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Apple is more than just the iPhone manufacturer. This $2 trillion company's decisions impact many facets of technology, financials, and everyday life. When the company is rumored to be getting into something new, the entire world pays attention. And since 1997, AppleInsider has been covering this fascinating electronics maker from every possible angle. From details of the next-generation iPhone and MacBook to key indicators expected to drive the company’s stock price, AppleInsider Daily has you completely covered on a daily basis.
Welcome to the AppleInsider Daily podcast for Tuesday, February 20th, 20-24. I'm Charles Martin, and we begin today with ... winning!
Today was a very good day for Apple for the most part, and the biggest win was the refusal of the US Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeals ruling in the 14-year legal fight between Apple and a company called VirnetX, which claimed infringement on patents related to FaceTime, VPN, and iMessage features.
The original case took 10 years to reach a federal jury, which ruled in 2020 in VirnetX’s favour, and awarded it $502.8 million in damages. Naturally, Apple appealed the ruling, pointing out that all of the patents VirnetX claimed were being infringed had since been invalidated by the US Patent and Trademark Office, the same body that approved the patents originally, and won its appeal.
VirnetX, which bought the patents as part of a portfolio, appealed that ruling, but the Supreme Court could find no error in law, or an error in how the law was applied to the case, and thus declined the appeal. It’s unclear if Apple can now sue VirnetX to recover the costs of defending itself.
Further winning was revealed in a new analysis by Canalys on Tuesday, which said that Apple’s iPhone was the top-selling smartphone in the European market for the holiday quarter of 2023, beating arch-rival Samsung. Apple saw growth of one percent in year-over-year shipments to 12.4 million units, while Samsung saw a drop of 12 percent year-on-year to 10.8 million units.
Samsung did maintain its ranking for the most smartphone shipments in 2023 overall, but Canalys noted a shift in smartphone buying towards the premium end of the market. According to their analysis, 40 percent of shipments consisted of smartphones priced at $800 or more.
And if that isn’t enough winning for you, here’s a win for owners of the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro: Apple has updated its expectations for the battery life of those devices, saying the battery will now retain 80 percent or higher of its original capacity for 1,000 complete charging cycles, which is double the original estimate of battery cycle lifespan for those models.
Apple credits various improvements in components and its own power management systems, along with careful management of the battery in certain common use cases. Apple says it may also revise the charging cycle estimates in older models are still properly rated at 500 complete cycles before the battery dips below 80 percent of original capacity.
In other Apple News, the latest beta version of Apple Music for Android includes a new feature: being able to import playlists from other services, such as Spotify. The new feature appears to be a collaboration with Songshift, which was an app that did something similar for people wishing to move from one music service to another.
Of course, it does not actually move files around, but instead “matches” songs in a Spotify playlist, for example, and replaces them with the same songs from Apple Music, converting the playlist to work with the new service. If the beta of the feature is successful, it will undoubtedly come to Apple devices as well.
Meanwhile, a pair of residents of Germantown, Maryland have been convicted attempted to defraud Apple of more than $3 million dollars through a scheme where they would get high-quality iPhone clones from Hong Kong, then submit them as nonworking and receive a genuine iPhone back, which they would then export back to the far east for sale.
The pair and their co-conspirators are facing sentences of up to 20 years in prison. They submitted more than 5,000 counterfeit iPhones to Apple over the course of two and a half years, mostly to stores in and around the Washington DC area.
In rumour news, a report from Chinese social media site Weibo claims that Apple will in fact be refreshing its AirPods Max headphones later this year, but primarily just to change the Lightning port to USB-C. Apple has yet to make any changes at all to the upscale headphones, which originally debuted in 2020.
The Weibo report claims that even the processor chip, the H1 will not be changed, nor will the new Max set get Adaptive Audio, which utilizes both Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode to provide an intelligent mix of audio. Currently, only the second-gen AirPods Pro have Adaptive Audio. AppleInsider rates this report as “likely.”
In Apple TV+ news, the new wartime show from Steven Spielberg “Masters of the Air,” a kind of sequel series to previous hits “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” has become the most-watched series launch in the history of the service. Sadly, Apple never releases specific numbers about stats like this.
Likewise, Apple reported that viewership of it subscription TV service increased by 65 percent the week of the premiere, compared to the week before, and the overall TV+ service saw double-digit growth in subscribers across more than 100 countries.
Finally for today, another trio of Apple Vision Pro items. First up: another good reason to buy a Vision Pro … if you’re a film lover! It has been discovered that Apple Vision Pro will show Ultra Panavision 70mm movies in their correct and very wide aspect ratio.
Although widescreen movies are usually associated with biblical epics and other classics from the middle of the previous century, in fact even fairly recent films are occasionally shot on Panavision 70, such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Avengers: Infinity War, The Hateful Eight and a handful of others.
The aspect ratio for these films was 2.76:1, which is why you get big horizontal black bars across the top and bottom of even your 8K television when you try to play, let’s say, Ben Hur or Mutiny on the Bounty. Add to that the availability of such films digitally and the fact that the Vision Pro has 50 times the resolution of an iPhone 15, and if you’re a big enough film nerd $3500 suddenly doesn’t seem that bad.
And speaking of film and the Vision Pro, there appears to be a problem with owned movies imported via the Movies Anywhere service. Due to the rights of some films not including any form of upgrades, purchased films upgraded to 3D by Apple will sometimes only play in 2D on an Apple Vision Pro.
This does not affect films purchased previously — even in just HD — if they were bought from the Apple TV store and there’s now a 3D version available. Apple will automatically upgrade the film to the 3D version without charge, just as they did when 4K versions of purchased films became available.
However, back during that conversion not all titles purchased through Movies Anywhere got the upgrade, which suggests that some Movies Anywhere films don’t all have upgrade rights included. Even more problematic, Apple does not allow movie buyers to purchase the same film again, unless it is part of a bundle — which can also work to “force” a 3D upgrade compatible with the Apple Vision Pro.
Sadly, our third item has to do with idiots who have bought a Vision Pro. Reports continue to appear of people doing dangerous things while wearing the headset, including crossing the street and driving a car. A recent survey showed that about one in five people are willing to risk the safety of themselves and others by doing something like that while wearing the Vision Pro.
This is despite warnings from Apple itself as well as the US government about not doing this. It is dangerous in part because the range of peripheral vision is narrowed when using the headset even in real-world mode, and of course if you’re doing anything with it other than just looking through it the risk of distracted driving or walking and the resulting accidents is greatly increased.
It will probably require at least a few fatalities, lawsuits, and legislation before the 1 in 5 get the message, but we’ll reiterate: the Vision Pro isn’t a toy, and your safety and the safety of those around you is not something you should ever deliberately put at risk.
You can hear more news and analysis from AppleInsider on the WEEKLY AppleInsider podcast that’s out every Friday, as well as our HomeKitInsider podcast that's out every Monday -- links to both shows are in the notes for this one.
If you would like to support the AppleInsider Daily podcast, we are now accepting sponsorships. Contact information can be found in the show notes.
I've been Charles Martin, and THIS has been the AppleInsider Daily podcast for Tuesday, February 20th, 20-24. Thank you for listening.