactly one non-Apple mobile operating system, which is certainly the case as of today. Together, Android and iOS have an estimated 99.9 percent market share, according to research firm Gartner, having squeezed out former heavyweights like BlackBerry and Nokia.

Simply put, Apple upended the industry when it launched the ‌iPhone‌ in 2007, and Microsoft failed to respond. Windows Phone could have been the commoditized mobile platform, as Windows is to Mac, but Android won the battle.

Apple plans to release a 16-inch MacBook Pro in September, according to Jeff Lin, an analyst at research firm IHS Markit.

Lin believes the 16-inch display will be an LCD supplied by LG Display, with a resolution of 3,072×1,920 pixels, as outlined in IHS's latest Emerging PC Market Tracker report, published Thursday and obtained by Forbes.

For comparison, the 15-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ has a resolution of 2,880×1,800 pixels.

"We foresee that Apple will release a new product [at the] Sep'19 Apple event if there’s no unexpected development issue," Jeff Lin, Associate Director, Consumer Electronics at IHS Markit, said in an email, referring to the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Korean website The Elec recently reported that Samsung was in talks with Apple about supplying OLED displays for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but if the IHS Markit report is accurate, the notebook will have a LCD instead.

16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ rumors began with well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Back in February, he said the notebook would launch at some point in 2019 with an "all-new design," but he did not comment on which display technology the notebook would use or share any other details.

As would be expected, Lin claims the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ will feature a newer processor. No other details are known.

IHS Markit has an entire team dedicated to display-related research, with close ties to the supply chain, so this rumor carries some weight. The research firm accurately revealed the original 10.5-inch iPad Pro's resolution nearly four months in advance and also saw LTPO coming to the Apple Watch.

Apple has never unveiled new Macs at its annual iPhone event in September, often waiting for October instead. Either way, it sounds increasingly likely that a 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ is coming at some point this year.

Apple plans to refresh its MacBook Air lineup with faster processors in September, according to IHS Markit analyst Jeff Lin's latest Emerging PC Market Tracker report, published Thursday and shared by Forbes:

Apple is also expected to update the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro and Retina MacBook Air with the new MacOS Catalina and new processors in September, according to Lin.

Forbes also cites Lin as saying the 13-inch MacBook Pro receiving a processor refresh in September as well, which likely refers to the base model without the Touch Bar, dubbed the "MacBook Escape" for its physical Esc key. The 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ with Touch Bar just received a processor refresh in May.

The ‌MacBook Air‌ was last updated in October 2018, when it received a long-awaited Retina display, 8th-generation Intel Core processors, butterfly keyboard, larger trackpad, Touch ID, Thunderbolt 3 ports, new color options, and more.

Apple rarely refreshes any Macs in September, often waiting for October instead, but these would be fall updates either way. IHS has close ties to Apple's supply chain, having accurately revealed the original 10.5-inch iPad Pro's resolution nearly four months in advance and LTPO on the Apple Watch.

Lin also believes that Apple plans to release the rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro in September. Again, this could end up being October too, but it sounds increasingly likely that the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ is coming this year.

Apple today shared three new ads on its YouTube channel in Australia, highlighting iMessage encryption, App Store privacy, and iPhone recycling, as part of its ongoing "That's iPhone" marketing campaign around the world.

Apple also shared a new Shot on ‌iPhone‌ XS video and a companion behind-the-scenes video on its main YouTube channel on Saturday:

The video was shot on the ‌iPhone‌ by Donghoon Jun and James Thornton of Incite, in collaboration with WET, and commissioned by Apple.

When Apple has to make a difficult decision regarding an app in the App Store, its fate is determined in a meeting of a group called the Executive Review Board or ERB, led by Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller.

The detail was shared in a CNBC report on how the ‌App Store‌ works, which gives an inside look at Apple's ‌App Store‌ review team.

The Executive Review Board meets once per week and discusses controversial apps or iPhone apps that might be infringing on ‌App Store‌ guidelines, and it has the final word on whether an app can stay on the store or if it's going to be removed.

The ERB also creates the policies for Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations department, otherwise known as the App Review team that looks over every app submitted to the ‌App Store‌. Last year, the ERB was the team that decided to ban the controversial Infowars app from the ‌App Store‌ for violating Apple's content policies.

Apple runs multiple App Review teams around the world, and according to CNBC, recently opened up new offices in Cork, Ireland and Shanghai, China. Over the course of the last few years, hiring for the team has ramped up.

People on the app review team are paid hourly, have employee badges, and receive healthcare, like any other Apple employee with Apple opting to use a full in-house team rather than relying on contractors. The main App Review team is based out of an office in Sunnyvale, California, which is close to Apple's Cupertino campuses.

According to CNBC, new hires start out on ‌iPhone‌ apps, but as reviewers gain more experience, are able to evaluate apps with in-app purchases and subscriptions as well as Apple TV and Apple Watch apps. Each reviewer claims a batch of apps using a web portal, then checks over the app using an iPad (or Apple Watch or ‌Apple TV‌ for those apps). The app is compared to Apple's ‌App Store‌ guidelines, and reviewers decide whether to accept, reject, or hold the app.

Reviewers are expected to get through 50 to 100 apps per day, and evaluating most apps takes a short amount of time. Number of apps reviewed per hour is tracked by Apple, and they're also evaluated on whether or not review decisions are later overturned.

When an app is rejected, developers can appeal to the App Review Board, which is separate from the Executive Review Board, to get the decision overturned. Several appeals may eventually send an app to the ERB, though. Most apps are rejected for common reasons, but edge cases or apps that are publicly sensitive go to ‌Phil Schiller‌'s ERB for more careful evaluation.

Apple doesn't give apps from major companies special treatment, according to CNBC, and all apps are required to go through the same exact review process.

For more on how the ‌App Store‌ review process works, make sure to check out CNBC's full report.

Apple's upcoming Apple Card credit card is now being tested by both its corporate and retail employees ahead of a planned summer launch, and unsurprisingly, some images of the card have leaked out.

We already know what the ‌Apple Card‌ looks like thanks to Apple's promotional materials, but it's still interesting to see the design in person, with iMore sharing some photos provided by an Apple employee.

In person, the titanium card is as minimalist as it looks online, with the front featuring a simple embossed Apple logo, a chip, and a name, which in iMore's image, has been removed for privacy. There's no card number or expiration date included, nor is there a CVV on the back.

The ‌Apple Card‌ won't use a traditional card number, instead generating virtual card numbers and confirmation codes for purchases, which can be obtained from the Wallet app on the iPhone.

The back of the ‌Apple Card‌ is just as barren as the front, featuring embossed Goldman Sachs and Mastercard logos, along with a magstripe at the back. Goldman Sachs and Mastercard are Apple's ‌Apple Card‌ partners. For those curious, the ‌Apple Card‌ appears to weigh in at 14.75 grams.

Apple delivers the ‌Apple Card‌ in a plain white sleeve with an Apple logo on the front. The inside is multicolored, representing the different purchase categories that will be listed and colorized inside the Apple Wallet app when you make an ‌Apple Card‌ purchase.

According to iMore, Apple is approving people with a range of credit scores. A person with a credit rating between 600 and 700 was approved, though with a $1,000 credit limit. APRs range from 13.24 percent to 24.24 percent.

After applying for the card, it took the Apple employee iMore spoke to approximately one week to receive their ‌Apple Card‌.

Apple is planning to launch the ‌Apple Card‌ in the summer, and employees testing the card are running the iOS 12.4 update, which is currently in beta. Apple has seeded four betas of iOS 12.4 so far, and it's probably not too far off from release.

It's not clear if the ‌Apple Card‌ release will be tied to the launch of iOS 12.4, but it's certainly a possibility, and suggests the ‌Apple Card‌ is coming in the near future.

For more information on the upcoming ‌Apple Card‌, make sure to check out our full Apple Card guide.

Apple in iPadOS introduced some performance improvements between the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil, cutting latency from 20ms to 9ms with the new software.

Third-party developers who make apps that use the ‌Apple Pencil‌ will also be able to take advantage of some of these latency improvements, Apple software development chief Craig Federighi confirmed last week.

Federighi shared the information in a response to an email sent by Artstudio Pro developer Cladio Juliano, who tweeted what Federighi had to say last week. The info was highlighted today in a tweet by developer Steve Troughton-Smith.

In the email, Federighi explains that third-party developers have had access to predicted touches via UIKit since iOS 9, and with iOS 13, developers will receive the "latest and greatest" touch prediction advancements in minimizing PencilKit drawing latency.

Federighi explains just how Apple introduced the latency improvements, and he points out that there's a small gap of 4ms that developers won't have access to at the current time because Apple didn't have a way to safely expose the capability to developers. From Federighi's email:

Note that we achieve low latency through a combination of several techniques: Metal rendering optimizations, touch prediction, and mid-frame event processing. Third-party developers can achieve similar low-latency drawing experiences by taking advantage of Metal rendering and touch prediction best practices covered in the WWDC Sessions I've referenced below.

With these you can achieve nearly all of the improvements you've seen in PencilKit drawing with your own renderer. (There does remain a small gap: 4 ms of our improvement comes from a technique called mid-frame event processing; we are looking for ways to expose this capability to third party engines in the future, but for this year this one was only safely achievable through tight integration within our frameworks).

For developers, the WWDC sessions Federighi suggests include PencilKit, Adopting Predicted Touches, and Metal Performance Optimization.

In a nutshell, the information shared by Federighi confirms that third-party apps that take advantage of the ‌Apple Pencil‌ will be getting some of the same latency improvements that we'll be seeing when using the ‌Apple Pencil‌ within native functions like Markup.

The ‌Apple Pencil‌ latency improvements are built into iPadOS, the version of iOS 13 that is designed to run on the iPad. All of Apple's current iPads support the ‌Apple Pencil‌. ‌iPad Pro‌ models work with the ‌Apple Pencil‌ 2, while the 6th-generation ‌iPad‌, iPad mini, and iPad Air work with the original ‌Apple Pencil‌.

Samsung is the exclusive supplier of OLED displays for the iPhone X and newer, as part of a supply agreement with Apple. Due to fewer iPhone sales than anticipated in recent quarters, however, Apple has reportedly ordered fewer OLED displays from Samsung than both companies initially expected.

Due to the shortfall, Korea's ETNews reports that Apple now owes Samsung a penalty in the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead of paying cash, however, the report claims Apple has offered multiple options, including committing to OLED display orders for future products like "tablets and notebooks."

This aligns with a recent report from Korean site The Elec that claimed Samsung is in talks with Apple about supplying OLED displays for an all-new 16-inch MacBook Pro and future iPad Pro models.

We first heard about a potential 16-inch to 16.5-inch MacBook Pro from well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said the notebook will launch at some point in 2019 with an "all-new design," but he did not comment on which display technology the notebook will use or share any other details.

Kuo has also previously claimed that two new iPad Pro models will enter mass production between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, but again, he did not say which display technology the tablets will use.

Beyond that, Kuo expects Apple to launch several new products with Mini-LED backlights over the next two years, including a 10-inch to 12-inch iPad in late 2020 or early 2021 and a 15-inch to 17-inch MacBook in the first half of 2021, so it's unclear exactly how far away we are from the first OLED-based iPads and Macs.

Apple's transition to OLED started with the Apple Watch, followed by the ‌iPhone‌ X, so the iPad Pro and ‌MacBook Pro‌ would continue that natural progression of the technology from smaller to larger displays.

OLED displays could have several benefits for future ‌iPad Pro‌ and ‌MacBook Pro‌ models, including lower power consumption, increased brightness, sharper colors, and faster response times compared to LCDs. OLED panels are often thinner, too, which could lead to slimmer and lighter product designs.

AT&T is the fastest mobile network in the United States according to PCMag's latest annual mobile network comparison, which was released this morning.

For the test, PCMag employees drove through 30 cities and 25 states across the U.S. and ran more than 60,000 mobile speed tests to determine the speediest mobile network. The tests were conducted using Samsung Galaxy S10 devices on networks from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.

This year, AT&T edged out Verizon, the winner for the past five years, thanks to AT&T's focus on improving its LTE network in preparation for 5G technology. While all four networks improved overall on both speed and reliability compared to last year, AT&T improved a bit more than the others.

AT&T won or tied for first place in 15 of the 30 cities tested, and it tied or came out on top in all rural regions. AT&T was on top overall in the northwest, southwest, north central, and northeast, while Verizon won in the south central region and T-Mobile came out ahead in the southeast.

AT&T has been making improvements to its 4G network and has been labeling those 4G enhancements as "5GE," but really it's the same 4G LTE technology offered by other wireless companies as well. Still, these efforts to improve the 4G network ahead of 5G have led to overall speed boosts for AT&T customers.

The full results of PCMag's 2019 mobile carrier speed testing can be found over on the PCMag website.