In a not-so-subtle dig at Apple and Google, Microsoft today announced a series of "principles" for its Windows 10 App Store -- including letting users choose their own payment system for in-app purchases -- that it says should serve as a model for other app stores. From a report: The move comes as antitrust regulators in the U.S. and around the world are spotlighting how both Apple and Google manage their mobile platforms and as some developers charge them with running their app stores unfairly. In addition to offering developers the option to use an alternative payment mechanism for in-app purchases, Microsoft pledged that it will, among other things: allow competing app stores; hold its own apps to the same standards as those of other companies; allow app makers to decide what they do and don't want to sell within their app; and allow any developer in its store "as long as it meets objective standards and requirements, including those for security, privacy, quality, content, and digital safety."

The House Judiciary Committee says Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are monopolies -- but its new plan to rein in their power won't change anything overnight. Instead, Democratic lawmakers propose to rewrite American antitrust law in order to restructure the U.S.'s most successful and powerful industry over time. From a report: The report is a long pass down the field of the tech industry's unfolding conflicts. It could be game-changing -- but it also might never get completed. The report, which runs more than 450 pages, proposes broad updates to antitrust law, including: limiting companies' ability to compete unfairly against third parties on their own platforms by either requiring online marketplaces to be independently run businesses or establishing rules for how such marketplaces can be organized; blocking online platforms from giving themselves preferential treatment or playing favorites with other content providers; requiring social networks to be interoperable so that people can communicate across platforms and carry their data over from one platform to another; directing antitrust enforcers to assume that an acquisition by a dominant tech firm is anticompetitive unless proven otherwise; and allowing news publishers to team up to negotiate against tech platforms looking to carry their content.

Committee investigators spent 16 months reviewing mountains of emails, memos and other evidence to reach these conclusions about the companies:
Amazon: The internet retail giant achieved its dominant position in part through acquiring competitors; has a monopoly over and mistreats third-party sellers; and has created a conflict of interest through its double role as an operator of its marketplace and also a seller there.
Apple: The report says Apple exerts monopoly power over software distribution to more than half the mobile devices in the U.S. It accuses the company of exploiting rivals by levying commissions and fees and copying apps, and says Apple gives preference to its own apps and services.
Facebook: The social media network has monopoly power in the social networking space, the report finds, and takes a "copy, acquire, kill" approach to would-be rivals such as WhatsApp and Instagram, both of which it bought in the early 2010s.
Google: The search engine has a monopoly in the general online search and search advertising markets, according to the report, maintaining its position through anticompetitive tactics such as undermining vertical search providers and acquiring rivals.

"To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," write the authors of the report. The other side: The companies all deny that they hold monopoly positions or that their practices and acquisitions violate antitrust law, and argue that the tech industry remains healthily competitive.

Facebook Chief Revenue Officer David Fischer said Tuesday that the economic models that rely on personalized advertising are "under assault" as Apple readies changes that would limit the ability of Facebook and other companies to target ads and estimate how well they work. Apple frames the change as preserving users' privacy, rather than as an attack on the advertising industry, and has been promoting its privacy features as a core reason to get an iPhone. CNBC reports: The change to Apple's identifier for advertisers, or IDFA,will give iPhone users the option to block tracking when opening an app. It was originally planned for iOS 14, the version of the iPhone operating system that was released last month. But Apple said last month it was delaying the rollout until 2021 "to give developers time to make necessary changes." Fischer, speaking at a virtual Advertising Week session Tuesday morning, spoke about the changes after being asked about Facebook's vulnerability to the companies that control mobile platforms, like Apple and Google, which runs Android.

Fischer argued that though there's "angst and concern" about the risks of technology, personalized and targeted advertising has been essential to help the internet grow. "The economic model that not just we at Facebook, but so many businesses rely on, this model is worth preserving, one that makes content freely available, and the business that makes it run and hum, is via advertising," he said. "And right now, frankly, some of that is under assault, that the very tools that entrepreneurs, that businesses are relying on right now are being threatened. To me, the changes that Apple has proposed, pretty sweeping changes, are going to hurt developers and businesses the most."

Fischer said the company plans to "defend" its existing model. "There are different business models out there. Apple has one that sells luxury hardware or subscription services, mainly to consumers like us who are fortunate enough to have a lot of discretionary income in some of the world's wealthiest countries," he said. "That's fine, but I don't think it's appropriate to then dictate that has to be other business models, and the one that we believe is so valuable, one that relies on advertising, in our case, personalized ads, to enable free products, enable businesses to launch and grow and thrive, we're going to defend that. And we think it really important that not just we but our industry does that."

Apple just sent out invites for its upcoming hardware event, all but confirming the arrival of the next iPhone. From a report: The event is scheduled nearly a month to the day after the its last big event, which gave us the Apple Watch Series 6 and two new iPads. A new iPhone was conspicuously absent from the proceedings -- not an entirely unexpected turn of events, of course. CEO Tim Cook confirmed earlier this year that there would be a delay the arrival of the company's new flagship, owing to COVID-19 hardware supply chain issues. The iPhone 12 is set to finally deliver 5G connectivity to Apple's product line, coupled with a new design, chip and a push to OLED for all entries in the line.

As promised, the Apple TV is finally starting to play YouTube videos in 4K -- with caveats. From a report: Users on Reddit and elsewhere are starting to see YouTube 4K support enabled on the media hub when it's using at least tvOS 14. However, you can only watch in Ultra HD at 30 frames per second, and without HDR. Don't expect to make full use of that posh new TV just yet, although 60FPS video will play at up to 1440p. It also said current iPads and iPhones should support 4K video with 60FPS and HDR, although support looks to be be inconsistent at this stage. Apple TV support also isn't universal, at least not yet. YouTube appears to be delivering the update remotely rather than tying it to an app release.

Apple has confirmed several problems including "increased battery drain" for some users who upgraded their iPhone to iOS 14. But ZDNet warns Apple's proposed solution "sounds pretty drastic."

Forbes reports: In an official post, Apple reveals seven significant data and battery-related problems with iOS 14 and watchOS 7, and the company states the only fix is to "erase all content and settings from your iPhone".

Breaking these down, Apple classifies six as related to its Activity, Health and Fitness apps as well as the broader problem of "Increased battery drain on your iPhone or Apple Watch." The latter will not be a surprise to anyone who has seen the growing number of complaints directed at the company's @AppleSupport Twitter account since iOS 14 was released...

On the plus side, Apple's belief that these problems can be fixed without an iOS update is good news. That said, a complete data wipe is also the nuclear option, so Apple is not messing around... I would also be amazed if iOS 14.0.2 is not being fast tracked as we speak.

Slashdot reader spth writes: At a Canadian recycling firm hired by Apple to scrap about 600,000 Apple devices, 100,000 of them were actually resold to other companies that made working devices from the parts.

Apple now sues the recycling company for the money made from the sale plus 31 million Canadian dollars. The recycling company claims that the devices were resold by three rogue employees that pocketed the profits.
The re-sold devices included iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches, according to news reports, and though they were being re-sold in China, Apple still complains that at least 18% of the devices they'd shipped to the company they later found active on wireless carrier networks.

Apple also says the re-sales dampened demand for new Apple products, hurt their brand by keeping products intended for destruction out on the market — and created a safety issue for consumers.

The heart monitoring feature on the Apple Watch may lead to unnecessary health care visits, according to a new study published this week. The Verge reports: Only around 10 percent of people who saw a doctor at the Mayo Clinic after noticing an abnormal pulse reading on their watch were eventually diagnosed with a cardiac condition. The finding shows that at-home health monitoring devices can lead to over-utilization of the health care system, said study author Heather Heaton, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in an email to The Verge. That may be expensive for patients and for the system as a whole, and it may take up doctor and patient time unnecessarily.

Heaton and the study team scanned patient health records at every Mayo Clinic site, including offices in Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, and Iowa, for mentions of the term "Apple Watch" over a six-month period from December 2018 to April 2019. The window came just after Apple introduced a feature to detect abnormal heart rhythms and after publication of a study tracking how well the watches could detect atrial fibrillation. They found records of 264 patients who said their Apple Watches flagged a concerning heart rhythm. Of that group, 41 explicitly mentioned getting an alert from their watch (others may have had an alert, but it wasn't mentioned specifically in their health record). Half of the patients already had a cardiac diagnosis, including 58 who'd been previously diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. About two-thirds had symptoms, including lightheadedness or chest pain. Only 30 patients in the study got a cardiac diagnosis after their doctors visit. Most of the concerning heart monitor data, then, were probably false positives, the study concluded.

In 2017, two of Apple's top design and technology executives decided to leave the company to start their own venture with an ambitious vision: to create the next big computing paradigm. That startup, called Humane, is now announcing that it has raised $30 million in a series A round of venture funding to continue developing its mysterious product. From a report: While cofounders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno refuse to reveal what they're working on, its cofounders seem to believe it will have the same kind of impact as the iPhone -- which is saying a lot, given that one of them designed the iPhone's original interface. "We are at a point in terms of computing platforms where there's a certain level of maturation that's led to a decline in innovation," says Humane president and chairman Chaudhri, who worked on the UI design of the iPhone and the iPad during his 21 years at Apple. "For us, it's really about how we actually bring vitality and how we bring a new opportunity to computing. How do we move the needle?" It's impossible to have an opinion about the potential impact of Humane's creation until it reveals at least some details. Tony Fadell, who spearheaded the iPod and also helped bring us the iPhone, left Apple over a decade ago and soon after started talking about "a product that could have a huge impact on a big problem," as he told The New York Times in 2011. His startup Nest's creation turned out to be a thermostat. But Humane is certainly dialing up the expectations for whatever it's working on.

The startup's ambitions derive in part from Chaudhri reckoning with the downsides of the products he was instrumental in creating --particularly the ways in which smartphones can nag at and monopolize our attention while siphoning away private data for corporations to profit from. But that doesn't mean that Chaudhri and Bongiorno, a former director of software engineering at Apple who worked with Chaudhri to launch the iPad, believe that technology is a net negative force in society. "We're tech optimists at heart," says Bongiorno, who is Humane's CEO. "But we believe it's also time to question everything to build something better." Instead, they're betting that the time is right for a new, less invasive way to interface with computers. It's a compelling vision, despite the lack of details. "Every product, especially in computing, has a limitation in terms of how far it can go, what it can do before it starts to really become exhausted. That's exhausted in terms of creativity, exhausted in terms of usefulness, exhausted in terms of the experience of using it as well," Chaudhri says. "This is a cyclical thing that's always occurred. Some people from a certain perspective call it a 15-year cycle. We're coming on that for the smartphone." More on this on Jason Calacanis's podcast.

According to a Netflix support document, an Apple T2 Security chip is required to stream Netflix in 4K HDR on a Mac. "What that hardware requirement means is that only recent Macs have the ability to play UHD content from Netflix," reports Engadget. From the report: Here's the full list of T2-equipped Macs: 2018 or later MacBook Pro, 2018 or later MacBook Air, 2018 Mac mini, 2019 Mac Pro, iMac Pro and 2020 iMac. If you're not sure whether your Mac has the necessary hardware, you can find out by following the steps Apple details on its website. The Verge suggests the requirement could have something to do with the T2 chip's ability to process HEVC encoded videos. On its webpage for the iMac, Apple says the coprocessor can transcode HEVC video up to twice as fast as its previous generation T1 chip. If Netflix is encoding streams using HEVC, that could explain the requirement. Whatever the case, we've reached out to both Apple and Netflix for more information, and we'll update this article when we hear back from them. There are some other requirements too. In addition to having a T2-equipped Mac, you'll need macOS Big Sur, a Premium Netflix subscription, and the Safari browser -- other browsers will limit you to 720p on a Mac.

Two RSS reader apps, Reeder and Fiery Feeds, said this week that their iOS apps have been removed in China over content that deemed "illegal" by the local cyber watchdog. TechCrunch reports: Apps get banned in China for all sorts of reasons. Feed readers of RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, are particularly troubling to the authority because they fetch content from third-party websites, allowing users to bypass China's Great Firewall and reach otherwise forbidden information, though users have reported not all RSS apps can circumvent the elaborate censorship system. Those who use RSS readers in China are scarce, as the majority of China's internet users -- 940 million as of late -- receive their dose of news through domestic services, from algorithmic news aggregators such as ByteDance's Toutiao and WeChat's built-in content subscription feature to apps of mainstream local outlets. Major political events and regulatory changes can trigger new waves of app removals, but it's unclear why the two RSS feed readers were pulled this week.

Inoreader, a similar service, was banned from Apple's Chinese App Store back in 2017. Feedly is also unavailable through the local App Store. The history of China's crackdown on RSS dates back to 2007 when the authority launched a blanket ban on web-based RSS feed aggregators. The latest incidents could well be part of Apple's business-as-usual in China: cleaning up foreign information services operating outside Beijing's purview, regardless of their reach.

As expected, Apple has added the seventh-generation iPod nano to its list of Vintage and Obsolete products, officially designating the last iPod in the iconic nano lineup as "vintage." MacRumors reports: The vintage products list features devices that have not been updated for more than five years and less than seven years. After products pass the seven year mark, they are considered obsolete. Apple debuted a refreshed version of the seventh-generation iPod nano in mid-2015, and that was the final iPod nano that came out. Now that the device is five years old, it is being added to the vintage list.

Apple launched the first iPod nano in September 2005, and over the course of the nano's lifetime, it got several redesigns. The first iPod nano model was similar in design to a standard iPod but with a slimmer, easier to pocket shape. Fast forward seven years to October 2020 and the seventh-generation iPod nano, which ended up being the final model that was introduced. It had an iPod touch-style multi-touch display and a Home button, but the nano and touch product lines were ultimately so similar that Apple did away with the iPod nano. [...] Devices on Apple's vintage list are able to receive hardware service from Apple and Apple service providers, but it is subject to the availability of repair components and where required by law. Obsolete products have no hardware service available with no exceptions.

Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook abuse their power as gatekeepers of the internet, said the head of a House antitrust panel who's poised to propose legislative changes to rein in the technology giants. From a report: "Each platform uses their gatekeeper position to protect their own power," said Representative David Cicilline, who chairs a House antitrust panel that's spent more than a year probing the dominance of the internet platforms. "By controlling the infrastructure of the digital age, they have surveilled other businesses to identify potential rivals -- and ultimately bought out, copied, or cut off their competitive threats." Cicilline, who spoke Thursday during a hearing with experts on competition law, is preparing a final report recommending changes to the legislative and regulatory framework. That report is expected to be released as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter. Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg testified voluntarily in July before the subcommittee. Cicilline criticized their testimony as being evasive and non-responsive and said "they raised new questions about whether they believe their companies are beyond oversight."

Big tech firms could be banned from preferencing their own services in search rankings or exclusively pre-installing their own applications on devices, under new regulations planned by the European Union. From a report: As part of the EU's Digital Services Act, platforms with power to control could also have to share customer data with business rivals, according to internal draft documents obtained by Bloomberg. Due to be unveiled in December by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, the legislation will seek to modernize rules governing the internet to give platforms greater responsibility for what users post on their sites as well as propose regulation aimed at curbing the power of large platforms. The initiative comes as big giants such as Apple and Google offer services across a widening array of sectors and as competitors increasingly rely on their platforms to offer their own services. Apple has faced heat over policies with its app store, which companies like Spotify complain give an unfair advantage to the iPhone maker's rival music service.

Apple is trying to delay a legal fight over allegedly stolen blood-oxygen monitoring technology in its latest watch so it can gain a more dominant share of the smartwatch market, medical-sensor maker Masimo said in a court filing late Monday. From a report: Blood-oxygen monitoring is a key feature of the latest Apple Watch Series 6 announced on Sept. 15. Masimo and its spinoff Cercacor Laboratories had sued in January, accusing Apple of promising a working relationship only to steal secret information and hire away key employees, including Cercacor's former chief technology officer and Masimo's chief medical officer. Cupertino, California-based Apple hasn't formally responded to the allegations. Instead, it has filed requests to dismiss the trade-secret part of the case and earlier this month lodged petitions to have Masimo patents invalidated at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Apple wants the trial court in Santa Ana, California, to keep the civil suit on hold until those issues are resolved. Postponing the case "would allow Apple to seize on a critical window of opportunity to capture an emerging field," Masimo said in the filing Monday. "Just as it has done in numerous other markets, Apple seeks to use its considerable resources and ecosystem to capture the market without regard" to Masimo's patents, the sensor-maker said.

The San Diego Police Foundation, an organization that receives donations from corporations, purchased iPhone unlocking technology for the city's police department, according to emails obtained by Motherboard. From the report: The finding comes as activist groups place renewed focus on police foundations, which are privately run charities that raise funds from Wall Street banks and other companies, purchase items, and then give those to their respective police departments. Because of their private nature, they are often less subject to public transparency laws, except for when they officially interact with a department. "The GrayKey was purchased by the Police Foundation and donated to the lab," an official from the San Diego Police Department's Crime Laboratory wrote in a 2018 email to a contracting officer, referring to the iPhone unlocking technology GrayKey.

"The EULA I sent you [is] for a software upgrade that will allow us to get into the latest generation of Apple phones. Our original license was a 1 year license agreement paid for by the Police Foundation," the email adds. In a 2019 email, two other officials discussed purchasing the GrayKey for the following year. "This is the phone unlocking technique that the Police Foundation purchased for us (for 15k). Apparently the software 'upgrade' costs the same as the initial purchase each year. :/ They are the only ones that offer a tool that can crack iPhones, so they charge A LOT!," the email reads. Because police foundations act as private entities, they also do not directly fall under public records laws, meaning their expenditure or other activity may be more opaque than that of a police department itself. "Our end goal is to have an intervention on the funneling of private money into police forces and into policing," Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change, told Politico recently. "If the police foundations existed to raise money for the families of fallen police officers, we wouldn't say we need to abolish police foundations. It's the specific type of work that they're doing that we object to."

Apple and Epic met in a virtual court hearing on Monday to debate whether Fortnite should be allowed to remain in Apple's App Store while the two fight an even bigger battle over whether Apple is violating federal antitrust law. From a report: California Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said didn't issue any update to her previous ruling, which upheld Apple's ban on Fortnite while the antitrust case is ongoing. Instead she said the companies should expect to hear from her in writing. Rogers said that it's likely that the case, which she added was "the frontier of antitrust law," will be heard in July 2021. She recommended a trial by jury in order that the final judgement reached would be more likely stand up to appeal, although said it's up to Apple or Epic to request this.

[...] In court on Monday, Rogers seemed less than impressed with the arguments put forward by Epic's legal team. She said that in the gaming industry, of which Epic is a part, it was standard practice for platforms to take 30% commission, as Apple does. She challenged Epic over its decision to circumvent Apple's policy in spite of its explicit contractual relations with the company, saying the company had "lied about it by omission." "You were not forthright," she said. "You were told you couldn't do it, and you did. There's an old saying, a rose by any other name is still a rose [...] There are plenty of people in the public could consider you guys heroes for what you did, but it's still not honest."

Facebook has temporarily shamed Apple out of taking a 30 percent cut of paid online events organized by small businesses and hosted on Facebook -- things like cooking classes, workout sessions, and happy hours. Demand for these kinds of online events has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. From a report: Apple says that it has a longstanding policy that digital products must be purchased using Apple's in-app payments system -- and hence pay Apple's 30 percent tax. In contrast, companies selling physical goods and services are not only allowed but required to use other payment methods (options here include Apple Pay, which doesn't take such a big cut). For example, an in-person cooking class is not a digital product, so a business selling cooking class tickets via an iPhone app wouldn't have to give Apple a 30 percent cut. But if the same business offers a virtual cooking class, Apple considers that to be a digital product and demands a 30 percent cut -- at least if the customer pays for the class using an iOS device. Last month, Facebook announced it would start offering a new feature for small businesses to host paid online events. Facebook has waived any fees for the first year, allowing small businesses to pocket 100 percent of the revenue. But Apple refused to budge on its 30 percent take.

Microsoft is about to release a big Xbox app update for iOS that includes the ability to stream Xbox One games to an iPhone. The Verge reports: A new Xbox app will arrive in the App Store soon that includes a remote play feature, which lets Xbox One console owners stream their games to an iPhone. Remote play is different to Microsoft's xCloud service, which streams games directly from servers instead of your own Xbox One console. This Xbox remote play feature will only connect to your own Xbox console, not to xCloud. It's similar to Sony's own PS4 Remote Play feature that's also available on Android and iOS.

You will be able to access an Xbox console over Wi-Fi, or even an LTE or 5G connection, too. As this app takes control of your home Xbox, you can remotely start your console outside of your home. The Xbox will start up without a sound or the Xbox light at the front, and when you disconnect, it goes back into standby after a brief period of inactivity. A new Xbox app arrived on Android recently, and this updated iPhone version includes the same new design and new features.

Facebook executives have sharply ramped up their criticism of Apple in recent months, contesting the iPhone maker's restrictions on gaming apps and ad targeting, as well as its cut of in-app purchases. Now, emboldened by Apple software changes that suggest it is starting to bend, Facebook wants something else: the option to make its Messenger app the default messaging tool on iPhones [Editor's note: the link is paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: "We feel people should be able to choose different messaging apps and the default on their phone," Stan Chudnovsky, the Facebook vice president in charge of its Messenger app, told The Information. "Generally, everything is moving this direction anyway." Chudnovksy said Facebook has asked Apple over the years to consider opening up default messaging. Apple has never agreed. Apple's Messages app is a core feature of its mobile software that encourages people to keep buying its devices, and the app's encryption of messages is also a cornerstone of the company's privacy pitch to consumers. Google's rival Android mobile operating system already lets users choose their default messaging app.