Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 13th, 20-24. I'm Charles Martin, and we begin today with ... iMessage off the hook!
The European Union has backed down from its original position regarding iMessage, accepting Apple’s argument that it is not widely used enough in the EU to warrant “gatekeeper” status. This means that iMessage and Microsoft’s Bing and Edge, along with Microsoft Advertising, do not have to allow users of third-party messaging apps to exchange messages, send files, or make video calls across different apps and platforms.
In Europe, most people use WhatsApp for messaging, despite the fact that it is owned by Meta and therefore not nearly as private as services such as Telegram or iMessage. That said, iMessage will likely become compliant anyway, as it has plans to adopt the RCS messaging standard at some point in the near future, once the standard upgrades its encryption and addresses some other concerns.
Platforms that adopt the revised RCS standard, which Google has also committed to, will achieve effective interoperability with end-to-end encryption and better media sharing in messages. This should prove a benefit to all messaging users, though it’s likely that Apple will continue to mark messages from other platforms in different colors, as it does now.
Speaking of privacy, the Apple Vision Pro includes the sort of privacy levels you would expect from an Apple device, with a couple of additions specifically for the unique platform the headset brings to users. The company has published a “privacy overview” for the Vision Pro, and the biggest change will be the mandate for a privacy-centric “nutrition label” style disclosure by developers of Vision Pro apps — a policy that is likely to spread to the other App Stores.
For example, Apple is by default blocking the recording of user hand gestures, head movements, or information about a users’ surroundings. The latter is significant because it goes beyond just the usual location information that some apps, like Maps, require.
Users can choose, depending on the app, to allow recording of hand and head movements if the app developer requests that information explicitly. Eye movement, which is used on the headset to pick applications, also can’t be recorded, and there are of course privacy protections in place for when the headset is being used in guest mode.
Apple says that the headset now has more than 1,000 native apps on the visionOS App Store, a 60 percent increase from the 600 apps it debuted with on launch day, February 2nd. Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak also mentioned in his tweet on the topic that the number of compatible iPhone and iPad apps has now grown to 1.5 million.
Still speaking of privacy and in Quick Notes, exercise firm Pelaton has informed users of its app that it will no longer support Apple’s GymKit health data sharing service on Apple Watch, and will instead utilize its own app as of the 27th of this month. As with any transition of user data to a third-party app, we encourage potential users to carefully review the privacy policies of the new app before using it.
Meanwhile, an Apple executive formerly associated with Apple’s various automotive efforts has joined General Motors Cruise, becoming the chief of safety for GM’s self-driving unit. He also was previously vice president of safety at Kodiak, a self-driving truck company.
There has been some doubt over the past decade as to whether Apple was ever seriously thinking of developing an autonomous vehicle, or was just developing systems it could license to existing vehicle makers, the way it does for CarPlay and the forthcoming next-generation dashboard CarPlay experience.
Given the recent hiring of former automotive Apple executives by other companies, however, it seems likely that either the work of that unit has either wound down, OR the project has shifted focus away from anything like an Apple-produced vehicle. If there was ever a serious effort to produce its own vehicle, Apple would have needed to build production facilities and a distribution system, not to mention filing the required federal paperwork for such a project, many years ago.
In Apple TV+ news, the company has officially greenlit a third season of its original Sci-fi series “Invasion.” The much-praised series follows the story of an alien invasion of earth, and how ordinary people around the world cope with this fundamental change to their existence.
The show debuted on Apple TV+ in October of 2021, with the second season debuting last August. There’s no word yet on when the third season will appear, but we’d expect it to show up sometime in 2025.
Speaking of TVs, LG will finally get started rolling out AirPlay-compatible TVs in select hotels in the US this spring, the company has confirmed. IOS 17.3 and related OS updates gained compatibility with the feature back in January, and was originally slated to roll out in late 2023.
Although many hotel TVs are theoretically compatible with AirPlay, as are nearly all TVs made since 2017, very few are connected to the internet. Some Apple users — ahem — resorted to plugging their devices directly into the spare HDMI port on hotel TVs, or bringing an Apple TV box with them to use AirPlay. IHG Hotels and Resorts will implement the technology first, which includes brands like Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn.
In disturbing news, someone is clearly asleep at the wheel over at the Apple App Store. Earlier this week we told you about an app called LASS-pass that copied the look and functionality of password manager LASTpass, which somehow made it onto the App Store despite having a different developer name, and a clear intention to fool users into revealing their passwords.
This week, an app that claimed to be a “vision tester” app called Kimi has been on the App Store since sometime last year, but just got pulled because it was, in fact, a movie piracy app streaming new releases and in-theatre films to its users. While its screenshots suggested it was some sort of “spot the difference” vision test, the true purpose of the app was immediately obvious to anyone who opened it.
Before it got pulled, Kimi was the 8th most popular app in the “entertainment” category on the store. It’s unclear if the app will now or soon stop working for those who still have it, but it is likely that the FBI’s piracy division will be investigating the app and its maker, Marcus Evans, in due course.
Finally for today, being competent at your job. If you’re one of those folks who feels they are not great with technology, that’s okay … perhaps you didn’t grow up with it like younger people have, or you didn’t get a good grounding in it at school because of your career path or for other reasons. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not technologically proficient.
But if you are that person, maybe — just maybe — you shouldn’t be a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission charged with regulating tech companies. But of course that hasn’t stopped one member of the FCC believing that Apple has violated antitrust law by preventing Beeper Mini from hacking into its iMessage servers.
That is certainly not to say that Apple doesn’t deserve investigation into any potential abuses of antritrust. But Commissioner Brendan Carr, who previously called for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores because … um … no clear reason, is again demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of both iOS and Android, not to mention what Beeper was doing to iMessage security.
As Wes Hilliard notes in his article on the topic, Carr doesn’t appear to understand that companies — Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al — have the right to develop features that distinguish their products from competitor’s products. He further doesn’t appear to be aware that Android messaging uses SMS, a longstanding standard which pre-dates smartphones, and that Apple is simply colour-coding SMS messages to allow iPhone users to understand that the “green bubble” messages are not encrypted, and thus not from Apple devices.
He implies that iMessage is only available on iPhones, which isn’t correct, and also suggests that any company has the right to force Apple to bring iMessage to Android phones, which again is wrong. He suggests that Apple purposefully degrades messages from Android, which again isn’t true, and doesn’t appear to be aware that both Apple and Google find SMS inadequate, and are working together to improve the forthcoming RCS standard which will eventually bring encryption and expanded media sharing to both Android and Apple devices.
One assumes the other, smarter commissioners will enlighten him on all this when and if he actually takes any action, but he may have a point about one thing — we’d be surprised if even RCS Android messages didn’t still come in on iPhones as an unattractive colour.
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 13th, 20-24. Thank you for listening.