The number of Netflix subscribers increased by 9.3M last quarter, to hit 270M globally – way higher than analysts had expected. However, the company says that it won’t (normally) reveal subs...
Police officers were allowed to force a suspect to use his thumbprint to unlock his phone , according to a federal court ruling. However, it said the issue was a finely-judged one, and its ruli...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/19/thumbprint-to-unlock-phone-kaw/
A new Best Buy Vision Pro app uses augmented reality to let you see how things like big-screen TVs, furniture, kitchen appliances, and more would look in your home. Once you find something yo...
Senator Elizabeth Warren has tweeted a somewhat bizarre one-minute video in which she says that green texts are “ruining relationships” and that this is “just one of the dirty tactics that ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/19/elizabeth-warren-on-green-texts/
A smart MagSafe wallet could alert you if you leave a card behind after using it in a store, thanks to a simple approach described in a new Apple patent application. The wallet could also bett...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/18/future-magsafe-wallets-alert/
Apple has pledged to buy US-made chips once TSMC’s Arizona plants come online, but the company may have to pay more for them. TSMC’s chief exec has said that it plans to charge customers ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/18/us-made-chips-cost-apple-more/
Romance scams are getting a whole lot more convincing with the latest tactic: using two phones, one running a face-swap app , to conduct live video calls with victims … more…
Almost 100,000 iPhones which Apple paid a contractor to scrap were instead stolen and shipped off to China , according to an in-depth report. Apple sued the company concerned, but now appears...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/18/100000-iphones-stolen-instead-of-scrapped/
We’re expecting 2024 to be the year Apple builds generative AI features into iOS 18 , and the company has announced a $250M investment to support ongoing work in this field. The Apple Singapo...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/18/apple-singapore-campus-ai-work/
SIM swaps are one of the biggest security threats we face, allowing criminals to access most services protected by two-factor authentication. The situation could be about to get even worse, as w...
Tim Cook made a diplomatic comment about the possibility of Apple manufacturing in Indonesia, after the country’s president pressed him on the issue. The country is an important market for Ap...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/17/apple-manufacturing-in-indonesia/
WhatsApp chat filters are the latest feature to be added to the popular messaging app, a few weeks after allowing users to pin multiple chats . You can now separate out only chats with unread me...
We’ve today received an update on Apple’s 2030 environmental goals, one of which is for the company’s entire supply-chain to be carbon neutral by that date. The company says more than 3...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/17/apple-2030-environmental-goals-update/
Phil Schiller has told a court in an antitrust case that he doesn’t know for sure whether the App Store is profitable, and never considered the return on investment when launching it. He’...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/17/app-store-is-profitable-apple-notes/
Canada is introducing a new digital services tax starting this year, which will see foreign tech giants like Apple and Google receive tax demands for income earned in Canada but not currently t...
Update: MacObserver has now issued a retraction . Here we go again. LeaksApplePro is back, this time with a claim that iPhone 16 Pro storage tiers could start at 256GB, up from the 128GB start...
Apple trade-ins aren’t known for their generosity, but they do make for a very painless experience when upgrading to new devices – and the company will accept any older electronic devices fo...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/16/apple-trade-ins-and-recycling-promoted-with-homepage-banner/
While shooting professional-standard video is possible with an iPhone , it generally requires the use of accessories like lighting and external microphones. The new Rode MagSafe mount is designe...
Update: A court has ruled that Mark Zuckerberg cannot be held personally liable for claims that Meta sought to make its apps addictive to children. Lawyers will be able to re-file, this time cla...
Apple’s ad transparency tools aren’t sufficient to investigate issues like paid influence, says a new report, which also scored the effectiveness of 11 other tech companies’ tools. Five ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/16/apple-accepting-political-ads/
The rollout of the Apple Developer Academy continues, with the company announcing the latest one in Bali, Indonesia. However, you don’t have to be based in the country to participate – it we...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/16/apple-developer-academy-bali/
Global iPhone market share dropped 9.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, enabling Samsung to retake the smartphone lead despite failing to increase its own shipments. Apple saw...
Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Vietnam , and said today that the company is “committed to continuing to strengthen connections” in the country as it seeks to reduce dependence on China . In add...
BlackMagic has long offered powerful hardware add-ons for video editors, but the four-figure pricing has been a barrier to many, with even the Micro Panel coming in at $895 . The latest DaVin...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/15/blackmagic-davinci-resolve-micro-color-panel/
The iPhone 16 Pro camera could see a small-sounding improvement which could turn out to fix what I see as one of the biggest problems with current and recent models: internal reflections. Whil...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/15/iphone-16-pro-camera-lens-flare/
While the Supreme Court denied appeal requests from both Apple and Epic Games in the App Store case, that didn’t put an end to legal wrangling between the two companies. In January, Epic ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/15/apple-versus-epic-court-battle/
DownDetector shows Microsoft 365 down for some, with issues first showing up in the early hours eastern time, with reports running around ten times higher than normal … more…
People have been complaining about Siri for years now, arguing that it’s fallen behind the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant. With clear evidence that 2024 is going to see dramatic improveme...
A UK court has ruled that a near billion dollar developer lawsuit against Apple will be allowed to proceed, after the iPhone maker attempted to get it dismissed. The £785M ($979M) antitrust ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/12/billion-dollar-developer-lawsuit/
Taylor Swift songs have returned to TikTok , after a ten-week gap resulting from a dispute between the short video app and Universal Music. That dispute hasn’t ended, but it appears that Swift ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/12/taylor-swift-songs-back-on-tiktok/
Ah, the saga of X’s blue checkmarks! Originally a sign that someone was who they claimed to be, and later sold so that cryptocurrency scammers could see their posts boosted, the company is now...
It’s not uncommon for younger music fans to create their own song mixes for social media posts, especially on TikTok . The problem is that artists don’t get paid for these unofficial mixes, a...
DuckDuckGo started life as a privacy -first search engine before adding a web browser , email protection and more, and the company has now announced its first ever paid subscription: DuckDuckGo...
Instagram is rolling out a new safety feature, designed to protect teens from being exposed to unwanted nude photos in Instagram direct messages. The system will blur nude photos in Instagram DM...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/11/nude-photos-in-instagram-dms/
The judge due to hear the Apple antitrust case brought by the US Department of Justice has recused himself, meaning that he will no longer preside over the case. Judge Michael E. Farbiarz yes...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/11/judge-in-apple-antitrust-case/
One of Vision Pro’s most exciting capabilities, to me personally , is the ability to display multiple Mac monitors in virtual form. Viture One XR glasses have now gained that same capability....
Dramatically rising streaming prices have lead to an increase in video piracy , and major Hollywood studios are now asking Congress to pass a new law to address it. The exact same law, in fact...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/10/hollywood-seeks-anti-piracy-law/
Apple chipmaker TSMC appears to be on track with its work on a 2nm chip destined for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in 2025 – as well as for the 1.4nm chips beyond that . A new supply-chain...
One of the changes Apple had to make to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) was to present customers with a list of iPhone web browsers during setup, and to choose the one they wan...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/10/alternative-iphone-web-browsers/
Internet service providers (ISPs) now have to display broadband ‘nutrition’ labels, being upfront about the true costs, speeds, and data allowances offered, The rule was introduced in respo...
A new report says that one in seven iPhones are now made in India – pointing to a significant acceleration in Apple’s work to reduce its dependence on China . Apple’s reliance on China...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/10/one-in-seven-iphones-now-made-in-india/
An Apple research paper describes how the company has been developing Ferret-UI, a generative AI system specifically designed to be able to make sense of app screens. The paper is somewhat va...
Subscription creep – the term given to increases in subscription fees after someone has signed up – hit a full two-thirds of US consumers in the past year. Some of the increases were steep ...
We first heard last year that former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were working on some kind of AI hardware project. It was later reported that Tang Tan, Apple’s chief...
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has suggested that Apple is considering launch an Apple TV with a built-in FaceTime camera. But does that idea actually make sense, compared to plugging in a separa...
The need for a federal privacy law has long been clear to most, but making it actually happen has been another matter. However, a compromise could potentially see it introduced by the end of the...
Spotify’s AI DJ feature launched more than a year ago now, but users had little control over it. A new AI Playlist feature changes that for beta uses, as you can now create playlists from Chat...
Apple chipmaker TSMC has announced plans to open a third Arizona chip plant, in addition to the two already under construction. This will be the most advanced of the three plants, making 2nm ch...
The European Union is investigating Apple’s response to a Spotify complaint, to determine whether the anti-steering changes made by the Cupertino company are sufficient to comply. Update: G...
A classified TikTok national security briefing given to senators may have been in part based on claims made by a fired member of staff who is now making further … interesting claims. The for...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/05/tiktok-national-security-briefing-source/
Apple has recently started in-store testing of a Presto system, which can provide software updates to iPhone stock in Apple Stores without even opening the boxes. We now have more details ab...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/05/apples-presto-system-in-detail/
Apple chip production is largely back on track following the major earthquake in Taiwan, thanks in part due to “world-class seismic mitigation measures” in TSMC’s plants. Some plants we...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/05/apple-chip-production-earthquake/
With Apple now having dragged its decade-long car project to the trash can , the company is reportedly now working on another skunk-works project: an Apple Robot . Both self-driving cars and h...
A Right to Disconnect law introduced by a Californian lawmaker aims to end the tyranny of employers who expect their staff to respond 24/7 to emails, Slack alerts, text messages, and other out-of...
The biggest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years has killed at least four people, with TSMC plants evacuated as a safety precaution. Apple’s chipmaker is still assessing the impact on produc...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/03/tsmc-plants-evacuated-earthquake/
We’ve already seen at least two examples of a Vision Pro headset assisting with surgery , and another first has now been notched up in Florida. Vision Pro was used to provide “touch-free ...
Installing a third-party app store is now possible for iPhone owners in the EU – but it’s not exactly a quick-and-easy process. It seems a safe bet that this is a deliberate move on Apple...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/03/installing-a-third-party-app-store/
A remark by EU competition head Margrethe Vestager has suggested that Apple may be required to let iPhone owners delete the Photos app. While this possibility hasn’t previously been raise...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/02/eu-owners-delete-the-photos-app/
A potential new Apple Watch emergency SOS feature described in a new patent application could help save some swimmers from drowning. The patent describes how the Watch could detect “irregu...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/04/02/apple-watch-emergency-sos-drowning-2/
Jon Stewart interviewed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) head Lina Khan yesterday, saying that he’d wanted to do it while his show was hosted on Apple TV+ , but the company wouldn’t allow it. ...
A recent report suggested we might be seeing some form of Apple Pencil for Vision Pro , and that idea appears to be supported by an Apple patent application published this week. The lack of ...
A new supply-chain report suggests that Apple is seeking to be an early player in what some believe will be the next big thing in chip development: printed circuit boards (PCBs) made from glass ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/29/the-next-big-thing-glass-substrates/
Redditors who took advantage of their privileged access to stock ahead of the IPO have seen Reddit share value rocket from $34 to $59.80 by yesterday’s close – an 86% increase. Update: Sub...
If you’re shooting spatial video on your iPhone 15 Pro – and there can be good reasons for doing so, even if you don’t own a Vision Pro – then you may want to invest in a $3 iPhone app...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/29/shooting-spatial-video-spatialify-app/
A new report claims that Apple has developed a new finish for the titanium frame of the iPhone 16 Pro models, with the brushed look of the iPhone 15 Pro replaced by “a more polished material.�...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/29/iphone-16-pro-polished-titanium-report/
Following the company’s successful IPO , and a deal with Google to allow Reddit posts to be used as training data , the expansion of another Reddit data-sharing agreement has been signed – t...
There was a surprise upgrade for some in iOS 17.4 : tests reveal that it enabled iPhone 12 Qi2 charging, at the full 15W speed. Support for 15W Qi2 charging was first announced for the iPhone...
As 2024 looks like the year that Apple makes its big push into generative AI , the federal government is also encouraging the use of AI by its own agencies … more…
The practice of parts pairing – which can prevent third-party repair shops from cannibalising broken devices for parts – has been outlawed by Oregon, taking effect for any product made after...
A new supply-chain report reiterates earlier reports that some engineers previously working on Vision Pro have been moved to working a folding iPhone or iPad project. It also claims that the ...
An antitrust lawsuit against Apple brought by Venmo has been dismissed, the judge finding that there was no evidence of anticompetitive behavior. The Paypal -owned app company has, however, ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/28/venmo-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple/
The Grok AI chatbot, which was previously going to be exclusive to X’s top-tier Premium+ subscribers, will instead be coming to all premium subscribers this week. The move is likely geared ...
A new supply-chain report says that Samsung declined to make displays for the iPhone SE 4 , expected to debut in 2025 with a major upgrade. The Korean report says that Samsung was unable to re...
An iPad and iPhone fraudster who is estimated to have cost Apple more than $6M in replacement devices has been sentenced to 51 months in prison. His two co-defendants were sentenced to 41 mo...
A new report highlights what probably amounts the most most absurd stretch in the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. A section notes that Apple last year spent half as much on research and development ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/27/aapl-share-buybacks-verses-rd-spend/
Apple CEO Tim Cook attended the annual China Development Forum during his visit to the country, taking part in a climate change meeting during it. Cook has said that meeting environmental g...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/26/chinese-climate-change-meeting/
Floridian kids aged 13 or younger face a social media app ban in Florida, while those aged 14 to 16 will only be allowed to use the apps with parental permission. Opponents argue that the new ...
On the face of it, getting a free premium Telegram subscription direct from the company seems like a pretty sweet deal, giving you access to features like transcribing voice messages into texts....
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/26/free-premium-telegram-subscription/
Two senators who have received classified TikTok national security briefings say that the information revealed to them has left them “deeply troubled.” They are calling for the informatio...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/25/tiktok-national-security-briefings/
Chinese media is reporting that Apple is buying AI services from local tech giant Baidu. The WSJ had earlier reported that the iPhone maker had been in discussions with the company , to use it...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/25/apple-buying-ai-services-from-baidu/
One element of the DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Apple addresses iMessage , and Apple’s decision to keep the app exclusive to iPhone. But it goes further than arguing that this is anti-compet...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/25/doj-antitrust-lawsuit-iphones-are-cool/
We noted recently that Apple was beginning to roll-out firmware updates to AirTags . That roll-out was supposed to be a gradual one, completing on April 9 – but that’s not what happened … ...
Both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have allowed their music to return to Spotify , some two years after they pulled their entire catalogs in protest at COVID disinformation, and Apple Music troll...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/25/neil-young-and-joni-mitchell-return-to-spotify/
The EU has today announced that it is not satisfied that Apple’s App Store changes comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the company is now officially under investigation for non-comp...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/25/app-store-proposals-rejected/
After literally years of investigation, the DOJ antitrust lawsuit is finally official . Apple is accused of using a dominant market position to lock in customers, block competitors, profiteer, an...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/22/doj-antitrust-lawsuit-defence/
University researchers have found an unpatchable security flaw in Apple Silicon Macs , which would allow an attacker to break encryption and get access to cryptographic keys. The flaw is prese...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/22/unpatchable-security-flaw-mac/
The DOJ lawsuit is 88 pages long, and I freely confess I haven’t yet finished reading it , but it seems one tech writer has – finding a claim that CarPlay is anticompetitive. As the piece ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/22/doj-lawsuit-misunderstands-carplay/
A former United Parcel Service (UPS) worker has been accused of stealing $1.3 million worth of Apple products over the course of a decade. He has been charged with stealing the products from a...
A state-owned newspaper has cited Tim Cook praising China as a production hub, during the CEO’s visit to the country for a new store opening . Cook’s remarks were made after Apple repor...
The Parler app – which was removed by Apple after accusations that it was used to plan and facilitate the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – is now back in the App Store. The Androi...
The leaker Instant Digital has been busy on Weibo recently, with a series of claims about the upcoming iPad Pro models. One of these was that an iPad announcement would be made on March 26 – b...
Tim Cook is in China , attending the opening of the beautiful new Jing’an Apple Store in Shanghai, and meeting with Apple suppliers, developers, and more. Cook shared photos of his visit o...
A guy who describes himself as a huge Apple enthusiast and a “designer and tinkerer” has created a painstakingly accurate 3D printed Macintosh Plus . In what has been described as “Steve...
While Microsoft pushes Office 365 subscriptions hard, it has so far retained the option of one-off purchases of new editions – and it has confirmed that this will also be available for Offic...
We’ve known for a while that Threads is joining the fediverse, and parent company Meta has now provided a preview of how things will work. The concept of the fediverse is to network togethe...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/20/threads-joining-the-fediverse/
It was already clear that Apple’s Core Technology Fee would come in for close scrutiny by the EU, but an interview with the bloc’s antitrust chief has revealed that the company could also b...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/20/core-technology-fee-and-security-warnings/
A new supply-chain report says that new technology acquired by Apple’s display suppliers will enable the iPhone 16 bezels to be further reduced in size, in conjunction with the larger display...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/20/iphone-16-bezels-will-shrink/
There was once a time when the iPad was one of my most-used devices. And yet, despite currently owning two iPads, I’ve hardly used either of them so far this year, and am not even slightly tem...
A new Product Security Verified (PSV) label will in future be used to identify smart home devices which meet new industry standards designed to protect against hacking and data breaches. It’...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/19/apple-backed-product-security-verified/
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly holding a series of closed-door briefings intended to persuade senators to force the sale of TikTok to a US company, rather than ban it outright. ...
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/19/doj-wants-to-force-sale-of-tiktok/