Link

iPhone Accessory Maker Gamevice Wants to Ban Nintendo Switch From US

Andrew Orr ·

Gamevice makes game controllers for iPhones, and believes that the Nintendo Switch infringes on its design.

This is a new complaint, separate from another against Nintendo that Gamevice is now appealing after the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled in Nintendo’s favor. In that case, Nintendo was accused of infringing 19 Gamevice patents.

Nintendo will be hoping that the ITC dismisses Gamevice’s latest suit before it ends up in another lengthy legal battle. But if Gamevice had its way, Nintendo would not be allowed to import and sell the Switch in the U.S.

I always wonder what goes through company minds in cases like these. Does Gamevice think that people will magically flock to its products if the Switch gets banned? Because that definitely won’t happen.

Link

WireGuard VPN Gets Added to the Next Linux Kernel

Andrew Orr ·

I briefly mentioned WireGuard when I wrote of Cloudflare’s WARP beta. I think it’s something to add to your technology watch lists. It’s just not any old VPN app, it’s a VPN protocol that could very well replace current protocols like IPsec and OpenVPN, or at least be offered as an alternative. You can read the technical whitepaper here [PDF], along with this write up from Ars Technica.

WireGuard will now operate as either a Loadable Kernel Module (LKM) or built statically into the kernel itself. But whether static or loadable, it will be “in-tree”—which means it’s provided ready to go with the vanilla kernel itself, with no need for repackaging by the various distros. This puts it on the same footing as other supported drivers.

Link

YouTube Kids Gets the Watch Time, While Netflix Gets The Installs

Charlotte Henry ·

Netflix was installed 59 million times in the first quarter of 2020. However, it was YouTube Kids that had the most usage, according to AppTopia and Blaze data reported on by Reuters.

Netflix Inc led rivals YouTube, Amazon Prime and Disney+ with over 59 million installs in the first quarter of 2020, but more time was spent on YouTube’s Kids service as usage boomed following the shutdown of thousands of schools in March. YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, collected $110 million in in-app spending during the same time period, the highest among major streaming apps globally, according to a report by analytics firms Apptopia and Braze. The report did not give actual hours of usage, but ranked YouTube Kids first, followed by Netflix. YouTube itself was in third place.

Link

Tile: Apple’s Anticompetitive Behavior Has Gotten Worse

Andrew Orr ·

On Wednesday, Tile told a congressional panel that Apple didn’t live up to its promises to resolve a dispute between the two companies.

Tile had objected to Apple requiring its users to repeatedly agree to allow Tile to operate in the background, which is crucial to Tile’s service…Tile also said that there were indications that Apple planned to update its Find My product, adding hardware, so it would be a competitor to Tile.

Those are Tile’s two arguments. One – They’re mad that Apple cracked down on apps collecting location data in the background. No sympathy there from me. Two – Apple allegedly plans to compete with Tile with its own hardware Bluetooth device, rumored “AirTag.” Tile is acting as if Apple specifically aimed its location crackdown at them, to set itself up for AirTag, but I’m not sure if that’s right. Tile certainly wasn’t the only one doing that.

Link

Latest iPad Pro May Not Have the U1 Chip in it

Charlotte Henry ·

When the 2020 iPad Pro launched there was discussion about whether or not had U1 chip in it. The chip, present in the iPhone 11 series, provides Ultra Wideband support. It is not mentioned in the iPad Pro tech specs but is referred to in the iPhones’ specs. While MacRumors noted that the U1 could still be present and that Apple is waiting until it is useful to highlight it, it has compiled evidence that that is not the case.

The biggest clue of all is that FCC filings for all iPhone 11 models list operating frequencies in the 6GHz range and the 7-8GHz range, and the rules for these frequencies points to “Subpart F — Ultra-Wideband Operation.” TechInsights last year reported that the U1 chip in iPhone 11 models transmits on two different frequencies, 6.24GHz and 8.23GHz. By comparison, FCC filings indicate that all 2020 iPad Pro models operate within a max frequency range of 5GHz for Wi-Fi.