Three iTunes customers have filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of sending personal user data to third parties to boost its revenues. "It is alleged that Apple is selling, renting or disclosing full names, addresses, genres of music and specific titles of songs purchased on the iTunes Store app on iPhones without consent or notification," reports CNET. From the report: According to documents filed with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday, Apple does this "to supplement its revenues and enhance the formidability of its brand in the eyes of mobile application developers," the lawsuit alleges. "None of the information pertaining to the music you purchase on your iPhone stays on your iPhone," the lawsuit further alleges. "While Apple profits handsomely from its unauthorized sale, rental, transmission and/or disclosure of its customers' Personal Listening Information, it does so at the expense of its customers' privacy and statutory rights."

First reported by Bloomberg, the plaintiffs -- Leigh Wheaton from Rhode Island, and Jill Paul and Trevor Paul from Michigan -- allege third parties then use this data to append several more categories, including age, gender, income, educational background and marital status. This "enhanced" data is then allegedly sold on to other third parties, the lawsuit says. The plaintiffs are representing other iTunes customers in their respective states, seeking $250 for Rhode Island class-action members under the Video, Audio, And Publication Rentals Privacy Act and $5,000 for Michigan class-action members under the Preservation of Personal Privacy Act.

Apple today released a new iPod Touch with A10 fusion chip that supports group FaceTime chats and improved augmented reality capabilities. From a report: The rest of the device is unchanged, compared to the previous generation iPod Touch, but it's still nice to see it receive updates. The new, more powerful chip will let people play the latest games and use the newest iOS features. It starts at $199. This is the first time Apple's updated the iPod Touch since 2015, and yet, there's no FaceID or TouchID; maybe just to save costs or to avoid cannibalizing its more lucrative iPad lineup.

Huawei's founder and Chief Executive Ren Zhengfei told Bloomberg that retaliation by Beijing against Apple was unlikely and that he would oppose any such move from China against the iPhone maker. From a report: When asked about calls from some in China to retaliate against Apple, Ren said that he would "protest" against any such step if it were to be taken by Beijing. "That (Chinese retaliation against Apple) will not happen first of all and second of all, if that happens, I'll be the first to protest," Ren said. "Apple is my teacher, it's in the lead. As a student, why go against my teacher? Never."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that "privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services," a comment that some viewed as a dig at Apple. Well, Apple's software chief, Craig Federighi, says he doesn't "buy into" the criticism that Apple is turning privacy into a luxury good. From a report: Apple wants to sell products to "everyone we possibly could," Federighi said, adding that Apple's products are "certainly not just a luxury." [...] Federighi said it's "gratifying" to see other companies discussing privacy, but that it'll take more than "a couple of months and a couple of press releases" to change these companies' business practices, which rely on data collection. Federighi didn't name Google specifically, but likewise, it's pretty clear which company he's referring to.

In the interview, Federighi also addressed two other criticisms of Apple's privacy stance: that it shouldn't be storing Chinese' users iCloud data in China, where the country could spy on it; and that its choice not to collect much user data has made it fall behind when it comes to develop AI features, like Siri. On China, Federighi suggests that storing data within the country isn't as big of a risk for Apple as it would be for other companies, because of "all of our data minimization techniques." Between encrypting data and collecting a small amount of data in the first place, Federighi says there's not much to access on its Chinese iCloud servers, and that anyone who does gain access wouldn't be able to do much with that information. Federighi also says he sees the choice between collecting data and building powerful new AI features as a "false trade off."

Apple has issued a short statement on its website and in various newspapers announcing Apple Maps plans in Canada. From a report: The company plans to drive around the country with cars equipped with a ton of sensors in order to improve Apple Maps in Canada. Apple doesn't say when it plans to finish scanning Canadian roads and processing data. If you live in Canada, it could take a few months before you notice any change. Last year, Apple announced that it was in the process of rebuilding Apple Maps from the ground up. And you can already see some improvements in parts of the U.S. with more detailed maps, better representations of pedestrian and green areas, more accurate building shapes, etc.

A UK watchdog group said on Wednesday that Apple has agreed to clearly notify consumers if future iOS software updates slow down or change the performance of an iPhone. CNBC reports: The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority investigated the issue after Apple said in early 2018 that it had deliberately slowed down processor speeds through a software update on some iPhones to extend battery life. Public pressure stemming from the revelation forced Apple to provide discounted $29 battery replacements that were cited by the company as one reason iPhone sales last holiday quarter were slower than expected. That program has ended.

"To ensure compliance with consumer law Apple has formally agreed to improve the information it provides to people about the battery health of their phones and the impact performance management software may have on their phones," the U.K. government said on its website. The CMA said that Apple is legally required to tell consumers about the software and battery health, something the company was already doing through software on the iPhone as well as a letter on its website.

Apple is refreshing its top laptops again by announcing newly updated specs for its 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pro models. It's bringing faster Intel processors and some slight changes to the much-maligned keyboard that Apple says should reduce issues. From a report: The biggest changes are coming to the 15-inch model, which is getting Intel's 9th Gen Core processors. The base model now starts with a 2.6GHz, 6-core i7 processor, which can turbo boost up to 4.5GHz. The next-step-up model is getting a 2.3GHz, 8-core i9 processor -- the first ever on a MacBook -- which can turbo boost up to 4.8GHz.

And for those of you who want the most power possible, Apple will also offer a custom top configuration of an even more powerful 8-core i9 chip with a 2.4GHz base speed, which can boost all the way up to 5.0GHz for what Apple calls "the fastest Mac notebook ever." The 13-inch Touch Bar models are getting similar (albeit less exciting) processor refreshes: the base model now comes with a 2.4GHz 8th Gen quad-core i5 processor that can boost to 4.1GHz.

Apple is announcing an update to its keyboard repair program today. All MacBooks with the so-called "butterfly mechanism" (that's pretty much all modern MacBooks) will now be fully eligible for Apple's Keyboard Service Program. From a report: The expansion means that a few newer models that weren't previously covered will be able to get repairs. Unfortunately, Apple is not extending how long that program lasts -- it's still "4 years after the first retail sale of the unit." Apple is also announcing that it has created yet another iteration of its butterfly keyboard, which will ship on the new MacBook Pros. It also promises that it will speed up keyboard repair times. You will not be able to just take your MacBook in to have its keyboard replaced if you don't trust it, of course; it will need to exhibit issues for Apple to fix it. Apple has been put through the wringer over the reliability of its butterfly keyboards for the past few years, and rightly so. Although the company stressed again in a call today that the "vast majority" of customers don't have a problem, all too many of them have had issues with stuck keys that could cause double letters or no letters at all.

Tim Cook told graduates at Tulane University that his "generation has failed" them by fighting more than making change on issues including immigration, criminal justice and, pointedly, climate change. From a report: "We've been too focused on the fight and not enough on the progress," the Apple chief executive said Saturday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. "You don't need to look far to find an example of that failure." He was referring to the Superdome, which sheltered thousands from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He then criticized, without naming, politicians who raise doubts about climate change or its cause, a group that includes President Donald Trump.

"I don't think we can talk about who we are as a people and what we owe to one another without talking about climate change," he said. Cook, 58, said the solution to climate change won't be found based on whose side wins or loses an election. "It's about who has won life's lottery and has the luxury of ignoring this issue and who stands to lose everything," he said. "I challenge you to look for those who have the most to lose and find the real, true empathy that comes from something shared," Cook said. "When you do that, the political noise dies down."

Microsoft today announced the launch of a preview or canary build of its Microsoft Edge browser designed for the macOS operating system. Microsoft Edge for macOS can be installed from the Microsoft Edge Insider site on compatible Macs. MacRumors reports: Microsoft says that the initial build available today includes several interface changes to meld the Microsoft design language with the design language of macOS: "Examples of this include a number of tweaks to match macOS conventions for fonts, menus, keyboard shortcuts, title casing, and other areas. You will continue to see the look and feel of the browser evolve in future releases as we continue to experiment, iterate and listen to customer feedback. We encourage you to share your feedback with us using the 'Send feedback' smiley."

Exclusive user experiences for macOS are also coming in the future, such as "useful and contextual actions" for the Touch Bar on Touch Bar-compatible Macs. Trackpad gestures will also be supported. To use the new macOS version of Microsoft Edge, a Mac running macOS 10.12 or later is required.

CNBC reports: Apple CEO Tim Cook challenged Gen Z to clean up the messes Baby Boomers have left behind. "In some important ways, my generation has failed you," Cook said Saturday in his commencement speech at Tulane University in New Orleans, La., at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
He emphasized climate change, according to the article -- though he also shared a memory about how Steve Jobs had convinced him to leave Compaq in 1998 "to join a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy." Cook gave some advice while remembering all the hard work that followed: "There is a saying that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life," Cook said Saturday in his commencement speech at Tulane University in New Orleans, La., at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. "At Apple, I learned that is a total crock," Cook said. Rather, when you find a job you are passionate about, you will work hard, but you won't mind doing so, Cook says. "You will work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands," Cook says.
Cook also emphasized the importance of listening to other opinions, according to Business Insider: In what could have been a reference to Facebook, which has been under scrutiny in recent years over how it chooses the information displayed in its News Feed, the Apple CEO urged students to open their eyes. "Today, certain algorithms pull you toward the things you already know, believe, or like, and they push away everything else," he said. "Push back. It shouldn't be this way. But in 2019 opening your eyes and seeing things in a new way can be a revolutionary act...." Apple has notably pursued human curation for its Apple News app.

Valve's Steam Link app, which brings streaming games to your mobile device, is now available as a free download for iOS and Apple TV. The iOS launch comes nearly one year after Apple rejected the app due to "business conflicts." GameSpot reports: The Steam Link app promises to bring "desktop gaming to your iPhone or iPad." Users can pair a Steam controller or any MFI (Made-for-iPhone/iPad) controller to play games over a network connection provided they are on the same local network. The Steam Link app is effectively a replacement for the physical Steam Link device that Steam discontinued in 2018. Steam Link is already available on Android. As the Verge notes in their report, the biggest difference between the iOS and Android versions is that the iOS Steam Link app "doesn't allow users to purchase games from the Steam store, unlike on Android."

You can download Steam Link from iTunes here.

An anonymous reader writes: A recent vulnerability in WhatsApp shows that there's little defenders can do to detect and analyze iPhone hacks. Some iOS security experts say this is yet another incident that shows iOS is so locked down it's hard -- if not impossible -- to figure out if your own iPhone has been hacked.

[...] "The simple reality is there are so many 0-day exploits for iOS," said Stefan Esser, a security researcher that specializes in iOS. "And the only reason why just a few attacks have been caught in the wild is that iOS phones by design hinder defenders to inspect the phones." As of today, there is no specific tool that an iPhone user can download to analyze their phone and figure out if it has been compromised. In 2016, Apple took down an app made by Esser that was specifically designed to detect malicious jailbreaks.

Apple's VP of Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey, announced new NFC tags that will let iPhone users make purchases simply by tapping their phones against the stickers, without the need to download a special app first. "The company is partnering with Bird scooters, Bonobos clothing store, and PayByPhone parking meters for the initial rollout," reports 9to5Mac. From the report: Apple also announced that inside the Wallet app, users will soon be able to sign up for loyalty cards in one tap, presumably presented to users as recommendations when they make eligible purchases. Right now, physical Apple Pay transactions require bulky terminals like those you find at retail store checkouts. With the new support, an iPhone will know how to read a specially-encoded NFC tag (that can be as inert as a sticker) and automatically show the Apple Pay purchase interface when a user holds their device near it. No third-party apps or other set up required.

The obvious example is a user can ad-hoc top up their miles on a hired electric scooter simply by tapping their phone or watch to a NFC sticker on the bike. For Bonobos, it will enable simpler self-service shopping with the ability to place NFC tags directly onto clothing rails. The new Apple Pay features will be rolling out later this year, presumably with more partners onboard now that the news is public. This is yet another step towards Apple's goal of replacing the wallet.

A group of iPhone owners accusing Apple of violating US antitrust rules because of its App Store monopoly can sue the company, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. From a report: The Supreme Court upheld the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Apple v. Pepper, agreeing in a 5-4 decision that Apple app buyers could sue the company for allegedly driving up prices. "Apple's line-drawing does not make a lot of sense, other than as a way to gerrymander Apple out of this and similar lawsuits," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Apple had claimed that iOS users were technically buying apps from developers, while developers themselves were Apple's App Store customers. According to an earlier legal doctrine known as Illinois Brick, "indirect purchasers" of a product don't have the standing to file antitrust cases. But in today's decision, the Supreme Court determined that this logic doesn't apply to Apple.

"Many are seduced by the idea that they can listen in silence," complains ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk.

"This doesn't seem to be true," he writes, describing a typical experience with some $279.95 Beats Studio3 wireless over-ear headphones: I could still hear so much of what was going on beyond the soccer match or movie upon which my headphones were supposed to be focused. This wasn't noise-canceling. It was noise-dulling... I did a little research. This noise-canceling thing is a splendid hype. The technology works best on quashing -- somewhat -- low-frequency sounds. The more high-pitched elements of life -- human speech, babies on planes, high-revving engines, the Darkness in concert -- get a little flattening at best, once you don your headphones. Door bells, a glass being dropped on the floor, a dog barking -- all these sounds were slightly dulled by my headphones, but still perfectly audible.

I'm not suggesting Beats is solely responsible for the promise of noise-canceling being overblown. I understand it's the same with all other headphones of the genre. It's like a self-driving car that actually needs you to check it's not about to kill you....

Yes, if I wear my Beats for a couple of hours and then take them off, I feel like I'm returning from some sort of purgatorial netherworld. But these things are supposed to cancel noise. You know, like you cancel a subscription or an air ticket. When I decide to cancel my flight from San Francisco to New York, I don't expect to still have to fly to Boise, Idaho.

The Guardian profiles stay-at-home mom Jessa Jones, who taught herself how to fix her daughter's iPhone with online tutorials, eventually leading to motherboard repair work that she found through eBay.

"After recruiting other stay-at-home moms in her neighborhood and teaching them electronics repair, she launched a small business from her dining room called MommyFixits. 'Suddenly our play dates became moms sitting around the dining table fixing mailed-in iPhones,' she told me." As Jones's expertise grew, she discovered that technology manufacturers used underhanded techniques to discourage independent repair. Phone and tablet parts were glued together, causing components to break when pried apart. Schematics and manuals were copyrighted and kept under trade secret. Apple even used their own proprietary "pentalobe" screws, which cannot be removed with common screwdrivers. Despite these barriers to repair, Jones knew that fixing things independently, instead of taking them back to the manufacturer, was almost always possible and often cheaper. To spread her knowledge, she started a YouTube channel called iPad Rehab, which offered step-by-step repair tutorials for other DIY enthusiasts...

According to Nathan Proctor, director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the US Public Interest Research Group, this YouTube community is an integral part of a broader political movement that is attempting to wrest consumer agency from an increasingly consolidated electronics marketplace. Proctor says that while in the past there was a legal balance between protecting manufacturers' intellectual property and empowering consumers to tinker with, modify, and repair their own products, the rise of software in electronics has shifted power to manufacturers. Not only are the products more complex and harder to fix, the line between self-repair and hacking has become nebulous, meaning that manufacturers have been able to use digital copyright law to gain a legal monopoly over repair. This, in turn, has created a broader cultural anxiety around self-repair, a sense that when our devices malfunction, the problem can only be dealt with by so-called experts at a specific company.

According to Proctor, YouTube channels such as Jones's are useful in disrupting this dynamic. "I frequently will talk to people who had something break on their phone and were told that they had to replace it with the manufacturer," he said. "But then they go on YouTube and watch a video and realize that fixing it isn't impossible, that you could learn how to or find someone who can." As a result of this, those at the forefront of the online repair community are sometimes met with hostility from manufacturers. Apple has brought suits against unauthorized repair shops and have had their intellectual property lawyers directly contact some YouTube tinkerers.
"What we're giving up when we lose the right to repair," Jones tells the Guardian, "is this sense of investigation and wonder and tinkering.

"We're made to see our devices as if they are these sacrosanct objects but really, they're just a battery and a screen, something that a stay-at-home mom can learn how to fix in her dining room."

Vice's "Future Relics" column asks what people 1,000 years from now will think when they keep discovering abandoned Airpods from 2019: For roughly 18 months, AirPods play music, or podcasts, or make phone calls. Then the lithium-ion batteries will stop holding much of a charge, and the AirPods will slowly become unusable. They can't be repaired because they're glued together. They can't be thrown out, or else the lithium-ion battery may start a fire in the garbage compactor. They can't be easily recycled, because there's no safe way to separate the lithium-ion battery from the plastic shell. Instead, the AirPods sit in your drawer forever...

According to the headphones review team at Rtings.com, AirPods are "below-average" in terms of sound quality. According to people on every social media platform, AirPods are a display of wealth. But more than a pair of headphones, AirPods are an un-erasable product of culture and class. People in working or impoverished economic classes are responsible for the life-threatening, exhaustive, violent work of removing their parts from the ground and assembling them. Meanwhile, people in the global upper class design and purchase AirPods.

Even if you only own AirPods for a few years, the earth owns them forever. When you die, your bones will decompose in less than a century, but the plastic shell of AirPods won't decompose for at least a millennia. Thousands of years in the future, if human life or sentient beings exist on earth, maybe archaeologists will find AirPods in the forgotten corners of homes. They'll probably wonder why they were ever made, and why so many people bought them. But we can also ask ourselves those same questions right now.

Why did we make technology that will live for 18 months, die, and never rot?

An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited an Apple Store in Orlando, Florida to meet with 16-year-old Liam Rosenfeld, one of 350 scholarship winners who will be attending Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month. Echoing comments he shared with the Orlando Sentinel, Cook told TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino that it is "pretty impressive" what Rosenfeld is accomplishing with code at such a young age, serving as a perfect example of why he believes coding education should begin in the early grades of school. "I don't think a four year degree is necessary to be proficient at coding," says Cook. "I think that's an old, traditional view. What we found out is that if we can get coding in in the early grades and have a progression of difficulty over the tenure of somebody's high school years, by the time you graduate kids like Liam, as an example of this, they're already writing apps that could be put on the App Store."

Microsoft teased its Edge browser for macOS yesterday, but now, download links have appeared online a little early. From a report: Twitter user WalkingCat discovered official Microsoft download links to both the daily Chromium-powered Canary builds of Edge for Mac [warning: direct download link] and the weekly Dev builds [warning: direct download link]. Microsoft has been working to support Mac keyboard shortcuts, and it has been experimenting with button placement so its browser looks and feels like a Mac app. Microsoft is also adding in Touch Bar support, with options for media control sliders and the ability to switch tabs from the Touch Bar. Rounded corners for tabs are also available in the macOS Edge version, and Microsoft is planning to bring this same UI to Windows.