Steven Levy from Wired remembers the Power Mac G4 Cube, which debuted July 19, 2000. From the report: I was reminded of this last week, as I listened to a cassette tape recorded 20 years prior, almost to the day. It documented a two-hour session with Jobs in Cupertino, California, shortly before the launch. The main reason he had summoned me to Apple's headquarters was sitting under the over of a dark sheet of fabric on the long table in the boardroom of One Infinite Loop. "We have made the coolest computer ever," he told me. "I guess I'll just show it to you." He yanked off the fabric, exposing an 8-inch stump of transparent plastic with a block of electronics suspended inside. It looked less like a computer than a toaster born from an immaculate conception between Philip K. Dick and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. (But the fingerprints were, of course, Jony Ive's.) Alongside it were two speakers encased in Christmas-ornament-sized, glasslike spheres.

"The Cube," Jobs said, in a stage whisper, hardly containing his excitement. He began by emphasizing that while the Cube was powerful, it was air-cooled. (Jobs hated fans. Hated them.) He demonstrated how it didn't have a power switch, but could sense a wave of your hand to turn on the juice. He showed me how Apple had eliminated the tray that held CDs -- with the Cube, you just hovered the disk over the slot and the machine inhaled it. And then he got to the plastics. It was as if Jobs had taken to heart that guy in The Graduate who gave career advice to Benjamin Braddock. "We are doing more with plastics than anyone else in the world," he told me. "These are all specially formulated, and it's all proprietary, just us. It took us six months just to formulate these plastics. They make bulletproof vests out of it! And it's incredibly sturdy, and it's just beautiful! There's never been anything like that. How do you make something like that? Nobody ever made anything like that! Isn't that beautiful? I think it's stunning!"

For one thing, the price was prohibitive -- by the time you bought the display, it was almost three times the price of an iMac and even more than some PowerMacs. By and large, people don't spend their art budget on computers. That wasn't the only issue with the G4 Cube. Those plastics were hard to manufacture, and people reported flaws. The air cooling had problems. If you left a sheet of paper on top of the device, it would shut down to prevent overheating. And because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action, like it or not. In any case, the G4 Cube failed to push buttons on the computer-buying public. Jobs told me it would sell millions. But Apple sold fewer than 150,000 units.

Apple has begun assembling the current generation of iPhones in its plant near Chennai, India. TechCrunch reports: A small batch of locally manufactured iPhone 11 units has already shipped to retail stores, but the production yield is currently limited. Apple, in general, has ambitions to scale up its local production efforts in India. The local production of current iPhone 11 models illustrates Apple's further commitment to India, the world's second largest smartphone market, as it explores ways to cut its reliance on China, which produces the vast majority of iPhone models today. Apple's contract manufacturing partner, Taiwan-based Wistron, first began assembling older iPhone models in 2017. But until now, Apple has not been able to have an assembly partner produce the current generation iPhone model in India. Assembling handsets in India enables smartphone vendors -- including Apple -- to avoid roughly 20% import duty that the Indian government levies on imported electronics products. Foxconn, the manufacturing company Apple has partnered with to assemble the iPhone 11 units, plans to invest $1 billion in its operations in India.

Texas is among a group of states whose attorneys general are probing Apple over potential violations of a consumer protection law, according to a document obtained by the Tech Transparency Project through an open records request and shared with CNBC. From the report: The document, sent in March and first reported by Axios, states that the Consumer Protection Division of Texas' attorney general office "is involved in a multistate investigation into Apple for potential violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act." It says the investigation was started "for enforcement purposes" and the office "anticipates litigation in this matter." The document does not detail the scope of the investigation and the Texas Deceptive Practices Act covers a wide range of potential harms.

An anonymous reader shares a reporrt: Apple last month introduced the new "Find My" Network Accessory Program, built to allow third-party products to work with Apple's own Find My app. While Apple's AirTags have yet to be formally announced, this program was seen as a way for Apple to level the playing field with competing Bluetooth location trackers, like Tile, and avoid accusations of Apple monopolizing the market. n a new report today by The Washington Post, there are more aspects to this program that haven't been previously detailed, including far stricter rules for third-party companies using the Find My app. According to an anonymous developer who shared a secret 50-page PDF from Apple about Find My, customers who use Apple's app to locate a device will be barred from using third-party services simultaneously.

Although the details remain sparse, this suggests that while you will be able to link a Tile tracker to Find My and use Apple's app to locate a lost wallet, for example, you would then be prevented from using Tile's own app to do the same. Additionally, because of Apple's restrictions to "always allow" location access, every outside company will have to ask each Apple user for permission to obtain their location, which is a notable hindrance for item location apps. Another issue pointed out by developers is their limited access to the iPhone's Bluetooth antenna and other Apple hardware. While the Find My app can use these pieces of hardware whenever it needs to, third-party software can only use the Bluetooth antenna within certain thresholds, and if the developers go beyond that Apple cuts their access off and prevents the software from working. Notably, according to these developers, Apple does not inform them what the specific threshold is.

Microsoft President Brad Smith raised concerns to U.S. lawmakers about what the company regards as Apple's anti-competitive behavior around its app store, Bloomberg reports. From the report: Smith, who is also chief legal officer, was invited by the House of Representatives's antitrust subcommittee to share his experiences around Microsoft's own antitrust battle with the U.S. government in the late 1990s. During the conversation, which occurred weeks ago, he discussed the company's issue with Apple, said a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussion was private. Smith said last month that regulators should examine app store rules, which he called a far higher barrier to fair competition than Microsoft's Windows operating software when it was found guilty of antitrust violations 20 years ago. While Smith didn't name Apple in that public interview, a Microsoft spokesperson said later the executive was referring to the iPhone maker.

Apple has announced that it will send special devices that make it easier to find flaws and vulnerabilities in its mobile operating system iOS to iPhone hackers that apply and qualify for a program the company announced last year. From a report: The program might make some hackers less likely to engage in the underground market for stolen prototype iPhones hackers currently use to research iPhone security, and encourage them to share their findings with Apple. In a new website published on Wednesday, Apple wrote that the program "features an iPhone dedicated exclusively to security research, with unique code execution and containment policies." It's called the Security Research Device Program. Security researchers can apply for it starting today and Apple told Motherboard that if they qualify they will receive the devices soon. Apple doesn't have a goal in terms of how many of these devices it wants to send out, and all you need to qualify is having a public track record of security research, not only on iPhone but also on other popular devices and software like Android phones, Windows, or Linux.

Ahead of an antitrust hearing on Capitol Hill next week, Apple is fighting back against the perception that its App Store charges onerous commission rates to developer by hiring economists from the firm Analysis Group, who said the tech giant's fees were similar to competitors. From a report: The research, published Wednesday, collected commission rates reported on or disclosed by app stores from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and others. The company's economists also studied ticket resale marketplaces, game stores and ride-hailing apps. Overall, the economists said the commissions charged were similar, though stores generally offered different features for consumers and developers. "The commission rates charged by digital marketplaces most similar to the App Store, such as other app stores and video game digital marketplaces, are generally around 30%," the economists wrote in study [PDF]. The economists also broadly defended these commission rates, saying this system "lower the barriers to entry for small sellers and developers by minimizing upfront payments, and reinforce the marketplace's incentive to promote matches that generate high long-term value." The economists didn't look into whether the fees stifle innovation or are fair, concerns developers have raised.

Apple this morning announced plans to make its entire business carbon neutral within the next 10 years. The news follows the company's push toward a fully carbon neutral corporate structure, adding its manufacturing supply chain and resulting products into the mix. From a report: The roadmap to sustainability as released today, as part of the company's annual Environmental Progress Report. Reducing every device it sells to zero climate impact means a couple of things. The primary concern is finding ways to reduce emissions from productions by 75%. The remainder will be focused on efforts to help remove carbon from the atmosphere. The company has already begun pushing to make a larger percentage of its products from recycled materials, thanks in part to its own in house robots Dave and Daisy, which recover key rare earth magnets and tungsten, along with some steel recovery. The company also runs its own Material Recovery Lab in Austin, with help from engineers at Carnegie Mellon. Apple says it's working with more than 70 energy suppliers to go 100% renewable for its production centers, partnership it believes will reduce roughly the same amount of carbon emissions annually as three million cars. The company is also working to launch one of the world's biggest solar arrays in Europe. As far as the remaining 25% of carbon reduction, there are number of initiatives outlined in the report, including efforts to resort forests in Africa and South America.

The US Department of Commerce added 11 Chinese companies to its list of firms implicated in human rights violations, including China's reported campaign against Muslim minority groups from an area of the country known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. At least one of those companies, Nanchang O-Film Tech, is listed as a supplier or undefined "partner" with nearly two dozen tech and car companies, including Amazon, Apple, Dell, GM and Microsoft. From a report: The Commerce Department said the group of 11 companies that supported "mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, involuntary collection of biometric data and genetic analysis" targeted at Uighurs and other minority groups will face restrictions on US products, including technology. "Beijing actively promotes the reprehensible practice of forced labor and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens," Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement Monday. "This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party's despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations."

Apple announced Monday that it is allocating $400 million toward affordable housing and homeowner assistance programs in California this year, as part of the $2.5 billion commitment announced in November. From a report: The housing crisis has worsened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing states and cities to pause spending on affordable housing projects. Big Tech's wealth has been blamed by some for driving up housing prices in the San Francisco Bay Area and making it unaffordable for teachers, firefighters and other workers who support the region. Apple, along with Facebook, Google and Microsoft, committed a collective $5 billion to support affordable housing initiatives, but it ran into the reality that money alone can't solve the problem without changes to zoning and financing restrictions.

"Microsoft's LinkedIn was sued by a New York-based iPhone user on Friday for allegedly reading and diverting users' sensitive content from Apple Inc's Universal Clipboard application," reports Reuters. According to Apple's website, Universal Clipboard allows users to copy text, images, photos, and videos on one Apple device and then paste the content onto another Apple device. According to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court by Adam Bauer, LinkedIn reads the Clipboard information without notifying the user. LinkedIn did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

According to media reports from last week, 53 apps including TikTok and LinkedIn were reported to be reading users' Universal Clipboard content, after Apple's latest privacy feature started alerting users whenever the clipboard was accessed with a banner saying "pasted from Messages..."

A LinkedIn executive had said on Twitter last week that the company released a new version of its app to end this practice... According to the complaint, LinkedIn has not only been spying on its users, it has been spying on their nearby computers and other devices, and it has been circumventing Apple's Universal Clipboard timeout.

theodp writes: From the Home Office in Cupertino: "Apple today announced a new set of tools to help educators teach coding to students from grade school to college. In addition to significant enhancements to the Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code curricula, Apple is also starting a new professional learning course for Develop in Swift, available to educators at no cost. The course is designed to supplement the need for computer science educators in the US, and helps instructors of all skill levels build foundational knowledge to teach app development with Swift. In addition, with many institutions operating remotely, Apple is adding resources for educators and parents to help ensure they have the tools they need to help students learn and grow from anywhere. [...] To support parents with kids learning to code at home, Apple is adding a new guide to its set of remote learning resources. 'A Quick Start to Code' is now available and features 10 coding challenges designed for learners ages 10 and up, on iPad or Mac. [...] In 2016, Apple launched Everyone Can Code, a comprehensive program and curriculum to help students of all abilities, from kindergarten to college, learn coding to solve problems and prepare them for the workforce. Develop in Swift was released in 2019, and today more than 9,000 K-12 and higher education institutions worldwide are using the Everyone Can Code and Develop in Swift curricula from Apple."

Back in 2018, Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed that most students shunned programming before Apple introduced Swift "because coding languages were 'too geeky.'" As Apple introduced Swift in 2016, Cook called for requiring all children to start coding in 4th grade (9-10 years old), which Cook reiterated to President Trump in a 2017 White House meeting with tech titans.

Foxconn plans to invest up to $1 billion to expand a factory in southern India where the Taiwanese contract manufacturer assembles Apple iPhones. Fox Business reports: The move, the scale of which has not previously been reported, is part of a quiet and gradual production shift by Apple away from China as it navigates disruptions from a trade war between Beijing and Washington and the coronavirus crisis. "There's a strong request from Apple to its clients to move part of the iPhone production out of China," one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Foxconn's planned investment in the Sriperumbur plant, where Apple's iPhone XR is made some 50 km west of Chennai, will take place over the course of three years. Some of Apple's other iPhones models, made by Foxconn in China, will be made at the plant.

Taipei-headquartered Foxconn will add some 6,000 jobs at the Sriperumbur plant in Tamil Nadu state under the plan. It also operates a separate plant in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it makes smartphones for China's Xiaomi Corp, among others. "With India's labour cheaper compared with China, and the gradual expansion of its supplier base here, Apple will be able to use the country as an export hub," Neil Shah of Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint said.

Apple, in a new support document, is warning users against closing their MacBook lids with a cover over the camera. From a report: Placing a cover, sticker or tape over a laptop camera is a practice adopted by some privacy- and security-conscious individuals to protect against webcam hijacking. Now, however, Apple is explicitly advising against the tactic. In a support document published earlier in July, Apple urges users not to close their MacBook Pro or MacBook Air lids if there's a camera cover installed on it. "If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances," Apple notes. The support document also outlines some of the privacy and security functions of the camera, including the green indicator light that lets users know when the camera is active and the camera permission settings introduced in macOS Mojave.

John Gruber, writing at DaringFireball: Feel free to file Google's release this week of an update to their iPad Gmail app with support for split-screen multitasking under "better late than never," but this is so late it borders on the absurd. It's like the difference between showing up fashionably late and showing up a week after the party. Split-screen multitasking was introduced for the iPad back in 2015 with iOS 9. Five years to add support for a foundational element of the iPad user experience. And an email client is near the top of the list of the type of apps where someone would want to use split-screen. Five years. Google makes a lot of software with terrible user experiences for users who have poor taste. Their iOS software, in particular, has for the most part never suggested that it was designed by people who like -- or even use -- iOS. It's the blind leading the blind. But yet the Gmail app is currently the number one free app in the Productivity category in the App Store.

On the surface, it's tempting to blow this off. To each their own. Whatever floats their boat. Who cares if millions of iPad users are satisfied using an email client that is a poor iPad app, so long as actual good iPad email clients are available to those who do care? But what about those stuck using the Gmail app not because they want to, but because they have to? Who can help them but Apple? I worry that it's not tenable in the long run to expect Apple to continue striving to create well-crafted -- let alone insanely great -- software when so many of its users not only settle for, but perhaps even prefer, software that is, to put it kindly, garbage. There have always been popular Mac and iPhone apps that are objectively terrible apps -- where by "popular" I mean much-used, not much-loved. But what made Apple users Apple users is that they complained vociferously if they had to use a terrible app. Word 6 was a sack of dog shit Microsoft dropped off and set aflame on Mac users' porch, but we all knew it was a flaming bag of dog shit, and even those of us who didn't even use Word were angry about it because it was an insult.

I worry that this sort of "Who cares, it's better than nothing" attitude has seeped into Apple itself, and explains how we wound up with barely modified iPad apps shipping as system apps on the Mac. But more than anything I worry that this exemplifies where Apple has lost its way with the App Store. What exactly is the point of running a strict approval process for apps if not, first and foremost, to ensure that they're good apps? An iPad email app that doesn't support split-screen multitasking for five years is, by definition, not a good app. I'd like to see all the vim, vigor, and vigilance Apple applies to making sure no app on the App Store is making a dime without Apple getting three cents applied instead to making sure there aren't any scams or ripoffs, and that popular apps support good-citizen-of-the-platform features within a reasonable amount of time after those features are introduced in the OS. I don't know exactly how long "reasonable" is, but five fucking years for split-screen support ain't it.

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted key parts of Apple's business, but it hasn't derailed the company's plans to build what could be its next important technology platform -- augmented reality devices. From a report: The Information has learned that Apple is working with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology, Apple's largest contract manufacturer and the one responsible for building most iPhones, to develop semitransparent lenses for its AR devices. As of two months ago, the lenses -- considered one of the most essential elements of the head-worn devices -- had passed the prototype stage and entered trial production [the link may be paywalled; alternative source], a person familiar with the matter said. A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment. The lenses are at least one to two years away from mass production, and the same is likely true of the AR product they ultimately end up in, the person said. The product must still go through a lengthy process of ramping up production to the point where Apple can reliably manufacture millions of them. AR glasses and headsets allow people who wear them to view digital imagery overlaid on and intermingled with their physical surroundings. The technology could give people a new way to view everything from map directions to videoconference calls, and allow them to play games with characters and objects that hide around the corners of real buildings.

tlhIngan writes: For those worried that the transition Apple is doing to ARM-based Macs will drop Thunderbolt, Apple has stated that they will continue to support Thunderbolt. This was a worry since Thunderbolt is primarily an Intel design (formerly known as Light Peak) with Apple collaboration, and that none of Apple's ARM based devices support it (not even the ARM Developer Transition Kit).

Apple today seeded the first public betas of upcoming iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14 updates to its public beta testing group, two weeks after first providing the updates to developers after the WWDC keynote.

The UK retail arm of Apple paid just $7.7m in taxes last year despite raking in almost $1.7bn in sales, according to the company's latest accounts. From a report: Revenue at Apple Retail UK, which operates 38 of the company's stores in the UK, rose by more than 15% in the 12 months to 28 September. But after costs and expenses of around $1.7bn, the firm reported before-tax profits of just $47m, slashing its tax bill significantly. In a statement describing itself as "the largest taxpayer in the world," Apple said that it always paid the taxes that it owed.

The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute on Tuesday announced the H.266 Versatile Video Coding codec, which will power more data-efficient video capture and transmission on future iPhones. AppleInsider reports: Apple adopted the predecessor to the new codec, H.265/HEVC, in iOS 11. The updated video codec, which was developed after years of research and standardization, will bring a number of tangible benefits to future iPhone users. In its announcement, the Fraunhofer HHI said that H.266 will reduce data requirements by around 50% thanks to improved compression. With the previous HEVC codec, it took about 10GB of data to transmit a 90-minute ultra-high definition (UHD) video. H.266 can do that with 5GB. The codec, as detailed in a 500-page specification, was designed from the ground up for use with 4K and 8K streaming. It'll allow users to store more high-definition video and reduce the amount of data on cellular networks.