MacRumors

Apple is having more luck getting content partners to participate in its upcoming streaming service by promising to share data with them, reports the New York Post. News of Apple's most recent streaming television plans surfaced yesterday, after The Wall Street Journal reported the company was in talks with programmers like CBS, Disney, and Fox for a service that may launch in June.

Apple has struggled to create a streaming service for several years, but has continually run into problems negotiating deals with cable companies and content providers who are reluctant to disrupt existing streams of revenue. According to the New York Post, Apple is planning to share details on who viewers are, what is watched, and when it is watched in order to tempt content providers to participate in the streaming service. Apple is also said to be allowing content providers to have a significant amount of control over the service, letting, for example, providers decide when to air ads.

By dangling the "data carrot," Apple is offering something that traditional cable companies, Amazon and Netflix have refused to hand over to programmers.

The tech giant is playing unusually nice in an attempt to catch up to rivals such as Sony and Dish's SlingTV, which are fast building similar slimmed-down channel packages without a cable TV subscription.

Apple once had very ambitious plans for a streaming television service, which it envisioned would offer channels a la carte, but ongoing problems reaching deals with providers have caused it to scale back on its ambitions. When establishing iTunes Radio, Apple made concessions on pricing in order to get deals signed, and it's likely the company is willing to make some sacrifices to get its television service off the ground.

Today's report should be read with caution, as handing over user data to third-party programmers is something of an unusual move for Apple. The company has gone to great lengths to assure customers that it collects limited data whenever possible. Tim Cook has, on multiple occasions, stated "You are not our product" when speaking on user privacy.

We believe customers have a right to privacy, and the vast majority of customers don't want people knowing everything about them. When you make a purchase, we make a little bit of money. It's very simple, very straightforward. You are not our product, that's our product.

Apple is said to be planning to unveil the streaming television service at WWDC, with a launch coming in the fall. Pricing has not yet been finalized, but the service, which will include approximately 25 channels, could cost between $30 and $40.

Deals are still in the works and have not been agreed upon, so launch timing of the service could shift in the future.

Google on Tuesday announced two changes to the Play Store that it hopes will result in an improved experience for both developers and users. The first is a new review process where apps submitted for approval are manually reviewed by a team of employees at Google before the software is published on the Play Store. Google claims it began manually reviewing apps several months ago, with no noticeable change in approval times during the rollout.

The move to human reviewers marks a significant change for the Play Store, as the ability for developers to have apps go through a quick and automatic review process was a major differentiating factor over Apple's tedious review process for the App Store on iPhone and iPad. Nevertheless, Google says it will continue to help developers get their apps published on the Play Store within hours of submission, rather than days or weeks.

Apple has been rather controlling and inconsistent at times in regards to enforcing its App Store review guidelines over the years. Last month, for example, the iPhone maker began rejecting apps with violent screenshots for infringing upon a long-standing review guideline. Developers also face long waits with Apple, as the average approval times for apps are roughly six days for the App Store and seven days for the Mac App Store.

The second improvement is the introduction of an age-based rating system for apps and games on the Play Store, based on official rating authorities such as the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in the United States, Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) in Europe and Classification Board in Australia. Territories with no specific rating authority will display age-based, generic ratings for apps.

"Today we’re introducing a new age-based rating system for apps and games on Google Play. We know that people in different countries have different ideas about what content is appropriate for kids, teens and adults, so today’s announcement will help developers better label their apps for the right audience. Consistent with industry best practices, this change will give developers an easy way to communicate familiar and locally relevant content ratings to their users and help improve app discovery and engagement by letting people choose content that is right for them."

Google encourages developers to visit the Developer Console and fill out a content rating questionnaire to ensure that their apps remain available on the Play Store. Apps without a completed questionnaire will be listed as unrated and, starting in May, all apps and updates submitted to the Play Store will require a completed questionnaire before being published on the Play Store.

Filming has progressed on the upcoming Steve Jobs movie starring Michael Fassbender, and a few weeks ago, film crews were spotted at the San Francisco Opera House. As of yesterday, hundreds of extras were hired to take part in a scene and a few photos leaked, giving us details on what's being filmed at the location.

The scene being filmed in the Opera House appears to be the 1988 unveiling of the NeXT Computer, the first computer developed by Steve Jobs after he left Apple. A movie prop poster hung on one of the walls in the Opera House depicts Michael Fassbender as Jobs, posing with the NeXT Computer, which was often referred to as "The Cube" due to its shape.

Steve Jobs' NeXT event was a huge gala and it marked the first time Jobs had appeared in public in many years. Descriptions of the event called it a showy affair with "all the subtlety of a Hollywood premiere." Jobs himself was described as working the crowd "like an entertainer."

In addition to being spotted in a promotional poster, Fassbender also had his photo snapped outside the Opera Hall by a fan, still dressed in his Steve Jobs garb. At that time, Jobs favored a simple white button down shirt and dress pants, which is what Fassbender wears in the image.

The upcoming book Becoming Steve Jobs, written by Brent Schlender, a reporter who interviewed Jobs several times throughout his life and became close to him, and Rick Tetzeli, executive editor at Fast Company, is set to be released on March 24. Ahead of time, the authors have shared a number of excerpts from the book that provide untold details about his life.

Apple CEO Tim Cook claims that Walter Isaacson's autobiography of Steve Jobs "did him a tremendous disservice," depicting the late Apple co-founder as "a greedy, selfish egomaniac." Cook added that Jobs certainly "wasn't a saint," but that "it's emphatically untrue that he wasn't a great human being." He believes that Jobs truly cared about things, but his passion was sometimes mistaken for arrogance.

"Steve cared," Cook continues. "He cared deeply about things. Yes, he was very passionate about things, and he wanted things to be perfect. And that was what was great about him. A lot of people mistook that passion for arrogance. He wasn’t a saint. I’m not saying that. None of us are. But it’s emphatically untrue that he wasn’t a great human being, and that is totally not understood."

Even as his sickness progressed, Jobs continued working at Apple until his final days, and wanted others to treat him as if he were not sick. Cook claims that Jobs began thinking about a succession plan and life after Apple in 2004, and spent time working with Joel Podolny, a professor he hired from the Yale School of Management, on Apple University to pass on his methodologies to Apple’s next generation of leaders.

"But as the days went on he would spend more time with me and with other people explaining why he thought or did something, or why he looked at something in a certain way. This was why he came up with Apple U., so we could train and educate the next generation of leaders by teaching them all we had been through, and how we had made the terrible decisions we made and also how we made the really good ones."

The book also details that Jobs worked closely with Norman Foster Architects on the design of Apple's Campus 2 in Cupertino, California, a spaceship-like headquarters under construction on the grounds of Hewlett-Packard's old campus. Jobs approached the design of the headquarters with the same principles he applied to the iPhone, iPad and everything else.

"Steve wanted people to love Apple," says Cook, "not just work for Apple, but really love Apple, and really understand at a very deep level what Apple was about, about the values of the company. He didn’t write them on the walls and make posters out of them anymore, but he wanted people to understand them. He wanted people to work for a greater cause."

Cook reflected on August 11, 2011, the day that Jobs called him to his house and decided that he should be the next CEO at Apple. Cook, who had previously served at the helm of Apple during Steve's medical leaves in 2004 and 2009, was hesitant about taking the position at first, but believed that the best candidate had to come from within Apple to truly understand the culture of the company.

"If you believe that it’s important to understand Apple’s culture deeply, you wind up clicking to an internal candidate," explains Cook. "If I were leaving this afternoon I’d recommend an inside candidate, because I don’t think there’s any way somebody could come in and understand the complexity of what we do and really get the culture in that deep way. And I think Steve knew that it also needed to be somebody that believed in the Beatles concept. [Jobs believed that the Fab Four brought out the best in one another—and moderated any individual’s excesses.] Apple would not be served well to have a CEO who wanted to or felt like they needed to replace him precisely. I don’t think there is such a person, but you could envision people trying. He knew that I would never be so dumb as to do that, or even feel that I needed to do that."

Jobs passed away in October 2011 following a lengthy battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. The excerpts above were adapted from Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Revolutionary Leader, which will be available in hardcover on Amazon for $18 on March 24. Apple executive Eddy Cue described the book as "well done" and the "first to get it right" earlier this week.

Nintendo announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with Japanese mobile game maker DeNA to jointly develop games for smartphones, tablets and PCs, meaning that new titles based on iconic franchises such as Mario, Pokemon and Zelda could soon be available on devices such as iPhone, iPad and Mac. Nintendo will purchase a 10% stake in DeNA for $182 million as part of a cross-shareholding deal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Nintendo consistently refused to license its intellectual property to other platforms, fearing that doing so may threaten its traditional, console-based business model. Nevertheless, as the mobile gaming industry has grown into an estimated $25 billion market, and competitors such as Sony begin making more games available on other consoles, it appears that Nintendo has caved into the pressure.

“The company seems to have totally changed its mind-set, after having resisted against mobile game development, publicly complained about the low quality of content in mobile and played down its role in the game world overall,” said Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based game consultant. “This is about the most drastic, bold shift in strategy Nintendo could have undertaken.”

Nintendo and DeNA will team up to develop a “multi-device membership service for the global market," available next fall for PCs, smartphones, tablets and also Nintendo gaming consoles, according to the report. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said at a news conference on Tuesday that he hopes the service will allow the company to reach hundreds of millions of new users, while the company remains committed to its own lineup of gaming devices.

Apple is in talks with programmers including CBS, 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney to launch a subscription-based streaming TV service this fall, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report, citing sources familiar with the matter, claims that the service would have about 25 channels, cost between $30 to $40 per month and be available on iPad, iPhone and Apple TV. The service is said to debut at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June ahead of a September launch in the United States.

Apple's web-based TV service will reportedly deliver a lightweight package anchored by popular networks such as ABC, CBS, ESPN and FX, but will not include smaller channels typically included in a standard cable TV package. The report adds that NBCUniversal content could be notably absent due to a falling-out between Apple and NBC parent company Comcast. The two sides were allegedly in negotiations as recently as last year, although Apple believed that Comcast was too focused on its own X1 set-top box for web-based streaming.

Rumors surrounding Apple's much-rumored TV service gained momentum again last month when Re/code reported that Apple was in talks with television programmers over deals that would see the company offer a web-based TV service. Such a service would potentially allow Apple to deliver customized television packages that would be streamed over the Internet across iOS devices, providing access to a bundle of channels from participating content providers. The recent announcement of HBO Now also supports rumors that Apple is interested in streaming TV content.

Apple today notified its employees about a new volunteer program that it's launching, which is designed to encourage Apple employees in select locations to volunteer in their local communities.

Under the new Apple Global Volunteer Program, Apple is offering employees a way to receive training and tools to help them create and publicize local volunteer events to better their communities. The program, currently available in the United States, Sydney, and Cork, also aims to help employees find activities to volunteer for.

Since its launch in 2011, the Apple Matching Gifts Program has been an astounding success, with a combined total of over $78 million donated to charities and non-profits around the world. Now employees in the U.S. have a new way to make an even bigger impact on the causes they care about where they live: the Apple Global Volunteer Program. The program empowers employees to become Volunteer Champions and receive training and tools to help organize and publicize volunteer events in their communities. It also makes it easy for employees to find activities where they can volunteer their time and qualify for Matching Gifts. Right now we're piloting the program in the U.S., Sydney, and Cork with the goal of expanding it worldwide in the future.

The launch of the Apple Global Volunteer Program comes just months after Apple made efforts to expand employee benefit packages under the direction Denise Young Smith, who took over as head of human resources at Apple early last year. Improved benefits included more maternity/paternity leave for parents, educational reimbursements, and an expansion of Apple's long-running donation matching program.

Apple's Matching Gifts Program [PDF] has existed since 2011, seeing the company match the money its employees contribute to charities (up to $10,000 per employee per year), but with the expansion, Apple also began matching time volunteered. As of October 2014, Apple donates $25 per hour to any non-profit where an employee volunteers.

As stated in the memo sent to employees, Apple's charitable efforts have thus far raised a combined total of $78 million for charities and non-profit organizations around the world.

Apple plans to lure Android switchers to the iPhone by offering them Apple gift cards in exchange for their Android devices, reports 9to5Mac. The gift cards will be available under a new recycling and trade-in program that will provide in-store credit for users who trade in old smartphones, including those that come from rival smartphone manufacturers.

The new program will work similarly to Apple's existing trade-in program, which provides users with gift cards for older Apple devices that can be used towards a new purchase. Value of the gift cards provided to Android switchers will vary based on the individual device, its age, and its condition.

Apple has been making efforts in recent months to attract users switching from Android devices. In addition to this new trade-in program, the company has also created a detailed guide that walks Android users through moving data from their Android devices to the iPhone.

Following the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the devices had brought the highest Android switcher rate Apple had seen in three years. At the time, Cook also said he expects to see more customers switching over to iPhone.

Apple retail employees will begin receiving training on the new trade-in program this week and it will launch in the near future.

Following the premiere of Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine this weekend at SXSW in Austin, Texas, reviews of the film have begun circulating in the media. The Guardian notes that the documentary portrays Jobs as "a man with dazzling talent and monomaniacal focus, but utterly lacking in empathy," with director Alex Gibney showing several examples of the late Apple co-founder's less-desirable behaviour that are typically overshadowed by his successes.

"Yet this man, whose belief in his own righteousness was unshakeable, also terminated Apple’s philanthropic programmes, presided over huge corporate tax evasion, paid Chinese workers making iPhones a pittance, and only stumped up maintenance for his first daughter after dragging his ex-girlfriend through the courts, claiming that she was promiscuous and he was infertile, until a DNA test proved otherwise. Finally, he agreed to pay $500 a month – he was worth $200m at the time."

Apple senior executive Eddy Cue was quick to express his disappointment in the documentary, describing the film on Twitter as "an inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend" and "not a reflection of the Steve I knew." Cue added that the best portrayal of Jobs is in the upcoming book "Becoming Steve Jobs," which he describes as "well done and first to get it right."

Other publications that reviewed the documentary include Variety, TechnologyTell and Indiewire. The film is expected to debut in theaters later this year.

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of OS X Yosemite to developers and public beta testers, almost a month after seeding the first OS X 10.10.3 beta and just days after releasing the third beta to developers.

Today's beta appears to be nearly identical to the third 10.10.3 beta released last week, but it appears to solve a problem that prevented beta 3 from working with the new 2015 Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

The new beta, build 14D105g, is available for registered developers through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center.

Earlier betas of OS X 10.10.3 have brought several new features to Yosemite, including the new Photos for OS X app. Designed to integrate with iCloud Photo Library, Photos for OS X is a replacement for both iPhoto and Aperture and is on track to see an early 2015 public launch. Reviews have suggested that while Photos is a suitable replacement for iPhoto, with more advanced tools and performance optimizations, it may leave professional users disappointed.

Along with the new Photos for OS X app, the first three OS X 10.10.3 betas introduced a redesigned emoji picker that consolidates emoji into a single page with clear labels, new diversified emoji and emoji skin tone modifiers, new flag emoji and updated emoji for the iPhone, iMac, and Apple Watch. There's also support for Google 2-step verification when setting up accounts in System Preferences, Force Touch APIs for developers, and new data sources for the "Look Up" feature.

A growing number of users have turned to the Apple Support Communities, MacRumors discussion forums and Facebook in recent weeks to voice their complaints about the anti-reflective coating on Retina MacBook Pros becoming scratched or wearing off. The long-standing display issue appears to affect several MacBook Pros, including mid-2012 to mid-2014 models sold between June 2012 and present.

The anti-reflective coating appears to be wearing off under a variety of circumstances, including the pressure of the keys and trackpad on the display when closed, and the use of third-party cleaning solutions and microfiber cloths. While the issue is typically isolated to small areas of the screen, some users have shared pictures showing the anti-reflective coating wearing off across virtually the entire display.

"I had the exact same problem, and I followed the cleaning instructions on the Apple website: a lint free cloth and a small amount of water," writes MacRumors forum member wj2. "Was trying to remove a mark in the corner of my screen and a shiny scratch appeared on the bezel. It grew in size and it looked like the coating on the bezel was coming off like everyone is saying. Started happening at the top of my display by the camera also. I looked it up and stumbled across this same forum and realized that it was a problem that I should take up with Apple."

Affected users have received mixed responses from Apple. While some Retina MacBook Pro owners covered under a one-year limited warranty or AppleCare Protection Plan have been able to get their notebook repaired through the Genius Bar for no charge, others have been told that cosmetic damage is not covered under warranty and offered to have their notebooks repaired for a service charge costing hundreds of dollars.

While the anti-reflective coating issues are not new, with complaints dating back to at least August 2013, the problem has been gaining momentum in recent weeks. The issue has received over 100,000 views and 600 responses between the Apple Support Communities and MacRumors discussion forums, and dozens of users have submitted pictures of their damaged Retina MacBook Pros throughout March in a Facebook group set up to discuss the problem.

Update Mar 17: An unofficial website called "Staingate" has launched where affected users can join a database and submit photos of the display coating wearing off on their MacBook Pro.