United Kingdom

In iOS 17.1 and later, iPhone users in the UK can now view banking information like account balance when using Apple Pay and viewing bank cards and credit cards in the Wallet app. Keep reading to learn how it works. Apple's Wallet app on iPhone has been able to display Apple Pay transactions made using your bank and credit cards for a while now, but if you are a Wallet app user in the United ...

If you live in the United Kingdom, there's a good chance you enjoyed yesterday's first official bank holiday of the year with your feet up. But if all you'd done was rely on the Calendar app on your iPhone, you may never have even known you were due a day off. That's because a persistent bug that has plagued the app for months still prevents Apple's UK bank holidays subscription option from...

Apple Intelligence is now available with iOS 18.1, exclusively in U.S. English – so what do users in the UK need to know? Apple Intelligence is Apple's upcoming artificial intelligence system that offers personalized, context-aware features, such as notification summaries, writing tools, image and emoji generation, Visual Lookup, and a revamped version of Siri that integrates ChatGPT and...

All Apple Stores in the United Kingdom will be closed on Monday, September 19, out of respect for the planned state funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Apple told UK-based staff today. Monday, September 19, has been marked as a bank holiday by King Charles III, given the planned state funeral for Her Majesty. Official government guidance states that it's up to individual businesses...

Apple has announced that its new Apple Brompton Road store in the heart of Knightsbridge, London, will open on July 28. Our newest store on London's iconic Brompton Road, a moment away from Hyde Park, is almost ready to explore. It's a place where your boldest ideas can bloom, and we're here to help them grow.Situated just a few doors down from the world-famous Harrods department store and...

Experts anticipate a "brutal battle" between Apple and global regulators amid concerns about how the company may "exaggerate" its privacy and security claims for commercial gain and curtail interoperability to keep users locked into a "walled garden." Global experts and leaders of competition policy convened at the Data, Technology, and Analytics Conference 2022 last week, hosted by the UK's ...

A UK consumer champion has launched a £750 million ($907 million) legal claim against Apple over the 2017 iPhone throttling controversy that saw a software update effectively slow down older devices (via The Guardian). Market researcher Justin Gutmann has filed the claim with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal seeking the damages for up to 25 million UK owners of a range of older iPhone...

The UK's competition watchdog seeks to "remedy" Apple's restrictions on browser engines in iOS and cloud gaming through the App Store via a high-level regulatory process, the organization announced today. The announcement comes upon the publication of the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) year-long study into Apple and Google's mobile ecosystems, which finds that Apple and Google have ...

The Glasgow Times today reports that employees at Apple's Buchanan Street store in Scotland are about to become the first branch in the United Kingdom to unionize. Staff at Apple Glasgow are said to have filed for Voluntary Union Recognition with Apple after joining the country's general workers union, GMB Scotland. They claim low wages, lack of pay transparency, and unfair shift patterns...

Following reports that the UK government had dropped plans to heavily regulate Apple and other big tech companies using a new Digital Markets Unit (DMU), the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has assured that it will empower the DMU with statutory powers to penalize firms that do not meet its rules (via Reuters). The government announced plans to set up the DMU in 2020, stating...

The UK is set to abandon plans to heavily regulate Apple and other big tech companies using a new competition authority, the Financial Times reports. In a paywalled report, the Financial Times claims that the British government's new legislative agenda, due to be set out in the Queen's Speech next week, will not include a bill to empower the Digital Markets Unit (DMU). The government...

Apple has today begun new ground surveys across various regions of the United Kingdom, including London, Manchester, and Birmingham, to gather pedestrian data for Apple Maps (via Bloomberg). Apple will use cameras and sensors mounted on pedestrian backpacks to gather map data in Berkshire, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands, across over 85 specific towns ...

A group of UK network operators have formally urged the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to regulate iCloud Private Relay, claiming that Apple's privacy service is anti-competitive, potentially bad for users, and a threat to national security. In its response to the CMA's Interim Report on mobile ecosystems, Mobile UK, a trade association of British mobile network operators,...

Apple has aggressively defended its ecosystem in a newly-published response to the UK's competition watchdog. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today published Apple's response to its Interim Report on mobile ecosystems, as well responses from dozens of other companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Epic Games. The detailed 47-page response from Apple aggressively...

The British Government is reportedly preparing a publicity attack on end-to-end encryption in an effort to mobilize public opinion against the technology by framing it as a child safety issue, with its main aim being to derail Facebook's plan to end-to-end encrypt its Messenger platform. According to Rolling Stone, the Home Office has hired the M&C Saatchi advertising agency to plan the...

Users of Virgin Mobile and O2 networks based in the UK will not face EU roaming charges when traveling abroad, the company that owns both networks has announced (via BBC News). Based on an analysis of rates from other provides, Virgin Media O2 said a family of four going abroad for two weeks could see an extra £100 on their bill. As such, the company said it would not be re-introducing EU...

The United Kingdom will phase out and turn off its 2G and 3G networks by 2033, the British government today announced (via TechRadar). BT already committed to ending its 3G service by 2023, but now all major carriers in the UK are in agreement to retire 2G and 3G over the next decade. The networks are due to be switched off as part of plans to accelerate the roll out of 5G across the...

The United Kingdom's Supreme Court today sided with Google in restoring its appeal against a lawsuit that accused it of wrongly tracking users within the iPhone's Safari browser without their consent. According to the ruling, the judge believed that the lawsuit, which sought to ask for compensation from Google for millions of users allegedly affected by its tracking practices, is "officious" ...

Three has become the latest UK mobile network to reintroduce EU roaming fees, in another post-Brexit setback for customers traveling abroad. A flat £2 daily charge when roaming within an EU country will apply to customers who are new or upgrading from October 1. The changes will not come into effect until May 23 2022. The operator joins EE and Vodafone who have recently announced the...

Vodafone is bringing back roaming charges for U.K. users traveling in Europe, the second mobile operator do so post-Brexit after originally saying they had no plans to re-introduce them. New and upgrading customers on "selected plans" will be charged at least £1 per day to use their mobile phone in EU destinations. The rules will change for new and upgrading customers from Wednesday,...

Royalties from music streaming services, including Apple Music and Spotify, are weighted unfairly against artists, according to a committee of Members of Parliament in the UK (via BBC News). An investigation by the UK parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee into music streaming found that artists see "pitiful returns." The committee called for a "complete reset" of ...

Lawyers representing Apple have suggested that the company could exit the UK market if the terms of an ongoing patent dispute are "commercially unacceptable" (via This is Money). UK patent holder Optis Cellular Technology is suing Apple for patent infringement after it refused to pay license fees worth around $7 billion for using "standardized" smartphone technology in its devices. Last...

U.K. mobile operator EE plans to charge customers almost $3 (£2) a day to use data roaming within the EU, a result of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, BBC reports. The new charge will go into effect in January 2022, and at first, will only apply to new EE customers or customers upgrading their plan and contract from July 7, 2021. Initially, EE, O2, Three, and Vodafone,...