Apple Targeted in Multi-State Consumer Protection Investigation

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Several states have undertaken an investigation that is seeking to determine whether Apple deceived customers, according to documents discovered by the Tech Transparency Project and shared by Axios.


Details on the investigation are sparse, and it's not clear what Apple is under investigation for. The documentation suggests that the Texas attorney general could sue Apple for violating deceptive trade practices in the state as part of a multi-state investigation, but little else is known.

The document that was shared with Axios is from March and it says that Texas AG's Consumer Protection Division initiated an investigation "for enforcement purposes," and if violations are found, "enforcement proceedings" will be initiated.

As Axios points out, the consumer protection law in Texas policies practices that are false, deceptive, or misleading, but again, there's no specific word on what Apple did to trigger the investigation. A spokesperson for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declined to comment to Axios on the investigation, as did Apple.

Apple also is facing a U.S. antitrust investigation alongside Google, Facebook, and Amazon, as well as an antitrust complaint from the European Commission, both of which are focusing on Apple's App Store fees and policies.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to testify in the U.S. antitrust hearing on Monday, July 27 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
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Apple Picks Up 'Shining Girls' TV Series Starring Elisabeth Moss

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Apple has given a straight to series order for "Shining Girls," a metaphysical thriller that will star actress Elisabeth Moss, Apple announced today.


The TV show, which will be coming to Apple TV+, is based on 2013 novel "The Shining Girls" from Lauren Beukes, and it will be executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way production company.

The book focuses on Kirby Mizrachi, a Chicago reporter who survives an attempted murder by a time-traveling Depression-era serial killer and then teams up with a homicide reporter to track down her would-be killer and bring him to justice. Moss will play the woman who is attacked and then hunts down the murderer.

In addition to starring in the series, Moss will also serve as an executive producer alongside DiCaprio. Moss is best known for "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu, but she has also starred in several movies like "Us" and "The Invisible Man."

"The Shining Girls" joins several other drama series at ‌Apple TV‌+, such as "Defending Jacob," "Truth Be Told," and "The Morning Show." There's no word yet on when it will be released.

Tags: Apple TV Shows, Apple TV Plus

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Apple Seeds Second Betas of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 to Public Beta Testers

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Apple today seeded the second public betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 14 updates to its public beta testing group, two weeks after seeding the first iOS and iPadOS 14 betas to public beta testers. The second public beta corresponds to the third developer beta that was released yesterday.


Public beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program can download the iOS/‌iPadOS‌ 14 updates over the air after installing the proper certificate from the Public Beta website on an iOS device, with instructions available in our how to. The updates should not be installed on primary devices as this is beta software and could have serious bugs.

• How to Install iOS 14 (Public and Developer Betas)

iOS 14 brings changes to the Home Screen, including widget support. Widgets can now be placed right next to your apps, and with the focus on widgets, Apple has introduced new ‌widgets‌ from default apps and is allowing them to be customized in three sizes.

You can put ‌widgets‌ anywhere on any app page, with new ‌widgets‌ able to be found in the widget gallery. Along with ‌widgets‌, Apple has introduced an App Library, which is an interface that shows all of the apps on your iPhone both in smart folders that are created automatically and in an alphabetical list.


With the App Library providing access to all your apps, there's now an option to hide entire app pages from your ‌iPhone‌, so you can avoid a cluttered Home Screen.

Apple has worked to make the ‌iPhone‌'s interface more compact, and incoming phone calls and Siri requests no longer take over the whole screen and are instead presented in a banner style, a feature also available on ‌iPadOS‌.

There's a Picture in Picture mode for watching videos or using FaceTime while doing something else at the same time on the ‌iPhone‌. The Messages app has new features focused on group conversations like pinned conversations, mentions, and inline replies.

A new App Clips feature lets you use small bite sized bits of an app without the need to download the whole app, useful for times when you need an app to buy a coffee, rent a scooter, or make a restaurant reservation. App Clips will work through Apple-designed App Clip codes, NFC tags, or QR codes, and can also be shared in Messages or from Safari.

The Health app supports the Sleep Tracking feature added in watchOS 7, and the ‌iPhone‌ will support the Sleep Mode and Wind Down features designed to help you get a better night's sleep. There's also a new Health Checklist that makes it easier to manage health and safety features like Emergency SOS, Fall Detection, and Medical ID.

The Weather app now provides info on severe weather events and minute-by-minute precipitation readings (U.S. only), and the Maps app supports cycling directions for the first time so bike riders can plan routes with info like busy streets, elevation changes, stairs, and more. Maps also now lets electric vehicle owners plan routes with EV charging spots.

The Home app is smarter with automation suggestions and an Adaptive Lighting feature that lets HomeKit lights adjust their color temperature throughout the day, plus there are new features for ‌HomeKit‌ Secure Cameras.


A new Apple-designed Translate app provides text and voice translations to and from 11 languages, and with an on-device mode, translations can be done entirely on your phone.

Tons of new privacy features have been added in iOS and ‌iPadOS 14‌. Apps need permission before accessing devices on a local network, you get notified when an app accesses the clipboard, and there are little icons in the status bar of the ‌Home Screen‌ when an app is using the camera or the microphone.

There are also new options for limiting access to select photos and providing apps with an approximate location rather than an exact location for better privacy protection. Safari has Privacy Report that tells you which trackers sites are using, and in the future, the App Store will include a summary of developers' privacy practices in an easy-to-read format.

AirPods can now seamlessly and automatically switch between devices, and AirPods Pro gain a new spatial audio feature for surround sound complete with dynamic head tracking.


As for ‌iPadOS 14‌, it includes most of the new ‌iOS 14‌ updates, minus the ‌Home Screen‌ redesign. The biggest change is the new Scribble feature that lets you use the Apple Pencil to write on any text field, with the written text converted to typed text.

Scribble works throughout the operating system so you can use the ‌Apple Pencil‌ for Safari searches, adding new items in Calendar and Reminders, sending Messages, handwriting in the Notes app, and more.

The beta 3 update for developers included a new red Music icon, changes to the design of the Music Library in the Music app, a Clock widget, an updated Screen Time widget, and more, with details available in our beta 3 tidbits article.

For more on everything that's new in iOS and ‌iPadOS 14‌, make sure to check out our iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 roundups, which have a detailed look on all of the new features.

Related Roundups: iOS 14, iPadOS 14

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AT&T Says Its 5G Network Is Now Available Nationwide

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AT&T today announced that its 5G network is now live nationwide, following a slow rollout that began with tests in major U.S. cities back in 2017. Specifically, today marks the addition of 40 new markets added to support 5G, making it available to more than 205 million customers in 395 markets across the United States.


If you are on AT&T and have a 5G-capable smartphone, like Samsung's Galaxy S20 or the Galaxy Note 10, you'll be able to take advantage of the improved speeds and faster downloads that 5G offers. With nationwide coverage, AT&T noted that its customers can enjoy 5G speeds both in their homes and while on-the-go, although there are of course still some limits in more rural areas.

From August 7, 5G access will be added to the AT&T Unlimited Starter wireless plan at $35/month for four lines. It's already available on the Extra and Elite plans, and AT&T said that there will be no additional cost to these plans because of the addition of 5G.

For business customers, 5G access will also be added to the AT&T Business Unlimited Web-Only and Starter plans. This update will also be coming on August 7.

You can check to find out if you can access 5G in your area on AT&T's website. As of now, Apple doesn't offer an iPhone or iPad with support for 5G, but the so-called iPhone 12 is rumored to gain 5G connectivity later this year.

Tags: AT&T, 5G

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Inside Apple's Coronavirus Store Closure Strategies

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With Apple gradually reclosing many of its U.S. stores as coronavirus cases increase, The Wall Street Journal has taken a look at Apple's strategies and criteria for deciding when and where to close stores, viewing the company as a retail bellwether.


As noted by analyst Gene Munster in the video, Apple's massive cash reserves and its heavy online presence mean that the company can be more aggressive about closing its locations than many other retail companies. As a result, tracking the company's store closures provides an interesting glimpse of what's happening in various areas of the country and trends looking forward.


Apple shared a few specific details about its store closure criteria with The Wall Street Journal, noting that it takes into account the following factors from county-level data:

• Case numbers


• Positivity rates


• Hospital, ICU and ventilator usage


• Asymptomatic testing


• Other factors

Apple says it uses publicly available data as much as possible, but if that data isn't available, it will contact public health departments to request it.

Apple closed all of its retail stores outside of Greater China in mid-March, and in mid-May it began reopening most of its U.S. stores. Just a month later, however, Apple began reclosing many of its retail locations, and nearly half of its U.S. stores are currently closed.

Tags: Apple retail, COVID-19 Coronavirus

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Tim Cook's Appearance at Upcoming Antitrust Hearing Highlights Apple's Political Balancing Act

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Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to join Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an antitrust hearing held by the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee next Monday, but a new report by The Information takes a look at Cook's reluctance to participate in the hearing and how he and Apple have tried to navigate a polarized political environment.


Some two weeks after the other tech CEOs had agreed to participate in the hearing, Cook was still holding out for fear of getting caught up in issues more relevant to those other companies than Apple.

There was a simple reason for his holdout. According to people familiar with his thinking, Cook was firm in his belief that Apple didn't belong with a group of companies increasingly viewed as antitrust malefactors by lawmakers and regulators, including Amazon, Facebook and Google. What’s more, Cook had spent much of the last four years mostly avoiding the kind of toxic political environment that has engulfed the CEOs of those companies over everything from privacy to censorship to treatment of workers.

But under the pressure of a potential subpoena from Representative David Cicilline, chairman of the committee and a critic of Apple's App Store policies, Cook ultimately agreed to participate in the hearing.

The report indicates that Cook has spent the better part of a month preparing for the hearing, which may touch on a wide range of subjects from App Store policies to Apple's disputes with the FBI over providing methods for law enforcement to access locked devices to Apple's relationships with China.

The full paywalled report goes into much more detail about how Cook has delicately balanced relationships on both ends of the political spectrum, trying to stay above the fray largely by keeping quiet. That approach has helped Apple maintain stability in turbulent times, winning exemptions from tariffs on many of its products and avoiding much of the scrutiny that has been aimed at other tech companies.

Still, Apple and Cook aren't completely immune to criticism, and it remains to be seen whether next week's hearing will lead to any action on antitrust and other fronts.

Note: Due to the political or social 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.

Tag: Tim Cook

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HDR-capable Chromebooks are coming with brighter, better displays

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