MacRumors

Microsoft has been aiming to entrench its popular Xbox Live service into both the iOS and Android ecosystems for several years, having introduced its first Xbox-compatible app SmartGlass in 2011, along with a few other iOS and Xbox hybrid apps.

SmartGlass, which is also available for the Xbox One, is designed to be a companion app that allows gamers to access and control their Xbox game consoles to browse content and track achievements. The SmartGlass app also allows an iOS device to be used as a remote control and a keyboard for the system.

Microsoft may be aiming to expand Xbox Live on iOS even further, according to a new report from The Verge, which suggests the company wants to poise Xbox Live as an optional replacement for Game Center.

While Microsoft has experimented with achievements on iOS and Android recently, the company is planning to push Xbox Live cross-platform in a big way soon. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that Microsoft is building a platform to extend Xbox Live functionality to iOS and Android games.

Back in December of 2012, Microsoft experimented with an iOS game that provided gamers with Xbox Live achievements for reaching in-game milestones. The company plans to expand on this concept, making it easier for iOS and Android developers to incorporate Microsoft's framework into games on their respective platforms.

Microsoft already offers tools that allow Xbox Live functionality to be integrated into games, but to access them developers are required to be certified through Microsoft, which is a significant barrier to entry.

According to job listings found by The Verge, Microsoft is currently assembling a team that will create an "open-source, lightweight, extensible and scalable" framework that spans multiple platforms including the Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. Such a system, with fewer restrictions, could make it easier to integrate Xbox Live into apps and games.

Apple and Google both have proprietary game progress tracking in the form of Game Center and Google Play Games, but Microsoft appears to be aiming to get Xbox Live on all platforms, leading to a unified achievement system that would work with multiple systems.

Following this morning's announcement from Apple that it will officially begin rolling out its "CarPlay" iOS vehicle integration with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo on board as the first launch partners this week, Volvo has published its own press release announcing the launch. Volvo's promotional materials include a new video briefly showing off CarPlay in action.

Volvo enhances Apple’s capabilities by linking them to a specially-developed interface that allows drivers to use voice and touch controls to access Apple features and services, ensuring the entire interaction is always safe and easy to use.

With Apple CarPlay, users will immediately recognise their basic iPhone applications, such as phone, messages, music and navigation. The initial offer also features third party audio apps including Spotify, the popular music streaming service.

Volvo's press release also makes clear that while the initial implementation of CarPlay will require a wired connection using an iPhone's Lightning connector, Wi-Fi connectivity will be "coming in the near future".

Apple is hiring engineers and supply chain managers for its operations in Asia as its seeks to expand and quicken the production of new and existing products, reports the Wall Street Journal. These new teams will work out of the company's main Asian campus in Shanghai, China and its office in Taipei, Taiwan.

The report states that the company is hiring engineers away from HTC, Inventec and other Taiwanese tech firms to build an engineering team in Taipei. These new hires will quicken the pace of production by working closely with Apple's Asian suppliers on hardware components for the iPhone and iPad. They also will oversee software quality assurance.

Apple has added several hundred new engineers and operations staff in China over the past two years, with a blitz of hiring that began in mid-2013, people familiar with the matter said. The total number of engineers and operations staff in China now exceeds 600, they said.

Apple also is adding supply chain managers to its Asian staff in response to ongoing criticism of working conditions in select supplier factories.

Apple's new operations in Asia may help combat supply constraints that have plagued recent product launches. The company admitted during its Q1 2013 earnings conference call that production issues limited the supply of the iMac during the holiday shopping season. More recently, Apple warned of low Retina iPad mini inventory prior to the tablet's launch in late 2013.

As indicated last week, Apple today announced its CarPlay iOS vehicle integration feature at the Geneva International Motor Show, which allows an iPhone to take over the in-dash display of a car, providing Siri voice controlled access to aspects such as navigation, phone functions, messages, and music.

Once a Lightning-enabled iPhone is connected, the feature can be summoned and controlled on compatible cars through Siri voice control, a touchscreen, and on-board buttons. From there, users are able to access various iOS apps such as Maps, Phone, Messages, Podcasts, and Music. Third party apps such as Beats Radio, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Stitcher are also supported, with Apple promising compatibility with more apps soon.

CarPlay will be accessible this week with vehicles from manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, while other manufacturers such as BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota will receive the update later.

“CarPlay has been designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS Product Marketing. “iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction. We have an amazing lineup of auto partners rolling out CarPlay, and we’re thrilled it will make its debut this week in Geneva.”

The feature was originally named iOS in the Car and was revealed last year at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). While Apple executives went on record to say that the functionality was "very important to the company" and is an essential "part of the ecosystem," reports earlier this year stated that CarPlay was plagued by development issues. However, a video of the feature surfaced last month, and showed support for multiple resolutions of external displays, touch input and hardware controls, and voice input.

CarPlay will be available as an update to iOS 7 and works with Lighting-enabled iPhones including the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5.

Apple's iTunes chief Robert Kondrk met with record label executives during Grammy Week in January about the potential of more exclusive album releases, like Beyoncé's iTunes-exclusive album last December, according to Billboard.

Apple Inc.’s music chief Robert Kondrk has been pressuring major labels for releases similar to last year's Beyonce exclusive, excluding services like YouTube and Spotify to help shore up slowing download sales, according to music executives familiar with the conversations.

While digital music track sales fell from 1.34 billion units to 1.24 billion units in 2013 due to the rise of streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, Beyoncé's album sold 1 million copies globally in a week iTunes alone.

Kondrk is using the album's success to sell label executives on the prospect of exclusively releasing albums on digital storefronts like iTunes. He told executives the exclusives don't have to be limited to iTunes as long as they weren't on streaming services like Spotify. The move would be to preserve sales on digital storefronts.

Finally, Kondrk asked executives if they could lock down individual track sales until after a certain window of time, which would then allow users to purchase individual music tracks and listen to albums on streaming services. This is in stark contrast to Steve Jobs' sell of unbundled legal access to music when the iTunes Music Store was introduced in 2003.

In January, it was reported that digital music sales declined year-over-year for the first time since the opening of the iTunes Music Store as more users opt for streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and iTunes Radio.

The Wall Street Journal today published a new excerpt from former WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane's new book Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs, offering a new look into the management style of Tim Cook.

Kane notes that when Cook started at Apple in 1998, he set high expectations for everyone working for him, asking them to act like Apple was a $20 billion company when they were a $6 billion company and to procure the best yields, delivery and prices on components.

To some, Cook was a machine; to others, he was riveting. He could strike terror in the hearts of his subordinates, but he could also motivate them to toil from dawn to midnight for just a word of praise.

Cook ran his operations meetings in an orderly and disciplined fashion, going through every item and finding any possible error in meetings that could last up to six hours long. These meetings, according to Kane, could sometimes be terrifying for employees.

Meetings with Cook could be terrifying. He exuded a Zenlike calm and didn't waste words. "Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up," he'd say as he nursed a Mountain Dew. (Some staffers wondered why he wasn't bouncing off the walls from the caffeine.) When Cook turned the spotlight on someone, he hammered them with questions until he was satisfied. "Why is that?" "What do you mean?" "I don't understand. Why are you not making it clear?" He was known to ask the same exact question 10 times in a row.

Unlike Jobs, Cook apparently used deafening silence when he wasn't happy with something. For instance, the excerpt explains an incident where someone was unable to answer one of Cook's questions so Cook didn't say a word and let the silence fester, causing everyone in the room to stare at the table. The atmosphere of the room would grow to intense levels as Cook kept his eyes on the person who wasn't able to answer until Cook pulled out an energy bar from his pocket to eat as he waited for an answer.

However, once Cook became CEO he made moves to make Apple feel more open internally than it had under Jobs. He opted to communicate with employees more often via emails and town-hall meetings. And, unlike Jobs, who opted to have lunch with Jony Ive, Cook would have lunch at the cafeteria and introduce himself to employees he didn't know and ask to eat with them.

Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs will be published on March 18.

Nearly a year after it was announced, Apple appears ready to introduce launch partners for its "iOS in the Car" initiative, according to a report in the Financial Times. The piece claims Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari -- where Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue is a board member -- will be Apple's initial partners.

Though it does not mention iOS in the Car by name, the article claims drivers will be able to use Apple Maps for navigation on the car's in-dash screen, as well as watch movies, listen to music, make calls and send text messages through the system with full Siri integration.

The FT says the announcement will be made at the Geneva Motor Show next week, one of the premier motor shows on the calendar.

The technology group will next week launch its first in-car operating system with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo as it attempts to take the lead in a fierce race to dominate tomorrow’s smart cars.

[...]

The deal marks the first time that Apple is embedding its software in devices other than its own branded products. The choice of the Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz is seen to be in keeping with the US tech group’s high-end phones.

Apple executives have said in the past that iOS in the Car is "very important" to the company and is an essential "part of the ecosystem". At it's WWDC keynote last year, Apple claimed it was working with a number of partners including Honda, Nissan, Chevrolet, Hyundai, and more, in addition to Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes. It was reported earlier this year that iOS in the Car had been plagued by organizational issues but, if the FT report is accurate, it would appear the project is quickly moving towards a public launch.

During Apple's annual shareholder's meeting today, CEO Tim Cook angrily rebuffed a representative from the National Center for Public Policy Research or NCPPR -- a conservative think tank -- that asked the company to disclose the costs of its sustainability programs, such as solar energy facilities, and to embrace a corporate policy that focused on profits above all else.

The representative asked Cook about the impact of the company's renewable energy programs on its bottom line, and also asked Cook to commit to only undertaking projects that were explicitly profitable.

The CEO did not take this well, according to a report from MacObserver, which said that Cook's body language changed significantly and his gentle and controlled speaking style gave way to a rapid-fire response.

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

Finally, Cook looked at the questioner and said "if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

Following the meeting, the NCPPR released an incendiary press release that is heavily critical of Cook, claiming that shareholder value is destroyed in favor of efforts to combat climate change.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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.

Apple's much-rumored revamped Apple TV product will be revealed "any week now" according to a new report from the Financial Times, though notable Apple journalist Jim Dalrymple poured water on a separate report, saying an Apple TV will not be launching soon.

Though a launch date is uncertain, rumors have indicated the redesigned Apple TV product will include support for games, which the Financial Times confirms. It may also include a fully-fledged App Store, bringing apps to the set-top box for the first time.

The significantly redesigned hardware will include greater support for video-games, already a popular pastime on its iPhones and iPads, as well as other new features which could include bringing its App Store to the TV set for the first time.

The release, which was delayed from the end of last year, could come "any week now", this source said. Apple has not commented on the rumours.

Rumors of a revamped set-top box first begun appearing in early 2013, with TechCrunch's MG Siegler pointing towards an Apple TV product with a focus on gaming. Later in the year, hints of a delay surfaced, and it appears that the product was indeed scheduled for a 2013 launch that was later pushed back to 2014.

A recent report from Bloomberg suggested Apple was on the verge of revealing a new set-top box, possibly at some point in April, but indicated an actual product launch might come somewhat later in the year, which could potentially account for the discrepancy between launch reports from the Financial Times and other media outlets and a "Nope" from Jim Dalrymple.

In addition to games and support for Apple's iOS 7 controllers, other Apple TV rumors have pointed to a hardware product that combines the Apple TV with the router features of the existing AirPort Express. It has also been suggested that Apple is planning to work in conjunction with cable companies to build an Apple TV interface over existing cable content, essentially replacing the cable box.

Earlier today, Tim Cook told shareholders that the Apple TV generated $1 billion during 2013, counting hardware sales and movie/TV show rentals. He also noted that it was "a little more difficult to call [the Apple TV] a hobby these days" given its ever-increasing growth.

The company has also began offering a $25 gift card with the purchase of an Apple TV, possibly in an effort to clear out existing inventory ahead of a new product launch, and the Apple TV has also gained its own product section on Apple's online storefront.

When asked about Apple's U.S. manufacturing efforts during a question-and-answer session with Apple shareholders today, CEO Tim Cook said the company's new sapphire production facility was for a "secret project" that he couldn't talk about, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Cook did not give any more information, but did say separately that the company is working on "extensions of what we're already doing" and also "things you can't see". He reiterated that secrecy is important because Apple is "getting ripped off left, right and sideways" by competitors.

In response to a question about manufacturing in the U.S., Cook pointed to a plant a supplier recently opened in Arizona to produce sapphire exclusively for Apple. There’s been speculation that Apple may use the super-hard sapphire to produce scratch-resistant screens for future iPhones. Cook said the Arizona facility was a "secret project" that he couldn’t talk about.

But then, he said other Apple suppliers "already make" glass for iPhones in the U.S. An Apple spokeswoman declined additional comment.

Apple routinely denies having any particular new project in the works, so it's possible that a future iPhone model with an ultra-durable sapphire screen is the "secret project" to which Cook is referring, though there are a number of other possibilities for sapphire crystal including a potential smart watch product.

Cook previously confirmed that the plant would make sapphire, but the company has thus far refused to say anything more about it. He also said that investors should plan to hold Apple stock for the long term, saying to investors looking for a quick turnaround, "I encourage you not to invest in Apple."

Apple is planning to institute fees for users that are seeking online chat support for out-of-warranty products, reports 9to5Mac. The company has reportedly been working on a new web payment system that includes a paid chat support feature as well as a function allowing customers to schedule product repairs and replacements.

Currently, customers can use Apple Support's online chat feature at no cost to receive technical support on out-of-warranty products that are not covered by AppleCare, but the new rules would bring chat support under the same umbrella as Apple's phone support, which does carry fees for products with expired warranty periods.

All of Apple's products receive 90 days of phone support at purchase, which can be extended to three years with AppleCare. Customers seeking over-the-phone help for out-of-warranty products must pay a fee between $29 and $49. A similar fee of $19 will be required for chat support going forward, though users will be able to request an exception to the fee.

Apple has also developed a system that will allow customers to make payments via its support website, and that system will be used to set up hardware repairs and replacements via chat.

Using the new web payment system, we're told Apple plans to offer the ability to set up hardware repairs via chat that require a hold on a credit card or pay per incident fee. Rather than having to call in, users will be sent a link that's live for 24 hours in order to complete the payment.

Chat fees reportedly began appearing in August following Apple's support site redesign that introduced 24/7 live chat, but thus far, employees have been instructed to grant exceptions on all support requests up to the official launch of the paid service.

Apple's new chat support policies may go into effect as soon as next week, but the company will reportedly be waiving fees for iCloud issues and accidental damage cases where users are requesting to purchase repair or a replacement via chat.