Samsung's new Galaxy Buds, designed to compete with the AirPods, are launching this week. We got our hands on a set and thought we'd compare them with the AirPods to see just how Samsung's newest earbuds measure up to Apple's super popular product.
Like the AirPods, the Galaxy Buds are wire free, using Bluetooth to connect two separate ear pieces to a smartphone or other device. Samsung opted for a different design than Apple, though, using a pillbox-style case and a squatter, rounder design for the earbuds themselves to set the Galaxy Buds apart from the AirPods.
Apple's AirPods, as you probably know, have a distinct design with a stem that comes out of the ears and a square flip case that's been likened to a container of dental floss.
Samsung's Galaxy Buds come in white, black, and yellow, while the AirPods are limited to white at the current time. The Galaxy Buds have a simple, clean design with a USB-C charging port at the back and Samsung branding at the top. AirPods have no Apple branding and a Lightning port at the bottom, along with a reset button on the back.
Both cases hold their respective earbuds in place magnetically and offer additional charge, and we found both to be equally portable. The AirPods case does have a slight edge, though, because it better holds the AirPods in place thanks to a stronger magnetic grip.
No headphones are going to fit in everyone's ears, and some people may have problems with the AirPods, while others might have issues with the Galaxy Buds. We had problems with fit when it came to the Galaxy Buds and it was difficult for us to get a good seal. We didn't have that problem with the AirPods, but fit is something that varies from person to person.
With the Galaxy Wear app on a Samsung device, you can see battery level and choose different equalizer presets, a feature not offered on the AirPods. With AirPods, you can see battery level natively when paired with an iOS device, but there's no accompanying app for making adjustments to sound. The Galaxy Buds also have an ambient sound setting to better let you hear your surroundings, but we didn't notice a huge difference.
Samsung's Galaxy Buds support customizable gestures just like the AirPods do. A tap plays or pauses music, a double tap plays the next track or answers/ends a call, a triple tap plays the previous track, and a tap and hold accesses the voice assistant, turns on ambient sound, or adjusts the volume. On AirPods, many of these same gestures are supported, but there's no tap gesture for changing volume.
AirPods pair to an Apple device using a W1 chip that enables quick pairing and device switching, and on Samsung phones, there's a similar feature for the Galaxy Buds. You can pop open the case to do a quick pair with a Galaxy smartphone, and there's an easy switch feature for swapping the earbuds over to any other Galaxy device.
Apple limits this feature to the iPhones, and similarly, the easy pairing feature on the Galaxy Buds is limited to Samsung devices. There's no quick pairing when using the Galaxy Buds with Android devices or an iPhone, so you'll need to use regular Bluetooth.
With the AirPods, there's a neat feature that pauses the music when you remove an earbud from your ear, which is not available with the Galaxy Buds, but Samsung's earbuds do offer several features not available with the AirPods.
For one, there's wireless charging, so you can charge the Galaxy Buds using any Qi wireless charging accessory. When using the Galaxy Buds with a new S10 device, there's a PowerShare feature that lets the S10 charge the Galaxy Buds, which is both handy and cool.
There's actually a rumor that the 2019 iPhones could get a similar feature, so we may very well be able to charge that rumored wireless AirPods charging case that's in the works with a 2019 iPhone when September rolls around.
Samsung's Galaxy Buds are basically the AirPods of the Samsung ecosystem. You're probably not going to want to pick these up if you're an iPhone owner because the AirPods offer so many more benefits, but if you have a Samsung device, there are a lot of great features you can take advantage of.
Apple Music has become immensely popular since it launched in 2015, and now has over 60 million subscribers worldwide. So how does it stack up against ecommerce giant Amazon's rival premium streaming service in terms of features, music catalog, and cost? Keep reading to find out.
Amazon actually has two primary music services, so before we go any further it's worth explaining the difference. If you have an Amazon Prime membership, you already have access to Amazon Prime Music, as it's bundled in with the service. In fact, Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited are similar in many ways, so if you are a Prime member and you're interested in Amazon's standalone streaming service then it's worth getting to know Prime Music first.
Both services share the same interface and apps, and offer similar features like the ability to download songs, albums and playlists for offline listening. The main difference between the two offerings is the number of songs you have access to. Amazon Prime Music has two million songs in its catalog, but paying the extra for Amazon Music Unlimited gets you access to 50 million songs, including the majority of new releases.
Subscriptions and Plans
An individual Apple Music subscription costs $9.99 per month in the United States, with slight price variations in other countries and territories. Membership means you can stream Apple's music catalog, download music and videos for offline listening, and get access to new releases and exclusives, as well as a back catalog of shows broadcast on Apple's Beats 1 radio station.
The price you pay for an individual Amazon Music Unlimited subscription depends. If you're already an Amazon Prime member the streaming music service costs an additional $7.99 per month (or $79 per year). For Prime members who own an Amazon Echo, it's $3.99 per month, but the subscription is tied to just a single device. For everyone else, it's $9.99 per month, which is the same as Apple Music. A subscription gets you ad-free access to Amazon's 50-million song music catalog with offline listening and unlimited skips.
Both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited offer student subscription plans priced at $4.99 per month and both require you to sign up using your educational institution credentials. Both streaming services also offer a family plan costing $14.99 a month which allows up to six people to access the services using a personal account for each family member. Apple Music members can also share iTunes purchases with each other in addition to music catalog content, but all family members are required to use the same credit card for all App Store purchases as part of Apple's Family Sharing program.
Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited memberships automatically renew each month, but you can cancel renewal at any time and your subscription will last until the end of your current billing cycle.
Free Trials
Apple Music offers a free three-month trial of its paid service, which converts to a paid membership unless the user cancels before the trial period is over.
Amazon also offers a free trial for its paid music service, but it only lasts 30 days before billing begins.
Libraries and Offline Listening
The Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited plans give you access to a huge catalog of content when you sign up. Both services boast catalogs with 50 million songs, but Apple goes the extra mile to secure artist exclusives including new releases, live performances and concert videos.
Apple Music users can download a maximum of 100,000 songs to their library, and thanks to Apple's iCloud Music Library feature these can be synced across any devices signed in to the same Apple ID. Amazon Music Unlimited users also have a 100,000 song upper limit on their library downloads, but these are accessible across a maximum of 10 devices.
Streaming Quality
Starting in June 2021, Apple Music will support Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio, two features that are being provided to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost. Both of these features will significantly improve the Apple Music listening experience.
Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos will provide an immersive, multi-dimensional audio experience that allows artists to mix music in a way that makes it sound like the notes are coming from all around you. Apple has had a Spatial Audio feature available for television content, and now it is expanding to Apple Music audio content.
Apple is upgrading its entire music catalog to Lossless Audio with the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) that preserves the details in the original audio file. Apple Music subscribers will be able to hear songs exactly as the artists recorded them in the studio.
When Lossless Audio launches, 20 million songs will support the codec, with all 75 million songs available in Lossless Audio by the end of 2021.
The standard Lossless tier will start at CD quality, which is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz, and it goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. There's also a Hi-Res Lossless tier available at 24 bit 192 kHz, but Hi-Res Lossless requires an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC).
In response to Apple Music's lossless audio announcement, Amazon's high-fidelity streaming service, Amazon Music HD, is now available to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers at no extra cost. Amazon Music HD previously cost $14.99 a month ($12.99 for Prime members) compared to Amazon Music Unlimited, its most popular service option, which $9.99 a month ($7.99 for Prime members).
If you're not interested in lossless audio, Apple Music streams 256kbps AAC files across the board. Amazon hasn't revealed the bitrate of its library, but the general consensus is that its user audio quality options (low/medium/high) range from 48 Kbps up to and 320 Kbps.
Apart from audiophiles, most listeners probably won't notice much difference between highest-quality streams of the same song, but Amazon Music's option to select the bitrate can come in handy if you're worried about using up your cellular data.
Mobile, Desktop, and Web Apps
The Apple Music catalog is accessed within the Music app, which has a clean white interface and comes pre-installed on every iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and is available as a separate downloadable app on Android devices.
The app is organized into tabs to access your music library, browse the Apple Music catalog, and listen to radio stations, while a For You tab lets you check out suggestions based on your listening preferences.
Amazon's Music app has a contrasting black interface and is also available on both iOS and Android. The Browse section is organized by category and showcases new releases, popular playlists, and song and artist recommendations, while the Recents tab displays music you've recently accessed and My Music is the home of your saved music, organized by category (Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, and Genres).
Any music you may have purchased from Amazon on other devices is also automatically available here. Tapping the Alexa icon lets you ask the assistant to play music, pause, play the next or previous song and many other options, while a Search icon also lives at the top right of the screen and in the navigation menu at the bottom to find music to listen to.
Apple Music uses iCloud Music Library to match any existing music you have in your iTunes library to tracks in the Apple Music catalog, which are then made available on your other devices. Amazon Music also includes a matching service in its PC and Mac apps, but the feature isn't as seamless as Apple's. Amazon used to offer an equivalent music upload service to Amazon Music Storage subscribers, but as of April 2018 the plans are no longer extendable and the storage service is being retired.
Both apps are easy to navigate and include fullscreen media players that showcase album art as you listen. These screens also put add-to-playlist, sharing, song queuing, lyric viewing, and audio device options at your fingertips, with Apple Music having the advantage of 3D Touch support on compatible devices, which can be used to quickly access additional options.
On desktop, Apple Music subscribers can access the service through the iTunes app for Mac and PC. Apple Music in iTunes is largely based on the same format as the mobile app, but it's not quite as pretty. It's also a little less navigable, but it does have Smart Playlists. Smart Playlists can be automatically generated by iTunes based on genre, date added, loved/disliked, and so on, meaning you don't have to manually build playlists yourself if you don't want to.
Amazon also offers desktop Music apps for Mac and PC that let you browse the catalog, access your library, and download songs, but the interfaces are terribly basic and the presentation is uninspired by comparison. The Amazon Music web player is no better, but at least the company offers one – Apple Music still lacks an equivalent, but subscribers can use a free third-party web player called Musish.
Discovery Features
When you sign up for Apple Music, Apple asks you to select some of your favorite artists so that the service can get a sense of your tastes. Using this information, Apple Music populates its regularly updated For You section with new releases, daily mixes and playlists to appeal to your preferences. Playlists can take on a style (pop or jazz, for example), a particular artist, or even a particular activity like studying.
Amazon Music's Home screen is where the service's personalization is centered, but it's minimal at best and the playlists and albums "for You" don't feel very targeted. Things improve a little after you've added some music to your library, listened to some radio stations, and liked/disliked a bunch of songs, but the suggestion accuracy isn't on par with Apple Music's curation, and the algorithms Amazon uses leaves a lot to be desired. Probably the best alternative in this regard is to make sufficient use of the "Customers Also Listened To" button in the media player interface, but it's the same option you'll find on Amazon's online web store and hardly a unique feature befitting a premium streaming service.
Apple Music's non-personalized content lives in a separate Browse tab showcasing trending artists and playlists, top charts, and music videos. Browse is also home to a TV and films section that features Apple-made programming like Carpool Karaoke and artist documentaries.
Apple Music's Radio tab features curated music stations tuned to your listening habits as well as Apple's Beats 1 radio station. Beats 1 offers live radio 24 hours a day, and also plays a big part in the platform's music discovery. The Radio tab also has an archive of its most popular radio shows and playlists from years past. Amazon Music's default radio station offering pales by comparison, and unlike Apple Music it doesn't let you you create a station from a song, album, artist, or playlist.
Music Sharing
Apple Music allows you to follow friends who are also subscribers and share playlists with them that you've personally created. Apple Music's For You tab will also show you what your friends are listening to if you've connected to them. Amazon Music Unlimited has no such features, but it does let you share song links via text or over social media.
Speakers and Voice Assistants
As an Apple Music subscriber, you can use Apple's Siri voice assistant on your iOS devices as a personal DJ to control song playback, queue up songs, find song facts, add songs to your library, play your favorite playlists, or even play something new. Getting Amazon Music to work with Siri requires the use of Siri Shortcuts, and even then it isn't guaranteed to work and it lacks many Siri skills exclusive to Apple Music.
If you own any of Amazon's Echo speakers or an Amazon Fire TV, then you can tap into the company's Alexa voice assistant, which offers many similar DJ skills as Siri does for Apple Music. All Amazon Music Unlimited subscription plans work on Amazon Echo and Fire TV devices. In the U.S. at least, Apple Music can also be set up to stream on Amazon Echo devices, but it's not as seamless and you won't get said Alexa skills.
On the other hand, Apple's HomePod speaker is made to be used in conjunction with Apple Music. In fact, one of the main uses for Siri on HomePod is to control your Apple Music collection. There are Siri voice commands for accessing content like playlists, genres, moods, liking or disliking songs, playing more music based on something you've heard, starting a new radio station, and much more. None of these functions will work with an Amazon Music subscription – you can stream audio to HomePod from a device running the Amazon Music app, but that's it.
Listening in the Car
Apple's CarPlay system supports Amazon Music and, of course, Apple Music. If a car doesn't have CarPlay, most newer models have their own entertainment systems, which often make it easy to connect your chosen streaming service. Usually you can do so either direct from a built-in app, over Bluetooth, or via a cable connection. You can also listen to Apple Music and Amazon Music through your phone's or car's speakers with Android Auto.
Apple Music highlights
Seamless integration with Apple's eco-system
Beats live radio and archive
Human curated recommendations
Social features
Support for uploading/matching your own music files
Works natively with HomePod
Amazon Music Unlimited highlights
Echo speaker integration
Official web player
Large music catalog
Summing Up
Amazon Music Unlimited is a decent service on its own, but when compared to Apple Music, its shortcomings become glaring. In terms of interface and apps, Apple Music is far easier on the eye than Amazon Music Unlimited, and Apple's music curation and personalization efforts easily outshine its rival. In addition, Apple Music offers subscribers better social features and far more content, including radio shows, exclusive artist releases, live video performances and concerts.
Of course, let's not forget Amazon Prime Music, which is available to all Prime members at no extra cost. If you just want access to some tunes to help pass the time, it could be an ideal choice. But if you're looking for a dedicated premium streaming service, Apple Music is the one to shoot for.
In a meeting of the Workforce Policy Advisory Board yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump mistakenly referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as "Tim Apple" in a flub that quickly spread around the internet.
Cook today joined in on the fun and changed his name on Twitter from Tim Cook to "Tim ," referencing Trump's mistake.
During yesterday's meeting, Cook was sitting right next to Trump when Trump referred to him as Tim Apple and he managed to keep a straight face at the time.
"We're going to be opening up the labor forces because we have to. We have so many companies coming in. People like Tim - you're expanding all over and doing things that I really wanted you to do from the beginning. You used to say, 'Tim, you gotta start doing it here,' and you have really put a big investment in our country. We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple."
Trump's mistake went viral on Twitter, spurring endless jokes and comments, especially because it's not the first time he's done it. Last year, he introduced Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson as "Marillyn Lockheed."
Cook was at the meeting because he's a member of the Workforce Policy Advisory Board. The board was put together to make recommendations on policies to "to develop and implement a strategy to revamp the American workforce to better meet the challenges of the 21st century."
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
AT&T today announced that its DirecTV Now service has been updated with support for Apple's TV app.
With TV app integration, DirecTV Now users can take advantage of cross-device episode and movie tracking with the Up Next feature along with tailored content recommendations available on the DirecTV Now service using the Watch Now feature on the Apple TV.
There's so much on-demand content and live sports channels included with your DIRECTV NOW subscription, so the Apple TV app is a great place to help you find something new or jump back into your favorite on-demand show as new episodes arrive or quickly tune to a national sports broadcast.
The integration also means that Siri voice searches can be used to find TV shows and movies on DirecTV Now, which is useful for finding specific content. Siri searches work with the entire DirecTV on-demand library.
Siri also supports live tune-in with DirecTV Now so you can access specific live channels with a command like "Siri, tune in to [your favorite channel]" to open up the DirecTV Now app and turn on the channel.
The final feature included in the integration is single sign-on, which allows DirecTV customers to sign in once with their username and login to access available content across any supported third-party app.
Apple TV users with a DirecTV Now subscription will see a prompt to integrate their data with the TV app after playing a DVR show for the first time. AT&T says that the updates enabling TV app support will be pushed out to DirecTV customers automatically.
Update: DirecTV's live tune-in feature designed to let you watch live TV channels through Siri voice commands isn't actually implemented just yet and will be coming at a later date. The other features mentioned in the article are, however, live and available to DirecTV Now subscribers.
A 4K version of the movie "Aquaman" has popped up on torrent sites, and, as noted by TorrentFreak, it looks like the file may have come from iTunes, suggesting Apple's protections for 4K content have been breached.
The "Aquaman" file in question, which was shared earlier this week on Reddit, is labeled as a Web-DL, a name used in torrents to denote where it's from. Web-DL indicates a file pulled from a streaming service like Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon.
The title, "Aquaman.2018.2160p.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.HDR.HEVC-MOMA," suggests that this is a 4K release that was decrypted directly from iTunes. This is something that has never happened before with a 4K WEB-DL.
The file is indeed in 4K, and it popped up on torrent sites shortly after the movie was released on iTunes. There are no 4K releases of "Aquaman" from Netflix or Amazon, which led to immediate speculation that someone had managed to decrypt the file from iTunes.
4K files from iTunes have never been spotted on piracy sites before, making this a first that the piracy community is excited about. "4k Web-dl, history has been made today for pirates," wrote one reddit user on the r/piracy subreddit.
TorrentFreak says that it's "too early" to jump to conclusions about the origin of the file. While it's 4K, it could be mislabeled. There's a 4K version on VUDU, though the pirated version was uploaded ahead of the VUDU release.
If it is from iTunes, it's not yet clear how it was accessed. 4K content is only available on the Apple TV via tvOS, suggesting that if there's a security hole, it's in the tvOS operating system.
A source who has experience with the matter believes that it most likely comes from iTunes, as advertised. How, exactly, remains a mystery, but there may be a vulnerability in Apple's tvOS.
"Apple has 4k only on Apple TV running tvOS. I assume they skipped checks, if the device is jailbroken, and someone just dumped the encrypted stream and decrypted it via what's in memory as keys," says our source, who prefers to remain anonymous.
Since Aquaman appeared, two additional 4K Web-DL files for "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" have surfaced on torrent sites.
If there is indeed a vulnerability that has been exploited by those who pirate movies to access 4K iTunes content, Apple is likely to implement a fix quickly to prevent pirates from stealing additional 4K movies.
Nearly four years to the day since Nintendo announced it would be bringing its popular characters to iPhone and iPad, the company is now fearing how app-based microtransactions could be tarnishing its brand. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Nintendo is going so far as to ask its developer partners to "adjust" its games so that players don't spend too much on in-app purchases.
One Nintendo official reiterated that the company uses its smartphone games to entice players into purchasing full-fledged console titles. Now, according to the unnamed official, Nintendo is concerned that it could be criticized for being greedy in the smartphone gaming market, ultimately hurting the company across divisions.
As for individual games, Nintendo's plan is already affecting certain titles. Dragalia Lost developer CyberAgent slashed its fiscal year earnings forecast for the first time in 17 years, reportedly due in part to the game's underperformance. Although it has a lot of players downloading and interacting with the app, "revenue from each player has fallen short of projections," seemingly tied to Nintendo's new strategy.
“Nintendo is not interested in making a large amount of revenue from a single smartphone game,” one CyberAgent official said. “If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more.”
For DeNA, the original smartphone developer partner with Nintendo, the mobile gaming business is said to be in a "slump." Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu reported last month that many of the company's mobile games were struggling except for an original title it created alone called "Megido 72."
Nintendo's smartphone gaming business has definitely seen its ups and downs. The company started with the debut of Miitomo in March 2016, introducing a social game where players could interact with their friends, dress up a custom Mii, and play mini games. After a lukewarm-to-negative reaction from players, Miitomo was shut down two years later in May 2018.
In December 2016, Nintendo debuted Super Mario Run for iOS devices, its first smartphone game with a major IP attached to it, and the first (and as of now only) full-priced Nintendo app. Nintendo returned to free-to-play with Fire Emblem Heroes in February 2017 and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp in November 2017.
Over the years, many reports have attempted to dissect the success of each Nintendo app, and the consensus appears to be that Super Mario Run's pay-once structure has paled in comparison to the ongoing success of the free-to-play titles. In particular, Fire Emblem Heroes has been frequently touted as Nintendo's most successful mobile game to date, breaking the $500 million player spending mark on its two year anniversary, despite being based on an IP that's not quite as well known as Mario.
Despite the success of the free-to-play model and the confirmation that the next Nintendo games -- Dr. Mario World and Mario Kart Tour -- will be free-to-play, Nintendo has said that it prefers the payment structure of Super Mario Run to in-app purchases. Shigeru Miyamoto has echoed this week's report in the past, asking the gaming industry to stop "nickel-and-diming" players, and promising that Nintendo will continue pushing for pay-once mobile apps into the future.
Sonos this week announced a new version of the Sonos One speaker with upgraded internals. These improvements include Bluetooth Low Energy, a faster processor, and more memory than the original Sonos One, all without any changes to the external design of the speaker (via The Verge).
The new Sonos One doesn't have any exclusive features, and sound performance is said to be the same. Sonos is simply beefing up the Sonos One, about a year and a half after the first model launched in the fall of 2017.
At the same time, the original Sonos One is being discounted by $20, and will now be sold for $179 at participating retailers. As the old model gets a markdown, the upgraded Gen 2 device will be priced at the original point of the first Sonos One: $199.
Sonos has yet to detail how the upgraded memory and faster processor will benefit the Sonos One (Gen 2). Previously, Sonos has stated that some older speakers "simply don't have the horsepower to support AirPlay 2," during the announcement that AirPlay 2 would be coming to Sonos One, Play:5, and Playbase speakers.
Because of this, it seems Sonos is simply future-proofing the Sonos One with better internals that ensure more features will be available to Gen 2 owners down the line. You can purchase the Sonos One (Gen 2) for $199 in Black or White on the Sonos website. The Sonos One (Gen 1) is also available for $179 starting today.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Sonos. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Sony today released a new app called "Remote Play" for iOS devices, after launching the same app on Android a few years ago. The app allows you to connect your iPhone or iPad to your PS4, and directly control both the console interface as well as most games through on-screen iOS touch controls [Direct Link].
To get everything set up, make sure your PS4 is updated to version 6.50 (which just began rolling out in the early hours of the morning). Then, download the PS4 Remote Play app from the iOS App Store, sign into your Sony account in the app, and allow it to search for your PS4. You'll need to be on a Wi-Fi network for this to work, as the app cannot be used via mobile networks.
Once connected, you'll see your PS4 home screen displayed on your iPhone, sitting above a row of touch controls that mimic the buttons on a DualShock 4 controller. If you tilt the iPhone to a horizontal orientation, the buttons will disappear until you tap on the display.
The app supports the ability to talk to your friends in a party or through game chat, but you'll have to allow it access to the iOS microphone. The app's controls include the DualShock 4's Share and Options buttons, as well as the central PlayStation logo that brings you back to the home screen.
You can browse around the PS4 and launch most games in the Remote Play app, but Sony does note that there are some games that will be incompatible with the app. Additionally, you can't directly connect the DualShock 4 to the iPhone to play games.
Sony has shown interest in iOS in the past, previously launching an app called "PlayLink", which enabled synchronous multiplayer gaming between the PS4 and iOS device. PlayLink games relied on the PS4, however, and iOS devices acted as extensions to the main events happening on the TV, including experiences like a mini-game collection, comedy quiz show, and hidden identity game.
There have also been apps like R-Play that have functionality similar to Sony's Remote Play app, allowing users to play their PS4 while not at home. R-Play costs $11.99 to download [Direct Link] while Sony's new Remote Play app is free to download [Direct Link].
Apple's main iPhone manufacturer in India has won initial approval to build a new smartphone factory in the country.
The Economic Times reports that India's IT ministry has given assent to Taiwan-based Wistron to construct the new factory, which now just needs approval from the Indian Cabinet to go ahead. Wistron will make cheaper iPhones in the new plant, reportedly beginning with the iPhone 8.
Foxconn meanwhile is poised to build Apple's latest high-end smartphones, including the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, once its application gets similar approval by the relevant government departments. Foxconn sees production plants in India as a way to diversify its supply chain away from China, where most of the Taiwan-based firm's facilities currently reside.
Apple has been pushing to set up an iPhone manufacturing hub in India ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began promoting his "Made in India" initiative, which requires that 30 percent of products sold by foreign companies be manufactured or produced within the country.
India is the world's second largest smartphone market, but just one in four Indians are said to own a smartphone, providing Apple with an opportunity to sell iPhones to millions of new customers in the country. However Apple is said to have had little success so far in what is a very price-sensitive market, with more than 75 percent of the smartphones sold in the country costing less than $250, according to one report.
Apple revamped its India strategy in 2018 to include better and longer-lasting retail deals with higher sales targets, the debut of official Apple retail stores in India, and an overhaul of the company's relationship with independent retailers.
Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who works for TF International Securities, today increased his forecast of Galaxy S10 shipments by 30 percent due to better than expected pre-order demand.
Kuo attributes the better-than-expected shipment momentum to several factors including spec differentiation from iPhone models.
Pre-order demand for the S10 series is better than expected. Worldwide pre-order demand for the S10 series grows by 30-40% YoY compared to that for the S9 series based on our survey. Therefore, we will increase shipment estimates of the S10 series in 2019 by 30% from 30-35mn to 40-45mn units. S10+ and S10 account for 85% or more of total shipments.
We believe that the better-than-expected shipment momentum of S10 series is due to (1) the market's bearish view on high-end smartphone growth, (2) spec differentiation from iPhone models, including an ultrasonic fingerprint on display (FOD), rear triple-camera, and bilateral wireless charging, (3) much better-than-expected demand in China market, and (4) trade-in programs.
As Kuo points out, there are notable differences between Samsung's newest phone and Apple's current crop of iPhones. Samsung devices have a triple-lens camera setup with an ultra-wide lens, and an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor.
Apple is rumored to be planning to introduce a similar camera setup in the 2019 iPhones, but because it uses Face ID facial recognition instead of a fingerprint sensor, Samsung's under-display fingerprint recognition technology will continue to set it apart from Apple.
Kuo believes the under-display fingerprint sensor and the triple camera are the "spotlights" of the S10 series.
Samsung's Galaxy S10 and S10+ are available for pre-order and are set to launch later this week.
Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced three years ago in March 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.
Safari Technology Preview release 77 includes bug fixes and performance improvements for WebRTC, Web API, CSS Grid, Accessibility Media, Web Inspector, and Safari app Extensions.
The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave, the newest version of the Mac operating system that was released to the public in September 2018.
Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.
Apple is planning to add 1,200 new jobs in San Diego at an upcoming engineering hub, which is up from the 1,000 jobs that it promised when announcing the new facility in December.
San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and Apple officials announced the news at the Apple Store located in University City's UTC mall.
Apple is opening a tech hub in San Diego, and 200 of the 1,200 workers that it is planning on hiring will be in place "by the end of 2019." City officials say that Apple plans to make San Diego, which is the hometown of chipmaker Qualcomm, into a "principle engineering hub" with software and hardware positions "distributed across a number of specialty engineering fields."
Apple is working on its own modem technology and based on job listings, has been targeting Qualcomm employees, many of whom might not want to leave San Diego.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company is "proud" to establish a bigger presence in San Diego.
Apple has been a part of San Diego for nearly 20 years through our retail presence and small, fast-growing teams - and with this new investment we are proud to play an even greater part in the city's future. You don't have to try too hard to convince people that San Diego is a great place to live, work and do business, and we're confident our employees will have a great home among the community there."
While there's no official announcement on where Apple's new mini campus will be located, San Diego's KGTV says the company is said to be eyeing a building southwest of Qualcomm's main campus in University City. Wherever it's located, the building will include hundreds of thousands of square feet of office, lab, and research space.
Apple's vice president of Global Real Estate and Facilities said that after Apple made its initial announcement about plans to invest in a San Diego facility, the mayor offered details on all San Diego has to offer, leading Apple to increase its investment.
"We were excited to announce in December that we planned to grow our presence here and add one thousand jobs, and then Mayor Faulconer and members of his team very thoughtfully and convincingly walked us through everything the San Diego region has to offer," said Kristina Raspe, Apple Vice President of Global Real Estate and Facilities. "So we went back and sharpened our pencils and increased our investment."
Apple's move to San Diego is part of a wider effort to expand its business across the United States, which also includes a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas along with new sites in Seattle and Culver City and an additional investment in U.S. data centers.
Apple in iOS 12 introduced a new Shortcuts app, built on the Workflow app that it acquired in 2017. Shortcuts lets you automate tasks, simplifying everything from calculating a tip to sharing an Apple Music song.
Shortcuts can do an endless number of things, but it can be tough to find useful new Shortcuts if you're not well versed in building them yourself. MacStories' Federico Viticci, known for creating useful Shortcuts, this morning announced a collection of Shortcuts that he's created over the years.
The MacStories Shortcuts archive includes 150 shortcuts at launch, but Viticci plans to add more over time. The archive is neatly organized into various categories, and everything is available for free. MacStories says that anyone is free to download, modify, and redistribute shortcuts from the archive to meet their needs.
Viticci updated and adapted all of the shortcuts that he's been using in the Workflow app for years, so this is a robust collection filled with automations for developers, writers, and the average iPhone user.
There are shortcuts for copying App Store release notes, saving screenshots, getting affiliate links, and more, and that's just in the App Store section.
Other useful shortcuts include a file downloader for iCloud Drive, a PDF creation tool, an option for zipping a collection of files, logging weight in the Health app, calculating average heart rate for the last two weeks, adding frames to screenshots from Apple products, getting images from a webpage, and many more.
If you want additional shortcuts, the Shortcuts subreddit on Reddit is also an excellent resource for finding new content in addition to the MacStories archive.
Google today announced plans to bring its "Duplex" feature that's designed to book restaurant reservations for you through actual voice calls to iOS devices.
Google says that the feature is available on all Pixel phones in 43 U.S. states and that it will be coming to "more Android and iOS devices" over the course of the next few weeks.
Unveiled at the 2018 Google I/O developer conference, Google Duplex lets Google Assistant make calls to businesses to schedule appointments and make restaurant reservations. It was demoed on stage with Google Assistant making a phone call to a real salon and using a natural-sounding conversation to book an appointment.
Following the demo, there were questions about the ethics of having a machine phone a real person, but in response, Google said that Google Assistant will identify itself and will allow restaurants to opt out of being recorded.
Placing a restaurant reservation this way involves telling Google Assistant where you want to go, what time, and with how many people. Google Assistant then calls the restaurant, and once a reservation is made successfully, you're notified via email and calendar invite.
Apple has placed a straight-to-series order for an untitled drama series based on the life experiences of undercover CIA operative Amaryllis Fox and her upcoming memoir Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, according to Variety.
The report claims Brie Larson will both star in and produce the series, described as a look at a young woman's journey in the CIA. In addition to starring as Carol Danvers in the upcoming Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame films, Larson had an Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning role in the 2015 film Room.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this morning penned a new missive outlining the company's plan to create a "privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform."
Facebook's new privacy-focused platform, which will see its core apps overhauled, will, according to Facebook, be built around principles that include private interactions, end-to-end encryption, ephemeral messages, safety, interoperability, and secure data storage.
Zuckerberg says that its services will be rebuilt "around these ideas" over the course of the next few years, and that as Facebook implements these changes (to both Facebook and Instagram), the company will be "taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet."
These changes will be implemented "openly and collaboratively, and Zuckerberg points out that many people likely won't believe Facebook is able to build such a privacy-focused platform.
I understand that many people don't think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform - because frankly we don't currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we've historically focused on tools for more open sharing. But we've repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories.
The rest of Zuckerberg's article goes into more detail about each of the core principles that Facebook will be building its social networks around. For Messenger and WhatsApp, Facebook will focus on making them "faster simpler, more private and more secure" with end-to-end encryption. Additional ways to "interact privately" with friends, groups, and businesses will be added to make interacting with friends and family "a fundamentally more private experience."
When implementing end-to-end encryption on its platforms, Facebook plans to improve its ability to identify and stop bad actors using patterns of activity to appease law enforcement agencies that will be upset with Facebook's planned encryption efforts.
We've started working on these safety systems building on the work we've done in WhatsApp, and we'll discuss them with experts through 2019 and beyond before fully implementing end-to-end encryption. As we learn more from those experts, we'll finalize how to roll out these systems.
Zuckerberg says that the company is working on ways to make messages more ephemeral, perhaps by deleting them after a month or a year by default, and as for interoperability, Facebook is going to make it possible for users to "send messages to your contacts using any of our services," something that will later be expanded to SMS interoperability.
Facebook says that much of its work is "in the early stages" and that it is committed to consulting with experts, advocates, industry partners, and governments to "get these decisions right."
If you've ever wondered how security researchers and hackers manage to bypass Apple's protections and security features to uncover iPhone vulnerabilities and other sensitive info, Motherboard is out today with a new report that has an answer.
Hackers and security researchers use rare "dev-fused" iPhones created for internal use at Apple. These dev-fused iPhones have not finished the production process and have many security features disabled. Motherboard describes them as "pre-jailbroken devices."
A dev-fused iPhone image shared with Motherboard by collector Giulio Zompetti
Dev-fused iPhones are smuggled out of Apple where they can sell for thousands of dollars on the gray market. These iPhones are incredibly valuable due to the fact that they can be used to locate vulnerabilities able to impact release versions of the iPhone.
On the back of dev-fused iPhones seen by Motherboard, there's a QR-code sticker, a separate barcode, and a decal that says "FOXCONN," referring to the factory that makes iPhones and other Apple products. Otherwise, the phones look like normal iPhones. That standard iPhone experience ends when the phone is turned on. When booted up, you briefly see a command line terminal. And then when it loads, gone are the sleek icons and colorful backgrounds of iOS.
Motherboard spent months researching dev-fused iPhones, talking to more than two dozen sources ranging from security researchers and Apple employees to rare phone collectors and jailbreakers, and found that researchers, hackers, and high-profile companies like Cellebrite or GrayKey use these dev-fused iPhones to uncover bugs that can later be exploited by law enforcement agencies.
A dev-fused iPhone was, for example, used in 2016 to study the Secure Enclave Processor, and security researchers were able to uncover valuable details on how it works. These dev-fused iPhones are stolen property and illegal to possess, but are apparently "widely used" in the iPhone hacking scene.
"If you are an attacker, either you go blind or with a few thousand dollars you have all you need," Luca Todesco, one of the most well-known iOS security researchers in the world, told Motherboard, referring to people who buy dev-fused iPhones. "Some people made the second choice."
Motherboard was able to find someone on Twitter who sells dev-fused iPhones, with a dev-fused iPhone X priced at around $1,800. The seller said that he's provided dev-fused iPhones to several security researchers and that he believes major security firms that hack iPhones also use them. Other sellers offer dev-fused iPhones at higher prices, and Motherboard found an iPhone XR priced at $20,000.
Dev-fused iPhones are paired with a proprietary Apple cable called Kanzi that can cost upwards of $2,000, that, when plugged into a Mac, provides access to internal Apple software that offers root access to the phone.
Most of these devices seem to be stolen from and smuggled out of factories like Foxconn in China. Apple is apparently "well aware" of the fact that dev-fused devices are available. Apple has "ramped up efforts" to keep these devices from leaving Foxconn and does go after dev-fused iPhone sellers.
Motherboard's full report can be read over on the Motherboard website, and it is a fascinating look at the world of iPhone hacking for anyone who is interested in how iPhone vulnerabilities are uncovered.
Apple Watch bands have been refreshed on a seasonal basis for the past few years, and it looks like that trend will continue in spring 2019, as many of the current fall 2018 bands are now out of stock on Apple's online store.
40mm and 44mm Sport Bands in Hibiscus, Mellow Yellow, and Pacific Green, plus 40mm in Blue Horizon
40mm and 44mm Nike Sport Bands in Olive Flak/Black and Smokey Mauve/Particle Beige
40mm Sport Loops in Cape Cod Blue and Nectarine
40mm Nike Sport Loop in Smokey Mauve
44mm Leather Loops in Forest Green
40mm Modern Buckles in Cape Cod Blue, Forest Green, and Peony Pink
40mm Hermès Double Tours in Indigo/Craie/Orange and Bordeaux/Rose Extrême/Rose Azalée
Apple could unveil its spring 2019 bands in a press release on March 21, the first day of spring, as it did last year. Apple is also expected to host a March 25 event, but little to no hardware is expected. Either way, we're likely a few weeks away from new bands if another refresh is planned.
Apple likes to brighten up its Apple Watch bands in the spring, although not quite as much as its vibrant summer bands. Spring 2018 colors included Lemonade, Red Raspberry, Denim Blue, Soft Pink, Spring Yellow, and others. Most bands range between $49 and $149 in price, with Hermès bands costing up to $539.
All bands released to date have been compatible with every Apple Watch generation.
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