Welcome to the AppleInsider Daily podcast for Monday, February 19th, 20-24. I'm Charles Martin, and we begin today with ... money problems.
Over the weekend, US Chase customers were having problems with Apple Pay, causing their card to be declined. After some investigation, it turned out that at 12pm Eastern, Apple instigated some “unexpected upgrade,” with “some users” affected, particularly those in the state of Maryland. It’s unclear when the issue was resolved, but everything’s working fine now.
Speaking of financial shenanigans, a fake app claiming to be the Rabby Wallet crypto app has been spotted on the App Store, and clients who download and use it are reporting being robbed of their crypto assets. The actual Rabby Wallet app is still awaiting approval by the App Store, so if you have downloaded a Rabby Wallet app, report it to the App Store and then delete the app immediately.
Until the real Rabby Wallet app is approved, users can still access the actual service through a Mac app, or a Chrome browser extension. Listeners are advised to be generally wary of crypto and bitcoin apps, since they are largely unregulated and not backed by any agency that can help you recover any stolen assets.
And while we’re on the topic of lost assets, Apple may be facing a fine from the European Commission of $500 million Euro (or about $538 million dollars) regarding its use of anti-steering rules specifically with regards to competing streaming music services like Spotify. Apple would not only be fined but would be barred from preventing music streaming services from advising customers that they could get a better deal elsewhere than the App Store and its in-app purchases system.
Apple is already modifying its anti-steering rules in the US due to another court case, but the current restrictions were rejected by Spotify, which kept its app available in the App Store for the free trial but made users go to the web site if they wanted to purchase a subscription, which does not seem to have hurt its popularity in the slightest.
As we’ve mentioned here previously, Apple will be adopting an enhanced version of the Rich Communication Standard, or RCS, for its iMessage program later this year. With the enhancements, this is generally considered to be a good move that will improve communications between the iOS and Android platforms for users worldwide.
It turns out, however, that this is not in reaction to any US or European law, but rather because of China, which has now mandated that new 5G devices must support RCS in order to be certified in the country. Apple has lobbied the GMSA, which manages the standard, to add encryption and other security features to the standard, which is likely to happen later this year.
Speaking of fixes, Apple has been notified of a bug in Apple Podcasts that prevents listeners from getting the latest episodes easily. The app is supposed to alert people who follow a given podcast whenever a new episode is available, but it apparently isn’t always working — especially for episodes that update on Fridays, such as our own weekly AppleInsider podcast.
Users may see a “the episode is not available right now” type message when trying to play a listed new episode as well. We hope the problem has been resolved by the time you hear this, but I guess we’ll find out with Friday’s episode.
Finally for today, a trio of sports-related stories. Apple’s Beats headphones have become the official consumer audio products partner of MLS, with Beats producing exclusive custom headphones for eight teams. The teams selected for custom headphones, which reflect the teams’ colours and logos, include Atlanta United, Columbus Crew, Inter Miami, LAFC, Nashville SC, NYCFC, St. Louis City SC, and Toronto FC. More clubs will be added in the future. It seems likely that versions will be made available for fans to purchase, and both players and other celebrities will helping to promote the line.
Speaking of MLS, Apple has released a new commercial on Instagram and other outlets featuring star soccer-slash-football player Lionel Messi and other stars to promote the MLS season pass on Apple TV. The new season starts on January 29th, and costs $99 for the season or $15 per month, though Apple TV+ subscribers get a $20 discount on the season pass.
And speaking of Apple’s commitment to sports, owners of the Apple Vision Pro may soon be seeing more spatial sports content, as what appears to be an Apple 3D video camera was spotted during the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. A special camera with dual lenses was spotted near the judges’ table during the content, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver has already expressed plans to work closely with Apple for more Apple Vision Pro basketball content.
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.
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I've been Charles Martin, and THIS has been the AppleInsider Daily podcast for Monday, February 19th, 20-24. Thank you for listening