The California Supreme Court in a decision (PDF) delivered on Thursday found Apple broke state law by not paying retail workers for the time they spent participating in mandatory bag and device searches, leaving the company liable for millions in unpaid wages. AppleInsider reports: In a unanimous ruling, the court holds employees were and are in Apple's control during mandatory exit searches of bags, packages, devices and other items. As such, Apple is required to compensate its employees for time spent on the anti-theft program, which in this case allegedly amounted to up to 20 minutes worth hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye notes courts should consider a number of factors when evaluating employer-controlled conduct, including location, degree of employer control, benefit to employees and disciplinary consequences. Applying the logic to the current case, "it is clear that plaintiffs are subject to Apple's control while awaiting, and during, Apple's exit searches. Apple's exit searches are required as a practical matter, occur at the workplace, involve a significant degree of control, are imposed primarily for Apple's benefit, and are enforced through threat of discipline," Cantil-Sakauye writes. Apple's policy demands hourly retail employees submit to a search of personal packages and bags at the end of each shift and when clocking out for meal breaks. The checks are performed off-the-clock, meaning workers do not get paid for the mandatory procedure.

According to cybersecurity software company Malwarebytes' latest State of Malware report, the amount of malware on Macs is outpacing PCs for the first time ever. Recode reports: Windows machines still dominate the market share and tend to have more security vulnerabilities, which has for years made them the bigger and easier target for hackers. But as Apple's computers have grown in popularity, hackers appear to be focusing more of their attention on the versions of macOS that power them. Malwarebytes said there was a 400 percent increase in threats on Mac devices from 2018 to 2019, and found an average of 11 threats per Mac devices, which about twice the 5.8 average on Windows.

Now, this isn't quite as bad as it may appear. First of all, as Malwarebytes notes, the increase in threats could be attributable to an increase in Mac devices running its software. That makes the per-device statistic a better barometer. In 2018, there were 4.8 threats per Mac device, which means the per-device number has more than doubled. That's not great, but it's not as bad as that 400 percent increase. Also, the report says, the types of threats differ between operating systems. While Windows devices were more prone to "traditional"; malware, the top 10 Mac threats were adware and what are known as "potentially unwanted programs."

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Intel Core i5-8210Y delivers a multi-core score of 1544 which compares poorly with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx multi-core score of 2745. Yet, despite fitting the MacBook Air with a 49.9 Wh battery, Apple claims it will deliver just 13 hours of continuous video playback. However, because of the superior performance-per-watt of the Snapdragon 8cx when paired with the smaller 42 Wh battery in the Galaxy Book S, it delivers up to 25 hours (claimed) of continuous video playback. You can probably also argue that Microsoft has done an excellent job of optimizing Windows on ARM so that it works so harmoniously in this WinARM union. The MacBook Air weighs 1.25 kg (2.75 pounds) and is 15.6 mm (0.61-inches) at its thickest point. This compares with the Galaxy Book S which weighs 0.96 kg (2.11 pounds) and measures 11.8 mm (0.46-inches). Given that buyers of the slightly more expensive MacBook Air (US$1,099) are also only going to be doing relatively light-weight tasks on it like internet browsing and running Microsoft's Office suite on it, why would anyone choose the MacBook Air over the Galaxy Book S (US$999)? Like the MacBook Air, the Galaxy Book S runs its operating system, pre-installed apps and the Office suite natively while also giving users the option to use 32-bit x86 apps for those occasions where you might want to use other apps.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Apple Pay accounts for about 5% of global card transactions and is on pace to handle 1-in-10 such payments by 2025, according to recent trend data compiled by Bernstein, a research firm. "There are indeed plenty of reasons to worry that Apple may attempt to disrupt the payments ecosystem," Bernstein analysts, led by Harshita Rawat, wrote in a research note. As iPhone sales plateau, the Cupertino-based company is leaning into its services division, which includes Apple Pay. The unit generated $12.7 billion in revenue in the last three months of 2019, a 17% increase from a year earlier. The company's payments ambitions have the benefit of a massive cash hoard, years of experience in card transactions, and a vast customer base consisting of hundreds of millions of iPhone users.

In the U.S., contactless payments are forecast to increase to $1.5 trillion in 2024, up from $178 billion this year, according to Juniper Research. [...] Apple Pay probably won't pose a challenge to the card giants anytime soon. While the tech company could, in theory, create its own network that runs outside the card systems, Bernstein argues that Apple still needs the card networks, which are ubiquitous and trusted. Visa and MasterCard, meanwhile, are used to dealing with partners (traditionally large card-issuing banks) with the kind of scale that even Apple Pay could muster.

The new effort by the Federal Trade Commission will require all five big technology companies to provide information about the smaller players they've purchased over the past 10 years, including documents for deals that may not have been large enough to warrant deep, closer inspection by government watchdogs at the time. From a report: The records the FTC amasses could ultimately influence its thinking about Silicon Valley and its size, sparking investigations, resulting in tough punishments or prompting the commission to seek further enforcement powers from Congress once it concludes its work. "This initiative will enable the Commission to take a closer look at acquisitions in this important sector, and also to evaluate whether the federal agencies are getting adequate notice of transactions that might harm competition," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a statement.

The inquiry announced Tuesday differs from a traditional investigation: Using its so-called 6(b) authority, the FTC can embark on wide-ranging reviews of entire industries without necessarily bringing a law-enforcement action. The agency in the past has invoked such powers to delve deep into drug prices, alcohol ads and gas gouging, experts said, often ushering about major changes in the markets and companies it studies. With big tech, the FTC is particularly interested in the smaller startups purchased by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Such deals typically aren't large enough to require companies under law to report them to agencies like the FTC, which would then review them for competition concerns. The document demands sent to all five tech giants require them to demystify these transactions, explaining their acquisition strategies and the ways they ingested startups -- and the data they amassed -- into their own services.

Speaking with journalists after winning his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi had other things on his mind. When asked what he thought writers should be demanding in the next round of discussions with producers, Waititi put Apple's controversial laptop keyboards on blast. A report adds: "Apple needs to fix those keyboards," he said. "They are impossible to write on -- they've gotten worse. It makes me want to go back to PCs. Because PC keyboards, the bounce-back for your fingers is way better. Hands up who still uses a PC? You know what I'm talking about. It's a way better keyboard. Those Apple keyboards are horrendous." "I've got some shoulder problems," Waititi continued. "I've got OOS [Occupational Overuse Syndrome, a term used in New Zealand for RSI] -- I don't know what you call it over here, this sort of thing here (gestures to arm), that tendon which goes down your forearm down into the thumb? You know what I'm talking about, if you guys are ever writing. And what happens is you open the laptop and you're like this (makes uncomfortable hunched-over-laptop pose) -- we've just got to fix those keyboards. The WGA needs to step in and actually do something." Tech columnist John Gruber adds: I've been saying for years now that Apple has done severe reputational harm to the MacBook brand, which effectively is the Mac brand for most people, especially writers. Yes, there's a new keyboard with scissor-switch mechanisms in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It's a pleasure to type on. But we're still months away from the rest of the MacBook lineup being updated to use that new keyboard. And that's a presumption on my part, that all MacBooks will get the new keyboard sooner rather than later. It certainly wouldn't make any sense if they didn't -- but the whole butterfly-switch saga has never made any sense.

Software called TextFooler can trick natural-language processing (NLP) systems into misunderstanding text just by replacing certain words in a sentence with synonyms. From a report: In tests, it was able to drop the accuracy of three state-of-the-art NLP systems dramatically. For example, Google's powerful BERT neural net was worse by a factor of five to seven at identifying whether reviews on Yelp were positive or negative. The software, developed by a team at MIT, looks for the words in a sentence that are most important to an NLP classifier and replaces them with a synonym that a human would find natural. For example, changing the sentence "The characters, cast in impossibly contrived situations, are totally estranged from reality" to "The characters, cast in impossibly engineered circumstances, are fully estranged from reality" makes no real difference to how we read it. But the tweaks made an AI interpret the sentences completely differently.

The Bay Area Newsgroup reports on Steve Wozniak's new interview with longtime Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki on Kawasaki's Remarkable People podcast. Woz reveals he's still on the Apple payroll -- he never left it -- and he's still receiving about $50 a week "out of loyalty. Because what could I do that's more important in my life?"

Woz also remembered how the ways he'd differed from Steve Jobs made them a complementary pair: "I had a lot of values about disdaining money. I had the computer skills, the engineering skills. Steve had electronics knowledge, to a decent level. He could understand us (engineers), but he couldn't design things. He hung on to the marketing principles -- how do things look to the eye, that kind of beauty. And turning my design, the Apple II, into a product...

"From the day we met, he was talking about people who changed humanity forever," Wozniak said. "He wanted to be one of them. He wanted to be that important person in life. This was his big chance. Now he was founder of a company. That's a title...."

"His personality changed the day that he was founder of a company with big money," Wozniak said. "He had been a fun guy, go running off to concerts with me, chasing concert paraphernalia, driving around, playing pranks. We had a lot of fun times. He all of a sudden disdained that," Wozniak said. "Didn't want to talk about jokes, fun, kid things. Only (in a) business suit, talking business talk, learning how to speak it. He got kind of strict and wanted to make sure the world got a message. That all the computer thinking came from him."

Still, Wozniak said Jobs' new personality didn't bother him, or have an effect on what he wanted to do at Apple. "I didn't care a bit," Wozniak said. "He was kind of like the smartest person in the room. Steve was getting what he wanted. I got what I wanted, a lab to run into even late at night. I was very much allowed to be the inventor."

French authorities on Friday said tech giant Apple has agreed to pay $27.4 million for failing to inform users that software updates to older iPhone models could slow down the device, according to French media. From a report: Le Parisien reported it was the highest fine for fraud ever imposed by the consumer watchdog. The crackdown comes two years after Apple admitted its iOS software slowed down the performance of older phones -- in particular, devices with shorter battery life.

The contract states independent repair shops must agree to audits and inspections by Apple, even if they leave the program. From a report: Last August, in what was widely hailed a victory for the right-to-repair movement, Apple announced it would begin selling parts, tools, and diagnostic services to independent repair shops in addition to its "authorized" repair partners. Apple's so-called Independent Repair Provider (IRP) program had its limitations, but was still seen as a step forward for a company that's fought independent repair for years. Recently, Motherboard obtained a copy of the contract businesses are required to sign before being admitted to Apple's IRP Program. The contract, which has not previously been made public, sheds new light on a program Apple initially touted as increasing access to repair but has been remarkably silent on ever since.

It contains terms that lawyers and repair advocates described as "onerous" and "crazy"; terms that could give Apple significant control over businesses that choose to participate. Concerningly, the contract is also invasive from a consumer privacy standpoint. In order to join the program, the contract states independent repair shops must agree to unannounced audits and inspections by Apple, which are intended, at least in part, to search for and identify the use of "prohibited" repair parts, which Apple can impose fines for. If they leave the program, Apple reserves the right to continue inspecting repair shops for up to five years after a repair shop leaves the program. Apple also requires repair shops in the program to share information about their customers at Apple's request, including names, phone numbers, and home addresses.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Apple Watch outsold the entire Swiss watch industry by a huge margin in 2019. From a report: Apple Watch shipped 31 million units worldwide in 2019, compared with 21 million for all Swiss watch brands combined. Swiss companies, like Swatch, are losing the smartwatch wars. Steven Waltzer, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "We estimate Apple Watch shipped 30.7 million units worldwide in 2019, growing a healthy 36 percent from 22.5 million in 2018. A blend of attractive design, user-friendly tech and sticky apps makes the Apple Watch wildly popular in North America, Western Europe and Asia." From a CNBC report titled "Who's afraid of Apple? Not Swiss watchmakers..." in 2015, before Apple Watch went on sale: At the watch industry's leading trade show, BaselWorld in Switzerland, many companies were debating whether to head high-tech or stick with a centuries-old formula of watchmaking. The president of LVMH's watch division and CEO of Tag Heuer, Jean-Claude Biver, told CNBC that the Apple Watch, which will cost up to $10,000, cannot be compared to similarly priced Swiss timepieces.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: With no fanfare or public announcement, Apple has launched a mobile version of its Web-based interface for accessing iCloud services like Notes, Reminders, and Photos. Located at icloud.com just like the desktop version, this mobile site works on the default browsers for both iOS and Android devices (with some caveats for the latter) and has a more limited scope than users already saw on the desktop Web. That smaller scope starts with the Web apps that are available: the mobile version only offers Photos, Notes, Find iPhone, and Reminders. By contrast, the desktop version also offers Mail, Contacts, Calendar, iCloud Drive, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Find Friends. It's possible Apple will add more apps to mobile Web over time.

Apple this week has been granted a patent for a foldable device with a unique hinge mechanism that utilizes movable flaps to help prevent the display from being creased or damaged when folded. From a report: Published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today, the patent explains that the hinge mechanism would ensure adequate separation between the first and second portions of the display. When the device is unfolded, movable flaps would extend to cover the gap, and then retract when the device is folded. Early foldable smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X have noticeable creases along the bending portion of the display. Motorola's new foldable Razr avoids this issue with a unique hinge design, but early reviews indicate the device makes creaking sounds when opened or closed.

At a Chicago coffee shop, "the cashier wouldn't take my order until I took off my AirPod!" complained a patron named Kevin. "And it was only in one ear! Am I the asshole here?"

ZDNet's "Technically Incorrect" column shares the answer he got from the "Salty Waitress" etiquette columnist at a foodie site called The Takeout: She replied, in part: "I am trying hard here to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you were in the middle of a very important phone call/podcast/guitar riff that could not be paused for the 30 or so seconds it takes to order a cup of coffee. In which case, you very politely step aside to conclude your business and then order your coffee...."

The Salty Waitress was undeterred in her resistance. She explained that if Kevin wanted to embrace technology, he could push off to Starbucks or Dunkin', order via an app and pick up his coffee without the burden of any human interaction. She then warmed to her theme, mustering a fine froth: "Because that's the thing, sweetie pie. THE CASHIER IS A HUMAN BEING! JUST LIKE YOU! Their role in your life may be temporary and functional, but they've got feelings and hopes and dreams and aspirations. And like you (probably) they would like your full and undivided attention while you ask them to perform a service for you."

She explained that this is true for all service workers and should, indeed, work both ways.

I was glad she said that, as I've had two visits to AT&T stores where the salespeople were wearing a single AirPod and listening to their own music.

AmiMoJo quotes Mashable: A new study from the University of Alberta, published Tuesday in the medical journal The BMJ, tested smart assistants Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google Assistant on their ability to respond helpfully to first aid questions. While Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa way outperformed Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana, the results as a whole were underwhelming.

The researchers asked all of the smart assistants 123 questions on 39 first aid topics such as heart attacks, poisoning, and nose bleeds. Google Assistant and Alexa recognized the topics over 90 percent of the time, and gave accurate and helpful responses in about half of those instances. Meanwhile, Siri and Cortana's responses were so poor that it "prohibited their analysis."

An anonymous reader writes: Market research firms Canalys and Counterpoint Research have posted their 2019 global smartphone market share reports. Both reports say the biggest mover is Huawei, which, thanks to a whopping 16-17 percent annual growth, claimed the No. 2 smartphone vendor spot in 2019, behind Samsung and ahead of Apple. Both firms have similar global market share numbers for 2019, with Samsung around 20 percent, Huawei at 16 percent, Apple at 13 percent, and Xiaomi and Oppo around eight percent each. Counterpoint credits Huawei's success in its hometown of China for its success, saying, "This was the result of an aggressive push from Huawei in the Chinese market, where it achieved almost 40 percent market share." According to the firm, China makes up 60 percent of Huawei's shipments. "For what it's worth, Canalys has Q4 2019 as Huawei's first quarterly decline -- down seven percent from Q3 -- in two years, which it blames on the [Trump Administration's Huawei export ban]," adds Ars. "Together with the annual Apple Q4 surge thanks to the launch of a new iPhone, Huawei fell to third place again within that time period."

Despite criticism from Apple, EU lawmakers on Thursday voted overwhelmingly in favor for new rules to establish a common charger for all mobile device makers across Europe. From a report: Members of the European Parliament voted by 582-40 for a resolution urging the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, to ensure that EU consumers are no longer obliged to buy new chargers with each new device. The resolution said voluntary agreements in the industry had significantly reduced the number of charger types, but had not resulted in one common standard. The Commission should adopt new rules by July, the lawmakers' resolution said, calling for "an urgent need for EU regulatory action to reduce electronic waste, empower consumers to make sustainable choices, and allow them to fully participate in an efficient and well-functioning internal market." The proposed charging ports for portable devices include Micro-USB, USB-C, and the Lightning connector. Thursday's resolution didn't specify what the mobile charging standard should be, but non-Apple mobile devices and increasingly laptops and tablets are charged by USB-C, so the EU is highly unlikely to choose Apple's Lightning connector.

UPDATE (10/15/20230: The court's order did not stand, and by 2023 Caltech had agreed to drop their lawsuit.

Below is Slashdot's original report from 2020:

The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) said it won a $1.1 billion jury verdict in a patent case against Apple and Broadcom. Reuters reports: In a case filed in federal court in Los Angeles in 2016, the Pasadena, California-based research university alleged that Broadcom wi-fi chips used in hundreds of millions of Apple iPhones infringed patents relating to data transmission technology. "While we thank the members of the jury for their service, we disagree with the factual and legal bases for the verdict and intend to appeal," Broadcom said in a statement. Apple said it plans to appeal the verdict, but declined further comment. The company had said in court filings that it believed all of the university's claims against it resulted from it using Broadcom's chips in its devices, calling itself "merely an indirect downstream party." The verdict awarded CalTech $837.8 million from Apple and $270.2 million from Broadcom. "We are pleased the jury found that Apple and Broadcom infringed Caltech patents," CalTech said in a statement. "As a non-profit institution of higher education, Caltech is committed to protecting its intellectual property in furtherance of its mission to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education."

Apple's redesigned Maps app has arrived. From a report: The company on Thursday said its revamped app is now available for US users and will arrive in Europe "in the coming months." Apple Maps' redesign makes navigation faster and more accurate and gives users "comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and more." Apple rebuilt its mapping service from the ground up by outfitting hundreds of planes and cars with custom sensors and lidar, which then covered over 4 million miles. It hopes the latest iteration of its Apple Maps software will be enough to woo users away from Google Maps, Waze and other rivals.

"We set out to create the best and most private maps app on the planet that is reflective of how people explore the world today," Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, said in a press release. "It is an effort we are deeply invested in and required that we rebuild the map from the ground up to reimagine how Maps enhances people's lives -- from navigating to work or school or planning an important vacation -- all with privacy at its core." Along with the new Maps apps, real-time transit will be available in Miami starting Friday, in time for the upcoming Super Bowl.

Apple engineers have put forward a proposal today to standardize the format of the SMS messages containing one-time passcodes (OTP) that users receive during the two-factor authentication (2FA) login process. From a report: The proposal comes from Apple engineers working on WebKit, the core component of the Safari web browser. The proposal has two goals. The first is to introduce a way that OTP SMS messages can be associated with an URL. This is done by adding the login URL inside the SMS itself. The second goal is to standardize the format of 2FA/OTP SMS messages, so browsers and other mobile apps can easily detect the incoming SMS, recognize web domain inside the message, and then automatically extract the OTP code and complete the login operation without further user interaction. By doing this, the process of receiving and entering a one-time passcode could be automated, eliminating the risk of a user falling for a scam and entering an OTP code on a phishing site, with the wrong URL.