By news@appleinsider.com (William Gallagher) Apple has told an official hearing of the European Commission that it has fully complied with the new Digital Markets Act, despite complaints from rivals.Apple claims that it is in compliance with EU DMANow that the Digital Markets Act is fully in force in the European Union, EU regulators have the power to investigate compliance and, if necessary, fine Big Tech companies who are in breach of the new laws. In a hearing at the European Commission, Apple has been putting its position and refuting criticisms from rivals.According to Reuters, the European Commission’s hearing was a day-long event that featured Apple alongside rivals as well as app developers and business users. Apple’s lawyer Kyle Andeer told the EC hearing that the company had redesigned its systems specifically to comply with the Digital Markets Act. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen) Over four years after its debut, Apple Arcade has beaten the expectations of critics, and Apple Arcade chief Alex Rofman believes Apple’s strategy for the service will continue to do so for a while longer.Apple ArcadeApple Arcade is soon to hit its fifth anniversary. It started off on shaky footing with naysayers believing it wouldn’t survive for long.Like it or not, it has become a fantastic value for gamers on Apple platforms. It’s an even better one when combined with an Apple One subscription, and shared across and entire family’s devices. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Andrew O’Hara) On this episode of HomeKit Insider, the CSA’s Chris LaPre joins to talk about Matter, Apple Home, and the future of the smart home.HomeKit Insider PodcastMost of this week’s episode is a conversation with Chris LaPre, Head of Technology at the Connectivity Standards Alliance. The CSA is the member-led organization responsible for Zigbee and Matter.Our far-reaching discussion touches on the evolution of Matter and Apple Home, what new device categories we’ll see, and what may be coming down the line with Matter 1.2 which added support for several new device categories, including robotic vacuum cleaners. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Malcolm Owen) Following the release of the M3 MacBook Air lineup earlier in March, the iPad update covering new iPad Pro and iPad Air models is now rumored to arrive on March 26.iPad ProsRumors about a spring launch initially reported about an event, but Apple’s website and press release-based update of the MacBook Air proved that theory partially wrong. While iPads were wrongly rumored to arrive at around the same time, they may still show up before the end of March.In a post to Weibo on Monday morning, serial leaker “Setsuna Digital” reposted another leaker “Boss Hookup,” teasing the possibility of an iPad launch on March 26. The linked post refers to a number of third-party cases for the iPad Air and 2024 iPad Pro models on Amazon as being on shelves from that date. Rumor Score: 🤯 Likely Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Malcolm Owen) Apple’s March introduction of the M3 MacBook Air collection has changed the MacBook purchasing equation. Here’s what portable Mac you should consider for just about any budget in spring 2024.Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook ProAfter updating its MacBook Pro lineup in October, Apple’s spring launches focused on the MacBook Air range. It was the turn of the 13-inch MacBook Air and 15-inch MacBook Air to gain the M3 chip and the all-important performance boost.While it was easy months ago to point to the MacBook Pro line over the MacBook Air for a range of budgets simply because of the performance jump, the new Air pair brings the ranges much closer together. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (William Gallagher) Apple has shown off a first look at its new Apple Jing’an store, its eighth in Shanghai, as it prepares to open on March 21, 2024.Apple Jing’an (Source: Apple)Following a teasing “opening soon” notice on its website, Apple has now officially announced that Apple Jing’an will open at 7pm local time on March 21, 2024. The news was announced in a press statement that for some reason has subsequently been removed, but the store’s own site confirms the details of the opening.”We’re thrilled to open Apple Jing’an,” Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail, said in a statement, “a store that seamlessly blends the traditional with the modern and perfectly complements this historic neighborhood in Shanghai.” Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (William Gallagher) Google’s controversial Gemini generative AI technology could be integrated directly into Apple’s iOS to improve Siri.Google’s Gemini is already an app but may become part of iOS 18Apple has now regularly been reported to be planning an AI improvement for Siri, and to launch an iOS with much more integrated and prominent AI at WWDC 2024. Now a report from Bloomberg claims that Apple is in talks with Google to license the latter’s Gemini AI.It’s already possible to run Gemini as an app, but the report says that the talks are now active negotiations concerning Apple arranging to license Gemini, Google’s set of generative AI models, in order to power some unspecified new iOS features. It’s expected that these features will be in this year’s forthcoming iOS 18. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Charles Martin) A new report expects a kind of blood-pressure monitoring feature to be added to the next Apple Watch, but there is an important caveat to that claim.Apple has been working on what many call the “holy grails” of non-invasive blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring for years. The addition of these features would help tackle two of the most common medical conditions that need frequent monitoring: high blood pressure, and diabetes.Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said that “all signs point to the new Apple Watch gaining a blood-pressure checker this fall” in his latest report. However, the first iteration is not likely to give exact readings.Gurman believes the next new Apple Watch, potentially to be called the Apple Watch X for its 10th edition, will include a new hardware sensor that can detect trends in blood pressure. That said, this first iteration will likely only alert users for upward trending in blood pressure, rather than offer exact readings. Rumor Score: 🤔 Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Charles Martin) Apple researchers have hit on a new multi-modal method of quickly training large language models (LLMs) that can enable more flexible and powerful machine-learning and “AI” type systems.A research paper posted by the company to research site arxiv.org earlier this week revealed that Apple has used what it calls a “careful mix” of image-caption, interleaved image-text, and text-only data to train LLMs. The mix of visual and language data allowed the models to handle tasks like intelligently captioning images or infer natural-language meanings.As part of the research, it was determined that the choice of image encoder and the resolution of images it processes has a big impact on performance, more than the design of the vision-language connector.In one instance, using a 30-billion-parameter MM1 model, it was found that there were strong in-context learning abilities. The discovery means it can perform multi-step reasoning over multiple images with few “chain of thought” prompts. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
By news@appleinsider.com (Malcolm Owen) Apple’s potential rebrand of Apple ID to “Apple Account” has seemingly been corroborated, with the change allegedly arriving later in 2024 alongside the macOS and iOS 18 releases.Apple ID sign-in pageThe Apple ID is the term used for the accounts on Apple’s various online services, but rumors have previously hinted at it becoming the simpler “Apple Account” instead. On Sunday, a report has said the same thing, making the change seem a lot more likely to actually happen.Writing in the “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes that the name Apple Account will replace Apple ID in software and on Apple websites in late 2024 at the earliest. The change will probably coincide with the launch of Apple’s next operating system generation, including iOS 18. Rumor Score: 🤔 Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
