In an update on Friday, Apple announced that game emulators can come to the App Store globally and offer downloadable games. "Apple says those games must comply with 'all applicable laws,' though -- an indication it will ban apps that provide pirated titles," adds The Verge. From the report: The move should allow the retro console emulators already on Android -- at least those that are left -- to bring their apps to the iPhone. Game emulators have long been banned from iOS, leaving iPhone owners in search of workarounds via jailbreaking or other workarounds. They're also one of the key reasons, so far, that iPhone owners in the European Union might check out third-party app stores now that they're allowed in the region. Apple's change today could head that off.

Alongside the new rules on emulators, Apple also updated its rules around super apps, such as WeChat. It now says that mini-games and mini-apps within these apps must use HTML5, clarifying that they can't be native apps and games.

Matthew Connatser reports via The Register: A study has concluded that Apple's privacy practices aren't particularly effective, because default apps on the iPhone and Mac have limited privacy settings and confusing configuration options. The research was conducted by Amel Bourdoucen and Janne Lindqvist of Aalto University in Finland. The pair noted that while many studies had examined privacy issues with third-party apps for Apple devices, very little literature investigates the issue in first-party apps -- like Safari and Siri. The aims of the study [PDF] were to investigate how much data Apple's own apps collect and where it's sent, and to see if users could figure out how to navigate the landscape of Apple's privacy settings.

The lengths to which Apple goes to secure its ecosystem -- as described in its Platform Security Guide [PDF] -- has earned it kudos from the information security world. Cupertino uses its hard-earned reputation as a selling point and as a bludgeon against Google. Bourdoucen and Janne Lindqvist don't dispute Apple's technical prowess, but argue that it is undermined by confusing user interfaces. "Our work shows that users may disable default apps, only to discover later that the settings do not match their initial preference," the paper states. "Our results demonstrate users are not correctly able to configure the desired privacy settings of default apps. In addition, we discovered that some default app configurations can even reduce trust in family relationships."

The researchers criticize data collection by Apple apps like Safari and Siri, where that data is sent, how users can (and can't) disable that data tracking, and how Apple presents privacy options to users. The paper illustrates these issues in a discussion of Apple's Siri voice assistant. While users can ostensibly choose not to enable Siri in the initial setup on macOS-powered devices, it still collects data from other apps to provide suggestions. To fully disable Siri, Apple users must find privacy-related options across five different submenus in the Settings app. Apple's own documentation for how its privacy settings work isn't good either. It doesn't mention every privacy option, explain what is done with user data, or highlight whether settings are enabled or disabled. Also, it's written in legalese, which almost guarantees no normal user will ever read it. "We discovered that the features are not clearly documented," the paper concludes. "Specifically, we discovered that steps required to disable features of default apps are largely undocumented and the data handling practices are not completely disclosed."

Apple has sued its former employee Andrew Aude for leaking information about more than a half-dozen Apple products and policies, including its then-unannounced Journal app and Vision Pro headset, product development policies, strategies for regulatory compliance, employee headcounts, and more. MacRumors reports: Aude joined Apple as an iOS software engineer in 2016, shortly after graduating college. He worked on optimizing battery performance, making him "privy to information regarding dozens of Apple's most sensitive projects," according to the complaint. In April 2023, for example, Apple alleges that Aude leaked a list of finalized features for the iPhone's Journal app to a journalist at The Wall Street Journal on a phone call. That same month, The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley published a report titled "Apple Plans iPhone Journaling App in Expansion of Health Initiatives."

Using the encrypted messaging app Signal, Aude is said to have sent "over 1,400" messages to the same journalist, who Aude referred to as "Homeboy." He is also accused of sending "over 10,000 text messages" to another journalist at the website The Information, and he allegedly traveled "across the continent" to meet with her. Other leaks relate to the Vision Pro and other hardware: "As another example, an October 2020 screenshot on Mr. Aude's Apple-issued work iPhone shows that he disclosed Apple's development of products within the spatial computing space to a non-Apple employee. Mr. Aude made this disclosure even though Apple's development efforts were confidential and not known to the public. Over the following months, Mr. Aude disclosed additional Apple confidential information -- including information concerning unannounced products, and hardware information."

Apple believes that Aude's actions were "extensive and purposeful," with Aude allegedly admitting that he leaked information so he could "kill" products and features with which he took issue. The company alleges that his wrongful disclosures resulted in at least five news articles discussing the company's confidential and proprietary information. Apple says these public revelations impeded its ability to "surprise and delight" with its latest products. Apple said it learned of Aude's wrongful disclosures in late 2023, and the company fired him for his alleged misconduct in December of that year. [...] Apple is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial, and it is also seeking other legal remedies. The full complaint can be read here (PDF).

An anonymous reader writes: What if you could update the device while it's still in the box? That's the latest plan cooked up by Apple, which is close to rolling out a system that will let Apple Stores wirelessly update new iPhones while they're still in their boxes. The new system is called "Presto." French site iGeneration has the first picture of what this setup looks like. It starts with a clearly Apple-designed silver rack that holds iPhones and has a few lights on the front. The site (through translation) calls the device a "toaster," and yes, it looks like a toaster oven or food heating rack.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has been writing about whispers of this project for months, saying in one article that the device can "wirelessly turn on the iPhone, update its software and then power it back down -- all without the phone's packaging ever being opened." In another article, he wrote that the device uses "MagSafe and other wireless technologies." The iGeneration report also mentions that the device uses NFC, and there are "templates" that help with positioning the various-sized iPhone boxes so the NFC and wireless charging will work. With that wireless charging, downloading, and installing, all while being isolated in a cardboard box, Apple's "toaster" probably gets pretty hot.

A SWAT team in St. Louis County mistakenly raided the home of Brittany Shamily and her family, based on the inaccurate tracking of stolen AirPods by the "FindMy" app. The family is suing for damages stemming from embarrassment, unreasonable use of force, loss of liberty, and other factors. The Riverfront Times reports: Around 6:30 p.m. on May 26, Brittany Shamily was at home with her children, including an infant, when police used a battering ram to bust in her front door. "What the hell is going on?" she screamed, terrified for herself and her family. "I got a three-month-old baby!" Body camera footage from the scene shows Shamily come to the front door, her hands up, her face a mix of fright and utter confusion at the heavily armed folly making its way from her front porch into her foyer. "Oh my god," she says. The SWAT team was looking for guns and other material related to a carjacking that had occurred that morning. Their search didn't turn up any of that -- though it has led to a lawsuit, filed Friday, that may lead to a better public understanding of how county police decide whether to deploy a SWAT team or serve a search warrant in a less menacing manner. Because in this case, the police clearly made the wrong call.

The carjacking that led to the raid happened about 12 hours prior, 16 miles away, in south county. Around 6 a.m., two brothers were leaving the Waffle House on Telegraph Road near Jefferson Barracks when a group of six people pulled up outside the restaurant and carjacked them. Two of the carjackers took off in the brothers' Dodge Charger while the other four fled the scene in their own vehicles. St. Louis County Police were summoned to the scene. As part of their investigation, a friend of the carjacked brothers told police that his AirPods were in the stolen car and that he could track them using the "FindMy" application, a feature that lets users locate one Apple device using another. Police did just that and, according to the lawsuit, the app showed the AirPods to be at Shamily's house.

There was just one problem. "FindMy is not that accurate," says the family's lawyer, Bevis Schock. "I actually went to my house with my co-counsel and played around with it for an hour. It's just not that good." Yet based on the "FindMy" result, an officer signed an application for a search warrant saying he had reason to believe that "firearms, ammunition, holsters" and other "firearm-related material" were inside. That evening, police showed up in full combat gear carrying a battering ram. [...] While the family was detained outside, the SWAT team "ransacked" their house, the lawsuit says. One SWAT team member punched a basketball-sized hole in the drywall. Another broke through a drop ceiling. They turned over drawers and left what had been an orderly house in disarray. After this had gone on for more than half an hour, the AirPods were located -- on the street outside the family's home. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. In January 2022, SWAT teams in Denver raided an elderly woman's home after the "FindMy" app falsely pinged her home as the location of a stolen iPhone. The woman was recently awarded $3.76 million in compensation and damages.

Apple has been hit with a flurry of new consumer lawsuits accusing the iPhone maker of monopolizing the smartphone market, piggybacking on a sweeping antitrust case lodged by the U.S. Justice Department and 15 states last week. From a report: At least three proposed class actions have been filed since Friday in California and New Jersey federal courts by iPhone owners who claim Apple inflated the cost of its products through anticompetitive conduct. The lawsuits, seeking to represent millions of consumers, mirror the Justice Department's claims that Apple violated U.S. antitrust law by suppressing technology for messaging apps, digital wallets and other items that would have increased competition in the market for smartphones.

FrankOVD shares a report: Here's a paragraph from the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Apple in full: "In addition to degrading the quality of third-party messaging apps, Apple affirmatively undermines the quality of rival smartphones. For example, if an iPhone user messages a non-iPhone user in Apple Messages -- the default messaging app on an iPhone -- then the text appears to the iPhone user as a green bubble and incorporates limited functionality: the conversation is not encrypted, videos are pixelated and grainy, and users cannot edit messages or see typing indicators.

"This signals to users that rival smartphones are lower quality because the experience of messaging friends and family who do not own iPhones is worse -- even though Apple, not the rival smartphone, is the cause of that degraded user experience. Many non-iPhone users also experience social stigma, exclusion, and blame for 'breaking' chats where other participants own iPhones. This effect is particularly powerful for certain demographics, like teenagers -- where the iPhone's share is 85 percent, according to one survey. This social pressure reinforces switching costs and drives users to continue buying iPhones -- solidifying Apple's smartphone dominance not because Apple has made its smartphone better, but because it has made communicating with other smartphones worse."

The European Union has launched investigations into Apple, Meta and Google under its sweeping new digital-competition law, adding to the regulatory scrutiny large U.S. tech companies are facing worldwide. From a report: The suite of probes [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; official press release here] announced Monday are the first under the EU's Digital Markets Act law, which took effect earlier this month. They come less than a week after the Justice Department sued Apple over allegations it makes it difficult for competitors to integrate with the iPhone, ultimately raising prices for customers. Apple and Google will now face EU scrutiny of how they are complying with rules that say they must allow app developers to inform customers about alternative offers outside those companies' main app stores. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said it is concerned about constraints the tech companies place on developers' ability to freely communicate with users and promote their offers.

The bloc will also examine changes that Google made to how its search results appear in Europe. The new digital competition law says companies cannot give their own services preference over similar services that are offered by rivals. Another probe will look at how Apple complies with rules that say users should be able to easily remove software applications and change default settings on their iPhones, as well as how the company shows choice screens that offer alternative search engine and browser options.

Indian Express calls it "the ultimate smartphone killer". (Coming soon, its laser-on-your-palm feature will display stock prices, sports scores, and flight statuses.)

Humane's Ai Pin can even translate what you say, repeating it out loud in another language (with 50 different languages supported). And it can read you summaries of what's on your favorite web sites, so "You can just surf the web with your voice," according to a new video released this week.

The video also shows it answering specific questions like "What's that song by 21 Savage with the violin intro?" (And later, while the song is playing, answering more questions like "This was sampled from another song. What song was that?") But then co-founder Imran Chaudhri — an iPhone designer and one of several former Apple employees at Humane — demonstrated a "Vision" feature that's coming soon. Holding a Sony Walkman he asks the Pin to "Look at this and tell me when it first came out" — and the Pin obliges. ("The Sony Walkman WM-F73 was released in 1986...") In another demo it correctly supplied the designer of an Air Jordan basketball shoe.

They're also working on integrating this into a Nutrition Tracking application. (A demonstrator held a doughnut and asked the Pin to identify how much sugar was in it.) If you tell the Pin that you've eaten the doughnut, it can then calculate your intake of carbs, protein, and fats.

And in the video the Pin responded within seconds to the command "Make a spreadsheet about top consumer tech reviewers on YouTube [with] real names, subscriber counts, and URLs." It performed the research and created the spreadsheet, which appears on the demonstrator's laptop, apparently logged in to Humane's cloud-based user platform.

In the video Humane's co-founder stresses that its Ai Pin does all this without downloading applications, "which allows me to stay present in the moment and flow." But while it can also make phone calls and sends text messages, Imran Chaudhri adds that "Ai Pin is a completely new form factor for compute. It's never been about replacing. It's always been about creating new ways to interact with what you need. So instead of having to sit down to use a computer, or reaching in to your pocket and pulling out your phone and navigating apps, Ai Pin allows you to simply act on something the moment you think about it — letting AI do all the work for you."

Or, as they say later "This is about technology adapting and reacting to you. Not you having to adapt to it."

There's also talk about their "AI OS" — named Cosmos — with the Pin described as "our first entry point" into that operating system, with other devices planned to support it in the future. (Mashable's reporter notes that Humane's Ai Pin is backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and writes "I was impressed with how well it worked.") The video even ends with an update for SDK developers. In the second half of 2024, "you're going to be able to connect your services to the Ai Pin using REST APIs and OAuth." Phase two will let developers run their code directly on Humane's cloud platform — while Phase three will see developers codes on Ai Pin devices, "to get access to the mic, the camera, the sensors, and the laser. We are so excited to see what you're gonna build."

Humane says its Ai Pin will start shipping at the end of March, with priority orders arriving starting on April 11th.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Apple Thursday, accusing the company led by CEO Tim Cook of engaging in anti-competitive business practices. The allegations include claims that Apple prevents competitors from accessing certain iPhone features and that the company's actions impact the "flow of speech" through its streaming service, Apple TV+.

However, even if the DOJ proves any of the allegations, it is highly unlikely that Apple will face material changes for years, as history shows that such lawsuits often take a significant amount of time to reach the trial, let alone a resolution. The DOJ's ongoing case against Google, filed in 2020, only went to trial in 2023, with no remedies or financial implications expected for up to two more years.

This is not the first time Apple has faced legal action from the DOJ. In 2012, the agency sued Apple for conspiring with publishers to increase ebook prices, a lawsuit that was not settled until 2016. "Precedents suggest that resolution of the complaint will take three to five years, including appeals," Bernstein analysts wrote in a note.

Apple has held preliminary talks with Baidu about using the Chinese company's generative AI technology in its devices in China, the latest example of the iPhone maker's efforts to widen its AI capabilities. From a report: The U.S. tech giant has been exploring using external partners to help accelerate its AI ambitions. It has held discussions with companies including Google and OpenAI about using their technology to power its mobile features. In China, Apple has been looking for a local generative AI model provider, mainly because China requires such models to be vetted by its cyberspace regulator before being launched to the public, people familiar with the matter said.

Apple has launched a new "Documentation" page to its website that provides links to user guides, repair manuals, tech specs, software downloads, and more for a variety of its products. MacRumors reports: Some of this information was previously found across separate pages on Apple's website, and it has now been combined in one place for convenient access. The page includes categories for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro, Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, HomePod, displays like the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR, accessories like the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard, and software. There is also a search tool on the page that provides links to support documents and other relevant information based on the keywords entered.

The Justice Department sued Apple on Thursday, alleging the tech giant blocked software developers and mobile gaming companies from offering better options on the iPhone, resulting in higher prices for consumers. WSJ: The government's antitrust complaint, filed in a New Jersey federal court, alleges Apple used its control of the iPhone to prevent competitors from offering innovative services such as digital wallets and limited the functionality of hardware products that compete with Apple's own devices. The suit also claims that Apple makes it difficult for users to switch to devices that don't use Apple's operating system, such as Android smartphones.

"Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies violate the antitrust laws," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Apple said it plans to vigorously defend against the lawsuit. "This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets," an Apple spokesman said in a statement. "If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple -- where hardware, software, and services intersect." The case against Apple is the last shoe to drop on the big four tech giants by U.S. antitrust officials.

During its State of Unreal presentation at GDC 2024 today, Epic Games confirmed its plans to bring the Epic Games Store to iOS and Android before the end of the year. The company also shared more details about its app marketplace for iOS in the European Union. As reported by 9to5Mac, Epic Games said it will take a 12% commission from sales. From the report: Epic says the terms for developers will be the same via the Epic Games Store on mobile as they are on the Epic Games Store on PC. As such, the company will take a 12% commission on all sales through the Epic Games Store. The revenue share is 100% for the developer during the first six months on the Epic Games Store. The Epic Games Store will feature Epic's own content, including Fortnite, alongside a selection of third-party partners. The company says it will share additional details in the lead-up to the launch later this year.

Apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini AI engine into the iPhone, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the situation, setting the stage for a blockbuster agreement that would shake up the AI industry. From the report: The two companies are in active negotiations to let Apple license Gemini, Google's set of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to the iPhone software this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI and has considered using its model, according to the people.

According to Bloomberg, Apple has acquired Canada-based AI startup DarwinAI for an undisclosed sum. Macworld reports: Apple has reportedly folded the DarwinAI staff into its own AI team, including DarwinAI co-founder Alexander Wong, an AI researcher at the University of Waterloo who "has published over 600 refereed journal and conference papers, as well as patents, in various fields such as computational imaging, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and multimedia systems."

According to its LinkedIn profile, DarwinAI is "a rapidly growing visual quality inspection company providing manufacturers an end-to-end solution to improve product quality and increase production efficiency." In layman's terms, that means Apple is likely interested in DarwinAI to streamline its manufacturing to be more efficient. That's something that could save Apple a ton of money in annual costs.

Far more interesting to our consumer devices, however, is Bloomberg's report that DarwinAI's tech can be used to make AI models more efficient in general. Apple has been said to want any generative AI features to run on the device rather than the cloud, so models will need to be as small as possible and DarwinAI could definitely help there. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more."

Walmart is teaming up with Apple to sell the Mac for the first time. From a report: In a press release today, the company said that it is now selling the base model M1 MacBook Air online and in select stores for $699. The move comes a week after Apple introduced the new M3 MacBook Air and stopped selling the M1 MacBook Air itself. While Walmart has historically sold Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, it has never sold Macs directly. Instead, it's relied on third-party partners to sell the Mac through its online marketplace.

Apple reached a $490 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of investors who accused Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook of misleading them in 2018 about the company's sales prospects. From a report: Cook made false statements about the company's business in China that caused Apple stock to trade at artificially inflated prices, the investors said in their complaint, which alleged violation of securities laws. Lawyers disclosed the proposed settlement in a request for judicial approval filed Friday in federal court in Oakland, California. The settlement comes as Apple continues to face headwinds in China, where iPhone sales fell by a surprising 24% over the first six weeks of this year, according to independent research released earlier this month. Attorneys for the investors described the settlement as the third-largest securities class-action recovery in the district's history.

Last month, the only known surviving copy of 32-bit OS/2 from Microsoft was purchased for $650. "Now, two of the internet's experts in getting early PC operating systems running today have managed to fire it up, and you can see the results," reports The Register. From the report: Why such interest in this nearly third-of-a-century old, unreleased OS? Because this is the way the PC industry very nearly went. This SDK came out in June 1990, just one month after Windows 3.0. If 32-bit OS/2 had launched as planned, Windows 3 would have been the last version before it was absorbed into OS/2 and disappeared. There would never have been any 32-bit versions: no Windows NT, no Windows 95; no Explorer, no Start menu or taskbars. That, in turn, might well have killed off Apple as well. No iPod, no iPhone, no fondleslabs. Twenty-first century computers would be unimaginably different. The surprise here is that we can see a glimpse of this world that never happened. The discovery of this pre-release OS shows how very nearly ready it was in 1990. IBM didn't release its solo version until April 1992, the same month as Windows 3.1 -- but now, we can see it was nearly ready two years earlier.

That's why Michal Necasek of the OS/2 Museum called his look The Future That Never Was. He uncovered a couple of significant bugs, but more impressively, he found workarounds for both, and got both features working fine. OS/2 2 could run multiple DOS VMs at once, but in the preview, they wouldn't open -- due to use of an undocumented instruction which Intel did implement in the Pentium MMX and later processors. Secondly, the bundled network client wouldn't install -- but removing a single file got that working fine. That alone is a significant difference between Microsoft's OS/2 2.0 and IBM's version: Big Blue didn't include networking until Warp Connect 3 in 1995.

His verdict: "The 6.78 build of OS/2 2.0 feels surprisingly stable and complete. The cover letter that came with the SDK stressed that Microsoft developers had been using the OS/2 pre-release for day-to-day work." Over at Virtually Fun, Neozeed also took an actual look at Microsoft OS/2 2.0, carefully recreating that screenshot from PC Magazine in May 1990. He even managed to get some Windows 2 programs running, although this preview release did not yet have a Windows subsystem. On his Internet Archive page, he has disk images and downloadable virtual machines so that you can run this yourself under VMware or 86Box.

A six-week audit by the Federal Aviation Administration of Boeing's production of the 737 Max jet found dozens of problems (non-paywalled link) throughout the manufacturing process at the plane maker and one of its key suppliers, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times. From the report: The air-safety regulator initiated the examination after a door panel blew off a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight in early January. Last week, the agency announced that the audit had found "multiple instances" in which Boeing and the supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, failed to comply with quality-control requirements, though it did not provide specifics about the findings.

The presentation reviewed by The Times, though highly technical, offers a more detailed picture of what the audit turned up. Since the Alaska Airlines episode, Boeing has come under intense scrutiny over its quality-control practices, and the findings add to the body of evidence about manufacturing lapses at the company. For the portion of the examination focused on Boeing, the F.A.A. conducted 89 product audits, a type of review that looks at aspects of the production process. The plane maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance, according to the presentation.

The F.A.A. also conducted 13 product audits for the part of the inquiry that focused on Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage, or body, of the 737 Max. Six of those audits resulted in passing grades, and seven resulted in failing ones, the presentation said. At one point during the examination, the air-safety agency observed mechanics at Spirit using a hotel key card to check a door seal, according to a document that describes some of the findings. That action was "not identified/documented/called-out in the production order," the document said.