Apple's former VP of Mac hardware engineering Doug Field has returned to the tech giant's ranks after five years working at Tesla, where he oversaw production of the Model 3.
Daring Fireball writer John Gruber broke the news on Thursday after speaking to an Apple spokesperson who confirmed only that Field had returned to the company that he left in 2013.
However Gruber's contacts within Apple informed him that Field will link up with former colleague Bob Mansfield to work on Apple's self-driving car program, Project Titan.
Field began his career at Ford as a development engineer, before moving on to Segway and then to Apple, and his return is already fueling speculation that Apple's self-driving ambitions have been rejuvenated under the leadership of Mansfield.
Rather than solely developing autonomous systems for existing car manufacturers, Apple's rehiring of Field could indicate that the company still retains an interest in building its own vehicles.
When Apple began working on Project Titan in 2014, upwards of 1,000 employees were said to have been working on developing an electric vehicle at a secret location near its Cupertino headquarters.
However, internal strife and leadership issues reportedly caused Apple to transition its focus to an autonomous driving system and pursue partnerships with existing carmakers instead of building a full car. Hundreds of employees were said to have been laid off as a result.
Little is known about the inner workings of Apple's Project Titan group, but court documents filed in July indicate that as many as 5,000 people are authorized at Apple to access information about the project.
Apple has also been significantly ramping up its fleet of vehicles running self-driving sensor equipment. As of May 2018, the company has 62 vehicles out on the road using its autonomous driving software.
Apple is also working on a self-driving shuttle service called "PAIL" (an acronym for "Palo Alto to Infinite Loop"). The shuttle program will transport employees between Apple's office in Silicon Valley.
Audio accessories from Denon and Marantz are gaining support for AirPlay 2 through firmware updates that are being distributed starting today.
With the AirPlay 2 update, compatible Denon and Marantz devices offer support for multi-room audio and are able to work with other AirPlay 2 devices such as the HomePod, the Apple TV, and Sonos speakers.
Both companies offer multiple AirPlay 2-compatible receiver options that are being updated with AirPlay 2 support.
Apple maintains a list of AirPlay 2-compatible speakers, both released and upcoming, on its HomeKit website, but its listings for Denon and Marantz are not complete. A full list of the AirPlay 2-compatible devices the two companies are said to be offering was shared in May by Poor Audiophile.
Both the Marantz and Denon brands are owned by Sound United, which also owns the Polk brand. Polk is not listed on Apple's HomeKit site, but it is a partner on the main AirPlay website. It's not clear when Polk devices will receive AirPlay 2 updates, but it does not appear that new firmware is rolling out as of yet. The same goes for Definitive Technology, another Sound United brand that is expected to get AirPlay 2 support at some point.
Denon and Marantz join Sonos in offering AirPlay 2-compatible devices, but many other brands are working on AirPlay 2 support as well, including Beoplay, Devialet, Libratone, Naim, Bowers & Wilkins, McIntosh, Bose, and others.
Apple gave a straight to series order for a half-hour scripted comedy show created by Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, reports Variety. The show is said to be set in a video game development studio.
Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day are best known for popular comedy show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which the duo have starred in since 2005 alongside Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito.
McElhenney and Day will write and executive produce the series, and McElhenney is set to be one of the show's stars.
Apple has inked deals for more than a dozen TV shows, including several other comedy shows. A "You Think It, I'll Say It" TV show based on Curtis Sittenfield's short story collection is in development, as is "Central Park," an animated series developed by Loren Bouchard.
Rumors suggest the first of Apple's TV shows could debut in the spring of 2019, with Apple perhaps planning to distribute them via a new streaming service.
The Unicode Consortium is working on the list of emojis that will be added to Unicode 12 in 2019, and today Emojipedia shared some details on new emoji candidates that have been suggested for inclusion.
New candidates for Unicode 12 include service dog, deaf people, and mixed race couples.
Because the list of emojis has not yet been finalized, these new emoji candidates won't be included for sure, but they could make their way onto various platforms that support emoji if the Unicode Consortium ultimately approves them.
These new emoji candidate suggestions join other emoji suggested for 2019, including diving mask, waffle, Hindu temple, white heart, ice cube, sloth, flamingo, skunk, ballet shoes, falafel, onion, garlic, otter, and more.
Apple will likely add the Unicode 12 emoji to iOS, macOS, and Apple Watch devices sometime in the fall of 2019.
At the current time, we're waiting on the addition of Unicode 11 emojis, which Apple said it will add to iOS later this year.
Apple previewed many of the new emoji that it plans to add, including red hair, gray hair, curly hair, cold face, party face, face with hearts, superheroes, kangaroo, peacock, parrot, lobster, mango, lettuce, cupcake, and more.
A few proposals have been made for emojis coming in 2020 and were announced by the Unicode Consortium today, including ninja, military helmet, mammoth, feather, dodo, magic wand, carpentry saw, and screwdriver.
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.
Samsung today hosted an event in New York where it unveiled its newest product updates, including the Galaxy Note 9, the Galaxy Watch, and the Galaxy Home speaker.
MacRumors attended Samsung's event and was able to get some hands-on time with Samsung's new line of flagship devices, which is worth checking out because Samsung's main product lineup is quite similar to Apple's with the introduction of the new Galaxy Home device.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 device comes just a few weeks ahead of when Apple plans to unveil its 2018 iPhones, and it gives us a look at the feature set Samsung is hoping will lure customers away from new Apple devices.
Unlike other Android smartphones, Samsung continues to eschew the notch, and the Galaxy Note 9 looks quite similar to the Galaxy Note 8 with small top and bottom bezels, an aluminum frame, a built-in iris scanner for biometric authentication, and a fingerprint scanner at the rear.
Samsung has tweaked the location of the fingerprint scanner, putting it underneath the rear camera instead of next to it, which often led to people touching the camera element in the previous device. Speaking of the camera, Samsung is using the same dual-camera dual-aperture setup as last year, with the addition of a new Intelligent Camera feature that optimizes camera settings for whatever you're taking a picture of.
The Galaxy Note 9 features a 6.4-inch AMOLED screen, a smidge bigger than the 6.3-inch screen in the previous device, and also smaller than the rumored 6.5-inch display Apple's "iPhone X Plus" device is expected to offer.
Inside, the Galaxy Note 9 uses a Snapdragon 845 processor and what Samsung describes as a watercooling system for superior game performance, and it comes equipped with an updated S Pen, a factor that has always set the Note line apart from the iPhone, as Apple's devices do not support its one and only stylus, the Apple Pencil.
The S Pen has been upgraded with Bluetooth, so it can be used as a remote for things like playing and pausing movies, playing slideshows, and taking selfies. An S Pen SDK is coming later this year that will allow developers to integrate S Pen functionality into their apps. Dock-free DeX support is included in the Galaxy Note 9, allowing it to be connected to an external display.
To compete with the HomePod and the Apple Watch, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Home and the Galaxy Watch. Access to the Galaxy Home was limited and we couldn't get a good look at it, but it features a spaceship-like design with a U-shaped body that curves inward and three metal feet.
Samsung, like Apple, hyped the audio quality of the Galaxy Home on stage and demonstrated its integration with Bixby, Samsung's digital assistant and Siri competitor.
As for the Galaxy Watch, it features a circular display with a traditional watch-style face that also maintains the rotating bezel for control purposes. Like the Apple Watch Series 3, the Galaxy Watch features LTE so it is not reliant on an accompanying smartphone.
It has a battery that lasts several days, and like the Apple Watch, it offers a breathing guide, heart rate monitoring, support for 39 types of workouts, and automatic workout detection, a feature Apple is bringing to the Apple Watch in watchOS 5. Samsung is pairing the Galaxy Watch with a wireless charger that can charge a smartphone and the watch at the same time, which sounds a lot like Apple's still-missing AirPower device.
At its event, Samsung was also showing off the Galaxy Tab S4, its new iPad Pro competitor that was introduced last week. The 10.5-inch Galaxy Tab S4, which has a 16:10 AMOLED display, features DeX support, a Book Cover Keyboard, and an S Pen, along with a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB RAM, and a 7,300 mAh battery for 16 hours of battery life.
With today's announcements, Samsung's full fall 2018 product lineup is now available, and these are the devices that will directly compete with the products that Apple is expected to launch across the remaining months of 2018.
We're expecting three new iPhones, including a 5.8-inch OLED device that's a followup to the iPhone X, a 6.5-inch OLED iPhone that can be thought of as an "iPhone X Plus," and a lower-cost 6.1-inch iPhone with an LCD display. All three devices are expected to ditch the Home button and Touch ID in favor of Face ID enabled through a TrueDepth camera system.
Apple is also planning to launch new Apple Watch Series 4 models, which are said to have bigger displays, better batteries, and improved heart rate monitoring technology, plus there are revamped iPad Pro models in the works with slim bezels, no Home button, and Face ID support.
What do you think of Samsung's new product lineup, and how does it measure up to what Apple is rumored to be to putting out this fall? Let us know in the comments.
An estimated 31 percent of iPhone users have made a purchase with Apple Pay in the past year, up from 25 percent a year ago, according to a new Apple Pay estimates shared today by Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster.
Apple Pay now has an estimated 252 million users, equating to 31 percent of the active installed iPhone base, according to Munster.
Apple does not provide official details on how many people use Apple Pay, but in a recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that there were upwards of 1 billion Apple Pay transactions in Q3 2018, triple the amount from a year ago.
Based on these figures combined with past Apple reports of yearly Apple Pay growth, Munster expects transaction growth of 200 percent over the course of the next 12 months.
Bank adoption of Apple Pay is also growing steadily, and during the same earnings call, Apple announced that 4,900 banks support the feature. The number of banks supporting Apple Pay has increased by 1,701 since the December quarter, marking a 55 percent growth in North America, 141 percent in Asia, and 370 percent in Europe.
Munster believes that just 20 percent of global smartphone users use their phone as a wallet, a number that he expects to rise to 80 percent in the future.
Apple is well-poised to position the iPhone as the premium digital wallet on the market given that it's the only digital wallet option "with all five payment pillars" defined as mobile, desktop, in-app, peer to peer, and point of sale.
Munster says Apple Pay is much more popular overseas, with 85 percent of users being international compared to 15 percent in the United States. Apple Pay is estimated to have 38 million users in the U.S. and 215 million in the 20+ other countries where Apple Pay is available.
Apple Pay works in retail locations with the Apple Watch and iPhone, and in apps and on the web with iPhone, iPad, and Mac. As of iOS 11.3, Apple also supports Apple Pay Cash payments, a feature that is currently limited to the United States.
Apple Pay is available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, Brazil, Ukraine, Norway, and Poland at the current time, and it is also set to expand to Germany later this year.
Samsung this morning debuted its latest flagship smartphone, the new Galaxy Note 9. The Galaxy Note 9 is equipped with a 6.4-inch 2960 by 1400 Super AMOLED screen, and like previous Note models, it works with the S Pen stylus. Design wise, it looks quite similar to the Note 8.
Inside, the Galaxy Note 9 features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 processor, 6 to 8GB RAM, dual AKG speakers, and a 4,000 mAh battery. Samsung is using the same 12-megapixel dual-aperture camera system it used in the Note 8, with the addition of an Intelligent Camera function that's able to detect what you're taking a photo of.
Samsung says that with the Snapdragon 845, it has included "Water Carbon Cooling System" inside the phone for improved performance with processor intensive apps such as Fortnite.
The S Pen that comes with the Galaxy Note 9 introduces new Bluetooth-enabled features that allow it to be used to control the camera of the device for taking selfies and other photos, control video playback, and more. Samsung has created an SDK that will let developers integrate the S Pen into their apps, and that will be available later this year.
The Galaxy Note 9 works with DeX, Samsung's feature that allows a smartphone to be docked to a desktop and used with a mouse and keyboard. The Note 9 DeX implementation does not require a dedicated dock, instead using a USB-C to HDMI adapter.
The smartphone also features a USB-C port, a headphone jack, a front-facing iris scanner, and a fingerprint reader that's centered at the back of the device. Though Google just introduced Android 9 Pie, the Note 9 will come with Android 8.1.
Samsung is pricing its Galaxy Note 9 at $1,000, the same price as the iPhone X, with the entry-level model coming with 128GB of storage and 6GB RAM. A version with 8GB RAM and 512GB of storage will be priced at $1,300. Pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 9 start tomorrow ahead of an August 24 launch.
Alongside the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung introduced the new Galaxy Watch, an LTE-enabled device that's been designed to look like "a real watch" with a circular face and bezel that doubles as a control unit. It offers up Corning's DX+ glass and better battery life than previous Samsung smart watches, with Samsung claiming that it will last several days on one charge.
Much like the Apple Watch, it offers a breathing guide to calm you down, heart rate monitoring, Bixby support, 39 workout types for fitness, and it's able to detect six common exercises automatically. Unlike the Apple Watch, though, the Galaxy Watch tracks sleep quality.
To charge the Galaxy Note 9 and the Galaxy Watch, Samsung has introduced an AirPower-like Wireless Charger Duo that's able to charge the watch and the phone at the same time.
Samsung is also getting into the smart speaker market with the Bixby-enabled Galaxy Home, which is designed to compete with Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, Google Home, and other smart speaker options on the market. Galaxy Home works with Bixby, and Samsung says that its design is able to send sound in every direction.
For Galaxy Home and across Samsung's other devices, Samsung has teamed up with Spotify for a "true cross-listening experience" that lets Spotify be used seamlessly across Samsung devices. Spotify will be part of the setup process on all Samsung devices, including Samsung smartphones, the Galaxy Home, and Samsung Smart TVs, with Bixby integration coming to Spotify.
Google this week debuted a new app called "Cameos," which lets celebrities record video answers to "the most asked questions on Google," and then post the recordings directly to Google's search results (via TechCrunch). The company says that this will let users "get answers directly" from the source when searching for facts and trivia about certain people in the spotlight.
Although anyone can download the app [Direct Link], Cameos requires access to be granted once it's downloaded. Celebrities who gain access can browse the Internet's "top questions" asked about them, choose which ones they want to answer, and record a video of their response.
Cameos will push celebrities with new questions and searches to ensure that their Google-related content "stays recent and timely." With the app, high-profile users can respond directly to their fans' biggest questions and leave out any potential misinformation provided from other websites sourced from a Google search.
Once a question is answered, Google says that the response videos get posted "right to Google" so that users can see the videos when they search for the celebrity, or similar questions about the person. The videos will also appear on each celebrity's feed in the main Google app.
Today marks the seventh anniversary of Apple passing U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil to become the world's most valuable company for the first time, with a market capitalization of around $341.5 billion at the time.
Apple achieved the milestone on August 9, 2011, just over two weeks before the late Steve Jobs resigned as CEO on August 24, 2011, the same day that he nominated then-COO Tim Cook to succeed him in the position. Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, following a lengthy battle with cancer.
Apple dropped back below ExxonMobil a few times, and was briefly surpassed by Google parent company Alphabet in market cap at times in 2016, but the iPhone maker has been the world's most valuable company for the better part of the past seven years, and continues to hold that title today.
Apple becoming the world's most valuable company was a remarkable accomplishment given that it flirted with bankruptcy in the mid-to-late 1990s, until Jobs returned and streamlined its product lineup. Under his leadership, Apple introduced several hits, including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Apple will look to build upon its success by expanding its focus on technologies such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and artificial intelligence, in addition to services like Apple Music and its upcoming Netflix competitor.
Apple has begun selling the Eve Aqua Smart Water Controller on its United States website today, following a few weeks after the HomeKit accessory previously launched on Eve's own website and on Amazon (via HomeKit News and Reviews). On Apple.com, you can buy the Eve Aqua for $99.95, and the free shipping option currently designates a delivery date on Monday, August 13.
The Eve Aqua is a small controller that you attach to an outdoor water outlet, letting you activate or shut off water flow via the Home iOS app, Siri voice commands, or automatic HomeKit scenes. Eve says this makes the accessory perfect for sprinklers and can prevent gardens from flooding thanks to an auto shut-off feature.
Elgato Systems announced the Eve Aqua this past May, and then in June Elgato revealed that it would shift its focus "entirely" to its line of Eve devices. Elgato is now "Eve Systems," with plans to offer a "constantly expanding ecosystem" of accessories designed exclusively for Apple's HomeKit platform.
Despite the name change, Apple.com still lists the water controller accessory as the "Elgato Eve Aqua."
Following the restructured company, Eve Systems teased users with new product announcements set to come out of IFA Berlin, which begins on August 31 and runs through September 5. For current products, Eve sells many of its devices on Apple.com, including the Elgato Eve Degree Connected Weather Station, Light Switch, Wireless Motion Sensor, Room Sensor, Energy Smart Plug, Button, and more.
In a new entry in its Machine Learning Journal, Apple has detailed how it approached the challenge of improving Siri's ability to recognize names of local points of interest, such as small businesses and restaurants.
In short, Apple says it has built customized language models that incorporate knowledge of the user's geolocation, known as Geo-LMs, improving the accuracy of Siri's automatic speech recognition system. These models enable Siri to better estimate the user's intended sequence of words.
Apple says it built one Geo-LM for each of the 169 Combined Statistical Areas in the United States, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, which encompass 80 percent of the country's population. Apple also built a single global Geo-LM to cover all areas not defined by CSAs around the world.
When a user queries Siri, the system is customized with a Geo-LM based on the user's current location. If the user is outside of a CSA, or if Siri doesn't have access to Location Services, the system defaults to the global Geo-LM.
Apple's journal entry is highly technical, and quite exhaustive, but hopefully this means that Siri should be able to better understand the names of local points of interest, and also be able to better distinguish between a Tom's Restaurant in Iowa and Kansas based on a user's geolocation.
In its testing, Apple found that the customized language models reduced Siri's error rate by between 41.9 and 48.4 percent in eight major U.S. metropolitan regions: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco, excluding mega-chains like Walmart.
Siri still trails Google Assistant in overall accuracy, according to a recent study by research firm Loup Ventures, but hopefully these improvements eliminate some of the frustration of querying Siri about obscurely named places.
Just a few days after Bloomberg revealed Apple's revamped India strategy, including changes that the company hopes will boost its lackluster smartphone market share in the country, a report by Reuters today has pointed out another hurdle for Apple's India plan.
The new report concerns Apple's work with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) over the development of an anti-spam iPhone app, which dates back nearly two years. Indian users constantly have to deal with spam phone calls, leading to the government's decision to build its own smartphone app that would let users mark and report spam callers.
Reuters previously reported in March that work on the app was deadlocked as Apple continuously raised concerns over the privacy implications of allowing the app broad access to customers' calls and text logs. Following months of Apple pointing out privacy loopholes in the app -- which has been available on Android in India since 2016 -- TRAI last month threatened Apple by stating that its smartphones could be "derecognized" from the country's networks.
This means that while iPhones would still be available for purchase in India, users would not be able to connect to any supported cellular network and would lose many of the features that they likely purchased the iPhone for. TRAI's derecognition threat was specified in a letter sent to Indian telecom firms over the summer, notifying the firms that TRAI would give them six months notice to derecognize devices from their networks if the phones in question do not support the anti-spam app.
With that ticking clock looming for Apple, the company recently asked for the clause about derecognition to be removed:
“We look forward to working with TRAI to address the issue of unsolicited commercial communications, while simultaneously ensuring that we fully honor our commitment to protect the privacy and security of our users,” Apple’s head of public policy in India, Kulin Sanghvi, wrote in the letter which was seen by Reuters.
In response to Apple's own letter, TRAI chairman R.S. Sharma said that derecognition could not be "quashed or challenged" by writing a letter, and suggested the disagreement between the two could end up in court:
“The most appropriate way to challenge this is in court,” he said.
According to people familiar with the company's plans, its new strategy in India includes better and longer-lasting retail deals with higher sales targets, the opening of official Apple retail stores in India, "overhauling" the company's relationship with independent retailers, and improving apps and services "aimed more closely at Indians." The company is said to focus specifically on Apple Maps in the services area with a "revamped" version of the app coming to Indian users by 2020.
Apple Pay is offering a $20 promo code when you spend $100 or more within the iOS Nike app through August 16. This is the latest offer in Apple's long-running Apple Pay promo series, now themed as a back-to-school sale for any students looking for new shoes for the school year.
To get the code, download the Nike iOS app [Direct Link], make a purchase worth $100 or more, and then pay with Apple Pay. The promo code for $20 will then be delivered to you within two weeks of your original purchase date, and must be redeemed within Nike by November 20, 2018.
Apple is encouraging students to gear up at a few other Apple Pay-compatible stores and apps, including Staples, Office Depot, JanSport, Walgreens, Jet, and J. Crew.
It's been a few weeks since the last Apple Pay promo, which offered summertime savings in a range of apps like Fandango, Groupon, Houzz, and Seamless. Previous promotions have also seen Apple team up with StubHub, Adidas, Postmates, Instacart, and many more.
In an attempt to crack down on gambling-related apps in the App Store, Apple has today implemented a new App Review policy for individual developers, but many apps that are being banned as a result appear to have very little to do with gambling at all.
Our newsstand/news/magazine app just got removed from sale from the App Store 24 hours after our 3.0 update was approved. Reason given: gambling/fraudulent activity. We publish a magazine — nothing to do with gambling or fraud at all. 😞😢😲😱 https://t.co/ewu3mE5FG5pic.twitter.com/vaKtLthvkW
— Wojtek Pietrusiewicz (@morid1n) August 9, 2018
Apple has been providing affected developers with the following reason for their app's removal from the App Store:
In order to reduce fraudulent activity on the App Store and comply with government requests to address illegal online gambling activity, we are no longer allowing gambling apps submitted by individual developers. The includes both real money gambling apps as well as apps that simulate a gambling experience.
As a result, this app has been removed from the App Store. While you can no longer distribute gambling apps from this account, you may continue to submit and distribute other types of apps to the App Store.
Apple finishes by saying that "only verified accounts from incorporated business entities may submit gambling apps for distribution on the App Store", and advises developers to visit the Enrollment page to learn more about enrolling an organization in the Apple Developer Program.
The reason that apps unrelated to gambling are being removed appears to be because the ban currently applies to any apps that allow users "unrestricted web access".
When developers submit their app to the App Store, a section called "Rating" asks them to rate their app's content based on a chart and identify how frequently the content appears.
The content marker "Unrestricted web access" in this section applies when a user can access any URL by opening a browser window from within the submitted app.
Ticking it automatically slaps the app with a 17+ age rating if it makes it to the App Store, because it gives users of the app the potential ability to circumvent parental controls.
However, on the face of it, Apple's gambling-related ban today looks to have overreached significantly in this regard. We've asked Apple for comment and will update this post if we hear more.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined Tim Cook in celebrating Apple's "Everyone Can Code" initiative on Wednesday at the company's Michigan Avenue store, where a special Today at Apple session got underway.
In a special session titled "One Summer Chicago Student App Showcase", young coders presented their latest app creations to onlookers with the help of the store's giant TV display.
Rahm and Cook both took to Twitter to promote the student-centered gig, sharing their photos of participants and members of the public in attendance.
Young developers like Fahmeen, Afreen and Amelia are building apps to help their local communities. Thanks to @ChicagosMayor and @1summerchicago for helping us showcase some of the creativity and passion coming out of our Everyone Can Code initiative in Chicago. pic.twitter.com/GeFDmYTEY4
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 9, 2018
Since December, Apple has been working to bring coding opportunities to almost half a million students in the city of Chicago through an expansion of the company's Everyone Can Code program.
The Swift-oriented initiative has been designed in collaboration with the Mayor's Office of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, local businesses and non-profit organizations.
The coding initiative has since been expanded to colleges and universities outside of the United States, taking in institutions from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Apple does not plan to remove the Infowars app from the iOS App Store at this time, the company told BuzzFeed News this evening. Apple said that the Infowars app had not violated its App Store guidelines.
"We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and follow our clear guidelines, ensuring the App Store is a safe marketplace for all," the company said in a statement.
"We continue to monitor apps for violations of our guidelines and if we find content that violates our guidelines and is harmful to users we will remove those apps from the store as we have done previously."
Apple over the weekend removed the entire libraries of five Infowars podcasts from the Apple Podcasts platform. "War Room" and "The Alex Jones Show," hosted by controversial U.S. radio show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, were among those pulled from Apple Podcasts.
When removing the Infowars podcast listings from the Podcasts platform, Apple said that it does not tolerate hate speech, finding that the Infowars podcasts did indeed violate its podcast content guidelines.
"Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users," a company spokesperson said.
"Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions."
As BuzzFeed points out, the Infowars mobile app available from the App Store allows users to live stream the same programs that were removed from the Apple Podcasts platform. The Infowars mobile app streams video broadcasts rather than making a repository of content available to listeners, however, which may be why the app was not pulled while the podcasts were.
BuzzFeed suggests that since the streaming broadcasts are ephemeral and not stored in the app, that Apple will need to "catch [Jones] in the act and in the moment" to act on a violation.
Apple's App Store guidelines state that apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste. Defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content is listed as an example.
Defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or place a targeted individual or group in harm's way.
Multiple social media platforms have now removed Infowars content from their services, including YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify.
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.
Verizon and Apple today announced a new partnership which will see Verizon Unlimited customers able to sign up to receive six months of Apple Music for free.
Starting on Thursday, August 16, both new and existing customers who have one of Verizon's Unlimited wireless plans can access a special offer for six months of Apple Music at no cost. Following this period, the subscription will be priced at $9.99 per month, the standard cost for an Apple Music subscription.
This is available to both new and existing Apple Music subscribers. According to Verizon, current Apple Music subscribers will get the same six months of free service as new subscribers, but will be required to cancel and reactivate their Apple Music subscriptions.
Verizon says that once registered, its VZW Unlimited customers will have full access to Apple Music on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac, HomePod, CarPlay, PC, and Android devices, and the company has promised additional offers in the future through the Apple partnership.
"This first-of-its-kind offer is just the first step in an exclusive partnership with Apple," said Angie Klein, vice president of marketing, Verizon. "It gives our customers exactly what they want: Apple's best-in-class music streaming experience, paired with an unlimited plan tailored to them, on the network they deserve. And now that you can mix and match our unlimited plans, every person in your family can stream worry-free on the unlimited plan they need, without paying for things they don't - and enjoy all the music they want for six months free with Apple Music with this exclusive offer in the U.S."
Apple normally offers new subscribers three months of free access to Apple Music, so this is double the normal trial period.
Verizon offers three unlimited plans, priced starting at $75 for a single line. All plans offer unlimited text, talk, and LTE data, but offer varying video quality and mobile hotspot limits.
The cheapest Go Unlimited plan includes 480p video streaming and unlimited mobile hotspot access at 600kb/s. The middle tier Beyond Unlimited Plan offers 720p video streaming and 15GB of LTE hotspot data, while the higher-end plan offers up 720p video streaming, 20GB of LTE hotspot data, and other perks like Mexico and Canada Text and Data, and five TravelPasses per month.
Verizon's cheapest plan offers unlimited LTE data, but warns that customers could be throttled at times of peak usage. The Beyond Unlimited plan lets customers use 22GB of LTE data before throttling, while the Above Unlimited plan provides customers with 75GB of unlimited LTE data before throttling kicks in at times of peak congestion.
Verizon will be providing more information about the partnership with Apple Music on its website on August 16.
Apple's Health Records feature, introduced in iOS 11.3, now allows iOS users to access their medical records from more than 75 different hospitals and medical providers in the United States.
Apple maintains a list of all of the healthcare institutions that support Health Records on the iPhone, which as VentureBeat points out, was updated in August ahead of a talk from Apple's Clinical and Health Informatics lead Ricky Bloomfield, M.D. given at the ONC 2nd Interoperability Forum (via EHR Intelligence).
When the Health Records feature first launched earlier this year, it worked with just 12 healthcare providers, a number that Apple has been working to improve. Recent additions include Kaiser in Oregon and Washington, Baptist Health, Buffalo Health, Greater Hudson Valley Health System, UC San Diego Health, UCLA Health, and others.
Health record data is available in the Health app, and allows patients who have multiple healthcare providers to access all of their information in one convenient place.
According to Bloomfield, Apple's Health app leverages Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) that were developed to facilitate better data sharing standards. FHIR is in a draft stage and won't be finalized until the end of the year, but Apple's adoption may drive widespread adoption of FHIR in the medical community.
Apple is using an "Argonaut" implementation of the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard, in fact, because it's simple and will encourage medical providers to adopt it.
The Health Records feature in the Health app is designed to connect with partner systems using FHIR to collect data and display it right on a user's device.
"It makes it very easy for you to manage your health information," Bloomfield told attendees of the ONC 2nd Interoperability Forum on August 8. "You as a user have complete control over who has access to the data. If you don't want to share it, it won't be shared. It stays private on your device until you decide to share it."
As Bloomfield explains, Health Records can be accessed in the Health app under the "Health Data" section. After choosing and authenticating with a provider, all relevant medical data is available through the Health app and is updated automatically following doctor visits.
"That significantly reduces the friction typically associated with accessing your health information where you need to remember your credentials, log in, and then get the information," he continued. "And when you have new information, you may get an email that there's new information, but you still need to log in to access the information."
Health Records is designed to display information that includes allergies, vital signs, conditions, immunizations, medications, labs, and procedures.
As with all Apple features, privacy is a key with Health Records. As Bloomfield says, patients have control over who is able to access their data.
