Updated Apple TV app arrives ahead of Apple TV+’s fall launch

Here’s a big Apple TV update. Not THE big Apple TV update. The whole Apple TV+ thing is still forthcoming, but this major update to the app should go a ways toward setting the stage for its arrival in the fall.

The new version of the app arrives today across a slew of different platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and all of Samsung’s 2019 Smart TVs (and select 2018 models) — per the announcement the company made earlier this year at the big TV+ event.

That event also offered previews of a lot of what’s new here. The whole thing breaks down into three key categories: Apple TV channels, a new recommendation system for iTunes movies and TV shows and a new dedicated kids section.

Channels are the biggest change here — it’s essentially Apple’s push to transform Apple TV into its cable provider. Available channels include HBO, Starz, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, EPIX and Tastemade, with CBS All-Access and MTV Hits coming in the future.

A big piece of the offering is the ability to download and watch shows offline, so users can, say, download episodes of Game of Thrones for a long flight. This is, notably, the first time HBO has offered that ability to a third party. Apple won’t say what the download limit is, but it’s likely large enough that most users won’t hit.

Once subscribed, channels will be available through Family Sharing, with up to six accounts using their Apple ID. Speaking of families, the update also includes a devoted kids section, which includes, curated family friendly TVs and movies.

Apple’s apply editorial curation across the board here, similar to what it’s done with other apps like Books and Music. The app uses a combination algorithms and editorial curation, designed to help users figure out what to watch next before scrolling to the end of the page.

In addition to the above, select Samsung, Vizio, LG and Sony sets will be able to access it using app mirroring.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Q41TLN

Supreme Court rules against Apple allowing an App Store antitrust case to proceed

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Apple on Monday on a case involving whether or not a group of iPhone users will be allowed to bring an antitrust lawsuit against the company regarding its App Store practices. The iPhone owners allege that Apple’s 30 percent commission on App Store sales is passed along to users, representing an unlawful and unfair use of Apple’s monopoly power.

Apple had moved to have the case dismissed, arguing that consumers were buying their apps from the developers — not from Apple. And it was the developers who were setting the prices. The court disagreed, saying that Apple contracts with the third-party developers to sell the 2 million apps that are live today on its App Store, keeping its 30 percent commission on every sale along the way.

In addition, the court ruled in favor of the iPhone owners’ lawsuit proceeding for several other reasons. It said that any person injured by an antitrust violation may sue to recover damages, and that ruling in favor of Apple would have prevented consumers from suing monopolistic retailers who took commissions on sales — not just those who marked up the price it paid a supplier or manufacturer for a good or service. This would have created a hole where retailers could restructure their practices to avoid antitrust claims, the court said.

“Apple’s line-drawing does not make a lot of sense, other than as a way to gerrymander Apple out of this and similar lawsuits,” the opinion, authored by Justice Kavanaugh, read.

“If a retailer has engaged in unlawful monopolistic conduct that has caused consumers to pay higher-than-competitive prices, it does not matter how the retailer structured its relationship with an upstream manufacturer
or supplier—whether, for example, the retailer employed a markup or kept a commission,” stated the court.

The iPhone owners also said that Apple’s monopoly on the aftermarket for apps means they’re forced to pay higher prices than if the environment was more competitive. In a different environment, they could have chosen between paying Apple’s higher price and other less costly alternatives.

Instead, iPhone owners say that developers are forced to mark up their prices in order to cover Apple’s “demanded profit.”

We’ve seen this in action already, of course. One recent example is Spotify, whose music app was $9.99 per month if you subscribed on the web, but was $12.99 per month if you subscribed on iOS — a move it made to recoup the commission, but also to make a point about Apple’s monopoly power. And following a complaint in March from Spotify, the EU is preparing to investigate Apple for anti-competitive behavior.

Other large app developers have also ditched selling through Apple. Amazon, for example, redirects many purchases to the browser — like those for books, music, movies, and TV shows, for example. Netflix just dropped in-app subscriptions on iOS in December because of this so-called “Apple tax.” And Fornite maker Epic Games, which also bypassed the Google Play Store at launch, upcharges for in-app purchases on iOS.

Apple’s stock is down by more than 5 percent as of the time of writing.

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India is investigating Google over alleged Android abuse

More than 95 percent of the smartphones that ship in India run Android operating system, according to industry estimates. Now the Indian antitrust watchdog is convinced that the nation should investigate if Google is abusing the dominant position of its mobile operating system to hurt local rivals.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI), the local antimonopoly regulator, began looking at Google’s Android business in India last year after it received a complaint from unspecified people. In mid-April, the regulator decided that there was merit in the accusations and ordered its investigation unit to conduct a full-investigation, according to a report by Reuters, which cites unnamed sources.

In a statement to TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson said that it looks forward to working with the CCI on the probe. “Android has enabled millions of Indians to connect to the internet by making mobile devices more affordable. We look forward to working with the Competition Commission of India to demonstrate how Android has led to more competition and innovation, not less.”

The investigation, not the first of its kind, will take about a year to conclude and could see Google executives be asked to be summoned before the regulator, the news agency reported. The CCI has not publicly commented on the probe.

If found guilty, Google may be fined up to 10 percent of its local revenue or 300 percent of its net profits. Even as India has emerged as one of Google’s largest markets, the company makes relatively a tiny amount in the nation. It clocked $1.4 billion in revenue in India in the year that ended in March 2018, according to regulatory filings, compared to over $100 billion it generated globally in a comparable time period.

The specific accusations, as well as identity of those who filed the complaint, remains unclear.

With the launch of this investigation, India is joining the EU, which continues to look at several businesses of Google — including Android — to ensure that the company is not abusing its dominant position in the market. Earlier this year, the EU regulators concluded that Google had forced its OEM partners to prebundle a number of apps including Google Search, Chrome browser, and Google Play Store on their Android handsets.

Following the verdict, which Google has appealed, the Android maker announced it will give users more choices for browsers and search engines.

India’s regulator has previously investigated Google’s search business and Apple’s partnerships with local carriers for sale of iPhones. Apple’s iOS has tiny market share in India, where most people have annual income of less than $2,000.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook talks WWDC student program, coding initiatives and SAP

For the past few years, Apple has been inviting student developers to attend its WWDC conference, which centers on development topics and software. A few students from this year’s batch are getting some more personal attention from Apple as it tries to raise awareness of the program and coding literacy via its Swift Playgrounds and other resources for students and teachers.

Most of those students, though, won’t get a surprise personal visit from CEO Tim Cook, which is what happened this week when Lyman High School student Liam Rosenfeld got to the Millenia Mall Apple Store in Orlando, Florida. Liam was there to participate, he thought, in an interview with myself and a local journalist from the Orlando Sentinel about his admission to the program.

As a surprise, and fresh off an appearance at the SAP Sapphire conference to announce an expanded partnership, Cook came to visit the store to greet employees, and to spend some time with Liam and his teacher, Mary Acken.

I was on hand to spend some time of my own with Liam, to talk to him about his experiences coding in high school and shipping on a global App Store. I also spoke to Cook about coding literacy, the SAP partnership and some other interesting topics.

The confab was set for Wednesday afternoon, with the store making an ideal meeting place given its rough proximity to the conference and airport. Liam arrived earlier than expected and some interference had to be ran so that Cook’s appearance and the surprise, could be kept secret.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2vRuQRK

Apple CEO Tim Cook talks WWDC student program, coding initiatives and SAP

For the past few years, Apple has been inviting student developers to attend its WWDC conference, which centers on development topics and software. A few students from this year’s batch are getting some more personal attention from Apple as it tries to raise awareness of the program and coding literacy via its Swift Playgrounds and other resources for students and teachers.

Most of those students, though, won’t get a surprise personal visit from CEO Tim Cook, which is what happened this week when Lyman High School student Liam Rosenfeld got to the Millenia Mall Apple Store in Orlando, Florida. Liam was there to participate, he thought, in an interview with myself and a local journalist from the Orlando Sentinel about his admission to the program.

As a surprise, and fresh off an appearance at the SAP Sapphire conference to announce an expanded partnership, Cook came to visit the store to greet employees, and to spend some time with Liam and his teacher, Mary Acken.

I was on hand to spend some time of my own with Liam, to talk to him about his experiences coding in high school and shipping on a global App Store. I also spoke to Cook about coding literacy, the SAP partnership and some other interesting topics.

The confab was set for Wednesday afternoon, with the store making an ideal meeting place given its rough proximity to the conference and airport. Liam arrived earlier than expected and some interference had to be ran so that Cook’s appearance and the surprise, could be kept secret.

from iPhone – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2vRuQRK

Smartphone shipments hit a five year low in North America

More dismal news from the smartphone number crunchers. New figures out of Canalys put the North American smartphone market at five year low for the first quarter of 2019. That’s…bad. But also, pretty inline with what we’ve been seeing globally. The market has stagnated, and while manufacturers aren’t in full on panic mode, there’s certainly cause for concern.

Shipments dropped from 44.4 million down to 36.4 million, marking an an 18 percent drop year over year for the first quarter. Canalys says it’s the steepest drop it’s recorded for the category, chalking some of the issues up to “a lackluster performance by Apple and the absence of ZTE.”

Apple is still the top of the heap, commanding 40 percent of the North American market with help from the sale of older discounted units. But Samsung managed to to tighten the gap on the back of a successful Galaxy S10 launch. The company grew by three percent for the year, up to 29.3 percent of the market.

LG, Lenovo and TCL rounded out the top five, with the latter two making pretty solid marketshare strides. The remainder of the market took a massive hit, however, with a 65 percent drop off in shipments. Analysts seem confident that 5G imminent arrival will help give the market a boost in coming quarters, but it’s going to be hard for manufacturers to maintain that momentum.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2DXoSTQ

Google and Qualcomm launch a dev kit for building Assistant-enabled headphones

Qualcomm today announced that it has partnered with Google to create a reference design and development kit for building Assistant-enabled Bluetooth headphones. Traditionally, building these headphones wasn’t exactly straightforward and involved building a lot of the hardware and software stack, something top-tier manufacturers could afford to do, but that kept second- or third-tier headphone developers from adding voice assistant capabilities to their devices.

“As wireless Bluetooth devices like headphones and earbuds become more popular, we need to make it easier to have the same great Assistant experience across many headsets,” Google’s Tomer Amarilio writes in today’s announcement.

The aptly named “Qualcomm Smart Headset Development Kit” is powered by a Qualcomm QCC5100-series Bluetooth audio chip and provides a full reference board for developing new headsets and interacting with the Assistant. What’s interesting — and somewhat unusual for Qualcomm — is that the company also built its own Bluetooth earbuds as a full reference design. These feature the ability to hold down a button to start an Assistant session, for example, as well as volume buttons. They are definitely not stylish headphones you’d want to use on your commute, given that they are bulky enough to feature a USB port. But they are meant to provide manufacturers with a design they can then use to build their own devices.

In addition to making it easier for developers to integrate the Assistant, the reference design also supports Google’s Fast Pair technology that makes connecting a new headset to an Android Phone without the usual hassle that comes with connecting a headset for the first time.

“Demand for voice control and assistance on-the-go is rapidly gaining traction across the consumer landscape,” said Chris Havell, senior director, product marketing, voice and music at Qualcomm. “Combined with our Smart Headset Platform, this reference design offers flexibility for manufacturers wanting to deliver highly differentiated user experiences that take advantage of the power and popularity of Google cloud-based services.”

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