Following months of investigation, the European Commission has confirmed that it will not designate Apple’s iMessage instant messaging platform as a gatekeeper, saving it from regulation that would require it to be opened up to third parties.
The commission had been discussing whether iMessage met the minimum threshold to be called a gatekeeper in the messaging space, with Microsoft’s Bing also under investigation for its place in the search market. Microsoft’s Edge browser and advertising business was also under investigation.
Following the news that WhatsApp was already working on interoperability that would have allowed iMessages to be sent and received via its app, this move will mean that it will not be a stealthy way for lawmakers to bring iMessage to Android after all.
Investigation closed
The European Commission confirmed that it had closed its investigation via a press release, noting that it had been running since September 5, 2023.
“The decisions conclude the Commission’s investigations opened following the notification by Apple and Microsoft in July 2023 of the core platform services that met the quantitative thresholds,” the release explains. “Among these notified services were also the four services concerned by today’s decisions. Together with the notifications, Apple and Microsoft also submitted so-called ‘rebuttal’ arguments, explaining why despite meeting the quantitative thresholds, these four core platform services should not, in their view, qualify as gateways.”
The commission wasn’t convinced about Apple’s claims that iMessage didn’t meet the criteria to be named a gatekeeper and has been investigating since September.
However, it should be noted that Apple isn’t necessarily in the clear for good — the commission “will continue to monitor the developments on the market with respect to these services, should any substantial changes arise.”
In this instance it was deemed that the low-level business use of iMessage means that it falls outside of the scope of the DMA’s powers, but whether that remains the case moving forward only time will tell.
Earlier today, Jon Stewart, comedian and former host for 16 years of “The Daily Show,” confirmed why his last show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” was canceled by Apple TVPlus.
“I very much wanted to have some kind of place to unload thoughts, as we get into this election season,” Jon Stewart said on CBS Morning. “I thought I was going to do it over at…they call it AppleTV Plus. It’s a television enclave, very small. It’s like living in Malibu,” Stewart joked. He then said that Apple TVPlus executives didn’t want him to “say things that might get him in trouble,” Stewart said. His previous show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” ran from 2021 to 2023 on Apple TVPlus.
Jon Stewart reveals why Apple TV+ canceled his last show
Stewart hosted “The Daily Show” from 1999 to 2015, where he became one of the most influential voices in media and politics during those years. After Stewart left “The Daily Show,” Trevor Noah took over hosting the show until 2022. Since then, the show has had a rotating lineup of hosts.
On CBS Mornings, Stewart was asked about having an influential voice in this political election. He replied, “I don’t know if I’m hoping to have an influence, but I’m hoping to have a catharsis and a way to comment on things and a way to express them that hopefully people will enjoy. But as far as influence…just about everything that I wanted to happen over the 16 years that I was at ‘The Daily Show’ did not happen.”
He went on to say that political workers in the field, like activists, were really much more influential during elections. And he’s learned that in television, he felt people like him can only, “occasionally provide air support to those on the ground who are actually doing the work.”
This evening, Stewart returned to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” which he’ll be hosting every Monday night during the 2024 election season.
Apple has decided to settle a lawsuit with Rivos, a chip startup that it accused of using its confidential data by poaching its employees. The lawsuit was filed almost two years ago in May 2022, and the two parties seem to have reached an agreement outside of court to settle the lawsuit.
Rivos is something called a “stealth mode” startup, which means it operates with a lot of secrecy. As such, we may not learn about the settlement terms anytime so on. Apple likely doesn’t want any more leakage of its private data as well, which could be another reason.
Apple settles potential chipset intelllectual property theft case
Bloomberg spotted a court filing that says that Apple and Rivos had decided to settle the matter. In the original lawsuit, Apple had said, “Starting in June 2021, Rivos began a coordinated campaign to target Apple employees with access to Apple proprietary and trade secret information about Apple’s SoC designs.”
Apple had accused that Rivos was running a “coordinated campaign to target Apple employees with access to Apple proprietary and trade secret information about Apple’s SoC designs.” The departed engineers had apparently taken a lot of Apple’s chipset design data.
It appears that the settlement involves Apple ensuring Rivos scrubs all of Apple’s confidential data. The report says, “”The agreement provides for remediation of Apple confidential information based on a forensic examination of Rivos systems and other activities,” according to the filing in federal court in San Jose, California. “The parties currently are working through that process.””
It definitely feels like a different approach than the one we’ve seen Apple take with the Apple Car trade secret theft recently. The process described in the filing is likely going to be intensive, as Apple ensures all of its data doesn’t get utilized without its consent.
Given all the noise surrounding Apple, its iPhone App Store, and the EU’s Digital Markets Act, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Cupertino outfit is the only one that is having to make changes to adhere to new rules. But that’s far from the case, with the meta-owned WhatsApp having to make a few changes of its own. Those changes will see something that many thought would never happen — and it might not have happened if it wasn’t for the DMA.
That change is an upcoming WhatsApp update that will allow third-party messaging platforms to effectively hook into its network, bringing their own messages to the WhatsApp app on iPhones and other devices. There’s a potential future where iMessages may one day appear in WhatsApp and WhatsApp messages could be received in the Messages app on Apple’s devices. That’s a way off right now, but WhatsApp is getting ready to allow third-party access as and when it’s required.
The upcoming WhatsApp changes will need to happen by March, much like Apple’s App Store tweaks, and a new report has detailed how this will all go down via an interview with Dick Brouwer, an engineering director at WhatsApp and someone who is in a position to spill the beans.
Better, connected
In an interview with Wired, Brouwer discussed the fact that WhatsApp will continue to encrypt its messages and that the interoperability required by the DMA won’t affect that. In fact, it’s key to what the company wanted to do — ensure that the change doesn’t impact security or privacy.
“There’s real tension between offering an easy way to offer this interoperability to third parties whilst at the same time preserving the WhatsApp privacy, security, and integrity bar,” Brouwer explained “I think we’re pretty happy with where we’ve landed.”
When the new interoperability first comes online it will support text messaging, images, files, videos, and voice messages but only between two people. Group messages and calls will come later, but they won’t be part of the initial rollout and probably won’t be added to the mix for some time.
Part of WhatsApp’s privacy push will be the option to choose not to receive messages from other networks and services, something Brouwer says is an important decision given the potential for spam.
“One of the core requirements here, and this is really important, is for users for this to be opt-in,” Brouwer told Wired. “I can choose whether or not I want to participate in being open to exchanging messages with third parties. This is important because it could be a big source of spam and scams.”
It’s clear that WhatsApp isn’t just opening the floodgates and leaving its users to fend for themselves, and it might hint at the approach that Apple might take should it also be forced to open the Messages app and iMessage as a whole, to the competition.
The European Commission is still trying to decide whether iMessage meets the required threshold to be considered a gatekeeper and if it is, interoperability will be forced. That could make the Messages app into an entirely different beast and change the way iMessage is used forever. However, given Apple’s App Store stance, that might only be the case for people who live in EU countries. Time will of course tell on all fronts here, but given the commission’s fraught relationship with Apple, anything is possible at this point.
Only a few days ago, Apple released its new mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro. While all the other virtual reality or augmented reality headset manufacturers have stuck with the VR or AR moniker with which to describe their devices, Apple however has instead made its own name for what it presumably sees as the next era of computing — spatial computing. Computing in space! Or something…?
Apple doesn’t want the Vision Pro to be a gaming headset like its competitors. Instead, Vision Pro is positioned to one day replace your PC, today acting as a working companion to your expensive and powerful MacBook Pro or Mac Studio, as well as being a very high-tech media player. As a computer replacement in a world where people use their primary computer as a method of consuming various types of content, Vision Pro needs to be good at watching movies, playing games, and more — and do it in such a way that stands out from the rest of the portable computing space.
Now Playing
(Image credit: Future)
Now Playing is a weekly column from iMore’s resident audiophile Tammy Rogers, looking into the state of the media streaming landscape. From headline-grabbing Apple Music exclusives to Oscar-baiting blockbuster Apple TV+ films, Apple is becoming a more recognized part of the media, arts and entertainment landscape. Now Playing will help you make sense of Apple’s place in the industry.
Apple hopes that what sets Vision Pro apart is ‘spatial’ everything.
Spatial video, Spatial Audio, and spatial photography are all built into Apple’s latest innovative device — although that does mean that Apple has tossed all its eggs in one basket. If no one is interested in all things spatial then Vision Pro, and by extension, Apple, have a problem
To make sure that spatial ‘things’ become the ‘next big thing, period’, Apple has put a significant amount of money into making sure that content exists for the headset. That means Spatial Audio tracks that don’t cost Apple Music users any extra subscription fees, and 3D movies in Apple TV+. To get the ball rolling, Apple has already gotten started on making the new ‘spatial’ version of ‘things’ more likely to happen. There’s Apple Original Pictures for one, with its aim to bring exclusive movies and TV shows to Apple devices, and then a boost to Spatial Audio royalties for artists that record and master their music in Spatial Audio. A good start, one might have thought.
Unfortunately, not everything seems to be going to plan.
Spatial Audio royalties go pop
(Image credit: Apple)
If Apple wants Spatial Audio to really take off, the first thing it needs is loads of Spatial Audio tracks to be available on its streaming platform. While we don’t have the exact number of tracks that are available with Apple Music, we do have some interesting stats from Apple itself. According to the Cupertino giant, there are only 10% of users who are yet to listen to a Spatial Audio mixed track, and the amount of tracks mixed in Spatial Audio has increased 5,000% since the format joined Apple Music. Even more interestingly, Spatial Audio accounted for 4/5s of the music that landed in the platforms Global Daily Top 100 over the last 12 months — which is certainly impressive.
It remains hard to find precisely just how many albums have the Spatial Audio surround sound mix attached, but it’s by no means the entire Apple library. Finding anything mixed in the format is harder than it needs to be, and even new music being added to the platform won’t necessarily have the Dolby Atmos accreditation.
(Image credit: Future)
To make the Spatial library larger, Apple increased royalties for artists and labels adding Spatial Audio music to the platform. That would be an extra 10% for tracks added in the format — a not insignificant percentage that Apple hoped would encourage engagement with surround sound. Unfortunately, there’s a catch that many artists and labels aren’t too happy about.
That extra 10% isn’t really added on, instead coming from a fixed pot of available revenue for streaming, according to a Financial Times report. That means that money for normal streams of music that aren’t Spatial Audio accredited could go down, costing the label and the artist revenue in the process. For those who are confused by this seemingly-fixed payment structure, you are not alone — we reached out to some of the affected labels for clarification, but at the time of writing none were prepared to discuss the details of the deals they have in place with Apple.
To make the Spatial library larger, Apple increased royalties for artists and labels adding Spatial Audio music to the platform.
However confusing, the fact remains that it hasn’t encouraged artists and labels to pick up the format — after all, to record and master a Spatial Audio track you have to add on an extra $1,000 in production costs per piece. For some labels that could add up to tens of thousands of dollars per artist, making updating their library too costly — but also leaving them with lower revenue as non-spatial tracks are left in the cold. Some labels are now looking at fixing the problem with Apple, or taking their business elsewhere should discussions falter or fail. That, obviously, would be catastrophic.
It’s not a good start to the Spatial era, particularly as the Vision Pro headset has gone all-in on Spatial Audio. The apparently excellent but leaky speakers strapped to the side of the headset will pump out Spatial Audio from Apple Music, as will the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2 that can be paired with Vision Pro.
Want Spatial Audio in Vision Pro?
(Image credit: Gerald Lynch / Future)
Then you’re stuck with those two above options — although it seems like that’s for good reason. Apple is only allowing ‘hi-res’ Spatial Audio with Vision Pro, something that the AirPods Pro 2 (with USB-C — sorry Lightning-model owners) are exclusively capable of. Same goes for those weird head-mounted speakers that will let everyone in the room/plane cabin/jacuzzi know that you’re listening to something embarrassing.
Want to try out Spatial Audio with a pair of otherwise-spatially-compatible AirPods 3 or AirPods Max? No luck there I’m afraid, time for a new pair, you pauper.
Some directors are all in on spatial movies, though
(Image credit: 20th Century Fox/ Paramount/ Apple)
What won’t make Apple worried (or at least as worried) is that all the directors that see spatial movies in Vision Pro are apparently ‘blown away.’ James Cameron, the visionary director behind the likes of Titanic, Aliens, and most recently Avatar: The Way of Water seems to be pretty excited about Vision Pro and the movie experience that the headset can provide.
“I would say my experience was religious,” Cameron told Vanity Fair, giving us some idea as to the calibre of director that’s had a chance to play with Vision Pro. Jon Favreau, creator of Chef and The Mandalorian (and never the twain shall meet) said that he was “excited by what kind of story I can tell now that I couldn’t tell before now” — and he’s the guy that brought dinosaurs to Vision Pro through Dinosaur Encounters on the App Store and Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV+. He’s made sure that those of us with dreams of being eaten by a T-Rex are well fed (or at least as well fed as the T-Rex would be when he’s got me in his jaws. I’m very fatty, so I’m likely more delicious than filling, though.)
Apple at the Oscars
(Image credit: Apple / Paramount Pictures)
Apple has already had some success with its Original Films business, coming away with awards for movies like CODA at the Oscars. Even more recently, Apple has had loads of Oscar nominations for its latest movie projects, with Killers of the Flower Moon (a Martin Scorsese opus) and Napoleon (from one Ridley Scott, Gladiator man) both receiving nominations — including Best Picture for the former.
Both of those movies will be coming to Apple TV+, with enhanced immersion thanks to the extra pizazz that the headset adds in the form of a kind of virtual cinema. Will this make more people likely to buy an Apple Vision Pro? Only time will tell, and I’m not sure that spatial movies, video, or even hi-res Spatial Audio are going to be what really pushes potential customers over the ‘should I really spend as much as a secondhand car on a mixed reality headset?’ threshold.
Apple’s Spatial speculation
Apple is almost putting all its eggs in one basket with the Vision Pro. While it has thriving lines of laptops, phones, and tablets, it looks like the firm thinks that this is the future of computing. Personally, I can’t think of something much worse than wearing an aluminum and glass headset that weighs as much as an iPad on my face for anything longer than half an hour, but I am but one grumpy tech writer.
Apple certainly seems to be putting in the work to make sure that Vision Pro has plenty of content for some time to come — but is it really enough?
What to watch
(Image credit: Future)
Apple is going to the Oscars once again — and you should probably check out the two films that its awards hopes rest on. First and foremost is the movie up for best picture: Killers of the Flower Moon. The Martin Scorsese flick is an epic western drama that tells the story of the murders of the Osage Native American people in 1920s Oklahoma. It’s based on a book by David Grann and real history — and it does an excellent job of not only sticking pretty rigidly to the actual story but also being a harrowing and realistic portrayal of the US’s relationship with its indigenous population.
Lily Gladstone, who plays the main character Mollie Kyle, is up for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Scorsese is up for Best Director. It’s loaded to the top with incredible talent, including Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Brendan Fraser. Make no mistake — it’s a lot to take in and emotionally draining, but it’s an excellent picture and one to watch.
Napoleon, Apple’s other Oscar-nominated film, is one that’s slightly more divisive. It tells the story of the legendary French Emperor and General, Napoleon Bonaparte, and director Ridley Scott managed to rustle some feathers with movie critics, the French, and historians in one two-and-a-half-hour streak.
(Image credit: Apple)
There’s no denying that Scott’s film is an epic affair — the battles look incredible, with some truly enormous set pieces hammering home the scale of the fighting. There’s a standout performance from Vanessa Kirby who plays Napoleon’s long-suffering wife, Josephine, arresting your attention every time she’s on-screen with a kind of mischievous joy and underlying cunning.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon himself leaves a lot to be desired, however — beyond his weird, sniveling on-screen persona, it feels like Phoenix is only putting in three-quarters of the effort necessary. History fans aren’t going to be massive fans of the inaccuracies either, especially as they watch a cannonball take a massive chunk out of the pyramids of Giza. For those after an epic historical romp that will make you laugh (whether it means to or not), however, will have a good time watching Napoleon mope about his manor houses and have various battles with other rulers of the time.
What to listen to
(Image credit: Future)
Looking for something to listen to in the run-up to the Super Bowl? Usher’s going to be playing the Apple Music-sponsored halftime show, and Apple Music listeners can tune into his “My Road to Halftime” playlist to dust up on one of the biggest R&B artists in the world.
There are some of Usher’s most well-known tracks in the playlist, including U Don’t Have To Call, U Got it Bad, and My Boo. There’s more here than just the greatest hits of Usher — there’s a whole bunch of his biggest influences as well, like Alicia Keys’ No One, and Frank Sinatra’s Classic My Way. It follows Usher as he prepares for what is often one of the biggest music moments in the entertainment world, preparing himself for something that might become the most important show of his career.
The playlist is available now, just before Usher releases his ninth album, COMING HOME. If you want to learn more about the man behind the name then there’s also going to be an editorial feature on Apple Music called ‘The Story of Usher in 20 Songs’, “giving an in-depth look at the 30-year career of a generational artist and performer” Apple tells us.
It’s been said that when the Welsh actor Richard Burton, the Shakespearean actor who some say was the greatest actor of his generation, read from a telephone book, he could make such mundane material sound like “Hamlet.” That’s how great his acting and performance skills were.
I don’t believe Tim Cook, the Apple CEO and now, apparently, part-time actor, hails from the same school of acting as Burton.
But if you’re interested in seeing Cook’s dramatic and comedic skills in action, so to speak, you can see him in two teasers for this year’s Super Bowl Halftime show, one a very short YouTube teaser and another longer Super Bowl teaser, which includes the first at the start, that runs more than seven minutes.
The halftime show is sponsored by Apple Music and will feature acclaimed R&B and pop music star, Usher, who, in both videos, is missing in Vegas. Ludacris, along with rapper Lil Jon and actress Taraji P. Henson, are out to find him.
Two wacky “Where is Usher” teasers for upcoming Super Bowl LVIII
Cook’s emotionless acting chops are great at the start of the videos, vaguely recalling Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory.” But it’s hard not to also love Ludacris, when he apologizes to the well-known executive, saying, “Tim, I’m sorry bro! Usher’s gone!”
The longer, seven-minute clip continues the madness and mayhem, as Ludacris, Lil Jon and Henson try to find Usher. This longer clip features more celebrities, too: In addition to Ludacris, Lil Jon and Henson, there are appearances by actor Wesley Snipes (posing as his cousin), musicians J Balvin, .Paak, and Anderson, and magician Criss Angel. And if the clip wasn’t wacky and surreal enough, there are a couple of appearances by Blue Man Group.
Super Bowl LVIII and Usher’s halftime show are scheduled for this Sunday, February 11th.
You don’t need to have been following along too closely to know that Apple has taken a huge interest in AI and generative AI in particular. A push into large language models (LLM) has seen Apple touted to make 2024 the year of AI, and that could have huge implications for the software updates that it is likely to unveil in June.
June will of course likely be the month that the annual Worldwide Developers Conference takes place or, as it’s famously known, WWDC. The event is expected to see Apple debut iOS 18, watchOS 11, macOS 15, and more — and it might even give us a glimpse at visionOS 2.0 as well. The Apple Vision Pro is the hottest ticket in town right now and all eyes will be on Apple to see what it can do with its first big software update.
We’ve been hearing rumors of Apple’s new focus on AI for some time now with the company thought to be setting up servers to cope with expansions that could change the way we all use our devices forever. But to make that happen Apple needs two things — people, and knowledge. They often come hand-in-hand with Apple already advertising new roles that focus on AI. But one way of getting experts in the field as well as any technology they’ve designed is to buy the company that they work for. And Apple has reportedly been very busy on that front. So busy, in fact, that no other tech firm has been able to compete.
So many new companies
According to a report by Stocklytics, Apple acquired no fewer than 32 different AI startups during the 2023 calendar year in an attempt to give it what it needs to catch up with the AI capabilities already shown by Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
The Stocklytics report notes that while Apple bought 32 AI companies, Google picked up 21 while Meta took over 18. Microsoft only acquired 17 AI startups by comparison.
“In the ongoing AI arms race, Apple is making sizeable deals with many AI startups, putting it in a good spot for future tech developments even as its competitors, Microsoft and Google, make considerable investments in already established AI companies,” Stocklytics Finacial Analyst Edith Reads says. “By acquiring promising AI startups, Apple gains access to top-tier talent and innovative technologies and consolidates its foothold in crucial AI domains, ensuring a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving tech landscape.”
Apple also today announced a new open-source text-powered image editing tool that could one day be built into Siri and other Apple initiatives. The tool allows people to provide an image and text commands on the changes they want including alterations to colors, sizing, and more. It’s easy to imagine something like this being funneled into Siri for future Apple Vision Pro photo editing features, for example.
It isn’t clear whether the new tool came from one of the 32 companies Apple acquired in 2023, but it’s increasingly clear that Apple is keen to ensure that it closes the AI gap between its products and those offered by the competition. Both Google and Samsung heavily market AI-driven features features for their own flagship devices and Apple could look to do the same with an iOS 18-powered iPhone 16, too.
Despite rumors that Taylor Swift wrote the tie-in book and a star-studded cast, Argylle has tanked in its opening weekend at the box office.
Connected to the book Written by the enigmatic Elly Conway, the moniker of a pair of writers, Argylle is just as mysterious as its authors. Our main character, Elly Conway (Yes, like the book’s author) is a novelist who is about finish writing the ‘Argylle’ series, before being embroiled in her very own spy thriller. It’s a very meta affair that appears almost intentionally hard to understand.
Unfortunately, not even a bizarre and intriguing premise like this could get people to show up on its opening weekend.
Argylle finally launched just last week to severely negative critic reviews, sitting at a 35 on Metacritic and 34 on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite having a much higher audience score of 71 on the latter, it has severely underperformed at the box office pulling in $17.4 million domestically and $34.3 million worldwide. Argylle did manage to outpace The Beekeeper, Wonka, and Mean Girls, but those are movies whose opening weekends are long since behind them.
A worrying trend
Killers of the Flower Moon, which has been nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture, did not manage to break even at the box office. As reported by Collider, Martin Scorsese’s retelling of the Osage murders cost $200 million to make but only managed to make just over $150 million at the worldwide box office. Variety reported that a film of this caliber would need to make more that $500 million to consider it having broke even.
Despite making over $200 million in its box office run, Apple Original film Napoleon did not manage to “break even”, according to those Variety metrics. Deadline Hollywood reported that Napoleon “likely lost around $16M in its theatrical run off the global marketing spend alone, but made up for it in its limited transactional run.”
All three of these movies have such high production costs that they are nearly impossible to recoup costs on. Since 2020, just over 20 movies worldwide have managed to make more than 500m gross from the box office, the estimated cost of a movie like Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, and Argylle. This is a wider problem with movies in general costing more and relying on streaming to recoup final cost. Given all Apple Original films eventually launch on Apple TV and Apple TV Plus, Apple has a chance of making those costs back but streaming is likely where the tech giant sees the end value. Either way, Argylle probably isn’t making it into the best movies on Apple TV Plus.
Apple announced significant changes to its App Store and business model in January — and was largely met with rancor.
“A complete and total farce,” said Spotify, the powerful digital music, podcast, and video service, which described Apple’s new plan as “extortion.” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said his company will contest “Apple’s bad-faith compliance plan in District Court.” But browser maker Opera, which has been locked out of the iPhone platform and its billions of users?
“We are happy to see that users will soon be able to benefit from the choice among full engine browsers — beyond what has been provided by Apple through Webkit,” Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, told iMore. “We believe this will bring … increased competition to the platform, resulting in better products for users to choose from.”
Opera also noted that Apple’s decision will allow alternative browsers to more effectively compete for iOS users on better terms as a result of the requirements of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The new plan essentially provides users with four main benefits. “More competition means a better browser on this platform,” says Standal, “which historically has been lagging behind on browser quality versus Android and PC. Users will get access to new browser features that have not been able to be built with the Webkit component Apple provides. Increased security, as the monoculture of Webkit is broken and opening iOS up will mean users will be able to avoid situations where there are no secure browsers. Finally, the web will progress faster with better web standard support, making users less dependent on native applications.”
Does Apple’s plan help level the playing field in Europe?
In terms of market share, Opera has generally hovered in the single digits. At the moment, according to Statcounter’s data for January 2024, Opera browsers have 3.25% of the desktop browser market share worldwide (compared with 64.8% for Chrome, 12.95% for Edge, and 8.85% for Safari). It also has 2.15% of the mobile browser market share worldwide (compared with 64.7% for Chrome, 25.10% for Safari, and 4.38% for Samsung Internet).
As it stands, Opera believes its browsers already offer users a superior experience to Apple’s Safari browsers. “Opera is already far ahead of Safari in many areas,” says Stendal, “providing free AI service, free browser VPN and a native ad-blocker for more private and faster browsing. We also look forward to leveraging the control of the browser engine to enable new experiences that we will disclose when we ship them.”
However, although the company expressed support for parts of Apple’s plan, when asked if this plan was overdue, Standal replied, “Yes. It’s extremely overdue. We shipped our first browser on iOS 14 years ago and have been awaiting this change ever since.”
Standel also noted that Opera expected that these changes would soon be pushed out to other geographic markets shortly. “We consider this the first announcement from Apple in this case,” said Standal, “and expect to see the rest of the world opening up soon as well so users outside of the EU are not left behind. ”
Apple’s announcement, though, was also good timing for Opera, since it will be shipping a newly developed browser for iOS: Opera One for iOS, which will be “a new AI-powered browser built on its own engine for iOS in Europe.”
In Opera’s press release, the compnay said, “The opening of the iOS ecosystem is a new opportunity for Opera to innovate further and usher in the innovative AI-centric browser experience iPhone and iPad users truly deserve with a full engine, AI-powered web browser. With the DMA entering into force in March 2024, this new browser will be presented in the months to come.”
Apple Vision Pro went on sale very recently, and we’re already seeing drop-tests, and more. Now the experts themselves, the folks at iFixit, have done a teardown of the Vision Pro, revealing the engineering that goes into building this first-generation product, and some potential issues with repairability.
The teardown was pretty smooth, and although the Vision Pro has a ton of screws, the overall disassembly went by without many issues. The revelation here was how the EyeSight technology works, and some insight into why it looks the way it does.
Apple Vision Pro teardown reveals how EyeSight works
To begin with, iFixit was able to remove the outer glass panel without causing damage to it. Only the protective plastic film got a bit peeled up, but it was pretty clean otherwise.
iFixit also showed off the two mutated versions of Lightning connectors that you can find in an Apple Vision Pro.
(Image credit: iFixit)
EyeSight has been one of those components that has attracted the most criticism from users and non-users alike. The teardown was able to explain how the setup works. It seems to have been achieved by using a combination of lenticular layers
“It turns out that when the EyeSight displays your eyes, it isn’t just displaying a single video feed of your eyes; it’s showing a bunch of videos of your eyes. Exploring inside the glass shell, we found three layers for the front-facing display: a widening layer, a lenticular layer, and the OLED display itself.”
Lenticular lenses display different images at different angles, which is useful in the Vision Pro. “The Vision Pro has a lenticular layer on top of the exterior OLED panel. VisionOS renders multiple face images—call them A and B—slices them up, and displays A from one angle serving your left eye, and B from another serving your right eye. This creates a 3D face via the stereoscopic effect. And those angles are tiny, and they are legion, it takes a fancy Evident Scientific microscope to really see what we mean.”
In terms of repairability, iFixit notes that “it’s not great,” but some of the connections are “delightful.” The Vision Pro is now available in the US, but if you’re anywhere else, it’s going to be difficult to get one.
As companies like Samsung and Google lean into the foldable phone market hard, Apple is yet to get involved which means that its iPhone has remained stubbornly rigid. It’s likely to remain that way for some time as well, especially if the recent reports of Apple’s foldable plans are any indication.
While we never expected the upcoming iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro to bend in the middle, a new report suggests that the first foldable with an Apple logo on the back won’t actually be an iPhone at all. Instead, it could be a replacement for Apple’s smallest iPad.
That’s according to a new report which suggests that the 8.3-inch iPad mini could be the device that sees its days numbered. Apple is reportedly working on a foldable device that could take its place in the lineup, however there is some confusion around that claim. We are told that the device will have a display of between seven and eight inches, a size that would make it perfectly suited to eating the iPad mini’s lunch.
Bendy iPad incoming
The report, coming via the Korean website The Elec, claims that Apple will have the new foldable tablet ready for market around 2026 or 2027 which suggests that we might not have to wait all that much longer before we get to see what Apple’s first foldable device will look like.
“Apple is reviewing the launch of a late 7-inch to early 8-inch foldable device. The product launch is expected to be around 2026-2027,” the Korean report says via Apple’s machine translation. “The product, which is likely to be Apple’s first foldable device, is also expected to replace the tablet’s 8.3-inch iPad mini model.”
However, there’s a wrinkle to be considered here. The report also notes that Apple continues to work on a new OLED iPad mini alongside the foldable device, a move that suggests Apple is yet to fully commit to its plans for the product.
The Elec’s report goes on to say that both Samsung Display and LG Display are the two companies providing prototypes that could be used in a future foldable tablet device in the six and seven-inch size range.
The iPad mini isn’t the only tablet going OLED of course. Apple is already strongly expected to launch new OLED iPad Pro tablets in two different sizes this year. Reports have so far suggested that the new tablets could arrive before the end of April.
Back in the world of foldables, The Elec also notes that Apple continues to work on a 20.5-inch foldable device, a product that has been the subject of rumors for a good long while at this point. The device is thought to potentially be a foldable MacBook, but it’s still unconfirmed.
Apple’s late entry into the foldable device market isn’t all that surprising when you consider its history. The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone and the Apple Watch wasn’t the first smartwatch. But Apple tends to wait until it believes that it can produce a product that won’t suffer from the issues facing companies that beat it to the punch. In the case of foldable devices, the crease that is so familiar to foldable phone owners could well be something Apple has been trying to eradicate before entering the fray itself.
Before any of that happens of course we can look forward to plenty of new products including the aforementioned iPhones. But with the Vision Pro now on sale and the Apple Car project continuing to stall, Apple may now be able to focus on getting a foldable device into its stores sooner rather than later.
After months of waiting, it’s finally here. Vision Pro is on sale at Apple Stores across the United States and we’re continuing to learn more and more about the headset. Apple announced the spatial computer back in June of last year and then almost immediately went quiet. As we’ve gotten closer to today’s launch date we’ve started to hear more about the headset, what it can do, and how it works. But even as people spend more time with Apple’s new product there are still some questions and confusion, specifically surrounding one of its coolest features.
That feature is the ability to take a Mac’s desktop and throw it onto the Vision Pro, allowing it to be interacted with via a huge virtual display. That display is much, much larger than any Mac that Apple has ever shipped and users can use a keyboard and trackpad if they like, too. It seems like the perfect way to get some work done, especially if you’re normally restricted in terms of space. But while Apple’s promotional videos and photos all showed someone using a MacBook of some sort, we all assumed that the feature would work with all Macs.
But will it? YouTuber Brian Tong suggested not in a new video that details the Vision Pro’s settings, and he even backed that up in the comments when questioned. It’s a limitation that seems odd on the face of it, but Apple’s own documentation suggests other Macs should work just fine.
Are you sure?
In Tong’s YouTube video, embedded below, we’re told that only Apple’s portable Macs will work with the Vision Pro with no clear explanation as to why. We have to assume that Apple said that was the case, but it always seemed strange. And with so few people with a Vision Pro to hand, it was difficult to know for sure.
Thankfully, Apple’s documentation suggests that desktop Macs like the iMac and Mac Studio will work just fine.
“If you have a compatible Mac laptop nearby, you can bring its display into Apple Vision Pro by looking at it,” the support document explains. It then goes on to say that people should make sure that their Mac laptop is open and the display is active.
That isn’t great news for desktop Mac owners, but the support document continues and the news gets better pretty quickly indeed.
“If you have a compatible Mac desktop computer, or you don’t see the Connect button above your Mac laptop, you can start Mac Virtual Display in Control Center,” it says, before outlining exactly how that can be done.
So there we have it, all Apple Macs with M-series chips are good to go so long as they are running macOS 14 Sonoma and later. And if you’re having issues, you should head into Control Center to get your Mac Virtual Display up and running.
That’s great news for those who don’t want to have to rush out and buy a new laptop just to enjoy one of the standout Vision Pro features. Especially having just spent at least $3,499 on the headset, too. We’re told that Apple is working on a cheaper Vision Pro, thankfully, but it’s currently unclear when that will ship or how much it will cost when it does.
If you open TikTok and start to scroll through your For You page you will no doubt notice that many of the videos you see feature music. In fact, music is a key part of how TikTok works with creators filming their videos with songs in the background, lipsyncing them, and more. But that music doesn’t come free, and one of the companies that represents some of the biggest artists in the world says that TikTok is playing hardball over how much it’s willing to pay to license that music.
In fact, Universal Music Group says that TikTok is being downright dastardly about the way it is trying to rip Universal and its artists off. In a long open letter that claims it is time to “call time out on TikTok,” Universal details a long list of grievances against TikTok including what it claims are bullying tactics to try and force it to accept less money than it believes its artists deserve. Those artists just so happen to be some of the biggest in the world including Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Drake.
Following the breakdown of talks between Universal and TikTok, the music company has started to withdraw its catalog of music from the social network. What comes next is anyone’s guess, but videos that previously had the affected music will now be muted and creators will have no choice but to switch to an alternative track instead.
A sad, sad song
Universal’s open letter began by setting out its goals to “help our artists and songwriters attain their greatest creative and commercial potential,” something that will be literal music to the ears of those people. And it’s fair to say that it’s been good at it in the past, too. But when it comes to TikTok, there’s a problem.
According to Universal, it wanted to make sure that TikTok was working on three key things as part of a revised deal.
“The terms of our relationship with TikTok are set by contract, which expires January 31, 2024,” the music outfit explains. “In our contract renewal discussions, we have been pressing them on three critical issues—appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”
The problem? None of that is happening.
“With respect to the issue of artist and songwriter compensation, TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” Universal notes, adding that “Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.”
On the subject of AI music, Universal accused TikTok of “TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings—as well as developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself – and then demanding a contractual right which would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that is nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.” Strong words indeed.
Universal says that it also suggested that TikTok revamp its system for reporting bigotry, harassment, and other nastiness on its platform only to find that it “responded first with indifference, and then with intimidation.”
That intimidation came in the form of offering a new deal that was worth less than the old one while also “selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.” In short, it doesn’t sound great.
As always, it’s the TikTok users that suffer here. We’d have to imagine that an agreement between Universal and TikTok can be achieved, but it’ll be a case of seeing which huge corporation blinks first. And as anyone following the Epic Games Vs Apple situation in recent years will attest, that doesn’t always go well.
Apple’s Vision Pro might have been announced way back in June of 2023 but it’s only just getting ready to finally go on sale. That’ll happen on Friday, February 2, 2024, and those who were lucky enough to get their preorder in early can expect theirs to arrive on or around that date. Once it arrives you can bet that one of the first things they’ll do is head into the visionOS App Store and start downloading all of their apps. And when they do, they’ll see a familiar icon among the options.
That icon will be Carrot Weather, an app that has been around for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac for some time now, not to mention the Apple Watch as well. So when you know that an app is already available for every other major platform that Apple owns, it probably shouldn’t come as all that much of a surprise that it’s also coming to the company’s latest and greatest, too.
The Vision Pro is Apple’s first foray into a new product category since the Apple Watch debuted almost a decade ago, and the company is betting big that it will be the future of computing. Spatial computing, in Apple parlance, and it’ll need an App Store full of standout apps if that’s going to happen. Carrot Weather has long been a big part of Apple’s ecosystem, and its arrival on Vision Pro is a solid start indeed.
Marquee features
Screenshots of the new app have been shared by X user @M1Astra and developer Brian Mueller has been talking to MacRumors about what users can expect. One of the screenshots that were shared shows a giant globe floating in the middle of the room, and that’s something that Mueller says will be the “marquee feature” of the app. “It’s just really cool being able to look at a globe floating in your living room,” Mueller said, and it sure does look great in the screenshot — we can only imagine how much better it will look when it’s in 3D and floating right in front of your eyes. Sure, the cynics will call the globe a gimmick but it’s gimmicks that will help make Vision Pro stand out from the crowd, especially when you can of course just check the weather on your iPhone. And you can surely expect the usual carrot Weather attitude, too.
Carrot Weather for Apple Vision Pro! pic.twitter.com/oPotJwrqwiJanuary 20, 2024
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All of the usual weather data and forecast information that you’d expect is present and correct of course, while the floating windows that house it all make for an experience the likes of which Carrot just can’t offer on other platforms. It’s a uniquely Vision Pro-like experience, and that’s exactly what we want to see. The more developers that build their apps to make the most of what Vision Pro can do, the better the app ecosystem will be. And the more successful spatial computing will be as a whole.
The apps will need to be strong, too. Starting at $3,499 for the 256GB version the Vision Pro isn’t a cheap purchase by any stretch of the imagination. It’s very much a work in progress although those calling it a beta product are being uncharitable at best. Apple reportedly sold around 200,000 Vision Pros already, and beta products don’t sell like that.
Apple Vision Pro stole the show when it was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (aka WWDC) in 2023. Apple’s vision for what it calls Spatial Computing — the company’s take on virtual reality — is its most ambitious launch in a decade, and comes with a huge price tag to match. Will it change the world?
What you need to know
Apple Vision Pro is packed with jaw-dropping features and potentially world-changing new capabilities. Here’s what you need to know:
Hands-On Review
The iMore review: Does crazy power justify a $3,500 price tag?
The Best Apps
What can it do? Here’s every Apple Vision Pro app available today.
Vision OS
visionOS, Apple’s Vision Pro software, is finally here
