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.

In interviews with Bloomberg, current and former Apple employees say brand building became more important than serving shoppers. From the report: In interviews, current and former Apple employees blame a combination of factors. They say the stores have become mostly an exercise in branding and no longer do a good job serving mission shoppers like Smith. Meanwhile, they say, the quality of staff has slipped during an 18-year expansion that has seen Apple open more than 500 locations and hire 70,000 people. The Genius Bar, once renowned for its tech support, has been largely replaced with staff who roam the stores and are harder to track down. That's a significant drawback because people are hanging onto their phones longer these days and need them repaired. [...] Meanwhile, retail chief Angela Ahrendts (who was hired in May 2014) began moving sales and service onto the web -- encouraging staff to tell customers to "get in line, online." Customers were to make an appointment on Apple's website and then pick up the product at a store. Apple was "trying to streamline things," says one employee, "but in the process made things more difficult for some customers."

Before her arrival, the Apple Store excelled at three key tasks: selling products, helping customers trouble-shoot their devices and teaching them how to get the most out of their gadgets. "Steve Jobs was really keen on stepping into the store and knowing what to do," recalls a former Apple retail executive, who requested anonymity to speak freely. Mission shoppers who wanted to pick up a pair of headphones or an iPhone could get in and out quickly; those who wanted to learn more about their purchase could spend an hour getting trained by a Creative. If someone brought in a busted iPhone, a Genius would sort it out. Over time, according to several current and former employees, Ahrendts upset that finely tuned balance. "You don't feel like there is much engagement at the front of the store, there isn't a push to people," says the former executive. "The store should be a place where you see upgrades happening."

New submitter Schnapple writes: Back in 2009, id Software put Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM on the App Store, but once iOS 11 started phasing out 32-bit apps, they stopped working. Since their source code was published under the GPL, I went in and fixed them up so they would run on modern devices, and also added game controller support and ported them to tvOS so they could run on Apple TV. Then over the last year I did the same for DOOM II and Final DOOM, Quake, Quake II, Quake III: Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and finally DOOM 3. I've chronicled the adventures on my blog. I can't publish them to the App Store for obvious reasons and you'll need to provide your own copy of the game data, but if anyone's interested in trying them out on Apple devices I've posted the sources to GitHub.

In a blog post detailing new features coming to Edge, Microsoft has started teasing what Edge will look like on macOS. The Verge reports: During the company's Build 2019 developer conference, Microsoft is announcing new features for Edge on Windows and teasing the upcoming macOS release. We understand that the release will be available very soon, and Mac users should be able to access both the Canary and Dev builds of Edge just like Windows. Microsoft's implementation of Chromium on Edge has so far seen good performance improvements and reliability on Windows. It's not clear if we'll see similar improvements on the macOS side versus Chrome, but at least it gives Mac users another Chromium option with some Microsoft services and sync integration. MacRumors notes that Edge "will be Microsoft's first web browser on the Mac since Internet Explorer received its last feature update nearly 16 years ago."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is facing an antitrust investigation that could have been predicted the moment it announced it was getting into the music streaming business four years ago. The company can most likely expect a similar investigation down the road after it launches its video streaming service later this year. The first investigation follows a complaint lodged by music streaming leader Spotify earlier this year, according to the Financial Times. Citing sources, the newspaper reported that the European Commission's competition division has officially opened the case, which will likely involve talking to other services that have been quietly chafing under Apple's App Store rules.

[...] One can debate the relative merits of Apple Music and Spotify in terms of their design, subscription models, and payment to artists. But the reality is that there is nothing revolutionary about Apple Music. Had it been launched by another startup, it certainly wouldn't have 56 million subscribers by now. In Silicon Valley, leveraging one's platform is standard practice and applauded. The EU takes a very different view. European regulators believe it is their job to protect consumers from such practices, which they argue harm innovation, and therefore indirectly limit choice.

"A new report by Which?, an advocacy group in the United Kingdom, found that Apple and HTC both overstate battery life on smartphones, sometimes 'significantly'..." reports Hot Hardware.

"In stark contrast, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony all underestimate or are conservative about battery life with the phones that were tested, based on the organization's methods." "Which? tested nine iPhone models and found that all of them fell short of Apple's battery time claims. In fact, Apple stated that its batteries lasted between 18 percent and 51 percent longer than the Which? results," Which? said. The biggest discrepancy belonged to the iPhone XR, one of Apple's newest generation handsets... Apple claims that the iPhone XR has a talk time of up to 25 hours. However, Which? found that the battery lasted for 16 hours and 32 minutes during its own talk time tests. Apple's rated metric is 51 percent higher...

It seems clear that Which? is using a different method of testing than the manufacturers, but the disparity does not always work against the phone makers. For example, Which? found that Sony's devices lasted 21 percent longer than the manufacturer's own talk time battery life claims.
HTC cited "differences in setup and testing environments" that could explain "some variation," according to the article, and Apple also said they stand behind their battery life claims.

Apple says that the iPhone "is engineered to intelligently manage power usage to maximize battery life. Our testing methodology reflects that intelligence."

Tim Cook and Luca Maestri's remarks on Apple's quarterly analyst call earlier this week: CEO Tim Cook: "For our Mac business overall, we faced some processor constraints in the March quarter, leading to a 5 percent revenue decline compared to last year. But we believe that our Mac revenue would have been up compared to last year without those constraints, and don't believe this challenge will have a significant impact on our Q3 results."

CFO Luca Maestri: "Next I'd like to talk about the Mac. Revenue was 5.5 billion compared to 5.8 billion a year ago, with the decline driven primarily by processor constraints on certain popular models." Apple commentator John Gruber adds, "I asked an Apple source last fall why it took so long for Apple to release the new MacBook Air. Their one-word answer: "Intel." One of the big questions for next month's WWDC is whether this is the year Apple announces Macs with Apple's own ARM processors (and graphics?)."

In recent weeks, an Apple representative and a lobbyist for CompTIA, a trade organization that represents big tech companies, have been privately meeting with legislators in California to encourage them to kill legislation that would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics Motherboard has learned. From a report: According to two sources in the California State Assembly, the lobbyists have met with members of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, which is set to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday afternoon. The lobbyists brought an iPhone to the meetings and showed lawmakers and their legislative aides the internal components of the phone. The lobbyists said that if improperly disassembled, consumers who are trying to fix their own iPhone could hurt themselves by puncturing the lithium-ion battery, the sources, who Motherboard is not naming because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said. The argument is similar to one made publicly by Apple executive Lisa Jackson in 2017 at TechCrunch Disrupt, when she said the iPhone is "too complex" for normal people to repair them. The bill has been pulled by its sponsor, Susan Talamantes-Eggman: "It became clear that the bill would not have the support it needed today, and manufacturers had sown enough doubt with vague and unbacked claims of privacy and security concerns," she said.

In a new support document, Apple has indicated that its legacy photo editing suite Aperture will not run in future versions of macOS after macOS Mojave. From a report: The support document provides users with steps to migrate Aperture libraries to Apple's newer Photos app for Mac or Adobe Lightroom Classic. Apple ceased development of Aperture in June 2014 and removed the software from the Mac App Store in April 2015 after the launch of the Photos app for Mac. However, the application continues to function on macOS Mojave for users who still have it installed, albeit with some performance limitations.

Apple has issued a rare public statement following a report by the New York Times on Saturday that alleged Apple was cracking down on apps that its Screen Time feature emulates. From a report: The Times story says that over the past year, Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 apps that offer Screen Time-like features. Screen Time is a feature on iOS 12 and later that allows a user to see how much time they spend on their iPhone, what apps they use the most, and the ability for the user or parents of the users to set limitations on the apps. While it's true that Apple has removed some of the apps from the App Store since the company introduced its Screen Time software, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, said the Times did not publish the full reason Apple gave them as to why some of the competing apps were pulled. From Apple's response: Over the last year, we became aware that several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. MDM gives a third party control and access over a device and its most sensitive information including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history. We started exploring this use of MDM by non-enterprise developers back in early 2017 and updated our guidelines based on that work in mid-2017.

MDM does have legitimate uses. Businesses will sometimes install MDM on enterprise devices to keep better control over proprietary data and hardware. But it is incredibly risky -- and a clear violation of App Store policies -- for a private, consumer-focused app business to install MDM control over a customer's device. Beyond the control that the app itself can exert over the user's device, research has shown that MDM profiles could be used by hackers to gain access for malicious purposes.

"A man who lost his Apple Watch in the ocean says he was surprised when it was returned to him after six months with all the data and apps still intact," according to a joint report from CNN and Los Angeles TV station KTLA: Robert Bainter often goes body surfing or boogie boarding at Huntington Beach in California, and usually, he has an Apple Watch on his wrist... "A huge wave came -- and I was loving it, rode it -- and then, I pick up my arm, and I'm like, 'Oh my God, what just happened?'" Bainter said. The watch was gone from his wrist. Bainter says he spent an hour looking for it then used Apple's "Find my iPhone" app to turn on lost mode... [Which sends your phone number to the watch's display, in case somebody finds it.]

Each visit to the beach was another opportunity to find the watch, but after six months, Bainter was giving up hope -- until he got a call from a number he didn't recognize. "It was this guy saying, 'Hey, if your name is Rob Bainter and you lost an Apple Watch recently, give me a call. If you can describe it, I'll give this thing to you,'" Bainter said. The man who called found Bainter's watch three miles north of where it went missing... Even more unbelievable, Bainter says the watch worked fine; though the salt water had left a little haze on the screen.

"It worked fine, as though it didn't skip a beat. All the information was there. All the apps were there," Bainter said.

An 18-year-old from New York is suing Apple for $1 billion -- saying an erroneous facial recognition system in their stores wrongfully led to his arrest. An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post: Ousmane Bah, who was arrested at his home in November, claims the warrant included a photo of someone else. The lawsuit also said a detective with the New York Police Department concluded the thief caught on the shop's surveillance camera "looked nothing like" Bah. The lawsuit, citing the detective, says Apple uses facial recognition technology to identify shoplifters. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bah said he had an interim learner's permit, which does not have a photo, that had either been lost or stolen. His lawyer said the permit may have been presented as identification at Apple stores, erroneously matching Bah's name with the thief's face in the company's security system. That means every time the perpetrator walked into an Apple store, his face would register as Bah on Apple's surveillance.

Bah had been charged in multiple jurisdictions including New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and New Jersey, according to the lawsuit. Charges in three cases against Bah have been dropped, but the New Jersey case is pending.

"If you're sick of MacBooks but love MacOS, be brave and convert a new laptop into a Hackintosh with our exhaustive guide," writes Motherboard, in an article shared by eatmorekix: Perhaps it's the fact that Apple solders on all of its main parts on its laptops. Perhaps it's the inability for users to repair or upgrade their own machines. Maybe it's the keyboard. For whatever reason, laptops are looking mighty attractive for Hackintoshing these days, despite the knotty qualms some people have with it...

As frustrated by the keyboard and the price as by the fact that nothing was upgradeable on the current generation of MacBook Pros, I went on this journey myself a year ago -- and made it out on the other side much more knowledgeable about why MacOS is a great, quite flexible operating system, often (and unfortunately) placed in a not-so-perfect machine.
It's a long read, but it ends with the author saying he "gained a great appreciation for the process" and ended up with "a fairly stable machine that can handle much of what Apple's own offerings can -- without the incredibly high price to boot."

Despite the (many) technical challenges, "enough of the things that make MacOS worth installing work, and you can make a good weekend project out of this and get a good machine in the end -- one with better specs and more upgradability than many of Apple's own products."

Apple reportedly considered acquiring parts of Intel's smartphone modem chip business as they looked into ways to speed up their own efforts to build modem chips for smartphones. MacRumors reports: Intel and Apple entered into discussions last summer and the talks continued for months, but ended right around the time Apple settled its legal dispute and reached a supply agreement with Qualcomm. Sources at Intel that spoke to The Wall Street Journal said that Intel is exploring "strategic alternatives" for its smartphone modem chip business, and is still interested in a sale to Apple or another company.

In an interview yesterday, Intel CEO Bob Swan confirmed that Intel is considering alternatives "based on what's best" for Intel's IP and employees: "Selling the modem business would allow Intel to unload a costly operation that was losing about $1 billion annually, according to another person familiar with its performance. Any sale would likely include staff, a portfolio of patents and modem designs related to multiple generations of wireless technology, said Patrick Moorhead, principal at Moor Insights & Strategy, a technology firm."

Apple's famous and close-knit industrial design team that works under design chief Jony Ive is undergoing major changes, WSJ reported this week. From the report: Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis, who together have more than 35 years of experience at Apple, decided to leave the company recently [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], people familiar with the departures said. Another member of the team with a decade of experience, Julian Honig, plans to leave in the coming months, people familiar with his plans said. Mr. Zorkendorfer said he was taking a break from his professional life to spend time with his family, adding that he felt privileged to work on Apple's design team. Mr. De Iuliis didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Honig declined to comment.

The departures of members of the core design team that revived Apple in the 2000s and did the work behind the iPhone, iPad and watch come amid a pause in new products, as the company emphasizes new subscription services this year instead of new gadgets amid slowing iPhone sales. It also follows chief designer Jony Ive's resumption a little over a year ago of day-to-day oversight for the industrial design group.

The roughly two-dozen person team known internally as ID is responsible for establishing the look and feel of all of Apple's products, including the iPhone, one of the most successful products of all time. The tech giant has replenished its design ranks in recent years, adding creatives from apparel company Nike, independent studios and design schools. Recent hires will assume more responsibility for product development as veterans leave.

Apple allegedly wanted to hurt Qualcomm before it ever filed suit against the company, according to documents obtained by Qualcomm as the two companies prepared to meet in court. CNET reports on what has been made public: In September 2014, a document from Apple titled "QCOM - Future scenarios" detailed ways the company could exert pressure on Qualcomm, including by working with Intel on 4G modems for the iPhone. Apple and its manufacturing partners didn't actually file suit against Qualcomm until more than two years later. A second page of that document, titled "QCM - Options and recommendations (2/2)" revealed that Apple considered it "beneficial to wait to provoke a patent fight until after the end of 2016," when its contracts with Qualcomm would expire. "They were plotting it for two years," Qualcomm attorney Evan Chesler, of the firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, said during his opening arguments last week. "It was all planned in advance. Every bit of it."

The unknown Apple team behind the September 2014 document recommended applying "commercial pressure against Qualcomm" by switching to Intel modems in iPhones. Apple ultimately started using Intel modems in about half of its iPhones with devices that came out in 2016. In the US, it embedded Intel modems in AT&T and T-Mobile models of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but it still used Qualcomm in versions for Verizon and Sprint. Qualcomm, for its part, knew by June 2014 about Apple's plans to use Intel chips in 2016, according to an internal email from its president, Cristiano Amon, that was displayed during opening arguments. "Decision already has been made and beyond the point of no return on the 2nd source (Intel) for the 2016 premium tier," Amon wrote to CEO Steve Mollenkopf, CTO Jim Thompson, General Counsel Don Rosenberg and then-licensing chief Derek Aberle.

Apple "said that as a result of our policies, other chip companies can't compete with us," Chesler said during his opening arguments. "Where did Intel get the chips from? From god? They made them using our technology." Another Apple internal document from June 2016 said the company wanted to "create leverage by building pressure three ways," according to a slide shown in court. The internal document said, in part, that Apple wanted to "hurt Qualcomm financially" and "put Qualcomm's business model at risk."

In an interview at the TIME 100 Summit in New York, Apple CEO Tim Cook said more government regulation on the tech industry is needed in order to protect privacy. "We all have to be intellectually honest, and we have to admit that what we're doing isn't working," said Cook. "Technology needs to be regulated. There are now too many examples where the no rails have resulted in a great damage to society." Time Magazine reports: In the interview, Cook suggested that U.S. regulators could look to Europe's passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. "GDPR isn't ideal," said Cook. "But GDPR is a step in the right direction." In light of recent data breaches and foreign election influence through social media, Cook's view is that the tech industry has no other responsible option but to accept more government oversight, a position he outlined in a recent TIME Ideas piece.

"I'm hopeful," Cook said at the Summit. "We are advocating strongly for regulation -- I do not see another path." Cook also explained Apple's stance on transparency and money in politics. "We focus on policies, not politics," Cook said. "Apple doesn't have a PAC...I refuse to have one because it shouldn't exist." [...] "I try not to get wrapped up in a pretzel about who we upset," Cook said. "At the end of the day we'll be judged more on 'did we stand up for what we believed in,' not necessarily, 'do they agree with it.'"

Apple is now conducting repairs of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro keyboards on-site at its stores, and it's promising a next-day turnaround for pickup in many cases. From a report: The company previously sent machines out to its repair depot, but it's now telling its Genius Bar employees to handle "most" keyboard-related repairs at the store "until further notice." The company wrote in a service memo that "additional service parts have been shipped to stores to support the increased volume." Apple's attempt to expedite the keyboard repair process is just the latest development in the ongoing saga of the much-maligned butterfly keyboards that are found on all modern Mac laptops. The keys are vulnerable to sudden failure and unpredictable behavior if dust or outside debris makes its way into the mechanism.