Host Kelly Guimont chats with Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro about this round of Project Titan Layoffs, and ARM processors coming to Macs.
Apple Watch Shipments up 18% in Q4 2018
Apple Watch maintained its leads in the global smartwatch market, despite the growing presence of Samsung, which moved into second place.
New Siri Shortcuts for Airlines, Food Orders, Dictionary
New Siri shortcuts are arriving that involve airlines, food ordering, dictionaries, and more (via TechCrunch). [Apple Highlights 18 Top Apps that Support Siri Shortcuts (with Links)] Siri Shortcuts Introduced with iOS 12, shortcuts are a way for developers to integrate Apple’s virtual assistant into their apps. Apps like American Airlines, Caviar, Merriam-Webster, and Dexcom are…
TikTok Fined 5.7M Over Illegal Data Collection of Kids
TikTok is being fined US$5.7 million over allegations that it “illegally collected images, voice recordings, and geolocation of children, some younger than 13.”
The amount, part of an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday, is the largest civil penalty ever issued by the agency in a child privacy case. FTC commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter also filed a separate statement calling for TikTok executives to be held accountable in any future cases. “In our view, these practices reflected the company’s willingness to pursue growth even at the expense of endangering children,” the statement read.
New Apple Podcast Rules Aim to Clean up Episodes
In more podcast news today, emails are getting sent to people with new podcast rules about episode metadata and titles.
Halide's New App Spectre Gives You AI-Powered Long Exposure
Halide is a fantastic camera app for the iPhone, and one that I use exclusively. The team created a new app called Spectre. It gives you long exposure photography powered by machine learning.
Spectre reimagines long exposures: its intelligent shutter takes hundreds of photos during the exposure time and merges the result. That means you don’t just get a final still image, but also a video of the entire exposure as it happened.
The app is on sale with an introductory price of only US$1.99.
Cellebrite Hacking Tool Sells on eBay for $100
The Cellebrite hacking tool used to break into iPhones is being sold on eBay starting at US$100, and could contain data from legal cases.
Engineers Face Brunt of Latest Project Titan Layoffs
Project Titan engineers based at premises in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale will be laid off in the middle of April, according to a new document.
Like Apple News, Privacy is a Feature of Apple Podcasts
It’s hard for publishers and individuals to make money via Apple’s platforms like News and Podcasts. Jason Snell’s argument seems to be that competitors like Spotify might do better than Apple because advertisers can’t collect user statistics from Podcasts. It’s a conundrum, because I think you can have both good privacy and good advertising. But Apple is never going to give up privacy in favor of deeper advertising. Hopefully there can be a happy medium.
Maybe it’s all for the best. There aren’t too many examples of enormous tech companies opting not to take advantage of their dominance in a market. Perhaps Apple’s light touch on the world of podcasting will continue, at least until a competitor does something to get its attention.
Tim Cook Talks Privacy and Health in Interview
So far, doctors have been fairly comfortable with Apple’s health features because of the company’s commitment to privacy.