Twitter launches the community feature, the Apple Watch 7 will be available in limited quantities, Apple is giving up child safety features, demands for seven years of updates and repairs, a significant increase in the prices of Apple products, demands to stop the production of the iPhone in China, and other exciting news in the margins…

News on the sidelines Week Mar 5 - Mar 11


Rumor: iPhone 14 Pro is coming with a face ID under the screen

We're still about a week away from the launch of the iPhone 13, but the rumors about the iPhone 14 models are already circulating and spreading more this week, even on YouTube, some of them talked about it as if it was the next. We've heard about notch or notch-free phone screen designs since March, and this was repeated by leaker John Prosser. Apple is expected to ditch the notch in favor of a punch-hole camera, and screen analyst Ross Young says Apple is also working on an under-display Face ID.

Young shared his predictions for Under-Screen Face ID last June, but highlighted them again this week and said Apple is working on Under-Screen Face ID for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models. The iPhone 14 is still under development, and the Face ID under the screen has not been completed and may not be adopted next year, but plans confirm that there is a change that will happen soon.

As Prosser mentioned, the chassis will be thicker to allow for the absence of a protrusion for the rear camera and that it will be equal to the rear glass, and the frame will be titanium, and the volume buttons will be similar to those found in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 models, and the speaker holes have been redesigned. The audio and microphone will have long mesh holes instead of individual ones, and the Lightning connector will remain on at least some iPhone 14 models.


A Chinese artificial intelligence company wants Apple to stop production of the iPhone due to allegations of patent infringement

A Chinese artificial intelligence company has asked the court to stop the production and sale of the iPhone in China, claiming that Siri infringes its patent. Apple was hit last year with a $1.4 billion lawsuit from Chinese artificial intelligence firm Xiao-i Robot, which alleges Apple infringed its patent for a virtual assistant similar to Siri. At the time, the company asked Apple to stop using all products that infringe its patent, which includes all devices with Siri.

In the latest escalation of the lawsuit, Xiao-i-Robot asked a court in Shanghai to force Apple to end production and sale of the iPhone in the country. The company announced that it had applied for a preliminary injunction over its WeChat account before Apple announced its "California Streaming" event for Tuesday, September 14.

If judged by Xiao-i-Robot, it could significantly affect Apple's supply chain. While the ruling is unlikely to directly affect the launch of the iPhone 13‌ this month, it could affect future iPhone launches.


Apple begins introducing iOS 15 features before the September 14 event

For the first time, before the official announcement of the new iPhone and the new system, the upcoming iOS 15 features began to be launched on older iPhone devices using notifications from the Tips application titled “Learn what’s coming in iOS 15, learn about new features that help you stay connected.” focus,

Clicking on the notification takes users on a brief tour of upcoming features, including sound isolation, a new Shared With You section in apps, Safari Tab groups, live text in images, system-wide translation, focus mode, notification summaries, and traffic directions. Augmented reality in Maps, and after viewing, an ‌iOS 15‌ preview is displayed in the Groups section of the Tips app, on top of a similar preview that Apple paid prior to the release of iOS 14.


Twitter tests edge-to-edge photos and videos on iOS

Twitter is testing "global" tweets that would make viewing photos and videos full screen. As the Twitter demo shows, the change brings an Instagram-style look to your media on Twitter, taking advantage of space on either side of photos, videos, and GIFs.


Survey: Only 6% of iPhone users in the US use Apple Pay

Seven years after the launch of Apple Pay in September 2014, 93.9% of users who have Apple Pay are active on their devices and don't use it to pay for in-store purchases, meaning only 6.1% use it. In 2015, the year after the launch of Apple Pay, a study found that Apple Pay use was only 5.1%, and this has increased by just one degree Celsius in the past six years.

The growth of Apple Pay at this time may be attributed to social distancing and only touch shooting with an account, as protection from Corona, especially in stores. Since 2015, the total amount of Apple Pay transactions in US retail stores has increased from $5 billion to $90 billion this year.

The main reason for the lack of use may be due to the continued dominance of other plastic cards. Additionally, in the time since the launch of Apple Pay, banks have issued an increasing number of contactless debit and credit cards, which most users have preferred over Apple Pay.


Hide your "last seen" status on WhatsApp from specific contacts

WhatsApp is giving users the option to adjust the visibility of their “last seen” status on a call-by-contact basis. Currently, you can disable the “last seen” status so that other contacts can’t see when you were last online, but the setting options are limited to “Everyone,” “My Contacts,” and “Nobody,” and there is no way to make exceptions for individual contacts. And that appears to change, based on the options that WABetaInfo discovered in a WhatsApp beta. In the privacy settings, you add an option “My contacts except…” which will let you mark specific contacts so they don’t see when you were last active on WhatsApp.


Apple products could see price hikes due to rising chip costs

Apple will need to pay more money for the chips in its devices and this will of course reflect on its customers, and TSMC, Apple's main chip supplier, is in the process of increasing its prices after the broader inflation in the industry caused by a global chip shortage. The company's planned price increases are said to be the biggest chip price hikes in a decade.

TSMC chips were already about 20% more expensive compared to its competitors, and had committed to investing $100 billion in new investments over the next three years, the company is increasing their prices to maintain its premiums and as a result will pass on those additional costs to customers.


Germany urges EU to require 7 years of updates and fixes for iOS devices

The European Commission recently proposed a law that mobile device manufacturers should provide software updates and replacement parts for five years, with tablet parts available for six years. It also wants to compel manufacturers to publish the prices of spare parts and to ensure that they do not increase, and to deliver the mentioned parts within a period not exceeding five working days.

However, Germany wants the EU to go further by demanding seven years of upgrades and the availability of parts. In addition, manufacturers want to offer spare parts at a "reasonable price" and deliver parts faster, a point they would like to discuss with UNHCR.


Apple pressured to completely abandon controversial child safety features

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it's pleased with Apple's decision to delay the launch of controversial child safety features, and wants it to go further and drop it altogether.

Apple said Friday that it is delaying the planned features to "take additional time over the coming months to gather input and make improvements," after negative feedback from a wide range of individuals and organizations, including security researchers, politicians, others, and even some Apple employees.

Planned features include scanning users' iCloud photo libraries for child sexual abuse (CSAM) material, safety communications to warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit images, and expanded CSAM instructions in Siri and search.


Apple Watch 7 will be available in limited quantities at launch

Although the Apple Watch 7 is experiencing production issues, Apple still plans to announce it with the iPhone 13, but it will be available in limited quantities at launch, according to Mark Gorman, a famous analyst and journalist, who identified three possible outcomes of production issues. Hourly: The company postpones the announcement of the watch until production issues are resolved, or proceeds with advertising and availability in limited quantities, or advertises the watch but produces it at a later time.


Miscellaneous news

◉ Twitter announced the launch of the “Communities” feature, the new way to easily reach people who share the same interests, similar to groups on Facebook.

◉ Inventories of the XNUMXth generation iPad are low in retail stores and online, indicating that an update to the cheaper iPad may be imminent and may arrive as soon as this month.

◉ Doug Field, Apple's vice president of special projects, has announced that he is leaving Apple and giving up his work on the Apple car in favor of a position at Ford, Ford has announced.

◉ Apple released a second revised version of the AirTag firmware and focuses only on bug fixes and improvements, and the silent update is done through a connected iPhone.

◉ Apple has hired two former Mercedes engineers to join it as part of its efforts to further develop the Apple Car.

◉ Apple is developing several new watch faces options that will take advantage of the larger screen size of upcoming 7 models.


This is not all the news that is on the sidelines, but we have brought you the most important of them, and it is not necessary for a non-specialist to occupy himself with every oddity and incidence,
There are more important things that you do in your life, do not let the devices distract you or distract you from your life and your duties, and know that technology is there to facilitate life and help you in it, and if it robs you of your life and preoccupies you, then there is no need for it.

Sources:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | | | 10| 11| 12| 13| 14| 15

Related articles