MacRumors

Ireland will begin collecting €13 billion from Apple around March, with payments expected to continue through September, according to Irish broadcaster RTÉ via Cult of Mac.

Derek Moran, the Secretary General of Ireland's Department of Finance:

"However, identification of the escrow agent/custodian by the end of March 2018 will then allow for a payment into the escrow fund account, with payments continuing through the course of April, May and June and up to the end of September 2018".

The money will be held in an escrow account while both Apple and Ireland continue to battle the European Commission, which in August 2016 ruled the iPhone maker received illegal state aid from the country, and ordered the Irish government to collect up to 13 billion euros—nearly $16 billion currently—in back taxes.

Ireland is required to collect the money until the legal process is completed, according to the report. Apple has previously said the money will be reported as restricted cash on its balance sheet once it begins making payments.

The premise is that the Irish government gave Apple unfair advantage between 1991 and 2007 by allowing the company to move income from the European market through two "non-resident" head office subsidiaries based in Ireland, but Apple says the European Commission made "fundamental errors" in its findings.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has called the decision "total political crap" and said Apple pays all of the taxes it owes based on the laws of each country in which it operates. Likewise, the Irish government said it did not give favourable tax treatment to Apple and added that it "does not do deals with taxpayers."

Apple expects its appeal with the European Union's highest courts to take several years, but it is confident the European Commission's decision will be overturned, in which case the €13 billion would be returned to the company.

Apple's plans to repatriate much of its foreign cash reserves under new U.S. tax laws, which lower the corporate tax rate to 15.5 percent, will have no affect on the outcome of this European tax case.

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.

Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and other technology companies have sent a message to the Trump administration through various Washington, D.C. lobbying groups, urging President Trump to keep protecting spouses of immigrants who work in the U.S. with H-1B visas. The companies reportedly fear a "looming end" to the program that protects these spouses and allows them to work in the U.S., as it could cause "immense trouble" for many of their workers and potentially lead to large swaths of H-1B employees having to "reconsider working for U.S. companies at all" (via Recode).

The spousal work permit program began in 2015 under the Obama administration, allowing spouses of high-skilled immigrants to be granted work authorizations while in the process of seeking lawful permanent resident status. The Trump administration has worked throughout 2017 to fundamentally reevaluate the program, and in November the Department of Homeland Security noted imminent plans to "propose to rescind" the final rule and remove H-4 dependent spouses "from the class of aliens eligible for employment authorization."

Now, a coalition of tech companies have responded with a statement, noting that spouses are "eager to work" to support their families. Their statement also describes fear of an "increased risk" of losing long-term employees.

“We represent employers who are committed to growing the U.S. economy and creating jobs for American workers. However, we cannot achieve these goals unless companies can recruit and retain the most qualified employees,” wrote a slew of companies, all speaking through their Washington, D.C.-based lobbying groups, including the Information Technology Industry Council.

In the Thursday letter, ITI, the U.S. Chamber and other organizations stressed that spouses are “eager to work in order to support their families, contribute to their communities by paying taxes, and utilize their skills to help the U.S. economy grow.”

“Employers would also face an increased risk that their valued, long-term employees will choose to leave their companies for other employment opportunities in countries that allow these workers and their families to raise their standard of living,” the business groups continued.

Tech companies like Apple would be the hardest hit by such sweeping changes to work visa policies since it employs many workers with H-1B visas, whose spouses potentially also benefit from the program. Nearly one year ago, Apple was also affected by the drafting of an executive order by President Trump, which stated that the country's policy on immigration should not give priority to foreign workers and should instead prioritize and protect American workers.

Following the draft proposal, the Trump administration followed through and rolled out a collection of policy shifts that planned out a roadmap to better serve American workers' current and future jobs. Apple and other tech companies were affected out of the gate as the first change came from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which "made it harder" for such companies to bring foreign workers to the country using the H-1B work visa.

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.

While visiting the Apple data center located in Reno, Nevada this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook did a quick interview with Rebecca Jarvis of ABC News, where he discussed Apple's economic announcements and touched on the ongoing controversy over power management features in older iPhones.

According to Cook, when the power management features were first introduced in iOS 10.2.1, Apple did explain what was going on, but following the controversy, he believes Apple should have been clearer.

The company did indeed mention that the shutdown issue was caused by uneven power delivery and explained that its power management system had been tweaked, but there was no clear notice that it could cause devices to operate more slowly at times. Cook says Apple "deeply apologizes" to customers who thought the company had other motivations.

About a year ago, we released some code that essentially what it does... is all batteries age over time and they become unhealthy at a point in time and an unhealthy battery has a probability that it will create an unexpected restart.

And so you can imagine if you're making an emergency call or you're making an important call that's important to you or a message that you're waiting for, or you want to capture that moment that's fleeting with your camera... we always focus on the user experience. So at the heart of any decision that we make is the user. We felt it would be better to take something off of the performance to prevent that from happening.

When we did put it out, we did say what it was, but I don't think a lot of people were paying attention and maybe we should have been clearer as well. And so we deeply apologize for anybody that thinks we had some other kind of motivation. Our motivation is always the user. The user is at the center of everything that we do.

Apple previously apologized for the misunderstanding over the iOS 10.2.1 update and has since implemented a battery replacement program that allows all customers with an iPhone 6, 6s, 7, 6 Plus, 6s Plus, 7 Plus, and SE to replace their batteries for a reduced $29 fee through the end of 2018.

Apple is introducing better battery monitoring features in a future iOS update, and Cook says Apple will also allow customers to turn off the power management feature, which is new information that the company has not previously shared.

We're also going to... first in a developer release that happens next month, we're going to give people the visibility of the health of their battery. So it's very, very transparent. This hasn't been done before, but we've thought through this whole thing and learned everything we can learn from it.

So we want to do that, and in the situation... and we will tell someone we're reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart. And if you don't want it, you can turn it off. Now we don't recommend it, because we think people's iPhones are really important to them, and you never can tell when something is so urgent. Our actions were all in service of the user. I can't stress that enough.

Much of the rest of Cook's interview focused on the announcements that Apple made today. The company plans to repatriate a large portion of its $250 billion in overseas cash thanks to a change in U.S. tax policy, which will result in Apple paying $38 billion in taxes. With the tax bill, investments, the creation of a new campus, and more, Apple believes it will directly contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years, along with 20,000 new jobs.

When asked about whether Apple would have been able to make these announcements without the tax policy changes, Cook said there are "large parts" of the announcement that are "the result of the tax reform" and "large parts" that Apple "would have done in any situation." He went on to explain that the corporate part of the recent tax bill has the potential to bring a faster growing economy.

There are two parts of the tax bill. There's a corporate piece and an individual piece. I do believe the corporate side will result in job creation and a faster growing economy.

When asked about whether Apple would introduce a cheaper iPhone due to the new policies, Cook said it was unlikely, telling interviewer Jarvis that "the phone costs what the innovation inside of it costs."

The final bit of the interview touched on where Apple might open its new campus, which was announced by the company earlier today. Cook said details will be shared later in the year, but it won't be located in Texas or California, where Apple already has campuses in Austin and Cupertino, respectively.

Apple today started construction on a new warehouse in downtown Reno, Nevada, with the site visited this afternoon by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, and Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve, reports the Reno Gazette-Journal.

In a speech given at the groundbreaking of the warehouse, which is located near the company's Reno data center, Cook said the data center is a key component in the ecosystem that provides billions of iMessages, photos, and FaceTime calls to customers around the world each day.

"We've invested $1.6 billion in the region today and over the course of the next six years, we intend to invest an additional $1 billion," said Cook.

"Reno plays an incredibly important role in the products and services that we provide our customers worldwide. Without the data center here, none of this would be possible."

Apple's presence in Reno kicked off in 2012 with the construction of its data center. As part of that deal Apple was required to build a facility in the downtown Reno tourism improvement district, hence the warehouse.

Apple plans to use the upcoming Reno, Nevada warehouse to move equipment to the data center, which Apple allowed the Reno Gazette-Journal to tour today following Cook's speech.

The site shared nearly 50 photos captured from inside the data center, filled with racks and racks of the servers that power Apple services. The images provide glimpses at Apple's server setup, cabling, cooling operations, cleaning rooms, and more.

Apple today highlighted its plan to to bolster the U.S. economy through job creation, existing investments, and new investments, with the company on target to contribute $55 billion to the economy in 2018 and $350 billion over the course of the next five years.

Along with its $350 billion contribution through direct employment, investment with domestic suppliers, and the App Store economy, Apple will increase its Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion.

The Advanced Manufacturing Fund is designed to create jobs in the United States through investments in Apple suppliers. Apple has already invested $200 million in Corning, maker of Gorilla Glass, and $390 million in Finisar, a supplier that makes vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) components found in the iPhone X's TrueDepth camera.

"Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the US economy," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness. We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible."

Apple plans to repatriate much of its overseas profits and expects to pay taxes of $38 billion when doing so, which Apple says is likely to be the largest payment of this kind ever made. That tax payment, combined with its U.S. investments and planned capital expenditures, will account for $75 billion of its projected $350 billion contribution.

Apple will be paying 15.5 percent in taxes to repatriate its overseas cash, suggesting the company plans to repatriate approximately $245 billion, or nearly all of its foreign money.

Apple will create 20,000 new jobs and spend $30 billion hiring new employees at its existing campus and opening a new campus. Apple has a new campus in the works that will "initially house technical support for customers." Its location will be announced later in the year.

More than $10 billion of Apple's planned capital expenditures will be investments in data centers across the United States, with Apple breaking ground on a new facility in Reno, Nevada starting today.

Apple's final plan to bolster the economy is through education. The company will expand its current coding initiatives that are designed to help people learn how to create iOS apps using Swift and it will increase funding for ConnectED to help students in "historically underserved communities" learn coding skills.

Update: Apple today also told employees that it will issue a bonus of $2,500 worth of restricted stock units following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law. Stock grants will be issued to most employees below a director level worldwide "in the coming months."

Apple also plans to offer a new charitable donation program that will see the company matching all employee charitable donations to up to $10,000 annually at a rate of two to one. Apple will also double the amount it matches for each hour of time an employee donates to a charity.

Full details on both Apple's new stock bonus and its donation policy were shared in an email to employees, which has been published by Axios.

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.

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming iOS 11.2.5 update to developers, one week after seeding the fifth beta and a little over a week after releasing iOS 11.2.2, an update designed to mitigate a serious hardware-based vulnerability called "Spectre."

Registered developers can download the iOS 11.2.5 beta from Apple's Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.

iOS 11.2.5 introduces a new feature that lets Siri play daily news podcasts when queried about the current news. Siri will offer up news from The Washington Post by default, but you can also choose to switch to Fox News, CNN, or NPR.

The new audio news feature, which appears to have been developed for use with Apple's upcoming HomePod speaker, is invoked when using Hey Siri or asking Siri about the news when using CarPlay or with headphones connected - essentially any situation where you're not looking at the display of an iOS device. If you activate Siri using the side button or Home button of a device, standard Apple news headlines are provided instead of the audio-based news highlights. This new feature is also available on devices running iOS 11.2.2 as of this week.

It's not clear what other new features, if any, will be included in the iOS 11.2.5 beta. We didn't discover other noticeable outward-facing changes in the first five iOS 11.2.5 betas, so it's possible this update focuses mainly on bug fixes and security improvements aside from the Siri news update.

If that's the case, we may not know the extent of what's in the update until it sees a public release. Apple is supposed to be releasing an iCloud Messages feature that was pulled from the iOS 11 release, but there has been no indication of when we can expect iCloud Messages to be reintroduced.

Update: The iOS 11.2.5 beta 6 update appears to fix a bug that allowed a malicious link to freeze the Messages app on iOS devices.

A little over one week after Apple investors urged the company to do more to protect children from smartphone addiction, a new column by The New York Times writer Farhad Manjoo has looked into potential ideas that Apple could implement in a future iOS update to curb addiction for all users, including kids.

Manjoo spoke with Tristan Harris, former design ethicist for Google and owner of Time Well Spent -- an organization that works to improve technology's impact on society -- and Harris offered a few suggestions for ways Apple could help combat smartphone addiction. While Harris's ideas are not confirmations for features coming to iOS in 2018 and beyond, it is an interesting glimpse into potential solutions Apple might implement if it decides to tackle this issue down the line.

To start, he suggested a way for Apple to offer feedback on the iOS devices that customers use, imagining a weekly report that would include the time spent within apps in a sort of ranking system. Users could then set prompts for future weeks that would pop up when their time spent in a specific app is reaching their set limit.

Imagine if, once a week, your phone gave you a report on how you spent your time, similar to how your activity tracker tells you how sedentary you were last week. It could also needle you: “Farhad, you spent half your week scrolling through Twitter. Do you really feel proud of that?” It could offer to help: “If I notice you spending too much time on Snapchat next week, would you like me to remind you?”

Harris then focused on notifications, which have long been an area that iOS users have asked to be updated. The new idea was for more granular, "priority level" notifications that Apple would require to be placed on every app. Harris explained there would be three levels for "heavy users, regular users and lite, or Zen," and then Apple would have to pen the rules for which notifications would go to each level.

So, for example, if someone chose the medium "regular" level, a DM from a friend on Instagram would appear on the lock screen. But at the same time, something less important -- like when Instagram sends out a reminder to view a friend's Story -- would be prevented from appearing. "And then Apple could say, by default, everyone is in the middle level — and instantly it could save a ton of users a ton of energy in dealing with this," Harris explained.

If Apple implemented similar features, Manjoo pointed out that it could set a precedent for the industry as a whole.

Every tech company needs a presence on the iPhone or iPad; this means that Apple can set the rules for everyone. With a single update to its operating system and its app store, Apple could curb some of the worst excesses in how apps monitor and notify you to keep you hooked (as it has done, for instance, by allowing ad blockers in its mobile devices). And because other smartphone makers tend to copy Apple’s best inventions, whatever it did to curb our dependence on our phones would be widely emulated.

Following the investors' open letter last week, Apple stated that it thinks about its products' impact on users, and it takes this responsibility "very seriously." With a larger spotlight being shined on the issue, Harris said that now is Apple's "time to step up" and really get behind anti-addiction features for its devices. Harris went on to say that in regards to this problem, Apple "may be our only hope."

HomePod supplier Inventec has begun shipping the smart speaker to Apple, with an initial shipment "of about 1 million units," according to industry sources speaking with the Taipei Times. Apple is said to have sent out a shipment notice to companies in the HomePod supply chain in early January, and now that the first supplier has answered the notice one source stated that HomePod should be launching "soon."

As the first batch of HomePods makes its way to Apple, a release date for the delayed smart speaker has yet to be confirmed by the company, although it did state HomePod will debut in "early 2018." Traditionally, Apple’s definition of "early" is January through April.

Inventec's revenue from the HomePod is expected to be "limited" this quarter due to the low quantity initial shipment. This falls in line with Inventec's own statement from last August, when it warned that supplies for HomePod might be limited at launch, similar to most Apple product launches. Following the launch, HomePod shipments for all of 2018 are expected to grow to between 10 million and 12 million units.

“The Taiwanese company has begun HomePod shipments. However, revenue contribution from the product to Inventec is expected to be limited this quarter, as the initial shipment is not large,” a source in HomePod’s supply chain told the Taipei Times by telephone on condition of anonymity.

Industry sources said that Inventec and second HomePod supplier Foxconn will fulfill an even half of these orders. Furthermore, the HomePod's delay was said to be caused by "fine-tuning of software and hardware integration."

When it does launch, HomePod will be Apple's first entry into the smart speaker market, currently dominated by Amazon Echo and Google Home. During its unveiling of the product, Apple said that HomePod is more music-focused than its rivals with high-quality sound and microphone technology, spatial awareness, touch controls, and more, all powered by an A8 chip.

BMW plans to offer CarPlay as a subscription-based service beginning next year, rather than charge a one-time fee, reports The Verge.

The automaker will charge $80 per year for access to CarPlay starting next year, with no fee during the first year of ownership of a new BMW, according to Don Smith, technology product manager for BMW North America.

BMW currently charges a $300 upgrade fee to drivers who want CarPlay, available in its 2017 model year and newer vehicles.

Smith believes switching to a subscription-based pricing system will provide BMW owners with more flexibility. "This allows the customer to switch devices," he said, while mentioning Android as a specific example.

BMW doesn't currently support Android Auto, although Smith said Google Assistant is coming to new BMW models later in 2018.

Smith also argued that the annual fee could actually work out to be cheaper for somebody with an average length lease, as the total cost after four years after the free first year of access would be $240, cheaper than the one-time $300 charge.

Of course, those who don't trade in their BMW once every four years can expect the CarPlay subscription fees to add up significantly over the long term. All the while, many other automakers now offer CarPlay as a standard feature.

BMW may ultimately decide against this idea if it receives enough negative feedback from customers, but we'll have to wait and see.