Let’s Talk Apple – Ep. 31 (March 2016) 1

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Panel:

There were no notable numbers month, so the show starts with a quick review of the month’s legal news. The six main stories for the month are: Apple’s legal battle with the FBI, Apple’s March special event, 40 years of Apple and 15 years of OS X, North Carolina’s LGBT discrimination law, and some new on Apple News. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some other shorter stories that made the news in March.

You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!

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Legal Latest
  • Apple lost an important patent case in Germany – it may have to license video technology from a Swiss company, or strip some video streaming services from its products – www.reuters.com/…
  • The US Supreme Court will hear Samsung's appeal in the 2011 case they lost to Apple – this will be the first design patent case the court has heard in a century – www.macobserver.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
  • The Apple -v- Samsung damages re-trial that was due to start on March 28th has been put on hold pending the supreme court's ruling – www.macobserver.com/…
Main Stories
  1. Apple -v- FBI
    • the FBI become openly hostile towards Apple – threaten to go after their source code and private key if Apple don't write GovtOS – www.theguardian.com/…
    • As expected, the DOJ have appealed the similar case they lost in NY recently – www.macobserver.com/…
    • Former CIA director James Woolsey comes out in support of Apple's side of the argument (not explicitly in support of Apple) – www.imore.com/…
    • Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism for the United States, comes out in support of Apple, slamming the FBI's pursuit of weaker encryption – www.macobserver.com/… & daringfireball.net/…
    • Harvard Law professor Susan Crawford says the Law is Clear – the FBI cannot make Apple rewrite its OS – daringfireball.net/…
    • In a surprise move, the FBI have changed the hearing scheduled for Tuesday 22 March into an Evidentially Hearing (being interpreted by commentators as a sign of weakness) – www.macobserver.com/…. Apple's product security expert will give evidence at the hearing – www.theverge.com/…
    • The judge in the case makes it clear that despite the FBI's rhetoric, Apple were at no point 'flouting' the order – www.politico.com/…
    • At the last minute, the FBI canceled the March 22 hearing – they believed they had found a way into the phone without Apple's help, and wanted to give it a go before continuing with the case – www.macobserver.com/…
    • The FBI succeeded in breaking into the phone, and ended the case – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
    • We don't officially know how the FBI broke into the phone, but it seems clear it was this Israeli security firm Cellebrite who broke into the phone, presumably using a zero-day exploit – www.macobserver.com/…, arstechnica.com/… & www.bloomberg.com/…
    • Apple released a statement on the dismissal to the media – www.loopinsight.com/…
    • Apple requested a delay in the other, similar, case in New York, arguing that the FBI should use the same method they used in the San Bernardino case, the case is now on hold until April 11 – www.macobserver.com/… & www.reuters.com/…
    • The EFF warns that the battle for privacy is far from over with the dropping of this one case – www.macobserver.com/…
    • As if to underline the ACLU's point, the US DOJ vows to continue using the courts to compel tech companies to defeat encryption – www.macobserver.com/…
    • The ACLU released an interactive map showing the 63 times the All Writs act has been used against Apple & Google – www.macobserver.com/… & arstechnica.com/…
    • The FBI have agreed to use their new iPhone unlocking technique in an Arkansas homicide case – bigstory.ap.org/…
    • The next battle in this bigger war may already be underway, in secret, in a Boston court – motherboard.vice.com/…
    • The emotions in this on-going fight get ratcheted up again as an Italian father begs Apple to help unlock his dead 13 year old son's iPhone to get the photos off it – arstechnica.com/…
    • Related Stories
      • It's official, the NSA will start sharing data it said it was only collecting to prevent terrorism with other US law enforcement agencies – www.washingtonpost.com/…
      • Apple reportedly designs its own servers to be sure there are no snooping devices embedded in them – arstechnica.com/…
      • Reddit's Warrant Canary just died – boingboing.net/…
      • The NYT is reporting that the attackers in Paris last November used burner phones to evade detection, not encryption – arstechnica.com/…
      • Bloomberg did some great reporting on the back-story to the San Bernardino case – San Bernardino was when a battle that had been going on for years finally became public – www.bloomberg.com/…
  2. Apple's March Media Event
    • Apple is making good progress on it's environmental goals
      • Apple has a robot called Liam for disassembling iPhones for recycling – mashable.com/…
    • Apple introduce CareKit, and open source framework for health apps – arstechnica.com/…
    • The new Apple TV gets an OS update featuring folders and Siri enhancements – www.macobserver.com/…
    • Apple Watch Sport gets a $50 price drop, and Apple release new Nylon bands, and add more colours to their regular sports band range – www.macobserver.com/…
      • Apple launches a cool new interactive Apple Watch gallery to help you pick your watch and bands – www.imore.com/…
    • Apple release iOS 9.3, including powerful new features for the education sector, and a new Night Shift mode – www.macobserver.com/… & www.apple.com/…
      • There were some initial problems with iOS 9.3 bricking some older iPads, Apple released an updated version of the OS to fix this problem – www.macobserver.com/…
      • Some users also experienced a bug clicking on links that seemed to be related to iOS 9's Universal Links feature – Apple released iOS 9.3.1 to address this bug – www.macobserver.com/…
    • Apple introduce the iPhone SE – www.macobserver.com/…
    • Apple release a 9.7" iPad Pro – www.macobserver.com/…
    • We now know both the iPhone SE and 9.7" iPad Pro have 2GB of RAM – the same as the iPhone 6S, but less than the 4GB in the 12.9" iPad Pro – arstechnica.com/…
    • RELATED – Apple released a new app for the ATV 4 for Apple Events – www.macobserver.com/…
  3. 40 years of Apple, and 15 years of OS X
  4. Apple released it's latest Supplier Responsibility Report – www.imore.com/…
    • Apple carried out 640 audits covering 1.6M workers in 25 countries
    • Apple found 97% compliance with it's 60 hour work week limit (an 'unprecedented number' in the industry according to Apple)
    • Since 2008 Apple has trained over 9.2M workers in their rights (3M in 2015)
    • Apple graduated 1,000 workers through their Supplier Employee Education and Development program (SEED)
    • Apple's supply chain lowered it's carbon emissions by more than 13,800 metric tons
    • Apple's supply chain diverted more than 73,000 metric tons of waste away from landfills
    • Apple is making progress on so-called conflict-minerals, all their smelters and refiners are now being monitored by an outside 3rd party – www.buzzfeed.com/…
  5. Apple and other tech companies (including Google & Facebook) challenge North Carolina on a new law enabling LGBT discrimination which was rushed through as an "emergency measure" – www.macobserver.com/…
    • The law out-laws local anti-discrimination bills which cities like Charlotte have passed, and makes it illegal for trans people to use bathrooms for genders that are not their birth gender
    • Being denied access to bathrooms is no small thing – as Zach Stafford explains in the Guardian, it is a big deal, and will drive up the already high suicide rate among trans teens – www.theguardian.com/…
  6. Apple News Quietly Evolves
    • Apple have opened up publishing through the platform to everyone, even bloggers – www.computerworld.com/…
    • Business Insider reports that Apple have the back-end tech in place to start including 'native' ads (sponsored posts) in News – uk.businessinsider.com/…
Quick Stories

Adam at the UK Gadget Show in 2005 – www.maccast.com/…

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