Publications like DigiTimes and reliable analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo have been speculating that Apple might transition iPhones to the industry-standard USB-C connector this year, and now Bloomberg has corroborated those claims.
Apple is not expected to introduce major changes to this year's revision to the iPad Pro series, at least not ones that'd be similar to what it did last year, according to a new report.
Apple will reportedly give its mainstream sixth-generation iPad, which costs just $329, a bit bigger screen going from 9.7 inches to ten inches. And to cover as wide a price range as possible, the Cupertino firm will release a cheaper iPad mini model, sources claim.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Debby Wu published a new report on Wednesday in which they outlined some of the changes coming to iOS 13.
According to a new report, Apple is reportedly aiming to add support for subscribing to streaming services through its TV app for iOS and tvOS around mid-April 2019.
Games have been the most lucrative category on App Store since its inception back in 2008 and now Apple is thought to be working on a subscription service for games.
Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate chats from its three major properties: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
This was reported Friday by The New York Times. A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the report's findings via a written statement to the newspaper.
The different chats should be merged sometime in 2020.
According to sources, Facebook's boss and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently summoned WhatsApp employees to announce the merging of the company's messagings services.
They balked at the plan, the article reads:
On December 7, employees gathered around microphones at WhatsApp’s offices to ask Mr. Zuckerberg why he was so invested in merging the services. Some said his answers were vague and meandering. Several WhatsApp employees have left or plan to leave because of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plans, the people said.
If Facebook proceeds with the plan, customers will be able to start a chat with another user irrespective of whether they're on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. As an example, a Messenger user could start chatting with a friend of Instagram, or vice versa. In another instance, a WhatsApp user would be able to chat directly with a contact on Instagram.
From the article:
By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential.
Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp will remain separate apps: the company will not merge them into a unified mega-app for chatting.
This integration would include end-to-end encryption to protect communications as the messages are transmitted between the three different chat services.
It was however unclear at post time how this would work in practice considering that people go by their real name on Facebook versus the anonymity that Instagram and WhatsApp provide.
Today, WhatsApp requires people to register only a phone number to sign up for the service. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their real identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized.
Is this a good idea, do you think?
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Apple has reportedly poached an executive from Samsung SDI, Samsung Electronics' battery-making affiliate, to help lead its own battery work.
Apple this week reportedly laid off more than two-hundred employees from its stealthy autonomous vehicle group, dubbed Project Titan.
Other employees who were impacted by the project's restructuring are staying at Apple, but moving to different parts of the company.
According to people familiar with Apple's motives who spoke with CNBC, the layoffs were internally billed "as a kind of restructuring under the relatively new leadership."
A spokesperson for the California firm was quoted as saying:
We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple.
We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever.
"The most ambitious machine learning project ever" could not be a more apt description of any autonomous driving project, really.
Apple last August hired Doug Field, Tesla's engineering vice president, to lead the Project Titan team alongside Apple's former un-retired hardware chief Bob Mansfield.
Although investors have burned billions of dollars on autonomous driving startups and companies like Tesla, Uber, Waymo and Cruise, the technology just isn't there yet.
In 2016, Project Titan shifted focus from electric cars to autonomous driving systems, but fruits of those efforts have yet to materialize as details of what Apple's up to are hazy.
What do you think about Project Titan?
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LCD technology is one of the ways Apple differentiates more affordable iPhones from flagship models. If the latest report is anything to go by, the Cupertino company is prepping to getting rid of LCD screens and transition its smartphone lineup to OLED-only models in 2020.
Spotify is testing a block feature in its iPhone and iPad app to mute individual artists listeners don't want to hear from, and could release it more broadly soon, according to Thurrott which first spotted the feature.
Apple has reportedly approved a 10-episode season of an ambitious science-fiction series created and co-written by David Weil and Simon Kinberg.