MacRumors

App Store developers in the European Union now have more protections afforded to them following the passage of new regulations this week, according to MCV/Develop and GamesIndustry.biz.

As noted by developer Steven Troughton-Smith, one of the new requirements is that operators of app distribution platforms like Apple provide developers with a minimum of 30 days notice before removing their apps from the ‌App Store‌, with exceptions for illicit or inappropriate content, safety concerns, counterfeiting, fraud, malware, spam, and apps that have suffered a data breach.

Other protections for developers include transparency on how ranking charts and "trending" lists are generated, mandatory disclosures by platform operators about preferential treatment being given to any specific developers or publishers, and access to third-party mediation for any disputes that can not be resolved through the normal app review process.

Apple has been under increasing scrutiny for its ‌App Store‌ practices, with the EU currently exploring antitrust issues related to the platform. The company also recently found itself embroiled in controversy over its rejection of apps for new premium email service Hey for not including an in-app subscription option.

Apple has taken a few steps to address app review concerns in recent weeks, allowing developers to challenge not only decisions about whether an app is in violation of Apple's review guidelines but also the guidelines themselves. Apple will also no longer delay bug fix updates for most guideline issues, allowing those updates to be delivered to users while any guideline issues can be addressed in a subsequent update.

The White House's American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, the Ad Council, Apple, and others have partnered on a new "Find Something New" website that highlights the various paths towards a career beyond a four-year college degree, including apprenticeships, certification courses, online learning, an associate's degree, trades training, and more.

"Now more than ever, we need to ensure that everyone has the tools they need to succeed and seize new opportunities," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "To invest in our future, we have to invest in people, in education and the many paths to a well-paying job or starting a new business. This initiative is about empowering people across the nation to discover a more hopeful future for themselves and their families."

Cook, who co-chaired the group responsible for this campaign, has previously said that "I don't think a four year degree is necessary to be proficient at coding." Instead, he believes that coding should be taught to students starting at a young age.

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.

Our newest partnership with Anker has kicked off this week, allowing MacRumors readers to save up to 30 percent on Anker's wall chargers, USB-C hubs, portable chargers, and wireless chargers on Amazon. Like our previous exclusive sales, you'll need to enter the relevant promo codes for each device in order to see the discounts.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Sales include a collection of useful Anker accessories, like the company's combination wall charger and 5,000 mAh power bank at $29.99, down from $39.99. If you're looking for a way to upgrade your MacBook workflow, Anker's 7-in-1 USB-C hub at $26.99, down from $35.99, is a solid addition to any home office workspace.

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Head to our full Deals Roundup to get caught up with all of the latest deals and discounts that we've been tracking over the past week.

Apple could be working towards the release of a new app for Windows 10, according to a report this week from an Italian website.

The blog Aggiornamenti Lumia suggests that an app from Apple is "coming soon" to the Microsoft Store, but stops short of providing additional details.

Apple still maintains a Windows version of the iTunes app, which has been discontinued on Mac and replaced by several standalone apps that split Apple's streaming services and content libraries into more manageable portals: Music, TV, Books, and Podcasts.

iTunes is currently the only native way to access Apple Music on Windows, and there is no Apple TV+ app. PC users wanting to stream ‌Apple TV‌+ content must do so via Apple's website, so the natural assumption is that the rumored new Apple app could include a native portal for ‌Apple TV‌+ and ‌Apple Music‌.

Last year, a LinkedIn job listing revealed that Apple was looking to hire engineers with Universal Windows Platform (UWP) experience to work on the "next generation" of media apps for Windows.

UWP apps can run on Windows PCs, Xbox One, and HoloLens, and could conceivably give Apple additional avenues to push its streaming services.

Popular writing app Ulysses received its twentieth major update today, and gained new grammar and style checking tools as well as a redesigned dashboard.

The grammar and style check is an integration of the LanguageTool Plus service, and can analyze texts and provide informed suggestions in categories such as capitalization, punctuation, semantics, redundancy, typography, and style.

"The challenge was to integrate the text check in a way that feels both natural and easy to use," said Ulysses creative head, Marcus Fehn. "It was also critical for us that the users perceive all results as suggestions rather than corrections. Because what is a mistake? When it comes to writing style, that's up to the author."

Users can review the checker's grammar and style suggestions at once or per category, and apply or ignore them. The grammar and style check is available in over 20 languages, and for now it's available for Ulysses for Mac. The developers plan to add the feature to the app's iPad and iPhone version in another release this fall.

Also new in this update is a redesigned dashboard, which offers convenient access to the new grammar and style check while consolidating many existing functions into a more organized overview.

The new dashboard contains an outline navigator where all headlines are displayed in a hierarchical order, allowing users to get an overview of their text's structure, and jump quickly between its various parts. Elsewhere, additional navigator sections list embedded images, videos, links, footnotes, annotations, and marked text passages.

Various views gather available information with a certain focus, such as all statistics, all comments and notes, all media items, and so on. The dashboard is also configurable, so writers can display only the information they need. A more compact version of the new dashboard is also available on iPhone and ‌iPad‌ that allows users to check their text's statistics, add keywords, and attach notes or images.

Ulysses can be downloaded for free on the App Store and the Mac App Store, with version 20 rolling out to existing users today. After a 14-day trial period, a subscription is required to unlock the app on all devices. A monthly subscription costs $5.99, while a yearly subscription is $49.99.

Students can use Ulysses at a discounted price of $11.99 per six months. The discount is granted from within the app. Ulysses is also included in Setapp, the subscription-based service for Mac applications created by MacPaw.

iOS 14 brings Picture in Picture mode to the iPhone, allowing movies, TV shows, and videos to be watched in a small window while you do other things on your iPhone.

Picture in Picture Mode won't be compatible with the YouTube app until YouTube updates it with support, but for now, you can watch YouTube videos in Picture in Picture Mode through Safari.

Activating Picture in Picture Mode

1. Open Safari.
2. Navigate to the YouTube website.
3. Find a video that you want to watch.
4. Tap on the square icon at the bottom to put the YouTube media player in full screen mode.
5. Tap on the video to display the controls.
6. Tap on the Picture in Picture icon that looks like a larger screen with an arrow going to a smaller screen. Alternatively, double tap with two fingers on the screen or swipe upwards from the bottom of the iPhone to activate Picture in Picture.
7. To continue browsing Safari while watching your video, just open another Safari tab, or swipe to get to the Home Screen to open another app.

Once Picture in Picture mode is activated, you can swipe out of Safari to do other things on your iPhone. You can move Picture in Picture windows anywhere on the display and double tap to change the size to small, medium, or large. If you need to use your iPhone's full display but still want to hear the video, you can even drag the Picture in Picture window all the way off the screen.

Exiting Picture in Picture Mode

1. Tap anywhere on the video to bring up the video controls.
2. Tap on the Picture in Picture icon in the upper right side of the window. You can also double tap on the video with two fingers.
3. Alternatively, if you're done watching the video, tap on the "X" to close it entirely.

For more on how Picture in Picture mode works with apps, the web, and FaceTime, make sure to check out our Picture in Picture guide.

SoftBank, the company that owns chip designer Arm Holdings, is exploring options that include a full or partial sale or a public offering, reports The Wall Street Journal.

SoftBank is working with Goldman Sachs Group as an advisor, and the explorations are at an early stage. The Wall Street Journal says that it's unknown how much interest there would be in Arm from financial or industry players, so there's a chance that SoftBank will ultimately do nothing.

Apple has licensed technology from Arm Holdings for its A-series chips used in iPhones since 2006, and Apple is planning to expand the use of Arm-based chips to Macs, with the upcoming launch of Macs equipped with Apple Silicon.

A potential sale would not likely impact Apple, nor is it known if Apple would be interested in a partial or full purchase of Arm Holdings.

In every version of iOS, Apple adds new Accessibility features and improves others, and iOS 14 is no exception. The Magnifier tool, designed by those with visual issues who need assistance, has new capabilities in iOS 14.

Updated Interface

The app features an updated interface that makes controls more readily available and offers clarity on what each tool does. There are options for adjusting brightness and contrast, or adding a filter to change what's being magnified to a color that's easier for an individual to see.

All of the controls can be rearranged to best meet a user's needs, and the filter options can be customized so you can set the one that you need and toggle it on with a tap.

In a dark area, the flashlight can be toggled on with a tap, and the magnification level can be easily controlled with a slider bar. Many of these features were available in the prior version of the app, but multi-shot, an option for capturing more than one photo at once, is new.

Multi-Shot

With a new multi-shot option, Magnifier users can take multiple photos at one time, capturing something like different pages of a menu, and then review them all at once, rather than having to take single shots that need to be reviewed one by one.

Adding Magnifier to Home Screen

For frequent Magnifier users, an app icon to activate the Magnifier function can be added to the Home Screen by accessing the App Library, searching for Magnifier, and then dragging it over to one of the app pages or long pressing and choosing "Add to ‌Home Screen‌." The feature can continue to be accessed with a triple tap on the side button as well.

To find Magnifier in App Library, make sure it's turned on by opening up Settings, tapping on Accessibility, choosing Magnifier, and then toggling it to the on position.

More Accessibility Info

The changes to the Magnifier app are small but significant, making the app customizable for each user and streamlining the use process. Apple also added several useful new Accessibility features to iOS 14, such as Back Tap for manually activating some iPhone features and Sound Recognition for recognizing sounds like water running, sirens, alarms, and more. Additional detail on the new Accessibility features can be found in our iOS 14 roundup.

With coronavirus outbreaks across the United States continuing to spike, Apple is finding new roles for retail staff as it closes more of its store locations and is no longer expecting corporate employees to fully return to on-campus work in the U.S. in 2020, according to Bloomberg.

Apple has been forced to re-close many retail locations in the United States that had previously reopened, with stores in California, North Carolina, Florida, and more shuttered at the current time. In these locations, Apple is asking retail employees to work remotely in work from home support roles that the company has been offering since March.

Retail employees are able to serve as support advisors to handle online service requests and questions from customers unable to receive services in store. Apple has not made working from home in this way mandatory for retail employees and has continued to pay employee wages, but the company is now pushing retail employees unable to return to stores to participate in the work from home program as the need for customer support representatives has grown, leading to long wait times for service.

"If your store is closed, please sign up for Retail at Home, please talk to your manager, because we really need to make sure that we shift our teams to greet our customers remotely in this time," O'Brien told staff in the video. "We may need to be working remotely for some period of time."

"This is not the experience that we want to have for our customers," O'Brien added. "So we really want to make sure that we are moving to where our customers are, to help them during this very challenging time. As you know people are really dependent upon their devices, especially right now."

For retail employees who are able to return to work, Apple is requiring masks. Apple is providing name tag lanyards that can be customized with Memoji to help retail staff be more recognizable with masks on.

Along with encouraging retail employees to work from home, Apple has also made adjustments to its corporate plans. Apple told employees in a memo that it does not expect all of its U.S. office workers to be able to return to their jobs on site before the end of the year.

Apple's offices in Europe and Asia, however, are expected to return to normal in the coming months with all employees returning to their jobs.

Some employees began returning to Apple's Silicon Valley campuses in May. Employees who have come back to work are offered optional coronavirus testing, with Apple also shipping test kits to both its retail and corporate staff at home.

Apple is limiting the number of employees allowed in buildings and specific work areas, plus it is requiring masks and conducting temperature checks.

Apple in the second quarter of 2020 paid Samsung approximately $950 million for not meeting OLED panel purchase goals established in agreements between the two companies, according to display analysts at Display Supply Chain Consultants.

Samsung last week shared guidance on revenue and operating profit for the second quarter of 2020, which included a one-time gain related to its display business. The one-time payment is believed to be from Apple, caused by Apple purchasing fewer than expected OLED panels for smartphones during the second quarter of the year.

Samsung reported that its estimate of operating profit included a one-time gain related to its display business, according to a report at wsj.com, but did not disclose the amount. Last week theelec.net reported that Samsung Display is believed to have received KRW 900 billion from Apple for purchasing fewer OLED smartphone panels than required, but DSCC sources suggest that the payment is closer to US$950 million.

During Apple's third fiscal quarter, or second calendar quarter, many of its retail stores in the United States in other countries around the world were closed for several months, which, along with economic uncertainty, likely had a major impact on sales. Even now, many stores in the U.S. have been forced to close again as coronavirus outbreaks have continued to spike.

The payment suggests Apple did not meet projected iPhone sales and thus did not order the number of OLED panels from Samsung that it expected to need, requiring the Cupertino-based company to compensate Samsung. Apple in April reported revenue of $58.3 billion, up from $58 billion in the year-ago quarter, but the company declined to provide guidance for the third fiscal quarter of 2020 due to the instability caused by the ongoing health crisis.

Apple plans to announce earnings for the third fiscal quarter (second calendar quarter) of 2020 on Thursday, July 30, which will give a better picture of how iPhone and other product sales fared during the prolonged store closures.

Apple also made a $683 million payment to Samsung in July 2019 after missing OLED display purchase targets due to poor sales in China and other parts of the world in the 2018 holiday quarter. Apple addressed those issues with iPhone trade-in promotions, price cuts, and monthly payment options, which boosted sales until the coronavirus hit at the beginning of 2020.

Apple today shared a funny video focused on the problems that people working from home have to deal with, including noisy children, chaotic schedules, communication issues, and more.

The Underdogs are back, navigating their new normal with lots of unknowns but one reliable constant: Apple helps unleash their creativity and productivity even when they're working from home.

It's still a world of deadlines, meetings, group chats, conference calls, coworkers, and bosses. But it's also a world of kids, a dog, and a hairless cat. And it's a world where collaboration never misses a beat, whether the team uses iPad, iPhone, iMac, MacBook, or all of the above. Working from home (or working from anywhere) isn't new, but what you can make happen together is.

The seven minute video follows a group of colleagues attempting to work through an important project while overcoming all the problems that come with working remotely, and it comes after a similar "Apple at Work" video that Apple published last year featuring the same actors.

Other highlighted products and features in the video include Memoji, writing with Apple Pencil, Group FaceTime, AirPods, the iPad Pro's measure app, and the sleep tracking feature on the Apple Watch.

Idris Elba will develop and produce television series and films for Apple TV+ through his production company Green Door Pictures after striking a first-look deal with the streaming service, according to Deadline.

Elba is known for his award-winning performance as John Luther in the BBC psychological crime drama series "Luther," as well as roles in the HBO drama "The Wire" and the Fast & Furious film "Hobbs & Shaw." Fans of NBC sitcom "The Office" will also remember Elba for his brief role as Charles Miner, Vice President of the Northeast Region.

Apple TV+ has reached similar production deals with Oprah Winfrey, Alfonso Cuarón, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ridley Scott, and many others.

Earlier this year, Apple agreed to settle a U.S. class action lawsuit that accused the company of "secretly throttling" older iPhone models. Now, eligible iPhone owners are beginning to be notified about their legal rights and options.

Under the proposed settlement, Apple will provide a cash payment of approximately $25 to each eligible iPhone owner who submits a claim, with its total payout to fall between $310 million and $500 million. The exact amount that each iPhone owner receives could vary slightly based on the number of claims submitted.

The class includes any U.S. resident who owns or previously owned an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and/or iPhone SE that ran iOS 10.2.1 or later, and/or an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus that ran iOS 11.2 or later, before December 21, 2017. Class members also must have experienced "diminished performance" on their devices.

A website has been set up where eligible class members can submit a claim or review their other options, including excluding themselves from the lawsuit to retain the ability to sue Apple individually over the matter. All claims must be submitted online or received by letter mail by October 6, 2020, or else payment is forfeited.

Apple has denied all allegations and is entering into this settlement to "avoid burdensome and costly litigation." The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing by Apple, according to the U.S. District Court for Northern California.

The class action lawsuit was filed in December 2017, shortly after Apple revealed that it throttles the maximum performance of some older iPhone models with chemically aged batteries when necessary in order to prevent the devices from unexpectedly shutting down. The complaint described the move as "one of the largest consumer frauds in history."

Apple introduced this battery/performance management system in iOS 10.2.1, but it did not initially mention the change in the update's release notes. Likewise, in a statement issued a month later, Apple still only mentioned vague "improvements" resulting in a significant reduction in unexpected ‌iPhone‌ shutdowns.

Apple only revealed exactly what the so-called "improvements" were after Primate Labs founder John Poole visualized that some ‌iPhone‌ 6s and ‌iPhone‌ 7 devices suddenly had lower benchmark scores starting with iOS 10.2.1 and iOS 11.2 respectively, despite operating at maximum performance on previous versions.

Apple apologized for its lack of communication in December 2017, and reduced the price of battery replacements to $29 for ‌iPhone‌ 6 and newer through the end of 2018 to appease customers.

(Thanks, Ben Hurley and Oscar Falcon!)

Apple today announced that it is allocating more than $400 million toward affordable housing projects and homeowner assistance programs in California this year, as part of the company's multiyear $2.5 billion commitment to combat the housing crisis in the state.

Apple says the funding will support thousands of Californians with first-time homebuyer assistance or new affordable housing units.

In November 2019, Apple committed $2.5 billion to combat the housing crisis in California across a series of initiatives over several years, including:

• A $1 billion affordable housing investment fund with the state of California.
• A $1 billion first-time homebuyer mortgage assistance fund, with increased funding opportunities for essential services personnel, school employees, and veterans.
• $300 million in Apple-owned land made available for affordable housing.
• A $150 million Bay Area housing fund, in public-private partnership with Housing Trust Silicon Valley.
• $50 million to support Destination: Home's efforts to address homelessness in Silicon Valley.

"As cities and states have been forced to pause many of their long-term affordable housing investments amidst the current public health crisis, Apple is proud to continue moving forward with our comprehensive plan to combat the housing crisis in California," said Kristina Raspe, Apple's vice president for Global Real Estate and Facilities.