"As Microsoft stock rises and Apple's falls over analysts expectation of slowing iPhone demand, the two firms are once more within $100 billion of each other — the smallest gap in over two years..." writes the blog Apple Insider: In August 2020, Apple became the first publicly-traded US company to reach a $2 trillion market cap, and Microsoft became the second one in June 2021. Later in October 2021, Microsoft took over the top spot, and for a time was move valuable than Apple by $100 billion. While the values of the two firms have continually changed, Microsoft is now worth just $100 billion less than Apple, according to MarketWatch. Microsoft is valued at $2.73 trillion, while Apple — fallen from its recent $3 trillion high — is currently at $2.83 trillion.

MarketWatch notes that Microsoft's stock rose 57% in 2023, compared to Apple's which rose 48%. Microsoft shares have also reportedly seen what are described as slimmer losses at the start of 2024. Apple, on the other hand, has seen its shares take a considerable drop in recent days. The first hit was taken following a claim by Barclays that iPhone demand is weakening and that the iPhone 16 range will not offer any compelling new features to tempt upgraders.

The analyst view that Apple is dependent on iPhone sales is part of why Microsoft is doing better. Analysts see Microsoft has being less attached to any hardware, and more attached to subscription software such as Office 365, and so therefore less attached to any falling demand for phones or computers. And, Microsoft has launched an AI tool in Copilot, while Apple has not unveiled any similar ChatGPT-style app or service.

Shortly after the premium email service Hey announced a standalone Hey Calendar app, co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson said it was rejected by Apple for violating App Store rules.

"Apple just called to let us know they're rejecting the HEY Calendar app from the App Store (in current form)," wrote DHH on X. "Same bullying tactics as last time: Push delicate rejections to a call with a first-name-only person who'll softly inform you it's your wallet or your kneecaps. Since it's clear we're never going to pay them the extortionate 30% ransom, they're back to the bullshit about 'the app doesn't do anything when you download it.' Despite the fact that after last time, they specifically carved out HEY in App Store Review Guidelines 3.1.3 (f)!" The Verge's Amrita Khalid reports: New users can't sign up for Hey Calendar directly on the app -- Basecamp, which makes Hey, makes users first sign up through a browser. Apple's App Store rules require most paid services to offer users the ability to pay and sign up through the app, ensuring the company gets up to a 30 percent cut. The controversial rule has a ton of gray areas and carve-outs (i.e. reader apps like Spotify and Kindle get an exception) and is the subject of antitrust fights in multiple countries. But as Hansson detailed on X and in a subsequent blog post, he found Apple's rejection insulting for another reason. Close to four years ago, the company rejected Hey's original iOS app for its email service for the exact same reason.

The outcome of the 2020 fight actually worked out in Hey's favor. After days of back and forth between Apple's App Store Review Board and Basecamp, the Hey team agreed to a rather creative solution suggested by Apple exec Phil Schiller. Hey would offer a free option for the iOS app, allowing new users to sign up directly. But the company had a slight twist -- users who signed up via the iOS app got a free, temporary randomized email address that worked for 14 days -- after which they had to pay to upgrade. Currently, Hey email users can only pay for an account through the browser. Following the saga with Hey, Apple made a carve-out to its App Store rules that stated that free companion apps to certain types of paid web services were not required to have an in-app payment mechanism. But, as Hansson mentions on X, a calendar app wasn't mentioned in the list of services that Apple now makes an exception for, which includes VOIP, cloud storage, web hosting -- and of course -- email. Hansson plans to fight Apple's decision without elaborating on exactly how he intends to do so.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Justice Department is in the late stages of an investigation into Apple and could file a sweeping antitrust case taking aim at the company's strategies to protect the dominance of the iPhone as soon as the first half of this year, said three people with knowledge of the matter. The agency is focused on how Apple has used its control over its hardware and software to make it more difficult for consumers to ditch the company's devices, as well as for rivals to compete, said the people, who spoke anonymously because the investigation was active. Specifically, investigators have examined how the Apple Watch works better with the iPhone than with other brands, as well as how Apple locks competitors out of its iMessage service. They have also scrutinized Apple's payments system for the iPhone, which blocks other financial firms from offering similar services, these people said.

The Justice Department is closing in on what would be the most consequential federal antitrust lawsuit challenging Apple, which is the most valuable tech company in the world. If the lawsuit is filed, American regulators will have sued four of the biggest tech companies for monopolistic business practices in less than five years. The Justice Department is currently facing off against Google in two antitrust cases, focused on its search and ad tech businesses, while the Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon and Meta for stifling competition. The Apple suit would likely be even more expansive than previous challenges to the company, attacking its powerful business model that draws together the iPhone with devices like the Apple Watch and services like Apple Pay to attract and keep consumers loyal to its products. Rivals have said that they have been denied access to key Apple features, like the Siri virtual assistant, prompting them to argue the practices are anticompetitive.

Apple broke from its 12-year tradition of annual iPad updates, releasing no new models in 2023 - a first since the product line debuted in 2010 when it rapidly became the tablet market leader. The last launch was in October 2022, with the only 2023 iPad-related release being a USB-C Apple Pencil.

Apple faces mounting regulatory scrutiny that threatens over $85 billion in annual services revenue. An antitrust trial against Google in the U.S. revealed multi-billion dollar payments to Apple to be the iPhone's default search engine. A plaintiff victory may halt the payments, estimated at one-quarter of Apple's services income. Meanwhile, Apple's App Store dominance draws Biden administration and EU oversight, with the EU enforcing changes. The landmark Google case and actions across Apple's two biggest markets represent growing legal and regulatory headwinds challenging the company's services growth strategy. FT adds: In the EU, Apple is preparing to allow "sideloading," which enables iPhone users to bypass its store and download apps from elsewhere. This will breach, for the first time, the walled-off ecosystem that the company has protected since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007. Apple has dragged its feet on this issue, since it maintains the practice will create security risks to its system.

Sideloading could have an impact on the App Store, where Apple charges developers as much as a 30 per cent fee on digital purchases. Games account for more than half of that revenue. Google's Play Store, which charges a similar fee, is also in the spotlight after it lost a landmark trial against Epic Games in California in December. Apple draws between $6bn and $7bn in commission fees from the App Store globally each quarter, according to Sensor Tower estimates. Competitors are pushing to earn some of that share and launch rival app stores and payment methods on Apple devices. Microsoft is talking to partners about launching its own mobile store.

TechCrunch reports: Apple's warnings in late October that Indian journalists and opposition figures may have been targeted by state-sponsored attacks prompted a forceful counterattack from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Officials publicly doubted Apple's findings and announced a probe into device security.

India has never confirmed nor denied using the Pegasus tool, but nonprofit advocacy group Amnesty International reported Thursday that it found NSO Group's invasive spyware on the iPhones of prominent journalists in India, lending more credibility to Apple's early warnings. "Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation," said Donncha Ã" Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International's Security Lab, in the blog post.
Cloud security company Lookout has also published "an in-depth technical look" at Pegasus, calling its use "a targeted espionage attack being actively leveraged against an undetermined number of mobile users around the world." It uses sophisticated function hooking to subvert OS- and application-layer security in voice/audio calls and apps including Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Facetime, Viber, WeChat, Telegram, Apple's built-in messaging and email apps, and others. It steals the victim's contact list and GPS location, as well as personal, Wi-Fi, and router passwords stored on the device...

According to news reports, NSO Group sells weaponized software that targets mobile phones to governments and has been operating since 2010, according to its LinkedIn page. The Pegasus spyware has existed for a significant amount of time, and is advertised and sold for use on high-value targets for multiple purposes, including high-level espionage on iOS, Android, and Blackberry.
Thanks to Slashdodt reader Mirnotoriety for sharing the news.

Apple is reinvesting in gaming with advanced Mac hardware, improvements to Apple silicon, and gaming-focused software, aiming not to repeat its past mistakes and capture a larger share of the gaming market. In an article for Inverse, Raymond Wong provides an in-depth overview of this endeavor, including commentary from Apple's marketing managers Gordon Keppel, Leland Martin, and Doug Brooks. Here's an excerpt from the report: Gaming on the Mac in the 1990s until 2020, when Apple made a big shift to its own custom silicon, could be boiled down to this: Apple was in a hardware arms race with the PC that it couldn't win. Mac gamers were hopeful that the switch from PowerPC to Intel CPUs starting in 2005 would turn things around, but it didn't because by then, GPUs started becoming the more important hardware component for running 3D games, and the Mac's support for third-party GPUs could only be described as lackluster. Fast forward to 2023, and Apple has a renewed interest in gaming on the Mac, the likes of which it hasn't shown in the last 25 years. "Apple silicon has changed all that," Keppel tells Inverse. "Now, every Mac that ships with Apple silicon can play AAA games pretty fantastically. Apple silicon has been transformative of our mainstream systems that got tremendous boosts in graphics with M1, M2, and now with M3."

Ask any gadget reviewer (including myself) and they will tell you Keppel isn't just drinking the Kool-Aid because Apple pays him to. Macs with Apple silicon really are performant computers that can play some of the latest PC and console games. In three generations of desktop-class chip design, Apple has created a platform with "tens of millions of Apple silicon Macs," according to Keppel. That's tens of millions of Macs with monstrous CPU and GPU capabilities for running graphics-intensive games. Apple's upgrades to the GPUs on its silicon are especially impressive. The latest Apple silicon, the M3 family of chips, supports hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and mesh shading, features that only a few years ago didn't seem like they would ever be a priority, let alone ones that are built into the entire spectrum of MacBook Pros.

The "magic" of Apple silicon isn't just performance, says Leland Martin, an Apple software marketing manager. Whereas Apple's fallout with game developers on the Mac previously came down to not supporting specific computer hardware, Martin says Apple silicon started fresh with a unified hardware platform that not only makes it easier for developers to create Mac games for, but will allow for those games to run on other Apple devices. "If you look at the Mac lineup just a few years ago, there was a mix of both integrated and discrete GPUs," Martin says. "That can add complexity when you're developing games. Because you have multiple different hardware permutations to consider. Today, we've effectively eliminated that completely with Apple silicon, creating a unified gaming platform now across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Once a game is designed for one platform, it's a straightforward process to bring it to the other two. We're seeing this play out with games like Resident Evil Village that launched first [on Mac] followed by iPhone and iPad."

"Gaming was fundamentally part of the Apple silicon design,â Doug Brooks, also on the Mac product marketing team, tells Inverse. "Before a chip even exists, gaming is fundamentally incorporated during those early planning stages and then throughout development. I think, big picture, when we design our chips, we really look at building balanced systems that provide great CPU, GPU, and memory performance. Of course, [games] need powerful GPUs, but they need all of those features, and our chips are designed to deliver on that goal. If you look at the chips that go in the latest consoles, they look a lot like that with integrated CPU, GPU, and memory." [...] "One thing we're excited about with this most recent launch of the M3 family of chips is that we're able to bring these powerful new technologies, Dynamic Caching, as well as ray-tracing and mesh shading across our entire line of chips," Brook adds. "We didn't start at the high end and trickle them down over time. We really wanted to bring that to as many customers as possible."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple's AirTags are meant to help you effortlessly find your keys or track your luggage. But the same features that make them easy to deploy and inconspicuous in your daily life have also allowed them to be abused as a sinister tracking tool that domestic abusers and criminals can use to stalk their targets. Over the past year, Apple has taken protective steps to notify iPhone and Android users if an AirTag is in their vicinity for a significant amount of time without the presence of its owner's iPhone, which could indicate that an AirTag has been planted to secretly track their location. Apple hasn't said exactly how long this time interval is, but to create the much-needed alert system, Apple made some crucial changes to the location privacy design the company originally developed a few years ago for its "Find My" device tracking feature. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, San Diego, say, though, that they've developed (PDF) a cryptographic scheme to bridge the gap -- prioritizing detection of potentially malicious AirTags while also preserving maximum privacy for AirTag users. [...]

The solution [Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matt Green] and his fellow researchers came up with leans on two established areas of cryptography that the group worked to implement in a streamlined and efficient way so the system could reasonably run in the background on mobile devices without being disruptive. The first element is "secret sharing," which allows the creation of systems that can't reveal anything about a "secret" unless enough separate puzzle pieces present themselves and come together. Then, if the conditions are right, the system can reconstruct the secret. In the case of AirTags, the "secret" is the true, static identity of the device underlying the public identifier that is frequently changing for privacy purposes. Secret sharing was conceptually useful for the researchers to employ because they could develop a mechanism where a device like a smartphone would only be able to determine that it was being followed around by an AirTag with a constantly rotating public identifier if the system received enough of a certain type of ping over time. Then, suddenly, the suspicious AirTag's anonymity would fall away and the system would be able to determine that it had been in close proximity for a concerning amount of time.

Green notes, though, that a limitation of secret sharing algorithms is that they aren't very good at sorting and parsing inputs if they're being deluged by a lot of different puzzle pieces from all different puzzles -- the exact scenario that would occur in the real world where AirTags and Find My devices are constantly encountering each other. With this in mind, the researchers employed a second concept known as "error correction coding," which is specifically designed to sort signal from noise and preserve the durability of signals even if they acquire some errors or corruptions. "Secret sharing and error correction coding have a lot of overlap," Green says. "The trick was to find a way to implement it all that would be fast, and where a phone would be able to reassemble all the puzzle pieces when needed while all of this is running quietly in the background." The researchers published (PDF) their first paper in September and submitted it to Apple. More recently, they notified the industry consortium about the proposal.

In October, Apple issued notifications warning over a half dozen India lawmakers of their iPhones being targets of state-sponsored attacks. According to a new report from the Washington Post, the Modi government responded by criticizing Apple's security and demanding explanations to mitigate political impact (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). From the report: Officials from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly questioned whether the Silicon Valley company's internal threat algorithms were faulty and announced an investigation into the security of Apple devices. In private, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, senior Modi administration officials called Apple's India representatives to demand that the company help soften the political impact of the warnings. They also summoned an Apple security expert from outside the country to a meeting in New Delhi, where government representatives pressed the Apple official to come up with alternative explanations for the warnings to users, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. "They were really angry," one of those people said.

The visiting Apple official stood by the company's warnings. But the intensity of the Indian government effort to discredit and strong-arm Apple disturbed executives at the company's headquarters, in Cupertino, Calif., and illustrated how even Silicon Valley's most powerful tech companies can face pressure from the increasingly assertive leadership of the world's most populous country -- and one of the most critical technology markets of the coming decade. The recent episode also exemplified the dangers facing government critics in India and the lengths to which the Modi administration will go to deflect suspicions that it has engaged in hacking against its perceived enemies, according to digital rights groups, industry workers and Indian journalists. Many of the more than 20 people who received Apple's warnings at the end of October have been publicly critical of Modi or his longtime ally, Gautam Adani, an Indian energy and infrastructure tycoon. They included a firebrand politician from West Bengal state, a Communist leader from southern India and a New Delhi-based spokesman for the nation's largest opposition party. [...] Gopal Krishna Agarwal, a national spokesman for the BJP, said any evidence of hacking should be presented to the Indian government for investigation.

The Modi government has never confirmed or denied using spyware, and it has refused to cooperate with a committee appointed by India's Supreme Court to investigate whether it had. But two years ago, the Forbidden Stories journalism consortium, which included The Post, found that phones belonging to Indian journalists and political figures were infected with Pegasus, which grants attackers access to a device's encrypted messages, camera and microphone. In recent weeks, The Post, in collaboration with Amnesty, found fresh cases of infections among Indian journalists. Additional work by The Post and New York security firm iVerify found that opposition politicians had been targeted, adding to the evidence suggesting the Indian government's use of powerful surveillance tools. In addition, Amnesty showed The Post evidence it found in June that suggested a Pegasus customer was preparing to hack people in India. Amnesty asked that the evidence not be detailed to avoid teaching Pegasus users how to cover their tracks. "These findings show that spyware abuse continues unabated in India," said Donncha O Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International's Security Lab. "Journalists, activists and opposition politicians in India can neither protect themselves against being targeted by highly invasive spyware nor expect meaningful accountability."

The Vision Pro, Apple's first "spatial computing" device that costs $3,499, is expected to have a "late-January/early-February" release date, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. "The analyst says that the first wave of Vision Pros are being shipped to Apple in about a month, with total shipments numbering around 500,000 for the full year," adds TechCrunch. From the report: The company's precise target for the year remains an open-ended question. About a month after the device was revealed, reports suggested that Apple has scaled back expectations from around one million to "fewer than 400,000." Even the updated 500,000 figure is small for a company of Apple's massive size and influence. Keep in mind that the company should be shipping more than 200 million iPhones this calendar year.

The Vision Pro, however, is widely regarded as the biggest gambit of Tim Cook's 12-year tenure as CEO. Not only is it an entirely new category and form factor for the company, it's also prohibitively priced, even for customers accustomed to shelling out extra for apple products. Add to that VR's decades-long failure to live up to expectations, and you've got a big uphill fight on your hands. Kuo refers to Vision Pro as "Apple's most important product of 2024." Given the years of speculation and all the time and money the company has no doubt poured into the headset, it's a tough statement to argue.

An appeals court on Wednesday temporarily stopped the import ban on Apple's latest Apple Watches, allowing the company to continue selling the wearables. CNBC reports: Apple stopped selling its Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches last week in response to an International Trade Commission order in October that found the blood oxygen sensor in the devices had infringed on intellectual property from Masimo, a medical technology company that sells to hospitals. "The motion for an interim stay is granted to the extent that the Remedial Orders are temporarily stayed," a court filing Wednesday said.

On Monday, the Biden administration declined to pause the ITC ban. Apple filed the appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday. The company continues to seek a longer stay. The ITC will need to reply by Jan. 10. The stay means Apple may be able to sell the latest models of one of its most important products during the busiest time of the year. Apple Watch sales are reported as part of Apple's wearables business, which reported $39.8 billion in sales in Apple's fiscal 2023, which ended in September.

Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of. ArsTechnica: "The exploit's sophistication and the feature's obscurity suggest the attackers had advanced technical capabilities," Kaspersky researcher Boris Larin wrote in an email. "Our analysis hasn't revealed how they became aware of this feature, but we're exploring all possibilities, including accidental disclosure in past firmware or source code releases. They may also have stumbled upon it through hardware reverse engineering."

Other questions remain unanswered, wrote Larin, even after about 12 months of intensive investigation. Besides how the attackers learned of the hardware feature, the researchers still don't know what, precisely, its purpose is. Also unknown is if the feature is a native part of the iPhone or enabled by a third-party hardware component such as ARM's CoreSight. The mass backdooring campaign, which according to Russian officials also infected the iPhones of thousands of people working inside diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia, according to Russian government officials, came to light in June. Over a span of at least four years, Kaspersky said, the infections were delivered in iMessage texts that installed malware through a complex exploit chain without requiring the receiver to take any action. With that, the devices were infected with full-featured spyware that, among other things, transmitted microphone recordings, photos, geolocation, and other sensitive data to attacker-controlled servers. Although infections didn't survive a reboot, the unknown attackers kept their campaign alive simply by sending devices a new malicious iMessage text shortly after devices were restarted.

Apple's hiring of a key engineer 10 years ago helped spark a fight that led its watch to be banned from the US. From a report: At about 1 a.m. California time in 2013, a scientist emailed Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook with an irresistible pitch. "I strongly believe that we can develop the new wave of technology that will make Apple the No. 1 brand in the medical, fitness and wellness market," he wrote in the email, which was later included in legal documents. Some 10 hours after the message was sent, an Apple recruiter was in touch. And just weeks after that, the engineer was working at the tech company on a smartwatch with health sensors.

A flurry of activity began. Within a few months at Apple, the employee asked the company to file about a dozen patents related to sensors and algorithms for determining a person's blood-oxygen level from a wearable device. But this wasn't just any engineer. He had been the chief technical officer of Cercacor Laboratories, the sister company of Masimo, which went on to get to the US to ban the Apple Watch. Apple's decision to hire this technical whiz -- a Stanford engineering Ph.D. named Marcelo Lamego -- is seen as the spark that sent Masimo's lawyers after Apple. While the iPhone maker denies it did anything wrong, Masimo cited the poaching of employees as part of claims that the iPhone maker infringed its patents. The dispute culminated this month in Apple having to pull its latest watches from the company's US stores, hobbling a business that generates roughly $17 billion in annual sales. On Wednesday, Apple scored a victory as a U.S. appeals court paused a government commission's import ban on some of its popular Apple smartwatches.

Japan is preparing regulations that would require tech giants like Apple and Google to allow outside app stores and payments on their mobile operating systems, in a bid to curb abuse of their dominant position in the Japanese market. From a report: Legislation slated to be sent to the parliament in 2024 would restrict moves by platform operators to keep users in the operators' own ecosystems and shut out rivals, focusing mainly on four areas: app stores and payments, search, browsers, and operating systems. The plan is to allow the Japan Fair Trade Commission to impose fines for violations. If this is modeled on existing antitrust law, the penalties would generally amount to around 6% of revenue earned from the problematic activities. The details will be worked out this spring.

The government will determine which companies the legislation applies to, based on criteria such as sales and user numbers. It is expected to affect mainly multinational giants, with no Japanese companies likely to be caught in the net. Apple does not allow apps to be downloaded onto iPhones through channels other than its own App Store. In-app payments also must go through Apple's system, which takes a cut of up to 30%. And although Google permits third-party app distribution platforms, it still requires apps to use its billing system. These effective monopolies on in-app payments can lead to users paying more for the same content or services on mobile devices than on personal computers.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday declined to veto a government tribunal's decision to ban imports of Apple Watches based on a complaint from medical monitoring technology company Masimo. From a report: The U.S. International Trade Commission's (ITC) order will go into effect on Dec. 26, barring imports and sales of Apple Watches that use patent-infringing technology for reading blood-oxygen levels. Apple has included the pulse oximeter feature in its smart watches starting with its Series 6 model in 2020. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai decided not to reverse the ban following careful consultations, and the ITC's decision became final on Dec. 26, the Trade Representative's office said Tuesday.

Apple can appeal the ban to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The company has paused the sales of its Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches in the United States since last week. The ban does not affect Apple Watch SE, a less expensive model, which will continue to be sold. Previously sold watches will not be affected by the ban. Masimo has accused Apple of hiring away its employees, stealing its pulse oximetry technology and incorporating it into the popular Apple Watch.

"The iMessage connection software that powers Beeper Mini and Beeper Cloud is now 100% open source," Beeper announced late this week. " Anyone who wants can use it or continue development."

But while Beeper says it's done trying to bring iMessage to Android, CNET reports that the whole battle was "deeply tied" to Apple's ongoing strategy to control the mobile market: The tide seems to be changing, however: Apple said last month it would be opening up its Messages app (likely due to European regulation) to work with the newer, more feature-rich texting protocol called RCS. This hopefully will lead to a more modern and secure messaging experience when texting between an iPhone and an Android phone, and lead away from the aging SMS and MMS standards. Unfortunately, green bubbles will continue to persist even if there might be little to no functional difference. While third-party apps like Nothing Chats attempted and ultimately failed to bring iMessage to Android, Apple will likely never release the app on Google's mobile operating system.

Until RCS is fully adopted, companies are creating services to allow access to iMessage via Android phones. Apple, for its part, has been quick to block apps like Beeper Mini, citing security concerns. This, however, is raising eyebrows from lawmakers regarding competition in the messaging space and Apple's tight control over the market...

Beeper in a December 21 blog post told users to grab a jailbroken iPhone and install a free Beeper tool that'll generate iMessage registration codes to keep the service operational. It's such a roundabout and potentially expensive way of trying to get iMessage on Android that it likely won't be worth it for most people. For those not willing to go out and jailbreak an iPhone, Beeper said in a now-deleted blog post that it would allow people to rent a jailbroken unit for a small monthly fee starting next year.

Apple is in negotiations with major news and publishing organizations (source paywalled; alternative source), "seeking permission to use their material in the company's development of generative artificial intelligence systems," reports the New York Times. From the report: The technology giant has floated multiyear deals worth at least $50 million to license the archives of news articles [...]. The news organizations contacted by Apple include Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker; NBC News; and IAC, which owns People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens. The negotiations mark one of the earliest examples of how Apple is trying to catch up to rivals in the race to develop generative A.I., which allows computers to create images and chat like a human. [...]

Some of the publishers contacted by Apple were lukewarm on the overture. After years of on-again-off-again commercial deals with tech companies like Meta, the owner of Facebook, publishers have grown wary of jumping into business with Silicon Valley. Several publishing executives were concerned that Apple's terms were too expansive, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. The initial pitch covered broad licensing of publishers' archives of published content, with publishers potentially on the hook for any legal liabilities that could stem from Apple's use of their content.

Apple was also vague about how it intended to apply generative A.I. to the news industry, the people said, a potential competitive risk given Apple's substantial audience for news on its devices. Still, some news executives were optimistic that Apple's approach might eventually lead to a meaningful partnership. Two people familiar with the discussions struck a positive note on the long-term prospects of a deal, contrasting Apple's approach of asking for permission with behavior from other artificial intelligence-enabled companies, which have been accused of seeking licensing deals with news organizations after they had already used their content to train generative models. Further reading: Apple's AI Research Signals Ambition To Catch Up With Big Tech Rivals

Beeper Mini, which offers iPhone messaging on Android phones, has grown fast and its duel with Apple has gotten the attention of antitrust regulators. The New York Times: Apple was caught by surprise when Beeper Mini gave Android devices access to its modern, iPhone-only service. Less than a week after Beeper Mini's launch, Apple blocked the app by changing its iMessage system. It said the app created a security and privacy risk. Apple's reaction set off a game of Whac-a-Mole, with Beeper Mini finding alternative ways to operate and Apple finding new ways to block the app in response. The duel has raised questions in Washington about whether Apple has used its market dominance over iMessage to block competition and force consumers to spend more on iPhones than lower-priced alternatives.

The Justice Department has taken interest in the case. Beeper Mini met with the department's antitrust lawyers on Dec. 12, two people familiar with the meeting said. Eric Migicovsky, a co-founder of the app's parent company, Beeper, declined to comment on the meeting, but the department is in the middle of a four-year-old investigation into Apple's anticompetitive behavior. The Federal Trade Commission said in a blog post on Thursday that it would scrutinize "dominant" players that "use privacy and security as a justification to disallow interoperability" between services. The post did not name any companies.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Eric Migicovsky insists his Beeper Mini will continue despite Apple's best efforts to prevent it bringing iMessage blue speech bubbles to Android. Beeper Mini is, or is continually trying to be, a way to get iMessage without buying an iPhone -- although users might have to get access to a Mac. Since the start of December 2023, Beeper has launched a service to do this, then Apple blocked it, then Beeper tried another way.

According to The Information, this cycle is going to continue, too, as Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky maintains that his company will persist -- and could take legal action, too. "We're investigating legal ramifications for Apple, definitely," said Migicovsky. "Around antitrust, around competition, around how they've made the experience worse for iPhone users with this change. They've degraded the performance of iMessage for iPhone users," he continued, "all in search of crushing a competitor."

Apple's latest research about running large language models on smartphones offers the clearest signal yet that the iPhone maker plans to catch up with its Silicon Valley rivals in generative artificial intelligence. From a report: The paper, entitled "LLM in a Flash," offers a "solution to a current computational bottleneck," its researchers write. Its approach "paves the way for effective inference of LLMs on devices with limited memory," they said. Inference refers to how large language models, the large data repositories that power apps like ChatGPT, respond to users' queries. Chatbots and LLMs normally run in vast data centres with much greater computing power than an iPhone.

The paper was published on December 12 but caught wider attention after Hugging Face, a popular site for AI researchers to showcase their work, highlighted it late on Wednesday. It is the second Apple paper on generative AI this month and follows earlier moves to enable image-generating models such as Stable Diffusion to run on its custom chips. Device manufacturers and chipmakers are hoping that new AI features will help revive the smartphone market, which has had its worst year in a decade, with shipments falling an estimated 5 per cent, according to Counterpoint Research.