News on the sidelines the week of October 1-8

The antitrust report condemns Apple, which rejects the report and attacks it, America threatens Taiwanese companies, Apple stops selling third-party headphones, store revenues exceeding 18 billion last quarter, and other news on the sidelines.

Antitrust attacks the four big techs

The Antitrust Committee of the US House of Representatives announced its report on the more than a year of investigation into the quartet of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon, which included more than 1.3 million documents. The report consisted of 450 pages, and the highlights of it are:

The four companies have been described as carrying out types of monopolies similar to those that used to happen in the past in America of oil and railroad tycoons and old businessmen.

◉ The report explained that despite the fact that the companies are in different fields, there are common characteristics between them, such as that they work as gatekeepers, and they choose who enters and who does not, and they control the access of companies to the markets. Information about companies that they can use to create competitive services that are not subject to the same rules nor the same fees charged to others.

◉ The report gave an example of Apple and said that it is the only channel to reach iOS customers and Apple exploits this by imposing fees and commissions and putting in place whatever laws they want, and whether or not the companies agree to them, they must comply with these regulations and thus have no choice but to obey Apple and play with its regulations. At the same time, Apple is forcing iOS customers to obtain applications from one source, and they have no other choice. In this way, Apple has control over customers and companies alike.

◉ The report gave an additional example with the parental control service and said that when Apple was not in this field it allowed companies to provide applications, then Apple decided to enter it and deleted all competing applications and placed crippling restrictions in front of them. The same thing is that it refused requests from companies to put the option to replace Siri so that Apple continues to monopolize the system's knowledge of everything that the user does. Thus, Apple is not neutral in the role of gatekeeper, but rather forces the customer to do a certain thing whenever it wants.

◉ The committee advised to review laws on corporate acquisitions and mergers in order to restore legal authority and improve fair competition in the digital world. The committee requested that Congress impose oversight on companies entering "converging" areas in the field.

The committee's report does not mean that the companies have been convicted and a decision will be issued against them; Where the committee is committed to conducting investigations and submits a report to the council, and it discusses the report extensively and can summon companies and in the end it can issue a law binding on all or save the investigation.

It is reported that Microsoft is not currently in the position of an accusation because it was subject to the same order in 2000 and since that time it has cooperated with the investigative authorities in America and has almost permanent oversight. The committee even hired the president of Microsoft to testify in the investigations as a technical specialist. Microsoft's president at the time condemned technology companies and their current practices, especially Apple.

Apple rejects the report and attacks it

For its part, Apple commented on the report and attacked it; Apple stated that it differs sharply with the conclusions that came in the report and said that it does not have a monopoly on smartphones, as it is accused of forcing customers and developers (i.e. you mean that there is Android, so customers and companies go to it if they feel that Apple is forcing them to do something). And Apple said that 12 years ago there were only 500 applications, but now there are millions and companies have won because of Apple and said that its system caused a trade of 138 billion dollars last year and 85% of this amount was from other companies, not Apple (meaning that, for example, the user By downloading the Amazon app on iOS and using it to buy goods, Apple provided Amazon with an access mechanism for iPhone customers, and Apple does not get a percentage of this sales). The company said that it gets the same commission as is common in the markets, and nothing more. She added that it seeks to develop innovation while preserving customer safety and privacy.

Apple prohibits the sale of any company's headphones in its stores in preparation for its new products

There is a lot of news circulating that Apple intends to launch a mini-generation HomePod in Next Tuesday's conference So that it is available at a better price than its older brother. There is also news about an upcoming headphone under the name Apple Studio that will appear at the conference as well. In a move that confirms that Apple intends to do this, the company removed all headphones, whether desktop or headphones, from all companies from its stores, so that the only available option is the Apple headset. This step confirms the imminent release of the product, because it is similar to what it did before when the watch was launched, where it stopped selling sports tires from Nike and various companies.

Apple is planning a TV with processors A12 and A14 and a new controller

Reports revealed that Apple is currently working on developing two versions of Apple TV that work with the A12 processor (for the iPhone Xs) and the A14 processor (the iPhone 12). The report indicates that Apple is also working on developing a new control arm, and the leaks did not clarify whether it was intended for a completely new traditional "remote" or a gaming arm. And leaked news that Apple aims to convert the TV into a gaming device by providing powerful processors, either the A12 or a modified version of the A14.

America is pressuring Taiwan companies to leave China

Press reports revealed that officials from the American Institute in Taiwan (the US Embassy) visited a number of major technology companies in Taiwan and asked them to set timetables for leaving the Chinese market. Reports mentioned that the visits were not friendly and there were frank questions to the suppliers such as why don't you move your production lines outside China or why are they moving slowly and why do they continue in China? These questions indicate an implicit threat that the US administration sees these companies do not want to transfer their production lines, and therefore they are friendly companies to China and whoever is a friend of China will be subject to penalties such as restrictions on the supply of equipment to Apple, as the report indicated that Apple's suppliers were among the companies that were visited.

The iPhone 13 will have a 120Hz screen and the iPhone SE-3 will arrive in 2022

It seems that the analysts have ended the iPhone 12 leaks for them and the iPhone 13 leaks have started, as the screen analyst Ross Young stated that Apple has a plan to become all the iPhone 13 devices, including the regular version with an OLED screen, and LG will be a major supplier for 3 versions of the four. . The analyst said that the iPhone Pro will support the renewal of 120Hz, or what Apple calls ProMotion, which is in the iPad Pro. The analyst said that for the iPhone SE the third generation, it will be released in 2022 and will also have a 6.06-inch LCD screen from Anta, Sharp and Japan Monitors Corporation.

The image at the top shows the screen suppliers and the SDC symbol for Samsung, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max screen will be imported separately. LG and BOE share the supply of iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 screen owners with a 6.06-inch screen (ie the traditional 6.1 screen), while LG and Samsung share a supply of the 13-inch iPhone 5.42 mini.

The first performance tests of the A14 processor appear

GeekBench revealed the results of performance tests of the new iPad Air working with the A14 processor, and the results revealed that the iPad comes with a 6-core processor with a speed of 2.99Ghz and 3.66GB memory and achieved performance results of 1583 points for the single core and 4198 points for multiple cores, which is a performance much higher than the current processors, but compared to The leaked results of the SD875 processor, which is expected to be released for Android phones in 2021, with the numbers being 1159 for the single core and 4100 for the multiple cores; Hopes for the leaks of the Samsung Exynos 1000 processor, which we expect to see next year, so its performance was 1302 for the single core and 4250 for the multiple cores, which would outperform the multiple cores of Apple.

But to clarify, the Exynos 1000 and SD875 processor are leaks and we are expected to see them in 2021 with devices.

IOS Store revenue increased 20% last quarter

A report by App Annie revealed the revenues of software stores, as the report stated that the Apple Store achieved $ 18 billion last quarter, an increase of 20% over the same quarter, while Google Store achieved an increase of 35% and reached $ 10 billion. Games account for 80% of Google's revenue, while games on iOS account for only 65%. While in the context of the number of downloads, the share of Apple's 8 billion downloads of applications, while Google's share of 25 billion downloads. Games accounted for 45% of new downloads in Google and 30% on iOS.

Another report from the Sensor Tower Research Center indicated that the Apple software store achieved nearly double the revenues the Google Store made in the last quarter, as shown in the following picture:

This is why an FDA-approved apple doesn't need the oxygen sensor

When Apple announced the fourth generation watch and its ECG sensor at the time, the company said that it had obtained approval from the medical authorities in America, the FDA. But this year, it revealed the sixth generation of the watch, which includes an oxygen sensor, but did not mention that it was approved by the FDA, so how did this happen? The answer came from a report by The Verge, which explained that the oxygen sensor is legally a second class medical device and needs permission from the FDA, but the permit may not be obtained if the device is not marketed as a medical, i.e. marketed as a luxury product, which is what Apple did, as it made it clear that it is not a device. medical.

Miscellaneous news

◉ Apple has provided the Look Around feature in its maps in a new number of US cities and states. The feature is the competition and similar to Google's Street View feature

◉ Apple has joined the ACE Alliance, an alliance of large numbers of visual content makers in America that aims to combat piracy and prevent illegal viewing of videos over the Internet.

◉ Apple announced that by October 31, the iPhone 5c will turn into a "vintage" device, a term that means that there is no maintenance for this device at Apple's headquarters. But the company made it clear that it might provide maintenance in some headquarters, if any of the required hardware parts were found, but if they were not available, the company is not obligated to maintain. The 2014 MacBook got the same thing and became a Vintage.

◉ Apple has provided Health records for iPhone users in England and Canada. The feature enables the user to clarify all the details of his health status and history to his doctor, and it is synchronized with the records of the medical institutions in the supported countries.

Twitter, in cooperation with Apple, has created a new logo that appears when selecting the conference hashtag #AppleEvent

◉ The publication of an account specializing in leaks, an illustrative hand-drawn image indicating the difference in the size of the projected bump on the iPhone 13 compared to the protrusion of the iPhone currently.

◉ Apple has changed the logo for the Connect app, which is the developers' application that controls their account in the software store.

◉ Apple has submitted an application to register a commercial logo, iPhone For Life, or “iPhone for Life,” and reports said that this logo had previously been used by a number of companies selling iPhone products, as well as by Sprint Communications. It is not known why Apple intends to register this logo, so will it be a marketing logo for iPhone 12 or will it provide a service?

◉ Google has updated the Gmail application logo to become the current logo:

Instagram celebrated 10 years of its establishment and launched a number of new features that enable you to view your photos and divide them according to day or according to places.

◉ A security report revealed that a permanent security vulnerability has been found in Intel devices operating on the T2 security chip. The vulnerability, according to the researchers, is present in the hardware, this means that it is not fixable, and it enables the hacker to circumvent the encryption and passwords.

◉ Performance reports showed that the iPad Air version 2020 comes with 4 GB memory.

◉ This week, Apple revived the 9th anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs, which was last October 5, the day before the iPhone 4s was unveiled.

◉ Some tvOS 14 users revealed that 4K quality in the YouTube app is starting to appear.

◉ Watch a test to find out the intensity of the screen brightness of the 6th generation watch compared to the previous 5th generation.

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