Chinese artificial intelligence company Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology, also known as Xiao-i, has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging it has infringed on Xiao-i's patents. From a report:小火箭（Shadowrocket）下载账号分享【美区ID】-免费共享 ...:2021-4-21 · 上一篇：王者联盟！首码预热！ 下一篇：ios小火箭(Shadowrocket)无需美区苹果ID下载安装教程 相关文章 99开1年百度文库+京东WPS会员 优酷会员1元升级1月瞄酷会员

According to a collection of internal emails recently released by lawmakers, as part of the House Judiciary Committee's antirust probe into Apple, a series of Amazon advertisements prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller to block in-app purchases of Kindle books on iOS. 9to5Mac reports: As it stands today, the Kindle app for iPhone and iPad does not allow users to purchase ebooks directly. Users can read the ebooks they've already purchased, but to buy new ones, they have to use Safari. This is Amazon's way of avoiding giving Apple a 30% cut of ebook purchases, which would be required if Amazon sold ebooks directly within the Kindle app itself. What's important to remember is that this sort of arrangement wasn't always the case. Up until early 2011, you could buy Kindle ebooks directly in the Kindle app on iOS. As first uncovered by the Verge, two sets of emails included in the internal documents include conversations between Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and other Apple executives regarding this situation.

In one email, Schiller explained that Apple initially made an exception for Amazon because "users would be buying books on a Kindle device and later accessing them on iPhone." As Apple sold more iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, however, Schiller thought it was time to drop this exception. In fact, what actually prompted Schiller to reinvestigate this situation, according to the emails, is that Amazon ran a series of advertisements on how you could still access your Kindle books if you switched from iPhone to Android or vice versa. [...] These conversations were taking place as Apple was also planning to announce new App Store policies for subscriptions. In his response, Jobs said that Apple could say Amazon "must use our payment system for everything" and say the change was triggered by the new newspapers and magazines subscription policies. "If they want to compare us to Android, let's force them to use our far superior payment system," Jobs wrote.

"It's time for them to use our payment mechanism or bow out," Jobs said in a separate email. In response to an email from Cue, Jobs also emphasized that iBooks would be the only bookstore on iOS devices: "I think this is all pretty simple -- iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things."

Apple rode the company's strong earnings report to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company, surpassing the state oil giant Saudi Aramco at Friday's market close. CNBC reports: Apple shares closed up 10.47% Friday, giving it a market valuation of $1.84 trillion. Saudi Aramco, which had been the most valuable publicly listed company since its market debut last year, now trails at $1.76 trillion as of its last close. Apple's strong fiscal third quarter earnings, released Thursday, boosted its stock, as investors rallied behind the company's 11% year-over-year growth. Apple also announced a 4-for-1 stock split. The company has recovered from its pandemic low-point in March. Shares are up more than 44% this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple Download Shadowrocket 2.1.52 for iPhone and iPad - …:Download Shadowrocket v2.1.52 for iPhone and iPad. Shadowrocket is a and Useful Utilities app. as part of a deal to put the e-commerce giant's Prime Video app on Apple's mobile devices and TV set-top box. Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president, and Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos negotiated directly on the deal, according to emails released Wednesday as part of a congressional hearing on anticompetitive behavior. The companies agreed to a 15% revenue share for customers who signed up through the app and no revenue share for users who already subscribed via Amazon or elsewhere, the emails showed.

The deal, announced in December 2017, also allowed Amazon's video service to integrate with Apple's voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, and the iPhone maker's TV app, which launched in 2016. In addition, the agreement gave Apple a 15% cut of subscriptions to Amazon Prime partners like Showtime for users who signed up originally through Apple. Apple generally receives a 30% cut for the first year of an app's subscriptions made through the platform. That fee drops to 15% after the first year. The agreement with Amazon is similar to a program Apple announced earlier this year letting select developers avoid the 30% fee in exchange for integrating with certain features. Amazon is part of that program. The report also reveals that Apple once considered taking a 40 percent cut from some subscription apps, according to documents shared today by the House Judiciary Committee.

Tim Cook didn't reveal anything new during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. But emails his company shared with the committee spoke volumes. These internal discussions reveal that what looks like Apple's united 梭影 苹果手机 - 半臻 - 博客园:2021-8-10 · 禁止使用本服务进行任何违法恶意活动 防走丢：请加店主QQ：451247868 注意：使用时请打开软件，不使用时请及时退出 一：下载：Shadowrocket 注意！下载完后，请立即退出账户！！！防止被. From a report: The New York Times editorial in favor of Right to Repair last April set off a fire alarm inside Apple's public relations team. When Binyamin Appelbaum reached out to research the issue, Apple's VP of communications said in an internal email that "We should get him on the phone with [Apple VP Greg] Joz [Joswiak] or [Senior VP] Phil [Schiller]." That spawned an instant debate. "The larger issue is that our strategy around all of this is unclear. Right now we're talking out of both sides of our mouth and no one is clear on where we're headed."

The emails show the high profile of Right to Repair inside Apple as leaders debate how to respond to a request for comment on an upcoming column. "The piece is using [Senator] Warren's new right to repair for agriculture to talk about the broader right to repair effort and plans to use Apple as a symbol in that fight. We're meeting with everyone shortly about the overall strategy and then I'll connect with [Greg 'Joz' Joswiak]." The email goes on, "Appelbaum has, of course, talked with iFixIt [sic] and others." They're right about that! The conversation resulted in a set of talking points that Kaiann Drance, VP of Marketing, talked through with Appelbaum. Afterwards, Apple PR wrote, "Kaiann did a great job and emphasized the need for a thoughtful approach to repair policy because of how important it is to balance customer safety with access to more convenient repairs." Apple was less convincing than they hoped. The editorial, carrying the weight of the Times' entire Editorial Board, came out forcefully in favor of Right to Repair. Of Apple specifically, the Times remarked, "The company is welcome to persuade people to patronize its own repair facilities, or to buy new iPhones. But there ought to be a law against forcing the issue."

Google and Apple, which already battle over mobile operating systems, are opening a new front in their fight. How that plays out may determine the future of the web. From a report: Google was born on the web, and its business reflects its origin. The company depends on the web for search and advertising revenue. So it isn't a surprise that Google sees the web as key to the future of software. Front and center are web apps, interactive websites with the same power as conventional apps that run natively on operating systems like Windows, Android, MacOS and iOS. Apple has a different vision of the future, one that plays to its strengths. The company revolutionized mobile computing with its iPhone line. Its profits depend on those products and the millions of apps that run on them. Apple, unsurprisingly, appears less excited about developments, like web apps, that could cut into its earnings.

The two camps aren't simply protecting their businesses. Google and Apple have philosophical differences, too. Google, working to pack its dominant Chrome browser with web programming abilities, sees the web as an open place of shared standards. Apple, whose Safari browser lacks some of those abilities, believes its restraint will keep the web healthy. It wants a web that isn't plagued by security risks, privacy invasion and annoyances like unwanted notifications and permission pop-ups. Google leads a collection of heavy-hitting allies, including Microsoft and Intel, trying to craft new technology called progressive web apps, which look and feel like native apps but are powered by the web. PWAs work even when you have no network connection. You can launch PWAs from an icon on your phone home screen or PC start menu, and they can prod you with push notifications and synchronize data in the background for fast startup. PWA fans include Uber, travel site Trivago and India e-commerce site Flipkart. Starbucks saw its website usage double after it rolled out a PWA.

The split over native apps and web apps is more than just a squabble between tech giants trying to convert our lives online into their profits. How it plays out will shape what kind of a digital world we live in. Choosing native apps steers us to a world where we're locked into either iOS or Android, limited to software approved by the companies' app stores and their rules. Web apps, on the other hand, reinforce the web's strength as a software foundation controlled by no single company. A web app will work anywhere, making it easier to swap out a Windows laptop for an iPad. "What you're seeing is the tension between what is good for the user, which is to have a flexible experience, and what's good for the platform, which is to keep you in the platform as much as possible," said Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Eric Rescorla.

Apple has another antitrust charge on its plate. Messaging app Telegram has joined Spotify in filing a formal complaint against the iOS App Store in Europe -- adding its voice to a growing number of developers willing to publicly rail against what they decry as Apple's app "tax." From a report: A spokesperson for Telegram confirmed the complaint to TechCrunch, pointing us to this public Telegram post where founder, Pavel Durov, sets out seven reasons why he thinks iPhone users should be concerned about the company's behavior. These range from the contention that Apple's 30% fee on app developers leads to higher prices for iPhone users; to censorship concerns, given Apple controls what's allowed (and not allowed) on its store; to criticism of delays to app updates that flow from Apple's app review process; to the claim that the app store structure is inherently hostile to user privacy, given that Apple gets full visibility of which apps users are downloading and engaging with. This week Durov also published a blog post in which he takes aim at a number of "myths" he says Apple uses to try to justify the 30% app fee -- such as a claim that iOS faces plenty of competition for developers; or that developers can choose not to develop for iOS and instead only publish apps for Android.

Qualcomm's Q3 earnings report might indicate a delay for Apple's upcoming 5G iPhones, with the company highlighting a "partial impact from the delay of a global 5G flagship phone launch" for its fourth quarter projections (which covers July, August, and September earnings). The Verge reports: Looking at the calendar of upcoming phone releases, it's hard to imagine that Qualcomm is talking about any device other than the upcoming 5G iPhones, which are expected to arrive this fall. Typically, Apple releases its new iPhone in September, and it's one of the few upcoming devices that would sell in large enough numbers that Qualcomm might need to disclose the material impact on an earnings call. There are already rumors circulating of delays for Apple's 5G lineup due to production slowdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with Reuters, chief financial officer Akash Palkhiwala indicated that the delay likely wouldn't be too long for the unnamed phone, describing it as "a slight delay that pushes some of the units out from the September quarter to the December quarter for us." (Qualcomm's December quarter covers the months of October, November, and December, so if the phone was slated for September, it might only be delayed into the following month.)

When a customer gets refunded for an app they purchased, Apple doesn't refund the 30% cut they took from the developer, shadowrocket下载官网 developer Simeon Saens of Two Lives Left. While [online] payment processors generally don't refund fees on refunded payments, "the App Store doesn't position itself as a payments processor the way Stripe does, so it sounds really weird that they would act like one," writes HN user chadlavi. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says in a tweet: This is a critical consideration in these 30% store fees. They come off the top, before funding any developer costs. As a result, Apple and Google make more profit from most developers' games than the developers themselves. That is terribly unfair and exploitative. "If the app store took a 3% chunk and never refunded it regardless of the ongoing status of the transaction, that would put them right in line with other payment processors," adds chadlavi. "It would also still net them billions of dollars, I think!"

UPDATE: In a follow-up tweet, Simeon says he "was mistaken in my original (now deleted) tweet." He adds: "Apple does not keep the 30% commission on a refund the refund happens as you'd expect. I don't know where I got the idea that it worked the way I thought it did."

Slashdot reader ravenscar did some digging in the Apple developer forums and found that "Apple has the right to keep its 30%... [but] rarely exercises this right and most developers see a 1 to 1 relationship on funds received vs funds refunded in these situations." They go on to say: "I can't find any cited examples of Apple keeping the commission."

During today's testimony before a Congressional antitrust panel, Mark Zuckerberg went off-script a little bit pointing out how Facebook lags behind a number of competitors, including Alphabet, Amazon.com and Apple. From a report: Zuckerberg isn't hesitating to use some sharp elbows, pointing out that Amazon is the fastest-growing advertising platform and Google is the biggest. "In many areas, we are behind our competitors," Zuckerberg said. "The most popular messaging service in the U.S. is iMessage. The fastest growing app is TikTok. The most popular app for video is YouTube. The fastest growing ads platform is Amazon. The largest ads platform is Google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the U.S., less than ten cents is spent with us."

Arizona is leading a multi-U.S. state probe into whether Apple's deliberate slowing of older iPhones 巴士加速器丨苹果下载:2021-1-22 · 苹果下载 进入APP商店，输入账号1662902666@qq.com,密码Qq223311，已购项目里面拉到最下面找到shadowrocket下载【下载完成记得在app商店退出这个账号】, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing documents. From a report: Last week, a separate document released by a tech watchdog group showed the Texas attorney general might sue Apple for such violations in connection with a multi-state probe, without specifying charges. In the ongoing probe since at least October 2018, investigators have asked Apple for data about "unexpected shutdowns" of iPhones and the company's throttling, or slowing down, of the devices through power management software, documents Reuters obtained through a public records request showed. Apple came under fire in 2017 when Primate Labs, the maker of software for measuring a phone's processor speeds, revealed that some iPhones became slower as they aged.

The top executives at four of the world's largest and most powerful technology companies are testifying now before Congress in the culmination of a year-long antitrust inquiry. You can watch the livestream below (link).

After Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes because of the pandemic, Apple tried to collect its commission on the sales. From a report: ClassPass built its business on helping people book exercise classes at local gyms. So when the pandemic forced gyms across the United States to close, the company shifted to virtual classes. Then ClassPass received a concerning message from Apple. Because the classes it sold on its iPhone app were now virtual, Apple said it was entitled to 30 percent of the sales, up from no fee previously, according to a person close to ClassPass who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting Apple. The iPhone maker said it was merely enforcing a decade-old rule. Airbnb experienced similar demands from Apple after it began an "online experiences" business that offered virtual cooking classes, meditation sessions and drag-queen shows, augmenting the in-person experiences it started selling in 2016, according to two people familiar with the issues.

Both Airbnb and ClassPass have discussed Apple's demands with House lawmakers' offices that are investigating how Apple wields its control over its App Store as part of a yearlong antitrust inquiry into the biggest tech companies, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Those lawmakers are set to grill Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, and the chief executives of Amazon, Facebook and Google in a high-profile hearing on Wednesday. Apple's disputes with the smaller companies point to the control the world's largest tech companies have had over the shift to online life brought on by the pandemic. While much of the rest of the economy is struggling, the pandemic has further entrenched their businesses.

Long-time Slashdot reader shanen is facing "the death of another smartphone from acute battery swelling." And he wants to know if you're having the same problem: It seems to me that they've become quite good at designing smartphones to last two years and little longer, which is a bit worrisome since my primary phone is entering into its third year. Can you share your experiences...?

It seems fair to start by summarizing what I can remember of mine:

- First was an HTC that lasted a little over 2 years. Not so good, but at least it died slowly.

- Samsung Galaxy lasted about 4 years. Basically killed by battery swelling combined with lack of replacement batteries.

- Two Huawei's. First one died slowly after about 3 years of heavy use.

- Freetel died by battery swelling after 2 years.

- ASUS, which just died by the worst battery swelling I've seen. Mostly light usage for something over 2 years.

Pretty sure I'm forgetting at least one smartphone. Also I'm deliberately not counting a Sharp wannabe smartphone before the HTC... Maybe the real source of my grief is that most of my smartphones were low-end models. I just noticed a new smartphone priced over $1,000. Maybe it will last 3 or 5 times longer?
I've also been buying low-end smartphones, so they're cheaper to replace when I inevitably drop them after exactly two years, turning their screens into an unreplaceable spiderweb of cracks. But what's your experience? Share your own thoughts and stories in the comments.

And how long do you expect your smartphone to last?

"Apple is being sued for allegedly refusing to help those who have fallen victim to a iTunes gift card scam," reports 9to5Mac, in an article shared by Slashdot reader AmiMoJo: An 11-count class action lawsuit has been filed against the company. Apple is accused of lying when it says that there is no way to trace or refund the value of the cards...

iTunes gift card scams usually work in a slightly different way, typically being used to buy paid apps owned by the scammers, so they receive 70% of the money when paid by Apple. The lawsuit says that Apple tells scam victims there is nothing that can be done once the money has been spent, but argues that this isn't true. In fact, Apple holds 100% of the funds for a period of 4-6 weeks, between the apps being purchased and Apple paying the developer. During this time, the company is in a position to refund 100% of the card value. Additionally, Apple takes a 30% commission, so would always be in a position to refund this much, even after the scammer has been paid.
ZDNet quotes the court documents as arguing that Apple "is incentivized to allow the scam to continue because it reaps a 30% commission on all scammed proceeds... knowingly or recklessly, Apple plays a vital role in the scheme by failing to prevent payouts to the scammers."