jellybelly
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Apple is asking iPhone suppliers for screens without any bezel
I’ve heard the glass covering the display on the iPhone referred to as ‘lens’ in the past. It might be ‘engineer-speak’ or a British term. In the US, we think a lens is on the camera or in glasses, a microscope or telescope. A lens is glass ( or clear plastic) we look through that transmits light and bends the light to form an image that is enlarged, reduced or otherwise distorted. Yet we have sunglasses the have no distortion, just a filtering of light. So, yes, I can see the display glass referred to as a lens.commentzilla said:
Hint... the "lens" is not made of glass.mayfly said:There is a phrase in this article that understates what I'd think is a much bigger issue:"increased vulnerability to external shocks"
With no metal bezel surrounding a glass lens, seems like it would be way more likely to break due to accidents that current phones survive intact. They're going to have to explore a radically different glass technology to prevent that. Or they could just use current glass tech, and make more money on repairs, I suppose.Where we in the US refer to a ‘hood’ on the front of a car, the Brits say ‘bonnet’. What we call a ‘windshield’ is referred to as a ‘windscreen’ by Brits. I can see calling the face of the iPhone a lens that we look through to see the image displayed on or under film layers.Gorilla glass that Apple uses has had many iterations over the years. It approaches the hardness and scratch resistance of some metals. Tougher than nails.I’d think that’s the protection that does the job, unless the display film comes all the way to the edge of the glass—and can be harmed by just the edge being hit.My concern could be reliable touch rejection from gripping the iPhone with fingers encroaching on the edges of the display. I’d take a guess that Apple thought of that a long time ago and it won’t be a problem. I guess I’m not really concerned about that after all.
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Apple reaffirms privacy as a tentpole feature in Siri after lawsuit settlement
If it’s frivolous and not true nor accurate, it can mislead people and harm the trust in the brand. So settling out of court is less expensive than a trial and prevents it from being in the headlines for one to four or more years sowing doubt that is undeserved. The years in court is more harm the three weeks of news about settling. It may be unfair, but so is what they’d lose in a protracted trial. The money they save might go into developing a feature you enjoy. Or into still more privacy vigilance and privacy tools for your protection.mikethemartian said:Apparently it wasn't so frivolous given Apple's willingness to settle to prevent the discovery from coming out in open public court.The discovery is out. A third party creepily stole user data. Apple does better than the competition in policing Apps, and yet gets criticized for holding up App approval while looking for loopholes an unscrupulous developer might try to hide.The lack of translation to Portuguese of the EULA was mentioned as a problem. So , again I say, that discovery is out. And probably being worked on by Apple across 100’s of thousands of Apps across umpteen languages.Don’t assume settling is any kind of admission of guilt. This weighing the cost vs benefits is standard practice in tort law. It would be malpractices to not consider whether you would likely loose more than you gain. Yes, principle is a weighted factor, and evidence shows Apple weighs principles more heavily than many large tech companies.
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Siri in iOS 18.4 is getting worse before it gets better
In my opinion it is high quality tech journalism. It is honest, based on repeatable observations. Where the observation was not repeatable, the author points that out.shad0h said:Dramaticising a component or feature not working in a developer beta...
How exactly is that quality tech journalism ?
The author is writing about observations from different sources as well as within the AppleInsider team that brings a variety of experience and skills to the table.He’s pointing out that Siri is performing less well as it is going through a transition of development.
As far as scraping/starting-over and waiting for a new Siri as implied by some, elsewhere online, Apple has to keep some core functions working that have been useful in things such as ‘Apple Home’ functions albeit with new hiccups.Apple is faced with a transition from a type of machine learning that required selective iterations of data in the thousands-on-device to billions or more in iCloud, along with smart search—to integrating LLM’s (Large Language Models). LLM are an iteration of data at such a large scale that it takes data centers requiring the electrical power of small cities.It’s a different kind of machine learning that is so massive in its data scanning and complex algorithms, that AI software engineers admit they don’t know precisely how results are arrived at in the sense of every iterative test that was tried in the massive scanning of data and the predictive testing tried and discarded to winnow down to the mostly usable predictions of characters (we are talking about the “L” that stands for Language) and results.I believe Apple is seeking to allow eventual transitioning and integration to R-AI—AI with reasoning, not just trillions of predictive tests on language.We are an impatient species, a drive that moves us forward in starts and stops. We have wants and hopes that can become expectations and even demands. Our weakness and strength are hopes and wants jumping to demands even when we are too impatient to have them realized (or not) in a time period that is hard to understand and/or predict.In the case of artificial intelligence developing in the Apple sphere, our expectations are getting ahead of reality. If you are disappointed in the progress so far, that seems quite reasonable. Disappointment is different than demands.Any blanket conclusions out in the blogosphere that Apple AI is useless because much of it does not yet exist, goes to impatience that’s likely an inefficient use of our energy. But it is our choice if that is sometimes our reaction. And that’s fine. We have that choice. My hope is that we don’t ’throw out the baby with the bath water’ now or in the future.
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All hands on deck: Tim Cook, Craig Federighi address Apple employees on AI, Siri
You can be sure he knows about the Apple ll.mikethemartian said:Does Cook realize that the Apple II predated the PC or does he think it all started with the Mac?He’s not going to recite all the personal computers that came before the Mac — eg. Altair, Tandy Radio Shack-TRS-80, Texas Instruments, Commodore, Apple ll, IBM-PC.In fact there was a time before the IBM PC that personal computers were referred to as PCs by most of us in that era. Then IBM made it a brand name. They registered the trademark as “IBM PC”, since PC was generic by itself, and not trademark-able.But as many brands fell by the wayside, business faith in IBM brought a high adoption rate. After the Mac came out and CPM personal computers (eg, Kaypro) faded, everyone drifted into referring to the IBM PC as “a PC” or “the PC”. And especially when a few more computers came out that used DOS that Bill Gates and company licensed to IBM and then to others.Tim’s been around for all of that. He could have used the term as a metaphor for computers that weren’t Mac’s, or he might have been referring to the IBM-PC as an archetype. Or as the most significant competitor.With the term Windows PC having become so ubiquitous, we easily can forget that there were many personal computers before it was Mac vs PC as a shorthand reference.
He was talking to his team. They all likely know the then named ‘Apple Computer’ Company had the Apple ll before the Mac.I’m surprised you questioned Tim Cook’s knowledge or correctness on this part of his talk based on this use of language. Maybe what he actually said was reported in a summary manner by the original or subsequent reporters, despite the quotes.
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Apple hits back at DOJ antitrust suit paragraph by paragraph in scathing response
If you own an iPhone, how could you not know what you were buying, considering what you are upset about? It’s never been a secret, and pretty well talked about in media for over a decade. And Apple hasn’t made claims to the contrary.avon b7 said:Apple is potentially on the hook for past and present actions.
No amount of change now or recently can affect what went on in the past.
They effectively used 'first mover' status and the ecosystem narrative to lock out true competition and lock in consumers. Right at the outset. In the process, innovation has been stifled and competition harmed.
Although in the EU, my wife went for years unable to use our bank's wallet system because Apple only allowed one wallet system. Its own.
She also went years without being able to use the Barcelona public transport NFC phone option because Apple didn't allow it. And even after the introduction of the DSA/DMA, the Barcelona transport authority still had to complain to the EU to gain access.
My wife's Huawei Watch 'works' with her iPhone on some levels. It works with other Android phones on a much better level. This is by design. Apple makes it difficult for competitors to offer a seamless experience with iPhones. If Apple has to rework things from scratch to offer true like-for-like compatibility, it's because that should have been the case right from the beginning. Interoperability should be a design focus for gatekeepers. Just likes 'standards' are in other areas. Times have changed. We now live in a digital world and there should be wide ranging interoperability.
And if we go back, almost to the beginning, we already know that Apple had 'lock in' well in it's sights. Previous court cases have revealed internal mails that say as much.
The changes implemented over the years have almost exclusively been in response to investigations or potential fines. Not voluntary actions.
Apple isn't alone here but the root problems are quite similar across jurisdictions. There are technicalities that set them apart (EU, DoJ, South Korea, Australia, UK, Japan etc) but IMO, Apple has gone out of its way to impede competition to its own benefit.
Different jurisdictions are now looking at what has gone on. Most of them have raised issues with Apple.
Can I understand Apple, Google etc? Yes.
Should governments be stepping in to level the playing field for everyone? Absolutely.
And, as I've said many times before, I'd go one step further and actually inform potential purchasers of the limitations of choice that the company imposes. If choice will be limited by the company, just inform users prior to purchase. That should be easy enough.
Or alternatively, make everything first party and closed off to outside sources.
It would be great if Apple informed users of its own free will. After all, according to Apple these/those limitations, are a key part of what makes the platform a success. Just make purchasers privvy to what Apple is taking away from them. The same would apply to Google, Meta etc.
And there lies one of the biggest issues and a major part of Apple's reasoning.
"threatens the very principles that set iPhone apart in a fiercely competitive market".
Who is arguing that the market isn't competitive?
But we'd have to define both 'market' and 'competitive' here. Apple obviously makes no such effort.
In the US the 'market', in platform terms, can be seen as containing just two players. Android and OS. A duopoly. I wouldn't call that competitive or even fiercely competitive. Basically, there is no competition, just two companies dividing up the market and both of them trying to lock their users onto their respective platforms.
If you just scratch the surface,details of things like the long-standing Google/Apple default search deal immediately pop up! And only through court discovery processes.
Google paying Apple billions to be the default search option or potentially Google paying Apple billions a year to not compete with it.
Obviously, there were grounds for investigation here (from both suppositions).
The first Trump admin saw Tim Cook meeting Trump. Various times. Almost in the same period, Huawei handsets were banned in the US. That was 'competition' knee-capped by government. Huawei was on course to be the world's dominant handset maker and was a serious threat to both Apple and Samsung. More grounds for investigation? Possibly.
But, getting back to the point of the quote.
Maybe those principles were wrong from the outset.
What is clear to most jurisdictions around the world is that Apple needs to make changes because the current operation is not healthy for consumers (and again and this case apart, this isn't only an Apple thing).
Put simply, Apple did what it did for so long because it could. And it got away with it.
Times are changing and Apple doesn't want change but change it will have to.
In the DoJ case specifically, maybe it will or maybe it won't. Currently there is too much political influence being exercised (in all directions) and then there are those technicalities so it's impossible to know how things will go.Conservatives have long railed against over-regulation. Why isn’t this over-regulation?
A smartphone is not what we have traditionally had in desktop and laptop computers.A smartphone, and especially the iPhone, contain more sensitive information, such as health information, protected access to your financial information and more, that were not held on computers in the first 40 years of computers.We got used to buying software for computers from the software publishers direct or as boxed software from stores. The iPhone changed that. It was a new device with many patented inventions in hardware and software that had much more integration of hardware and software.Apple market share the first year it was out was 100% for the new product category it was—because it was so different than any previous smartphone. Android phones emerged while the market was still largely untapped. Samsung was shown to have changed their design to copy Apple’s interface and hardware features—well documented on these pages by Erin Dilger. They switched from a ‘chicklet’ mechanical keyboard to a software capacitive touch keyboard. Apple sued over infringement. Samsung dragged out the legal proceedings for enough years to where the judge in the case had seen the interface so long that it seemed obvious. It wasn’t until it seemed that way due to the nature of our short term memory .Tim Cook visiting President Trump in President Trump’s first term had nothing to do with a Huawei ban. Huawei had been investigated and suspect since President George W. Bush was in office.From Google AI summary, and in line with my recollection:“…Concerns from U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and NSA, about Huawei's potential security threats date back at least to the mid-2000s.Here's a timeline of significant events indicating these concerns:- 2007: The NSA launched "Shotgiant," an operation aimed at potentially discovering ties between Huawei and the Chinese military and compromising Huawei technology to infiltrate networks of Huawei customers in target countries.
- 2008: The U.S. government blocked Huawei's attempt to buy the tech company 3Com, citing national security concerns.
- 2010: The Obama administration banned Huawei from developing Sprint's mobile network, again referencing national security concerns.
- 2012: A report from the U.S. House Intelligence Committee warned that Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE, posed a national security threat to the U.S.
- February 2018: Six top U.S. intelligence chiefs, including the heads of the CIA and NSA, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, advising against the use of Huawei products or services by American citizens and in critical infrastructure. …”
I could burst more bubbles I saw, maybe line-by-line, but nah, I’ve said enough.
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iPadOS 26 multitasking is more Mac-like with menubar, better pointer and more
Sure, but in the end, the iPad is now navigated and interacted with in the same way that a computer has been interacted with since 1992. We could have hoped for a more ambitious, “natural” UX by combining fingers, eyes, voice, and pen with AI. But they gave up, for now.They didn’t give up. They just called it wrap for having something for this year. They have teams working on next years version and beyond."Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." — Lao Tzu
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iPhone 17 Pro rumored to get Liquid Glass color treatment
How about a glass iPhone? It could be sandblasted or etched to be frosted on the inside surface. This could give the appearance of a white liquid glass iPhone.If edge lighting of the glass front and back with RGBW LEDs is done under the metal edges, what ever color the LEDs make will laze through the glass and will either hit the frosted surfaces producing a diffuse glow of color or bounce off the glossy smooth outer face back to the frosted inner surface and voila you have a frosted glowing iPhone in changeable color.Light sensors could detect ambient wavelengths from the environment to determine the color created by the edge LEDs. Or the dominant color being made on the screen could be used to change the iPhone appearance. Or it could be your explicit choice.I worked with some artists that made a lot of money with edge lit etched glass layers (or sand blasted frosting). To keep energy use down, the edge lighting could be limited to a low glow only when asleep or perhaps only when charging.With numerous LEDs along the edge, gradients of color could be formed.
