Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Real-Life Image Leaked Ahead of Official Launch


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Apple News+ Head of Business Exits Company After Lackluster Start

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Apple's head of business for Apple News+, Liz Schimel, has departed the company less than a year after the $9.99 per month service launched, reports Bloomberg.

Schimel was responsible for relationships with advertisers and news partners for ‌Apple News‌+, and before that, she served as the president of international business at Conde Nast.


Apple is said to be looking to hire a "notable name" in the publishing world to take Schimel's place. Schimel's replacement, like Schimel, will report to Peter Stern, who oversees Apple's services under Eddy Cue.

‌Apple News‌+ provides access to hundreds of magazines along with subscription news from The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, but it has failed to catch on with consumers, perhaps due to the lack of access to publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post, which have refused to sign deals with Apple.

Apple has not provided information on how many ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers it has, but a report in November suggested Apple was struggling to entice people to pay for the service. That report indicated ‌Apple News‌+ got 200,000 sign ups within 48 hours, but that the numbers have not increased much since then.

While ‌Apple News‌+ was promoted at its launch, Apple has not been highlighting the service as of late, with Apple TV+ instead taking the spotlight. To boost ‌Apple News‌+ subscriber numbers, Apple is said to be considering bundling the ‌Apple News‌+ service with ‌Apple TV‌+ and Apple Music, but it's not clear when such a bundle might launch.


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iPhone App Makers Questioned by U.S. Department of Justice in Apple Antitrust Probe

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The United States Department of Justice is continuing with its antitrust investigation into Apple and has recently reached out to developers who create apps for Apple's iOS devices, reports Reuters.

Suren Ramasubbu, CEO of app development company Mobicip, was interviewed by a U.S. investigator in November and questioned about Mobicip's interactions with Apple. Mobicip makes parental control software that parents can use to monitor and control what their children are doing online, similar to Screen Time.

The app was temporarily removed last year for a failure to meet App Store requirements put in place by Apple, which is why its CEO was contacted. A "handful" of developers are said to have been in touch with the Justice Department.

Apple declined to comment on the news of the interview with Mobicip's CEO, but highlighted a statement on its website that says that Apple expects apps to adhere to a "high standard for privacy, security, and content."

Apple, along with Facebook, Google, and Amazon, is facing a government query into whether the way it operates stifles competition. Launched in July, the probe is examining information from industry participants to determine whether there are antitrust problems that need to be addressed, but when it kicked off, it had no specific aim.

Apple has been accused of anticompetitive business practices when it comes to the ‌App Store‌, as some developers and companies believe that Apple's own apps, features, and services have a significant advantage over third-party apps. Investigating claims from third-party companies who operate on the ‌App Store‌ appears to be the first part of the Department of Justice's investigation into Apple.

Screen Time, which was introduced in 2018 with iOS 12, has led to disputes with developers who make similar software. Screen Time offers parents built-in controls for limiting access to apps and monitoring app usage, a set of options previously handled by third-party apps.


When Screen Time came out, Ramasubbu was told by Apple that the Mobicip app violated ‌App Store‌ rules with features that had been allowed in the past. The app was eliminated from the ‌App Store‌ for approximately six months and has been available since October 2019, but Ramasubbu believes his business has shrunk in half.

According to Reuters, six other executives from companies that create parental control apps had a "comfortable" relationship with Apple until mid-2018 when Screen Time came out.

Apple said that it was cracking down on parental control apps because they were using Mobile Device Management (MDM) technology for device monitoring, which is not what MDM was designed for.

Multiple parental control app developers petitioned Apple to release a Screen Time API that would allow them to match the functionality provided by Screen Time, ultimately leading to Apple allowing parental control apps to once again use Mobile Device Management technology.

Apple has faced other accusations over its ‌App Store‌ apps, including complaints from Spotify that Apple Music has a distinct advantage because Spotify has to pay Apple a portion of its subscription fees. Spotify's complaints have led to an investigation of Apple's ‌App Store‌ policies by the European Commission.

Apple is also facing a lawsuit over its anticompetitive ‌App Store‌ business policies related to ‌App Store‌ fees taken for subscriptions, which has been allowed to proceed by the Supreme Court.

It's not clear how the Department of Justice's antitrust investigation will go, but it's clear the government is looking into Apple's ‌App Store‌ practices. Apple in September was asked to provide the U.S. House Judiciary Committee with details related to its policies for the ‌App Store‌, with a specific focus on parental control apps, search rankings, in-app purchase revenue split, in-app links to non-Apple payment systems, and more.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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.


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Twitter for Mac Gains Improved Touch Bar Support

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Twitter this week updated its Twitter for Mac app, introducing improved Touch Bar support for those who have a Mac with a Touch Bar.

According to the release notes for the update, it includes Touch Bar options for switching tabs and searching when the main window is in focus along with new buttons when using the composer to create a tweet or viewing a user's profile page.

Twitter for Mac's Touch Bar interfaces from MacRumors reader Noah Evans

Twitter's full release notes for the update are below:
We made a number of improvements to Twitter. A few highlights specific to Twitter for Mac:

Fixed: App freezes for text input or delete with certain languages such as Chinese

- Improvement: added buttons to switch tabs to touch bar when main app window is in focus
- Improvement: added search button to touch bar when main app window is in focus
- Improvement: added more buttons to touch bar when composer is in focus
- Improvement: added more buttons to touch bar when viewing a user's profile page
Twitter released this new version of Twitter for Mac back in October, when macOS Catalina came out. ‌macOS Catalina‌ was built using Apple's Catalyst feature that allows iPad apps to be ported over to the Mac.

Catalyst allowed Twitter to re-release Twitter for Mac, which it had previously discontinued early in 2018. The Twitter for Mac app offers a design and capabilities similar to the iPhone and ‌iPad‌ apps, but with Mac-specific tweaks such as Touch Bar support.

Tag: Twitter

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Chromebooks for education could now be earning Google $200M annually


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Best iPhone XR cases 2020

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The iPhone XR was one of the best selling phones of 2019. We've rounded up the best rugged, decorative, wallet and protective cases to keep your iPhone looking new and scratch-free.

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‘Mushu’ could be the first Chromebook to utilize a discrete GPU


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