Apple creates its own TV studio, will produce WWII drama ‘Masters of Air’

While Apple has a long list of new programming lined up for its TV+ subscription streaming service, the company won’t actually own any of the announced shows — until now.

That’s changing because Apple has formed its own in-house studio, which will produce “Masters of Air,” a  follow-up to “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” based on Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction book “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany.” The show will be executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Steven Spielberg.

The distinction between TV+ shows that are and aren’t produced by Apple’s studio will probably be lost on most viewers. That’s fair enough — especially because in the streaming world, the “original” label encompasses a number of different types of content.

For example, Netflix Originals include shows like “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” which are produced by other studios, with Netflix paying for the exclusive rights (in some cases, those rights are limited to certain geographies).

And then there are shows like “Stranger Things,” which Netflix produces and owns itself. Those self-produced shows will probably be a growing part of Netflix’s original content mix moving forward.

Similarly, by creating its own studio, Apple can own some of its TV+ content outright, lessening the need to negotiate licensing fees with other studios, and also giving it the rights for things like merchandise.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio doesn’t have a name yet, but it will be led by Apple’s Worldwide Video heads Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who previously led Sony Pictures TV.

Apple TV+ to launch November 1 for $4.99/month, one year free comes with select Apple devices

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Nomad’s new Base Station Pro offers a taste of what Apple’s AirPower had promised

Accessory maker Nomad already offers a couple of excellent wireless chargers that work great with Apple and other Qi-compatible devices, but they’re introducing a new one that could be their most versatile yet. Using technology provided by partner Aira called ‘FreePower,’ the new Nomad Base Station Pro will be able to charge up to three devices at once placed in any orientation on its surface – cool both because of the three device simultaneous support, and the fact that you don’t have to make sure the gadget you’re charging is lined up exactly right on the charger, as is typically the case.

This is pretty similar to what Apple’s AirPower promised, before its unfortunate demise. The hardware similarly makes use of a matrix of multiple charging coils, which interlink to offer charging capabilities across the surface of the Base Station Pro. Perhaps intentionally, Aira’s website URL is ‘airapower.com,’ one letter off from Apple’s shelved first-party accessory.

Nomad’s charger inherits the same aesthetics of the company’s existing chargers, which means you get a black soft leather surface for putting your devices on top of, and the surrounding frame is made of slate gray aluminum. The charger should look and feel very premium, if Nomad’s other Base Stations are any indication.

The Base Station Pro supports charging speeds of up to 5W each, which is not the max supported by the iPhone or other devices – but according to Aira co-founder Jake Slatnick, that’s not actually much of a limitation at all.

“An interesting detail that we’ve learned through benchmarking is that our 5W output charge time is comparable to other 10W advertised chargers,” Slatnick explained via email. “It turns out, as soon as the phone starts to heat up, the charge speed slows down significantly, usually below 5W. The 7.5W+ chargers seem to only last at those speeds for a few minutes. We think the performance right now is on par with everything else and that it shouldn’t be noticeable to most users.”

The Nomad Base Station Pro supports up to three devices all at 5W, you could use it to charge say, two iPhones and AirPods with Apple’s wireless charging case all at once.

Nomad also includes a 27W USB-C charger with Power Delivery in the box with the Base Station Pro, and a USB-C cable to connect to the charger. This probably will be a fairly premium priced piece of hardware, but we’ll find out for sure when pre-ordes begin in November.

The one significant way this differs from what Apple was building, at least for Apple fans, is that it doesn’t provide charging for the Apple Watch. Nomad has a Base Station model that offers an integrated Apple Watch charger, but of course with that you’re not getting the ‘place anywhere’ overlapping coil design built for this new model.

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Nomad’s new Base Station Pro offers a taste of what Apple’s AirPower had promised

Accessory maker Nomad already offers a couple of excellent wireless chargers that work great with Apple and other Qi-compatible devices, but they’re introducing a new one that could be their most versatile yet. Using technology provided by partner Aira called ‘FreePower,’ the new Nomad Base Station Pro will be able to charge up to three devices at once placed in any orientation on its surface – cool both because of the three device simultaneous support, and the fact that you don’t have to make sure the gadget you’re charging is lined up exactly right on the charger, as is typically the case.

This is pretty similar to what Apple’s AirPower promised, before its unfortunate demise. The hardware similarly makes use of a matrix of multiple charging coils, which interlink to offer charging capabilities across the surface of the Base Station Pro. Perhaps intentionally, Aira’s website URL is ‘airapower.com,’ one letter off from Apple’s shelved first-party accessory.

Nomad’s charger inherits the same aesthetics of the company’s existing chargers, which means you get a black soft leather surface for putting your devices on top of, and the surrounding frame is made of slate gray aluminum. The charger should look and feel very premium, if Nomad’s other Base Stations are any indication.

The Base Station Pro supports charging speeds of up to 5W each, which is not the max supported by the iPhone or other devices, but which will still work just fine for a top up or for overnight. And since it supports up to three devices at that speed, you could use it to charge say, two iPhones and AirPods with Apple’s wireless charging case all at once.

Nomad also includes a 27W USB-C charger with Power Delivery in the box with the Base Station Pro, and a USB-C cable to connect to the charger. This probably will be a fairly premium priced piece of hardware, but we’ll find out for sure when pre-ordes begin in November.

The one significant way this differs from what Apple was building, at least for Apple fans, is that it doesn’t provide charging for the Apple Watch. Nomad has a Base Station model that offers an integrated Apple Watch charger, but of course with that you’re not getting the ‘place anywhere’ overlapping coil design built for this new model.

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Apple Arcade’s black box

Apple Arcade is a new kind of App Store. One where eclectic, indie and original content can shine. A place where gamers can play without being hounded by ads or strong-armed into spending on in-app purchases. But unlike the original App Store, Apple Arcade’s marketplace is a black box. There’s no way for consumers or developers to find out if Arcade produces a breakout hit game or even which app everyone is playing right now.

That’s because Apple Arcade has ditched one of the App Store’s core components: the Top Charts.

Traditionally, the App Store’s Top Charts highlighted which games are most popular, based on downloads, velocity, and other signals Apple never disclosed. On the main App Store, users can browse these top-ranked apps and games, including both free and paid titles. And through APIs, app store intelligence firms like App Annie, Sensor Tower, and others gain access to even more data — like top grossing apps and games, for example.

However, following the Apple Arcade subscription service’s launch, these firms told TechCrunch that Apple is not exposing any of the data that providers such as themselves have typically had access to in order to generate download and revenue estimates. There is some expectation that could change in time, but it’s not clear if or when that will be.

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Daily Crunch: Apple pulls Hong Kong app

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Apple pulls HKmap from App Store, the day after Chinese state media criticized its ‘unwise and reckless decision’ to approve it

Less than a day after Apple was criticized by Chinese state media for allowing HKmap in the App Store, the crowdsourced map app said it had been delisted.

This is Apple’s second reversal on the issue, which it explained with a statement claiming it learned that the app “has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong.”

2. Grammarly raises $90M at over $1B+ valuation for its AI-based grammar and writing tools

Grammarly provides a toolkit used today by 20 million people to correct their written grammar, suggest better ways to write things and moderate their tone depending on who will be doing the reading.

3. Okta wants to make every user a security ally

Okta is giving end users information about suspicious activity involving their login, while letting them share information with the company’s security apparatus.

4. Waymo to customers: ‘Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way’

Waymo’s existing programs all use a human safety driver behind the wheel. Now the Alphabet-owned company is getting ready for completely driverless rides.

5. Calm and Room made a $4,000 branded ‘meditation booth’

From the looks of it, the Calm Booth by Room is little more than a standard Room booth, with frosted glass, softer lighting and “a soothing misty forest interior.” But it’s a pretty smart partnership between two white-hot startups.

6. Creators of modern rechargeable batteries share Nobel prize

The prize this year honors M. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino, all of whom contributed to the development of what is today the most common form of portable power.

7. Silicon Valley’s competing philosophies on tech ethics with The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz

Marantz has in recent years trained his attention on the tech world and its contribution to social unrest in the United States and beyond. And he has just published a new book, “Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.” (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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Apple rolls out new Siri audio clip grading opt-in and request history deletion feature in beta

Apple is rolling out a new opt-in notice for Siri audio sample review with the beta of iOS 13.2. This new opt-in feature was promised back in August after reports that audio from Siri requests were being reviewed by contractors and that the audio could contain sensitive or personal information.

Apple had previously halted the grading process entirely while it updated the process by which it used the audio clips to “improve Siri.”

The new process will include an explicit opt-in for those users who want to have clips of commands transmitted to Apple to help improve how well Siri understands commands.

The update is out in beta for iPadOS 13.2, iOS 13.2, Apple tvOS 13.2, WatchOS 6.1 and MacOS 10.15.1.

Some particulars of the new policy include:

• An explicit opt-in.
• Only Apple employees will be reviewing audio clips, not contractors.
• Computer generated transcripts are continuing to be used. These are in text form with no audio. They have been disassociated from identifying information by use of a random identifier.
• These text transcripts, which Apple says include a small subset of requests may be reviewed by employees or contractors.
• Any user can opt-out at any time.

Apple is also launching a new Delete Siri and Dictation History feature. Users can go to Settings>Siri and Search>Siri History to delete all data Apple has on their Siri requests. If Siri data is deleted within 24 hours of making a request, the audio and transcripts will not be made available to grading.

The new policies can be found at Settings>Privacy>Analytics and Improvements>About Siri in the iOS 13.2 beta.

There seems to be a solid set of updates here for Siri protections and user concerns. The continued use of text transcripts that may be reviewed by contractors is one sticky point — but the fact that they are text, anonymized and separated from any background audio may appease some critics.

These were logical and necessary steps to make this process more clear to users — and to get an explicit opt-in for people who are fine with it happening.

The next logical update, in my opinion, would be a way for users to be able to see and hear the text and audio that Apple captures from their Siri requests. If you could see, say, your last 100 requests in text or by clip — the same information that may be reviewed by Apple employees or contractors, I think it would go a long way to dispelling the concerns that people have about this process.

This would fit with Apple’s stated policy of transparency when it comes to user privacy on their platforms. Being able to see the same things other people are seeing about your personal data — even if they are anonymized — just seems fair.

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Amazon Music arrives on Apple TV

Amazon Music is now available on the Apple TV, including both the Apple TV 4K and the Apple TV HD running tvOS 12.0 or later, Amazon announced this morning. The launch is yet another example of the eased tensions between the two rivals, who finally came to an agreement to support each other’s streaming media services on their respective platforms.

With the new Amazon Music app for Fire TV, customers will gain access to millions of songs and thousands of playlists and stations, including Amazon Music’s version of Spotify’s “Rap Caviar,” which it calls “Rap Rotation.” Users will also be able to browse and search music from their favorite artists, as well as access all their purchased and imported music available in their “My Music” library, says Amazon.

This latest launch follows the debut of Apple Music on Fire TV back in March, and is now one of several examples of the two companies playing nice with one another.

Last year, for example, Amazon expanded its assortment of Apple inventory to include other devices besides Apple TV — like iPads, iPhones, Apple Watch and Beats headphones. It also brought its FreeTime Unlimited app to iOS. Meanwhile, Apple Music arrived on Echo devices last year.

Plus, you’ve been able to watch Amazon Prime Video on Apple TV since December 2017. And with the upcoming Apple TV+ streaming service, Apple promises a cross-platform experience, which includes Fire TV.

But the new app’s launch is notable for another reason, as well.

Apple today is in the crosshairs of several antitrust investigations worldwide, including in the E.U., Russia, and the U.S.

Spotify, in particular, has been calling out Apple for its alleged anti-competitive behavior, like charging the so-called “Apple tax” on Spotify’s in-app subscriptions when it sells a rival service with Apple Music, or for having too much control over if and when Spotify can release app updates. As a part of Apple’s defense, it’s been showcasing how it allows competitors on its platform.

The addition of Amazon Music to Apple TV will be another example it can now point to.

The new Amazon Music app is live in the Apple TV App Store in the U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Japan, and India.

 

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