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Viral AirTag discovery behind license plate likely staged
This could have been staged, under the circumstances I wouldn't argue that it wasn't. But some of these things don't seem suspicious to me.AppleInsider said:A young woman has alleged that she found an Apple AirTag tucked behind her license plate on TikTok intended to stalk her, earning her nine million views -- but the recollection of the tale is suspicious.
Ashley, who goes by @_ashleyscarlett on TikTok, recently posted a video where she claims she's found an Apple AirTag tucked behind her license plate. She noted that a passenger in her car got an alert on their iPhone that an unfamiliar AirTag was tracking them.
In a later video, she explains that the AirTag had been placed on her car in a four-minute gap while she was parked in Los Angeles. She claims that the data was corroborated by her Dodge Charger's built-in tracking system.
She states that she called the police, who told her that the situation was "a non-life threatening emergency," and told her to report it down at the station. Ashley goes on to explain that she'd rather contact Apple with the information provided by the alert.@_ashleyscarlettReply to @ann_baby7 ##greenscreen ##greenscreenvideo I will be contacting @apple with the air tags info but never in a million years did I think!
original sound - ash
However, there are reasons to be skeptical of her story.
According to posts on both Ashley's Twitter and Instagram, she also has an iPhone which was presumably used to record the account of the incident. This means that her phone should have also received an alert during this time frame as well, assuming it wasn't her AirTag in the first place.
Additionally, Newsweek called the local police department to follow up on the allegations. A local public information officer for the Riverside police department stated that there were no reports of any such incident. Newsweek also attempted to contact Ashley but has not received a response.
Ashley said in her video that the AirTag supplied her with a partial phone number, which is questionable.
"And their phone number -- uh, I mean, the last 4 digits" were shown, according to the Newsweek reporting, and AppleInsider viewing of the video account. Given that AirTag owners select what information to display when an AirTag is scanned, it seems improbable that a stalker would tell Apple's iCloud that displaying this information would be acceptable, nor would it be useful in the case of an actual lost AirTag.
Apple has made sure to equip the AirTags with built-in anti-tracking features. An iPhone user will automatically receive a notification that an unknown AirTag has been following them.
Similarly, the alert provides information to the user and the ability to play a tone to help locate the device, as Ashley did.
Every AirTag features a unique serial number, which means it can be traced back to the iPhone it is paired with. This allows law enforcement and Apple to figure out who may have lost, misplaced, or placed an AirTag with ill-intent.
Read on AppleInsider
First, she indicates that she didn't go file a report with the police. So it makes sense that they wouldn't have a searchable report. Second, you can get the last 4 digits of the phone number a found AirTag is linked to even if it isn't in lost mode and the owner hasn't shared their whole phone number. (Using NFC you can get a link that leads to a page that looks like the second image on this page.) Third, I don't think she - in addition to her friend - would have gotten an alert about an unknown AirTag if she had bluetooth turned off on her iPhone. I'm not sure how common it is, but some people I know routinely have bluetooth turned off on their iPhones. And her friend might have just gotten the alert shortly before she would have. (Maybe her friend was traveling with her the whole time? That isn't clear.)
Anyway, maybe this is legit. Or, of course, maybe it isn't.
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Apple not a monopoly but must allow alternate payment methods for apps, judge rules
A defendant doesn't have to have monopoly power to violate California's Unfair Competition Law in the way that they do in order to violate, e.g., certain parts of the Sherman Act.foregoneconclusion said:I'm not sure this ruling will hold up under appeal. If the App Store isn't really a monopoly, why would Apple be disallowed from anti-steering clauses that are standard practice for web retailers and online sellers?
Apple wasn't found to have violated the federal Sherman Act or even California's Cartwright Act.
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Apple not a monopoly but must allow alternate payment methods for apps, judge rules
This is a pretty long opinion with a lot going on in it. I haven't finished reading it yet, but on the whole I'd say this result is pretty good for Apple. It could have been better for Apple, and I disagree with some of Judge Rogers' reasoning, but if I were Apple I'd count this decision more as a win than a loss. My quick take is that Apple loses in some narrow strokes while it wins in the broad ones.
I'd also note that, as I read (what I've read so far of) the opinion and orders, Apple can continue to exclude Epic from the App Store based on Epic's breach of contract. It looks like Apple is also now free to terminate the account used for Unreal Engine. I need to finish reading the whole opinion to be sure about that though.
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Apple's Cook receives, sells off over 5M shares of AAPL stock worth more than $750M
He’s taxed on $754 million as ordinary income. That’s the value of the shares when they vested on Tuesday, based on the closing price that day. He owes taxes on that income whether he sells the shares or not. Apple typically withholds a portion of the shares - a little over 50% in Mr. Cook’s case - and remits their value to taxing authorities to cover withholding requirements. Those share don’t actually get sold. Instead Apple remits their value for tax purposes and they effectively were never issued.dmskalnm said:Not sure how his award works, but did he just pay short term capital gains tax on $751 million of stock? Nice of him to donate to Uncle Sam I guess, but he couldn't wait a year?
Mr. Cook would also have a short term capital loss of about $2.5 million because the shares he sold went down in value (on average) by the time he sold them the next day. In the alternative, he might have a long term capital gain on those shares. It depends on how he accounts for stock sales - first in, first out (FIFO) or last in, first out (LIFO). The shares he sold on Wednesday could be considered to be the shares he just got on Tuesday or they could be considered to be shares he had previously.
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Tim Cook about to get $750 million Apple stock payday
Mr. Cook likely already got these shares (minus withholding for tax purposes) on Tuesday. We just don't have a Section 16 filing about that yet because they have 3 days to make such a filing.
I'd also note that, according to a recent filing, Mr. Cook made a charitable donation of shares worth more than $10 million last Friday.
