MacRumors

Some publishers who have joined Apple News+ are unhappy with the launch of the service and have shared details on some "early headaches" with media site Digiday.

When encouraging publications to sign up, Apple promised design resources and templates for customizing content for the ‌Apple News‌ format, but as it turns out, Apple is shutting out some smaller publications and "playing favorites" with larger publishers.

All participating publishers have been provided with an email address for sending pitches for design help, but a smaller group of publishers has been provided with access to a private Slack channel.

But a smaller, select group of publishers were invited to join a private Slack channel where they could connect with Apple more directly, a move that exasperated several sources when they were informed of the channel's existence. "They're basically playing favorites," that first source said. "It always seems to be good for the big guys, but not for the rest of us."

Apple has not provided Apple-designed article or content templates to publishers and has "largely outsourced" templates to vendors, which has resulted in bugs and other issues, along with much more work for publishers.

Magazine publishers need to use tools to scan PDFs and convert them into individual articles and advertisements, but the technology is said to be so buggy that each issue needs to be "effectively copy- and design-edited all over again."

Smaller magazines that don't have the resources for these full redesigns need to either invest time and money anyway or submit a PDF instead. A lot of the content within ‌Apple News‌+ at the current time is PDF-based, which does not make for the greatest user reading experience.

Publishers are also said to be frustrated with the "uneven user experience" in ‌Apple News‌ with the split between PDFs and the new ‌Apple News‌ format. "You think of Apple, and they're so design-conscious," said one publisher. "This doesn't feel like that at all."

According to Digiday, the publishers that it spoke to said that the flaws in ‌Apple News‌+ do not "bode well for its long-term future" unless Apple adapts its approach and makes some key changes to the service.

‌Apple News‌+ users have also expressed frustration with the service, and at MacRumors we've heard numerous complaints from Apple customers confused by the unintuitive user interface and unhappy with the lack of features.

Apple today uploaded six new videos focused on showing off iPad Pro features, continuing on with its "What You Can Do With iPad" series promoting the new 11 and 12.9-inch tablets.

Most of the videos are over a minute long and feature different ‌iPad Pro‌ apps, features, and capabilities, ranging from handwriting a note with Apple Pencil to creating music.

Multitasking with multiple windows, making notes with ‌Apple Pencil‌, browsing the web, using Maps, watching videos, reading with the Books app, annotating photos, using drag and drop, video editing, typing with both the on-screen keyboard and the Smart Keyboard Folio, and making music with GarageBand are all shown off in the video.

Apple also highlights charging the iPhone with the ‌iPad Pro‌, shooting in 4K, plugging in USB-C accessories, and Group FaceTime.

Several third-party apps are shown off in the videos, such as LumaFusion, Animation Desk, NBA 2K, Felt, Notability, Trello, Calm, Procreate, Affinity Designer, Impress, Universe, and more.

All of Apple's videos link to a "Look what you can do with iPad Pro" website that first launched in January. Apple says that all of the videos were filmed with the ‌iPad Pro‌, as were the previous videos in the series.

As noted in a regulatory filing from February, Apple's retail chief Angela Ahrendts is leaving the company today, with April 15 marking her last day at Apple.

Apple in early February announced that Ahrendts' role as Apple's head of retail would be ending, with Deirdre O'Brien taking over. Deirdre O'Brien was formerly Apple's vice president of people, but her title is now Senior Vice President of Retail and People as she is maintaining her current responsibilities while also overseeing Apple's retail initiatives.

Over the weekend, Apple removed Ahrendts' profile from its Apple Leadership page in preparation for her departure.

According to Apple, Ahrendts is leaving the company for "new personal and professional pursuits," though it is not clear where she plans to go after leaving Apple. Apple did not give deeper detail on the reason for her departure, but she is departing amid a significant drop in iPhone sales in China and some other emerging markets.

Ahrendts has been the head of Apple retail since she joined the company in 2014, and she has overseen the launch of the redesigned Apple Stores and customer experiences that have been rolling out across the world over the course of the last several years.

Under Ahrendts' leadership, Apple ditched the Genius Bar and instead adopted the more casual Genius Grove, cut down on third-party accessory sales, and turned its retail stores into gathering hubs with Today at Apple classes, artist performances, and more.

Prior to working at Apple, Ahrendts was the CEO of famous fashion company Burberry, and before that, she held positions at Liz Claiborne and Donna Karan. Ahrendts joined Apple at a time when Apple was experimenting with luxury products, launching the super expensive 14 karat gold Apple Watch in 2015, which never really caught on and was ultimately discontinued.

In a farewell note announcing Ahrendts departure to employees, Apple CEO Tim Cook called her "a much-loved and accomplished leader" who had played "a transformative role" shaping the Apple retail experience.

Angela has inspired and energized our retail teams with the vision of stores as a place where the best of Apple comes together to serve customers and communities. During her tenure, the in-store experience has been redefined with programs like Today at Apple, and our relationship with customers is stronger than ever.

Deirdre O'Brien will be reporting directly to ‌Tim Cook‌ going forward. She will continue to oversee talent development and Apple university, recruiting, employee relations and experience, business partnerships, inclusion and diversity, and more, along with retail experiences.

At the current time, Apple has more than 500 retail locations across five continents and more than 35 online stores around the world.

Apple's Beats brand today shared a new video designed to promote Powerbeats Pro, Apple's upcoming wire-free earbuds that are similar to the AirPods, but designed with fitness and sports in mind.

The video features multiple famous athletes and a brand new single, "Saw Lightning," from Beck. Beck's new song was released today alongside the ad and is available on Apple Music. The video was directed by Hiro Murai, a Grammy Award winning filmmaker who directed the hit music video for Childish Gambino's song "This is America."

In the video, each of the athletes is wearing a set of white ‌Powerbeats Pro‌ while playing their respective sports, ranging from gymnastics to basketball. Beats says that the video is part of a new "UNLEASHED" campaign promoting the ‌Powerbeats Pro‌.

Athletes featured include gymnast Simone Biles, boxer Anthony Joshua, tennis pro Serena Williams, basketball player LeBron James, soccer player Eden Hazard, rugby player Owen Farrell, boxer Ramla Ali, weightlifter Zoe Smith, basketball player Ben Simmons, football player Odell Beckham Jr., skier Kevin Rolland, skateboarder Leticia Bufoni, boulderer Miho Nonaka, snowboarder Shaun White, soccer player Alex Morgan, runner Ruddy Trobrillant, and ballet dancer Jasmine Perry.

Apple plans to release ‌Powerbeats Pro‌ in May, with the new earbuds set to cost $250 in the United States. A specific launch date is not yet known, nor has Apple said whether pre-orders will be available ahead of time.

‌Powerbeats Pro‌, officially announced in early April, share many features with AirPods, including the same H1 chip and sensors for features like ear detection, simple and fast pairing, easy swapping between devices, and Hey Siri support.

‌Powerbeats Pro‌ also offer longer battery life at nine hours per earbud before needing to be recharged with the wireless charging case, and they are designed to better stay in the ears than AirPods with an earhook that holds them in place and ear tips in four sizes.

Apple has also said that sound was a focus with the ‌Powerbeats Pro‌, and that they'll be able to hold up well to sweat.

For more on the ‌Powerbeats Pro‌, make sure to check out our dedicated guide.

Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, today launched a petition urging Apple to reset the unique IDs used to serve interest-based ads in the App Store and Apple News apps on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV on a monthly basis.

Mozilla takes aim at Apple's recent iPhone privacy ad in a blog post:

Apple's latest marketing campaign — "Privacy. That's iPhone" — made us raise our eyebrows.

It's true that Apple has an impressive track record of protecting users' privacy, from end-to-end encryption on iMessage to anti-tracking in Safari.

But a key feature in iPhones has us worried, and makes their latest slogan ring a bit hollow.

Each iPhone that Apple sells comes with a unique ID (called an "identifier for advertisers" or IDFA), which lets advertisers track the actions users take when they use apps. It's like a salesperson following you from store to store while you shop and recording each thing you look at. Not very private at all.

These identifiers can already be manually reset under Settings > Privacy > Advertising on iOS devices and under Settings > General > Privacy on ‌Apple TV‌, but Mozilla is asking for "a real cap" with an automatic monthly reset to make it "harder for companies to build a profile about you over time."

"If Apple makes this change, it won't just improve the privacy of iPhones — it will send Silicon Valley the message that users want companies to safeguard their privacy by default," wrote Ashley Boyd, Mozilla's VP of Advocacy.

Interest-based ads in the ‌App Store‌ and ‌Apple News‌ app are based on information such as your ‌App Store‌ search history and ‌Apple News‌ reading history. Apple makes it easy to opt out, but Mozilla argues that "most people don't know that feature even exists, let alone that they should turn it off."

We'll provide an update if Apple responds.

Microsoft is planning to launch a pair of wireless earbuds under the Surface brand that will be a direct competitor to Apple's AirPods, according to sources familiar with the company's plans who spoke to Thurrott. The earbuds are currently in development under the code name "Morrison."

These are described to be in-ear wireless headphones, just like the AirPods. This isn't the first time Microsoft has created and sold its own headphones, as it currently sells the $349.99 Surface Headphones on its website.

The Surface Headphones are large, over-ear headphones with advanced features like noise cancellation. The new device would likely carry over a few features seen in the Surface Headphones, however, like Cortana integration and "a way to improve interactions between a phone and the earbuds to make reading content easier on the phone."

At this time, the name of the earbuds is not yet confirmed, but the simple moniker of "Surface Buds" is said to have been tossed around within the company.

Apple just updated the AirPods to version 2, which includes "Hey Siri" functionality and wireless charging. The full lineup now includes the AirPods 2 with Wireless Charging Case ($199), AirPods 2 with standard Charging Case ($159), and the standalone Wireless Charging Case ($79) that adds wireless charging capabilities to your existing AirPods.

Apple is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to secure new games for its forthcoming Apple Arcade subscription service, with its total budget likely to exceed $500 million, according to the Financial Times.

The report, citing several people involved in the project's development, claims Apple is incentivizing developers by spending several million dollars each on most of the more than 100 games that have been selected to be available on Apple Arcade when the service launches later this year.

While the report claims games on ‌Apple Arcade‌ will not be available on Android or through other subscription-based gaming services, it says developers will be permitted to release their games on PCs or other games consoles such as the Nintendo Switch or PlayStation after a few months of exclusivity.

‌Apple Arcade‌ will feature titles from well-known brands such as Disney, Sega, Lego, Cartoon Network, and Konami, as well as indie studios such as Snowman, Annapurna Interactive, WayForward, and Klei Entertainment.

Apple has yet to reveal pricing for its Arcade service, slated to launch in fall 2019 in more than 150 countries across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. All games on ‌Apple Arcade‌ will be fully-featured, all-you-can-play experiences, with no ads and no in-app purchases necessary.

‌Apple Arcade‌ will be accessible via a dedicated tab in the App Store.

Ahead of Apple introducing iOS 13 at WWDC in June, 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo has shared new details about what to expect. The report cites sources familiar with the matter and help from developer Steve Troughton-Smith.

First, the report claims that a long-awaited systemwide ‌Dark Mode‌ is coming to the iPhone and iPad with iOS 13:

There will be a system-wide Dark Mode that can be enabled in Settings, including a high contrast version, similar to what's already available on macOS. Speaking of macOS, iPad apps that run on the Mac using Marzipan will finally take advantage of the Dark Mode support on both systems.

Improved multitasking is expected on the ‌iPad‌ with iOS 13, including support for multiple windows and stackable cards in apps:

Each window will also be able to contain sheets that are initially attached to a portion of the screen, but can be detached with a drag gesture, becoming a card that can be moved around freely, similar to what an open-source project called "PanelKit" could do.

These cards can also be stacked on top of each other, and use a depth effect to indicate which cards are on top and which are on the bottom. Cards can be flung away to dismiss them.

To the joy of everyone, iOS 13 is said to feature a new volume HUD that is hopefully far less obtrusive than the current one. Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi hinted at this in an email to a customer earlier this year.

iPads are also expected to receive a new standard undo gesture for text input on iOS 13 beyond the existing shake-to-undo. The report claims the new gesture is initiated with a three-finger tap on the keyboard area, and then users can slide left or right to undo and redo actions interactively.

Additional gestures are expected to be introduced in iOS 13 that allow for the selection of multiple items in table views and collection views. Users will supposedly be able to "drag with multiple fingers on a list or collection of items to draw a selection, similar to clicking and dragging in Finder on the Mac."

The report adds that Safari for ‌iPad‌ on iOS 13 will automatically ask for a desktop version of websites when necessary, while the Mail app will organize messages into searchable categories such as marketing, purchases, travel, "not important," and more. The new Mail app is also said to have a "read later" queue.

Font management is also expected to improve in iOS 13, with a new font management menu in the Settings app.

Other features expected in iOS 13 include a redesigned Reminders app that extends to the Mac, improved "Hey Siri" rejection for common ambient noises such as laughter and crying babies, improved multilingual support for keyboards and dictation, and expanded in-app printing controls, according to 9to5Mac.

Two years after Apple sued Qualcomm over $1 billion in unpaid royalty rebates and anticompetitive patent licensing practices, the tech heavyweights are set to face off in a San Diego courtroom. The trial begins today with jury selection.

Apple manufacturers Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, and Compal, whose complaints have been merged with Apple's, allege that they have collectively overpaid Qualcomm approximately $9 billion in royalties, a figure that could be tripled under antitrust laws to $27 billion, according to The New York Times.

Apple argues that Qualcomm should also repay $3.1 billion associated with patents whose rights are exhausted, the report adds.

Apple in January 2017:

For many years Qualcomm has unfairly insisted on charging royalties for technologies they have nothing to do with. The more Apple innovates with unique features such as Touch ID, advanced displays, and cameras, to name just a few, the more money Qualcomm collects for no reason and the more expensive it becomes for Apple to fund these innovations.

Qualcomm in turn estimates that Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, and Compal owe more than $7.5 billion in unpaid royalties. Qualcomm also argues that Apple should be held liable for a doubled penalty of at least $15 billion.

Qualcomm in April 2017:

Apple is the world's most profitable seller of cellular devices. But as a late-comer to the cellular industry, Apple contributed virtually nothing to the development of core cellular technology. Instead, Apple's products rely heavily on the cellular inventions of Qualcomm and others. Apple's iPhones and other products enjoy enormous commercial success, but without lightning-fast cellular connectivity—enabled in large part by Qualcomm's inventions—Apple's iPhones would lose much of their consumer appeal.

Apple already won a preliminary judgment ordering Qualcomm to pay nearly $1 billion in withheld rebates last month. Qualcomm has also faced scrutiny from antitrust regulators in multiple countries, including the United States, where an FTC lawyer said evidence of misconduct is "overwhelming."

"The evidence is overwhelming that Qualcomm engaged in exclusionary conduct, and the effects of Qualcomm's conduct, when considered together, are anticompetitive," said FTC lawyer Jennifer Milici, during closing arguments in the FTC vs. Qualcomm trial in January, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Amidst the legal battle, Apple dropped Qualcomm as a supplier of cellular modems starting with last year's iPhone XS, ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, and ‌iPhone‌ XR, with rival chipmaker Intel fulfilling all orders for those devices.