"Apple won a massive reduction in a 1.1 billion euro ($1.1 billion) antitrust fine from French competition regulators," reports CNBC, "in a blow to the ambitions of European authorities to crack down on the dominance of Big Tech companies." The Paris appeals court on Thursday lowered the fine to 371.6 million euros, roughly a third of the value of the original penalty and a reduction of 728.4 million euros, an Apple spokesperson confirmed.According to Reuters, the amount was slashed because the court decided to drop one of the charges related to price fixing, and lower the rate originally used to calculate the fine....

In 2020, the French competition watchdog fined Apple 1.1 billion euros for allegedly pressuring premium resellers into fixing prices of non-iPhone products, such as its Mac and iPad computers, and abusing the economic dependence of its outside resellers. Tech Data and Ingram Micro, two global electronics wholesalers, were also fined 76.1 million euros and 62.9 million euros, respectively. The regulator accused Apple, Tech Data and Ingram Micro of agreeing not to compete and preventing independent resellers from competing with each other, "thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products."
Apple response, according to Reuters: "While the court correctly reversed part of the French Competition Authority's decision, we believe it should be overturned in full and plan to appeal.

"The decision relates to practices from more than a decade ago that even the (French authority) recognised are no longer in use."

Apple is asking suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, in a win for the South Asia nation as it attempts to rise in the global supply chain. Nikkei Asia Review reports: The move is part of Apple's gradual diversification from China, as it looks to lower the risk of supply chain disruptions stemming from the country's strict zero-COVID policy and tensions with the U.S. Apple has been talking with a number of its suppliers about increasing production in India, including of key acoustics devices, as early as next year, three people familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia. In response, iPhone assembler Foxconn is preparing to make Beats headphones in the country, and hopes to eventually produce AirPods there as well, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Luxshare Precision Industry and its affiliates, which already produce AirPods in Vietnam and China, also plan to help Apple make the popular wireless earphones in India, sources said. However, Luxshare is focusing more on its Vietnamese AirPods operations for now and could be slower than its competitors in starting meaningful production of Apple products in India, one of the people said. Bringing AirPods and Beats production to India would enlarge Apple's production footprint in the country, following a recent announcement that the latest iPhone is already being made there. Apple started having some older iPhone models made in India in 2017 by a smaller supplier, Wistron, but only accelerated such production last year.

Apple's App Store net revenue fell about 5% in September, according to Morgan Stanley, the steepest drop for the business since the bank started modeling the data in 2015. From a report: The App Store saw declines in markets including the U.S., Canada and Japan, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a report Monday. His analysis was based on data from Sensor Tower, a firm that tracks app downloads and sales. Morgan Stanley said the main culprit for the drop was gaming revenue, which was down 14% in September, according to the data.

Apple customers may be spending less due to economic concerns, Woodring wrote. Across much of the globe, consumers are facing soaring inflation and recessionary risks. "We believe the recent App Store results make clear that the global consumer has somewhat de-emphasized App Store spending in the near-term as discretionary income is reallocated to areas of pent-up demand," Woodring wrote in the note. Morgan Stanley analysts also expect to see a drop in sales on Google Play, the primary Android app store. They estimate revenue there fell 9% in September.

While Meta funnels billions into CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pitch for the metaverse, Apple CEO Tim Cook thinks most people couldn't even define the metaverse, let alone spend long periods of time living their lives inside of it. From a report: "I always think it's important that people understand what something is," Cook told Dutch publication Bright (via Google Translate). "And I'm really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is." In other words, despite persistent reports of Apple's interest in building all manner of AR and VR hardware, Cook isn't ready to claim that the company is working towards any so-called "metaverse." Mark Zuckerberg has a different view. Earlier this year, the Meta CEO told his employees that the company is in a "very deep, philosophical competition" with Apple to build the metaverse. "This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience," Zuckerberg said, contrasting what he says is Apple's closed approach with Meta's more interoperable development.

Members of the European Parliament voted to force companies such as Apple to adapt products that don't already feature a standard USB-C charger to use one. This would include iPhones, in Apple's case. From a report: A total of 602 lawmakers voted for the plan on Tuesday, with 13 against, and eight abstaining. The deal, provisionally agreed in June between the commission and the European Union's 27 countries, still needs to get the final sign-off from the EU member states. The rules are likely to be written into law at the beginning of 2023.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday again declined to hear Apple's bid to revive an effort to cancel three Qualcomm smartphone patents despite the settlement of the underlying dispute between the two tech giants. Reuters reports: The justices left in place a lower court's decision against Apple after similarly turning away in June the company's appeal of a lower court ruling in a closely related case challenging two other Qualcomm patents. Qualcomm sued Apple in San Diego federal court in 2017, arguing that its iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches infringed a variety of mobile-technology patents. That case was part of a broader global dispute between the tech giants. Apple challenged the validity of the patents at issue in this case at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

The companies settled their underlying fight in 2019, signing an agreement worth billions of dollars that let Apple continue using Qualcomm chips in iPhones. The settlement included an Apple license to thousands of Qualcomm patents, but allowed the patent-board proceedings to continue. The board upheld the patents in 2020, and Apple appealed to the patent-specialist U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Cupertino, California-based Apple argued it had proper legal standing to appeal because San Diego-based Qualcomm could sue again after the license expires, potentially as soon as 2025.

A Federal Circuit three-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, dismissed the case last year for a lack of standing, finding that Apple's risk of being sued again was speculative and the challenge would not affect its payment obligations under the settlement. Qualcomm has again argued that Apple has not shown a concrete injury to justify the appeal, just like in the "materially identical" case that the high court rejected.

Apple's vice president of procurement, Tony Blevins, has left the company after a TikTok video showed him making a vulgar comment about women at a car show. CNBC reports: An Apple representative confirmed the departure to CNBC, saying, "Tony is leaving Apple." The departure was spurred by a TikTok video posted Sept. 5, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news. In the video, reviewed by CNBC, Blevins is getting out of an expensive Mercedes-Benz sports car and is asked what he does for a living by Daniel Mac, who has a channel centered around asking people in expensive cars questions. In the video, Blevins responds, "I race cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women. But I take weekends and major holidays off." The remark appears to be a reference to a similar quote in the movie "Arthur." It was viewed 1.3 million times, according to the TikTok page. "Blevins was a VP at Apple," notes CNBC. "His main role was to negotiate with suppliers to keep the price Apple pays for computer parts down, according to a Wall Street Journal profile of Blevins from 2020."

Apple's South Korean headquarters have been raided by antitrust regulators after a complaint was raised by developers that it is charging them over the standard 30% App Store commission rate. From a report: The dawn raid by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) was reported by local media on Monday and covered on Friday by the Foss Patents blog, highlighting the ongoing investigation in the country into Apple's alleged abuse of market power. The complaint that sparked the raid was reportedly brought by mobile game developers who argued that Apple charges more than the typical 30% commission rate for purchases made in the App Store. As Foss Patents points out, Apple charges 30% of the price paid by end users, which includes value added tax (VAT), making it 10% higher than the amount on which Google bases its 30% commission, which doesn't include VAT. Apple is therefore collecting 33% (30% of 110%), not the headline 30% rate.

Developer Asahi Lina with the Asahi Linux project was successfully able to get GNOME running on the Apple M1, including "Firefox with YouTube video playback, the game Neverball, various KDE applications, and more," reports Phoronix. From the report: This is some great progress especially with the driver being written in Rust -- the first within the Direct Rendering Manager subsystem -- and lots of work there with the Rust infrastructure in early form. It won't be until at least Linux 6.2 before this driver could be mainlined while we'll see how quickly it tries to go mainline before it can commit to a stable user-space interface. At the moment there is also a significant driver "hack" involved but will hopefully be sorted out soon. Over in user-space, the AGX Gallium3D driver continues being worked on for OpenGL support with hopes of having OpenGL 2.1 completed by year's end. Obviously it will be longer before seeing the Apple graphics suitable for modern gaming with Vulkan, etc but progress is being made across the board in reverse-engineered, open-source Apple Silicon support under Linux. You can watch a video of the driver working here.

Hackers infiltrated Fast Company's push notifications to send out racial slurs on Tuesday night. They also stole a database that includes employees' emails, password hashes for some of them and unpublished drafts, among other information. Customer records are safe, though, most likely because they're kept in a separate database. Engadget reports: In a statement, Fast Company has told Engadget that its Apple News account was hacked and was used to send "obscene and racist" push notifications." It added that the breach was related to another hack that happened on Sunday afternoon and that it has gone as far as shutting down the whole FastCompany.com domain for now. [...] Apple has addressed the situation in tweet, confirming that the website has been hacked and that it has suspended Fast Company's account.

At the moment, Fast Company's website loads a "404 Not Found" page. Before it was taken down, though, the bad actors managed to post a message detailing how they were able to infiltrate the publication, along with a link to a forum where stolen databases are made available for other users. They said that Fast Company had a default password for WordPress that was much too easy to crack and used it for a bunch of accounts, including one for an administrator. From there, they were able to grab authentication tokens, Apple News API keys, among other access information. The authentication keys, in turn, gave them the power to grab the names, email addresses and IPs of a bunch of employees. In a statement, Fast Company said: "Fast Company's content management system account was hacked on Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers in Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. We are investigating the situation and have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation has been resolved. Tuesday's hack follows an apparently related hack of FastCompany.com that occurred on Sunday afternoon, when similar language appeared on the site's home page and other pages. We shut down the site that afternoon and restored it about two hours later. Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, and we apologize to anyone who saw it before it was taken down."

Apple has removed the iOS apps belonging to VK, the technology conglomerate behind Russia's version of Facebook called VKontakte, from its App Store globally. From a report: In a translated statement on its website, VK said that its apps "are blocked by Apple" but that it will "continue to develop and support iOS applications." In response to an inquiry by The Verge, Apple spokesperson Adam Dema confirmed that VK's apps have been removed and its developer accounts shut down.

"These apps are being distributed by developers majority-owned or majority-controlled by one or more parties sanctioned by the UK government," Dema said in a statement. "In order to comply with these sanctions, Apple terminated the developer accounts associated with these apps, and the apps cannot be downloaded from any App Store, regardless of location. Users who have already downloaded these apps may continue to use them."

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Apple chief executive Tim Cook says there are still "not enough women at the table" at the world's tech firms -- including his own. He said there were "no good excuses" for the lack of women in the sector. Apple has just launched its founders' development program for female founders and app creators in the UK. "I think the the essence of technology and its effect on humanity depends upon women being at the table," Mr Cook says. "Technology's a great thing that will accomplish many things, but unless you have diverse views at the table that are working on it, you don't wind up with great solutions."

Apple had 35% female staff in the US in 2021, according to its own diversity figures. It launched its original Apple Health Kit in 2014 without a period tracker -- which led to accusations that this was an oversight due to male bias among its developers. One challenge facing the sector is the lack of girls choosing to pursue science, tech, engineering and maths subjects at school. "Businesses can't cop out and say 'there's not enough women taking computer science -- therefore I can't hire enough,'" says Mr Cook. "We have to fundamentally change the number of people that are taking computer science and programming." His view is that everybody should be required to take some sort of coding course by the time they finish school, in order to have a "working knowledge" of how coding works and how apps are created. According to Deloitte Global, large global tech firms will reach nearly 33% overall female representation in their workforces in 2022 on average -- with 25% occupying technical roles.

In the interview with the BBC, Cook also commented on the future of augmented reality, saying: "in the future, people will wonder how we lived without AR." He added: "we're investing a ton in that space." Earlier this year, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple could announced its long-rumored mixed-reality headset as soon as January 2023.

Apple is bringing Stage Manager, a new multitasking system exclusive to iPads with the M1 chip, to a number of older devices. Engadget reports: Probably the biggest change Apple announced with iPadOS 16 earlier this year is Stage Manager, a totally new multitasking system that adds overlapping, resizable windows to the iPad. That feature also works on an external display, the first time that iPads could do anything besides mirror their screen on a monitor. Unfortunately, the feature was limited to iPads with the M1 chip -- that includes the 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro released in May of 2021 as well as the M1-powered iPad Air which Apple released earlier this year. All other older iPads were left out.

That changes with the latest iPadOS 16 developer beta, which was just released. Now, Apple is making Stage Manager work with a number of older devices: it'll work on the 11-inch iPad Pro (first generation and later) and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (third generation and later). Specifically, it'll be available on the 2018 and 2020 models that use the A12X and A12Z chips rather than just the M1. However, there is one notable missing feature for the older iPad Pro models -- Stage Manager will only work on the iPad's build-in display. You won't be able to extend your display to an external monitor. Apple also says that developer beta 5 of iPadOS 16. is removing external display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads, something that has been present since the first iPadOS 16 beta was released a few months ago. It'll be re-introduced in a software update coming later this year.

Apple said Monday it is assembling its flagship iPhone 14 in India as the U.S. technology giant looks to shift some production away from China. CNBC reports: "The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces groundbreaking new technologies and important safety capabilities. We're excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India," the company said in a statement. Apple's main iPhone assembler, Foxconn, is manufacturing the devices at its Sriperumbudur factory on the outskirts of Chennai.

The Cupertino, California, giant has been manufacturing iPhones in India since 2017 but these were usually older models. This time with the iPhone 14, Apple is producing its latest model in India for the first time, close to the device's launch. Apple introduced the iPhone 14 earlier this month. Apple will sell India-produced phones locally but also export them to other markets globally. Customers in India will begin receiving the locally manufactured devices in the next few days. Earlier this month, JPMorgan analysts said that Apple will move 5% of its global production for the iPhone 14 to India by late 2022. The company could also make 25% of all iPhones by 2025 in India.

Apple could decide to release its remaining products for 2022, which includes an updated iPad Pro, Mac mini, and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, through a press release on its website rather than a digital event, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. MacRumors reports: In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said that Apple is currently "likely to release its remaining 2022 products via press releases, updates to its website and briefings with select members of the press" rather than a digital event. Rumors had suggested that Apple was planning a second fall event in October that would focus on the Mac and iPad, but that may no longer be the case. Apple has three things on the roster for the remainder of 2022: an 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the M2 chip, an updated Mac mini with the M2 and yet announced "M2 Pro" chip, and updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

Apple announced the M2 chip in June for the redesigned MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro earlier this June at WWDC. Other than the new chip, the updates to the Mac and iPad will be relatively incremental upgrades with no major design changes rumored for the products. Apple has released products via press release in the past, such as the AirPods Max and the original AirPods Pro.

New submitter cj9er writes: Considering all the privacy issues in today's online climate (all the issues with Meta right now), what is the best high-end smartphone to select?

Apple: No way they don't sell your data... Sure, they have privacy for third-party apps, but what about the data they collect from the phone itself? Consider what the revenue is on a single smartphone (say $150), how do you think they have all that cash on hand?

Google: Yeah right, Pixel is probably collecting [data] 24/7 considering their main business is selling ads on Search. They have developed the Pixel line because they probably realized they were missing out on the direct collection of data from their own hardware (cut out the middle players using Android).

Samsung: Their TVs even collect and sell data on you. I don't really understand the price premium on Galaxy phones anyways.

I have kept my data and Wi-Fi turned off on my phones for years. Initially it was for battery reasons but now add in data collection. Ultimately, if we could turn off the GPS feature at will on our phones, maybe we could prevent all tracking (except for cellular triangulation). If we then think about safety, GPS is great and now with satellite-tracking on Apple phones, even better. But then what is going on behind the scenes 99.99% of the rest of the time when you don't require those options for safety reasons?

What phone manufacturer can be trusted?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Meta was sued for allegedly building a secret work-around to safeguards that Apple launched last year to protect iPhone users from having their internet activity tracked. In a proposed class-action complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, two Facebook users accused the company of skirting Apple's 2021 privacy rules and violating state and federal laws limiting the unauthorized collection of personal data. A similar complaint was filed in the same court last week. The suits are based on a report by data privacy researcher Felix Krause, who said that Meta's Facebook and Instagram apps for Apple's iOS inject JavaScript code onto websites visited by users. Krause said the code allowed the apps to track "anything you do on any website," including typing passwords.

According to the suits, Meta's collection of user data from the Facebook app helps it circumvent rules instituted by Apple in 2021 requiring all third-party apps to obtain consent from users before tracking their activities, online or off. Meta has said it expected to miss out on $10 billion in ad revenue in 2022 because of Apple's changes. The Facebook app gets around Apple privacy rules by opening web links in an in-app browser, rather than the user's default browser, according to Wednesday's complaint. "This allows Meta to intercept, monitor and record its users' interactions and communications with third parties, providing data to Meta that it aggregates, analyzes, and uses to boost its advertising revenue," according to the suit. A Meta spokesperson said the allegations are "without merit" and the company will defend itself. "We have designed our in-app browser to respect users' privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads," the company said in an emailed statement.

In an in-depth teardown of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, iFixit provides a closer look at the device's internals. "Notably, the teardown includes a photo of the plastic spacer that replaced the SIM card tray on the U.S. model," reports MacRumors. From the report: All four iPhone 14 models sold in the U.S. no longer have a physical SIM card tray and rely entirely on digital eSIMs. The teardown confirms that Apple is not using the internal space freed up by the tray's removal for any other component or added functionality, and instead filled in the gap with a square piece of plastic. Outside of the U.S., all iPhone 14 models are still equipped with a SIM card tray in this space.

As seen in previous teardowns, iFixit provided close-up images of the iPhone 14 Pro Max's logic board, which is equipped with a faster A16 Bionic chip and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X65 modem that provides both 5G and satellite connectivity. While the standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus can be opened from the back side, and feature a more repairable design with an easily removable display and back glass panel, these design changes do not extend to the Pro models. The teardown shows that the iPhone 14 Pro Max continues to open from the front and does not have removable back glass. The internal design of the device is largely unchanged from the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

tlhIngan writes: The iPhone 14's "dynamic island" feature is where the pinhole used for the front facing camera is replaced by a pill shaped cutout that can be filled with "useful" snippets of information. It's basically used to help hide the black hole caused by the pinhole camera (as an alternative to the notch) or pill by multiple cameras. Apparently the feature is so innovative, Chinese cellphone company realme is asking its fans for ideas on how to copy, but not copy, the feature. They're asking for submissions in images, GIFs, text or other form on how a "realme Island" should work.

Apple began assembling some of its devices in India and Vietnam a few years ago, slowly cutting its reliance on China. The Cupertino-giant is now gearing up to make the two nations key global manufacturing hubs, according to analysts at JP Morgan. From a report: In a report they sent to clients Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts said Apple will move 5% of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022, and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25% of all iPhones by 2025. Vietnam, on the other hand, will contribute 20% of all iPad and Apple Watch productions, 5% of MacBook and 65% of AirPods by 2025, the report said, which was reviewed by TechCrunch. India has attracted investments from Foxconn and Wistron in recent years by offering lucrative subsidies as New Delhi moves to make the country a manufacturing hub. The presence of the foreign production giants, coupled with "ample labor resources and competitive labor costs," make India a desirable location, the analysts said.