Over the past ten years, Apple’s iPhone has become the company’s most valuable —and recently, somewhat volatile— asset. Since its introduction in 2007, the iPhone helped to jumpstart the smartphone revolution, and with it came some big innovations. The App Store, touchscreen gaming, the mass adoption of social media, and protecting user data with biometrics. Its product lineup is enmeshed in Apple’s ecosystem, and the impact that it continues to have around the globe is vast.
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Apple’s AI ambitions could include Google or OpenAI
The iPhone-maker is in ‘active’ talks to bring Gemini to the iPhone, and has also considered using ChatGPT.
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Verge Score
Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max review: by the numbers
Apple didn’t choose the USB-C life, but boy are we glad it got here anyway.
Faruk from the iPhonedo YouTube channel wants to lay the online “drama” around Apple’s scratch-prone case to rest. So he spruced up the grossest one he says he could find on eBay.
After bringing it back to life, he has a message about product upkeep for his viewers. Text alone doesn’t do his delivery justice — keep your ears open around the 7:30 mark.
The app, which lets you get the latest on your favorite sports teams, view stats, and find betting odds, will now let you follow the NCAA’s March Madness tournament as part of its version 1.1 update. Apple Sports will also add data from the MLB when the season officially kicks off later this month.
Firefox spokesperson Christopher Hilton tells The Verge that the browser has seen a more than 50 percent jump in users in Germany and a nearly 30 percent increase in France:
Despite less than ideal compliance, the recent implementation of the DMA choice screen is a promising step toward true competition online in the EU... Still, there is a lot of room for improvement, and we’ll continue to fight for a web that puts people over profits, prioritizes privacy and is open and accessible to all.
Brave saw a similar increase in users after Apple started letting users choose their default browsers on iOS 17.4 in the EU last week.
That’s according to the US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) recently-published January 12th ruling that approved Apple’s modification meant to lift the Apple Watch ban.
CBP chief Dax Terrill wrote that Masimo installed “otherwise restricted software that, but for the jailbreaking, would not have been feasible.” He concluded that the software change “would appear to resolve the issue of infringement.”
[rulings.cbp.gov]
MacRumors’ sources say the new OS releases will include the ability to create custom voice shortcuts for accessibility features like VoiceOver and Voice Control. Live Speech could also get user-created categories for you to organize the phrases spoken by the text-to-speech feature. MacRumors also says that Apple is exploring using eye-tracking for accessibility, although it’s unclear how far along those plans are.
No external card reader needed. Paypal announced Thursday that businesses can now accept Venmo or Paypal contactless payments right on their iPhones. All they need is the respective app and an iPhone XS or newer device.
PayPal first promised its iOS apps would accept Apple’s Tap to Pay tech back in 2022. On top of accepting payments, businesses can also issue refunds, add taxes, accept tips, and even send receipts via the app.
Osamu Tezuka’s 1986 manga Midnight probably hasn’t been on your radar as a series primed for a live-action adaptation, but its story about a loney taxi driver is the inspiration behind director Takashi Miike’s new 19-minute-long short film produced in collaboration with Apple and shot on an iPhone 15 Pro.
Apple kills Epic’s iOS game store plans over App Store criticism
After Epic CEO Tim Sweeney criticized how Apple is rolling out alternative app stores on iOS in the EU, Apple terminated its developer account and called the company ‘verifiably untrustworthy.’
With iOS 17.4, iPhone users in the EU can now access third-party app marketplaces — pending availability which is expected any day — but extended overseas travel could change that. According to Apple:
If you leave the European Union for short-term travel, you’ll continue to have access to alternative app marketplaces for a grace period. If you’re gone for too long, you’ll lose access to some features, including installing new alternative app marketplaces. Apps you installed from alternative app marketplaces will continue to function, but they can’t be updated by the marketplace you downloaded them from.
Apple hasn’t clarified how long this “grace period” is, which is deeply unhelpful for anyone trying to cope with the restriction.
It’s DMA day in Europe, and I’ve immediately been prompted to choose a default browser after updating to iOS 17.4. The list is populated with “the most downloaded browsers on iOS in that country in the prior year.” I picked Chrome, but quickly switched back to Safari because I’m not crazy. But instead of finding the default setting under something like “Browser” it was under “Safari” instead — confusing.
Maybe I’ll really switch if/when Chrome ditches WebKit for Blink in the future.
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New CAD renders at 91mobiles purport to show what Apple’s next budget iPhone will look like.
The next iPhone SE could represent the first major shift in design since 2020. It’s expected to pick up where the iPhone 14 left off — complete with a notch — likely adding USB-C and maybe even an OLED display.
Here are the features Apple didn’t announce in the WWDC keynote
Here’s everything we could find for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch that didn’t get screen time.
Amazon has applied the labels to the $59 FineWoven cases for the iPhone 15, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max, and prompts users to “check the product details and customer reviews” before buying.
My colleague Allison Johnson pointed out just how bad the scratch-prone FineWoven cases are last year, and The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern recently wrote about how worn out her FineWoven case has gotten.
Sources tell MacRumors that Apple is testing a rebrand of “Apple ID” to “Apple Account.” The company could reportedly implement the new name later this year alongside the launch of iOS 18 and macOS 15. If true, the new name might take some getting used to.
If you have one of Rivian’s electric trucks and an iPhone, you can keep an eye on the status of your charging progress a little easier with the version 2.7.0 update.
As 9to5Mac points out, support for the Live Activities feature added in iOS 16 keeps the charging information pinned on your lock screen or in the Dynamic Island on iPhone 14 and 15 Pro models.
That’s the claim Cook made during Apple’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, where shareholders also voted down a proposal for an AI ethics and transparency report, according to a report from 9to5Mac.
During an earnings call earlier this month, Cook confirmed Apple is putting “tremendous time and effort” into AI, and that the company will launch generative AI software features “later this year.”
The platform started rolling out passkey support on its iOS app last month, but now it’s available to all iPhone users in the US. That means you can use Face ID, Touch ID, or your device’s passcode to log in to your account instead of entering a password. You can learn how to enable passkeys on X from this support page.
Before the Dynamic Island, one of the company’s concepts may have involved a temporary notch growing out of the side of the phone, similar to a mock-up MacRumors made based on information it had seen.
What do you think? Would this have been interesting or terrible?
China hawks in Congress are concerned that shopping giant Temu has not done enough to ensure it’s not working with suppliers using forced labor. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) is among those pushing to list Temu as a violator of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which could effectively ban its imports, The Information reports.
Meanwhile, the Chinese e-commerce app sits among the top free apps on iOS and Android.
[The Information]
Premium users on iOS will see the feature first, according to X designer Andrea Conway. The feature will let you sort through posts based on the date, language, location, and more.
Earlier today, iSoftware Updates (via MacRumors), spotted a new prompt in the iOS 17.4 beta 4 that asks EU users to “verify the information before installing” an app on the App Store. However, Apple spokesperson Peter Ajemian tells The Verge the feature is just a bug, and it will be disabled before iOS 17.4 rolls out.
Update February 23rd, 3:16PMET: Noted that this notification is a bug.
We already know that Apple dethroned Samsung by selling the most phones globally in 2023, now we can see the model mix according to data compiled by Counterpoint Research. Samsung’s lucrative flagship phones were a no-show on the list, with only mid-range devices taking up the bottom three positions.