MacRumors

The Unicode Consortium today released version 10.0.0 of the Unicode Standard, introducing 56 new emoji characters ranging from crazy face and face with monocle to t-rex, pie, and pretzel.

Emoji site Emojipedia has details on all of the new emoji that are included in the update, and has shared a sample image featuring visual representations of the new additions.

Some of the new emoji include star-struck, face with raised eyebrow (which Emojipedia says is also known as the "Colbert" face), exploding head, face vomiting, shushing face, face with hand over mouth, love you gesture, palms up together, brain, orange heart, scarf, gloves, coat, socks, zebra, giraffe, hedgehog, sauropod, cricket, coconut, broccoli, dumpling, fortune cookie, pie, cup with straw, and chopsticks.

New child, adult, and older adult emojis in a range of skin tones are included, as are options for person in steamy room, bearded person, mage, fairy, vampire, merperson, elf, genie, person climbing, person in lotus position, and more, with all of those emoji available in multiple skin tones and genders. While there are 56 distinct new emoji characters, gender/skin tone modifiers and flags bring that total to 239.

These new emoji will not be available for Apple products until Apple adds support for Unicode 10, and the actual artwork for each emoji on iOS and Mac devices will be up to Apple to provide.

It typically takes Apple several months to implement support for new emoji, so the Unicode 10 options could be implemented in the fall of 2017. Emoji in Unicode 9, which was released in June of 2016, were added to iOS in iOS 10.2 in October.

Apple today updated its Mac recycling program to partner with a new company, replacing longtime partner PowerOn with Phobio, a company that promises a seamless device buyback program. Apple's recycling program is designed to offer Apple users cash for their old devices by providing simple trade-in options.

Starting today, when you use Apple's Renew and Recycling program to recycle a Mac desktop or notebook, Apple will now direct you to Phobio's site where you can find your Mac by entering a serial number. After answering a couple of questions about condition, Phobio offers up a price estimate and lets users choose an Apple Store Gift Card, Paypal, or Virtual Visa Reward as a payment option.

According to a source that spoke to MacRumors about the partnership change, Apple opted to go with Phobio because the site offers higher trade-in values, is easier to navigate, and provides an option for cash payments alongside Apple Store Gift Cards, something that wasn't available via PowerOn.

Based on our testing, Phobio and PowerOn offer similar trade-in values for many machines, with PowerOn offering a slight edge in value for newer Macs, while Phobio seems to have slightly better pricing for some older models.

Apple is only partnering with Phobio for Mac trade-ins at the current time. For PC trade-ins, Apple continues to work with PowerOn, and for iPad and iPhone trade-ins, Apple is still using longtime partner Brightstar.

Apple today continued on with its line of iPhone 7 advertisements, introducing a new spot called "The Archives," which focuses on the Memories feature that's available in the Photos app.

In the video, available on YouTube, an archivist is shown working in a vast photo archive, carefully selecting and then pasting together physical versions of Live Photos and videos into a montage that's first shown on a projector and then transferred to the iPhone 7.

"Her Dreams" by Luca D'Alberto and "Unchained Melody" by Lykke Li accompany the video, as does the tagline that Apple's been using for all of its recent ads, "practically magic."

Apple has done several ads in this series that focus on the photographic capabilities of the iPhone 7, including "The City" and "Take Mine," but this is the first ad that has highlighted the Memories feature that's baked into iOS. Memories aggregates photos and videos around selected dates, locations, and people, turning them into slideshows accompanied by music.

Today's ad is also accompanied by a simple tutorial video that outlines how to use the Memories feature, which joins many other iPhone 7 photography tutorials that Apple has been producing since May.

Apple's Memories feature is set to see a major improvement in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, gaining support for a range of new categories including pets, babies, outdoor activities, performances, weddings, birthdays, and sporting events.

OnePlus today introduced its new flagship device, the OnePlus 5. During the event where the new phone was announced, OnePlus threw some shade at Apple, mocking the removal of the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus.

"On the bottom, you'll notice that we ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack. The elegance of the overall design is instantly heightened. And who needs a headphone jack anyway? That's why Bluetooth exists, right?" deadpanned Diego Heinz, a designer at OnePlus. "Just kidding. Of course the OnePlus 5 has a headphone jack."

Heinz goes on to pull up a tweet on the subject of headphone jacks, displaying a poll where 88 percent of 8,000 responders said they "like headphone jacks."

Ahead of the launch of the OnePlus 5, there was a lot of discussion on whether OnePlus would follow in Apple's footsteps and remove the headphone jack from the device. There were early design leaks and cases that featured no headphone jack, sparking speculation and leading to the on-stage joke.

This isn't the first time an Apple competitor has mocked the company's design decisions. When Samsung introduced the now-defunct Galaxy Note 7 in August of 2016, Samsung marketing VP Justin Denison made sure to point out the device's headphone jack. "Want to know what else it comes with?" he asked. "An audio jack. I'm just saying."

Unlike many of Apple's design choices, the decision to eliminate the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus has not caught on with other smartphone manufacturers, likely due to the negative reaction from consumers. Though Apple has introduced wire-free AirPods and included Lightning-based EarPods along with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, many iPhone customers continue mourn the loss of the headphone jack.

Though the OnePlus 5 still has a headphone jack, the company has adopted many other design elements from Apple, with curved edges, rounded rear antenna bands, a dual camera complete with Portrait Mode, and a "Slate Gray" or "Midnight Black" casing. In fact, The Verge called it "a slightly smaller iPhone 7 Plus that runs Android."

The OnePlus 5, which is priced starting at $479 for 64GB of storage, features a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a high-end Snapdragon 835 processor, up to 8GB RAM, fast charging, haptic feedback, a 16-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 20-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 16-megapixel front-facing camera.

Apple has expanded its lawsuit against Qualcomm, accusing the wireless chipmaker of "double-dipping" by way of unfair patent licensing agreements, according to an amended complaint filed with a United States federal court in San Diego today.

The complaint broadens the claims Apple made in its original lawsuit against Qualcomm in January, when it sued the chipmaker for $1 billion in alleged unpaid royalty rebates. Apple also accused its longtime supplier of the iPhone's wireless chip of engaging in anticompetitive licensing practices.

Since the original iPhone, Qualcomm has supplied Apple with modems that enable the smartphone to, for example, connect to a Wi-Fi or LTE network. But as the iPhone has gained more features, Apple argues that Qualcomm has been unfairly "levying its own tax" on those innovations through "exorbitant royalties."

Apple said Qualcomm wrongly bases its royalties on a percentage of the entire iPhone's value, despite supplying just a single component of the device.

As Apple innovates, Qualcomm demands more. Qualcomm had nothing to do with creating the revolutionary Touch ID, the world’s most popular camera, or the Retina display Apple’s customers love, yet Qualcomm wants to be paid as if these (and future) breakthroughs belong to it. Qualcomm insists in this Court that it should be entitled to rely on the same business model it applied over a decade ago to the flip phone but while that model may have been defensible when a phone was just a phone, today it amounts to a scheme of extortion that allows Qualcomm unfairly to maintain and entrench its existing monopoly.

The licensing agreements are in addition to paying for the wireless chips themselves. Apple said Qualcomm's "double-dipping, extra-reward system" is precisely the kind that the U.S. Supreme Court recently forbade in a lawsuit between Lexmark and a small company reselling its printer cartridges.

If that were not enough, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., condemned Qualcomm’s business model as a violation of U.S. patent law. The Supreme Court flatly rejected Qualcomm’s business model, holding that a patent holder may demand only “one reward” for its patented products, and when it has secured the reward for its invention, it may not, under the patent laws, further restrict the use or enjoyment of the item. Qualcomm, by its own admission, will not sell chips to manufacturers who do not also pay separate royalties and enter Qualcomm licenses at usurious rates. This is precisely the kind of double-dipping, extra-reward system that the Court’s decision in Lexmark forbids.

Apple said it has been "overcharged billions of dollars" due to Qualcomm's so-called "illegal scheme," including the $1 billion in unpaid royalty rebates that led Apple to sue Qualcomm in January.

In its countersuit, Qualcomm accused Apple of failing to engage in good faith negotiations for a license to its 3G and 4G standard essential patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Apple, however, argues that Qualcomm's monopolistic licensing demands violate its FRAND obligations.

By tying together the markets for chipsets and licenses to technology in cellular standards, Qualcomm illegally enhances and strengthens its monopoly in each market and eliminates competition. Then, Qualcomm leverages its market power to extract exorbitant royalties, later agreeing to reduce those somewhat only in exchange for additional anticompetitive advantages and restrictions on challenging Qualcomm’s power, further solidifying its stranglehold on the industry.

Apple also claims that Qualcomm has never made it a worldwide offer on FRAND terms for a direct license to its patented technologies.

Apple said Qualcomm subsequently filing lawsuits against iPhone manufacturers Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, and Compal reveals "its true bullying nature," calling it "a blatant attempt to exert pressure on Apple to acquiesce to" its "non-FRAND royalty demands" by attacking its smaller contract manufacturers.

Qualcomm knows that these are companies who have been effectively coerced by its monopoly practices in the past. Qualcomm knows that these companies merely pass through the usuriously high royalty demanded by Qualcomm and so have little incentive to resist its monopolistic tactics.

Apple has called for the court to declare Qualcomm's patents in the lawsuit unessential to 3G/4G standards used in the iPhone and its other products, and to prevent Qualcomm from taking any adverse or legal action against Apple's contract manufacturers related to the allegations in today's amended complaint.

Following the worldwide debut of "Today at Apple," Apple in July will launch this year's summer camps for kids at its retail stores, aimed at those between ages 8 and 12. The free "Apple Camp" will educate kids on how to create characters, make movies, design storybooks, code robots, and more while using Apple products (via Macworld).

Apple Camp's workshops this year include Coding Games and Programming Robots, Creating Characters and Composing Music, and Stories in Motion with iMovie. Each workshop is designed as a series of three 90-minute classes that kids visit on three separate days.

For the first two days kids will work on projects specific to the session they choose, while the final day will be a show and tell where they present their final project to parents, friends, and fellow Apple Campers.

Creating Characters and Composing Music: Kids ages 8-12 will create their own stories through drawings and sounds. Campers will start their session by sketching characters and scenes with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, then they’ll explore the basics for composing a track using GarageBand. They’ll bring their story to life by adding vocals and finishing touches.

Stories in Motion with iMovie: Future filmmakers ages 8-12 will explore the creative process of turning their ideas into real movies. In this three-day session, Campers will learn how to brainstorm and storyboard. Then they’ll get hands-on with movie-making techniques like learning camera angles and editing with iMovie. On the final day, they’ll present their masterpieces.

Coding Games and Programming Robots In this three-day session for kids ages 8-12, we’ll introduce programming through interactive play. Kids will learn visual-based coding by solving puzzles with Tynker. Then they’ll learn how to program Sphero robots, and even create fun stories starring Sphero as the main character.

Apple Camp will begin July 10 and run through July 28, and registration is up now on Apple.com. Today at Apple also offers other kid-focused sessions called "Kids Hour," with more classes teaching coding as well as basic knowledge of GarageBand and iMovie.

New information about the lengths that Apple will go to in order to prevent and track down leaks has been shared online today by The Outline, which obtained a leaked recording of an internal briefing used by Apple to educate employees on the culture of leaks. Called "Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple," the presentation is said to last one hour and be led by a team of Apple's best security and communications experts including David Rice, Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert.

The briefing was held for around 100 employees earlier this month and is believed to be the first of many such secretive events planned by the Cupertino company. The presentation included information on Apple's Global Security team, which employs an undisclosed number of investigators worldwide "to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press." The team is stacked by former members of the NSA, FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. military, and when leaks do occur, they hunt down sources to relay the information back to Apple headquarters.

Throughout the presentation, short videos were played that show Apple CEO Tim Cook presenting a new product on stage during one of the company's keynote addresses, reminding employees of the importance of its big reveals.

After the first video concludes, Hubbert addresses the room. “So you heard Tim say, ‘We have one more thing.’ So what is that one more thing?” she asks. “Surprise and delight. Surprise and delight when we announce a product to the world that hasn’t leaked. It’s incredibly impactful, in a really positive way. It’s our DNA. It’s our brand. But when leaks get out, that’s even more impactful. It’s a direct hit to all of us.”

Although former CEO Steve Jobs was well known for his intense secrecy, Tim Cook is continuing those efforts with force as well, according to Apple vice president of iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing Greg Joswiak.

“This has become a big deal for Tim,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Vice President of iPod, iPhone and iOS product marketing, says in one of the videos. “Matter of fact, it should be important to literally everybody at Apple that we can't tolerate this any longer.” Later, Joswiak adds that “I have faith deep in my soul that if we hire smart people they’re gonna think about this, they’re gonna understand this, and ultimately they’re gonna do the right thing, and that’s to keep their mouth shut.”

The briefing then looked into the "behind the scenes of leaks" that have happened from Apple's supply chain and in Cupertino itself, with Rice stating that Apple has so successfully reduced factory leaks last year that 2016 was the first year that Apple's campuses leaked more information than its supply chain. He even compared Apple's screening of its factory workers to be more intense than that of the TSA.

Although leaks from its own campuses have increased recently, Rice ensured the employees gathered that Apple does not have "a Big Brother culture" overseeing every move of every employee. Still, The Outline points out that the presentation didn't shy away from Apple's more intense mandates for preventing leaks, with Rice encouraging employees to be constantly vigilant about what they say in front of friends, families, and fellow employees.

“I go through a lot of trouble not to talk about what I work on with my wife, with my teenage kids… with my friends, my family,” an employee in one of the videos says. “I’m not telling you that you give up all relationships,” Rice says, “but that you have a built-in relationship monitor that you’re constantly using.” Apple employees are expected to be discrete in their own office. The hallway and the Apple lobby are referred to as “red zones,” which “aren’t places to talk,” Rice says. The fear of accidentally “breaking secrecy” may be why some newly hired Apple employees tend to delete their Twitter accounts.

During the confidential presentation, Apple assured workers that they could discuss the more normal aspects of the job with anyone they want, like how "crappy [their] boss is," their pay, or report to the authorities if they witness illegal activities. But, continuing the theme of the briefing, Joswiak said that he ultimately hopes all Apple employees "do the right thing, and that's to keep their mouth shut" regarding any unreleased hardware or software information.

Leaks and information surrounding the unreleased "iPhone 8" are suggested as a reason behind Apple's upping of anti-leak education among its employees in Cupertino. So far, we have a pretty good picture of what the smartphone will look like when it launches this fall, including the addition of an OLED screen that measures 5.8 inches, Touch ID integrated under the display, a dual-lens rear camera, and with support for wireless charging.

The Outline has a full report on "Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple" and it's well worth a read.

Earlier this month at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed its first big push into the augmented reality and virtual reality spaces, with a new ARKit developer framework and high-performance iMacs with native support for VR content creation.

On Monday, research firm IDC published new data forecasting significant growth in both markets, with dedicated AR and VR headset adoption expected to increase from just under 10 million units last year to 100 million units in 2021.

VR headsets account for much of the device volume so far, with VR headsets powered by a smartphone proving the most popular, according to IDC. The second half of 2016 also saw an increase in volume of Sony PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, and Facebook's Oculus Rift.

"The next six to 18 months will further stimulate the VR market as PC vendors, along with Microsoft, introduce tethered headsets and high-end standalone VR headsets also enter the market," said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. "With lower hardware requirements on the PC and lower prices on headsets, VR will be more accessible than ever before. And the introduction of additional motion tracking and hand tracking will help further blur the line between digital and physical reality."

Although IDC believes VR headsets will continue to dominate the market in terms of volume for the foreseeable future, the firm believes AR will have a much bigger impact on the industry as a whole, in part thanks to Apple's recent entry onto the scene.

In terms of dedicated devices, AR continues to sit slightly in the background of VR. The reason for this is not that AR is less important, but rather it is harder to achieve. IDC believes VR headsets will continue to lead in terms of volume throughout the forecast, but maintains that AR in general will have a much bigger impact overall on the industry. Consumers are very likely to have their first AR experience via a mobile phone or tablet rather than a dedicated headset, and Apple's recent introduction of ARKit further supports this.

IDC believes AR headsets will become increasingly popular in markets such as healthcare, manufacturing, field service workers, and design, with commercial shipments to account for just over 80 percent of all AR headsets shipped in the next 5 years. "We believe that many industrial jobs will fundamentally change because of AR in the next 5-years," said Ryan Reith, IDC program vice president. "These are much more opportunistic markets for dedicated AR headsets than the consumer market."

Mobile app developers have been sharing early creations using Apple's new ARKit, suggesting huge enthusiasm for the possibilities for AR on iOS devices. As for VR, Apple's enthusiasm was clear during its WWDC keynote, with the company showing off the power of its new iMacs through a live demo of VR content creation using a HTC Vive, made possible via a new Metal 2 developer kit that has provisions for external GPUs and VR headsets.