Panel:
- Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
The show starts with some quick followup on a few recently covered and long-running stories before diving into a big serving of regulatory stories, a handful legal story, just one piece of HR news, and some highlights from Apple’s services and original content. The three main stories are a new security feature that appeared unannounced in iOS 18.1, 3rd-party sharing for Find My, and some updates to Apple’s Pro apps. The show finishes with a rundown of a few other quick Apple-related stories that made the news in November.
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!
Updates & Followup
Quick updates to long-running stories the show continues to track, and to stories covered in recent shows.
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AirPods Pro 2 hearing tests and protection features come to France, though not the hearing aid functionality, at last not yet — appleinsider.com/…
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Apple Intelligence developments:
- Developers can begin work on an app intent system that will make Siri smarter in 2025 — appleinsider.com/…
- A high-ranking Chinese Official has said foreign companies need to use Chinese LLMs unless they want to do through an extremely difficult approval process, the statement coincided with a trip to China by Tim Cook, reportedly lobby for approval of Apple Intelligence in the country — www.macobserver.com/…
- Related: Google Gemini Live takes on Siri via a standalone iOS app — appleinsider.com/…
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The Matter standard continues to evolve, V1.4 released — appleinsider.com/… (New devices types include home battery & EV-charging devices, heat pumps, water heaters, and in-wall controllers for lights, fans, etc.)
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Apple's RCS support gets a little better with emoji reactions from Android devices now being displayed just like those from iOS devices — www.macobserver.com/…
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Apple continues to diversity away from China and develop production in India:
Regulatory Rundown
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Apple's attempts to re-gain access to the Indonesian market for the iPhone 16 have not gone well:
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India Rejects Apple’s Request to Suspend Antitrust Investigation Report — www.macobserver.com/… (Apple had previously succeeded in suspending the report over claims it leaked proprietary information)
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The European Commission continues it's focus on Apple:
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Apple have released their first Digital Markets Act (DMA) Compliance Report that includes iPadOS, and the European Commission released a statement saying they are carefully evaluating it and emphasising the possible penalties if Apple are found wanting:
- European regulators evaluate iPadOS changes for compliance with Digital Markets Act — appleinsider.com/…
- The public version of Apple's report — www.apple.com/… (PDF)
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Following an investigation by national authorities in Ireland, Belgium & Germany the Commission has notified Apple that the geo-blocking within Apple Media Services (App Store, Apple Arcade, Music, iTunes Store, Books and Podcasts) breach EU anti-geo-blocking laws — European Commission PR
- The scope of Europe's law is internal to Europe, so I believe a lot of the analysis on American sites is misunderstanding what is being demanded — it is not about Apple allowing Europeans to watch American Netflix, but about Belgians being able to watch German Netflix, Irish people being able to download French apps, and so on. (Example of the kind of reporting I believe is wrong: EU's latest demand on Apple about geolocking is unforgivably naive — appleinsider.com/…)
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Related: Apple suppliers are also in the cross-hairs: Corning faces antitrust actions for its Gorilla Glass dominance — arstechnica.com/…
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EU drops four-year Apple audiobook probe after complaint is withdrawn — appleinsider.com/…
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Apple's browser rules deemed anticompetitive, says UK competition body — appleinsider.com/…
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The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have announced that they will start supervising large digital wallet providers, and Apple Pay is very likely to come under scrutiny — appleinsider.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
Legal Latest
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A judge in an existing class action suite against Apple over the App Store has approved an expansion of the class to cover more customers over more years — www.macobserver.com/…
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The well known consumer advocacy group Which! is suing Apple for £3Bn over the alleged anti-competitive nature of iCloud — appleinsider.com/…
The argument is that "iOS has a monopoly" and that Apple has used that "dominance to gain an unfair advantage in related markets, like the cloud storage market." Specifically, Apple is accused of making it difficult to use alternative suppliers.
- DOJ -v- Apple: Apple have presented their arguments that the entire case should be thrown out, we now await a judgement — appleinsider.com/… (the bar is very high for Apple here, so success seems unlikely)
Apple HR & Acquisition News
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Apple prompts Molly Anderson from Head of Industrial Design to VP of Industrial Design — www.macobserver.com/…
- The VP of Industrial Desk title was last held by Evan Hankey
- Design had been reporting to COO Jeff Williams as an interim measure since Hankey left
Apple Services & Original Content Highlights
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It's awards & rankings time!
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Apple Music Classical is now available in CarPlay — appleinsider.com/…
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Have happier holidays with 15 new Apple Arcade games — www.cultofmac.com/… ( Apple PR)
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Apple Pay:
- Apple Pay officially launches in Paraguay — appleinsider.com/…
- Tap-to-Pay for merchants (receiving payments) comes to New Zealand — appleinsider.com/…
Main Stories
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iOS 18.1 brought a new security feature to iPhones: Inactivity Reboot — www.bleepingcomputer.com/…
- iOS devices that have been locked for longer than a few days now automatically reboot to put themselves into the more secure before first unlock mode.
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Apple’s Find My enables users to share the location of lost items with third parties — Apple PR
- Find My's Share Item Location will help airlines find your luggage — appleinsider.com/… (including Air Canada, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, and even Aer Lingus )
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Apple updates it's Pro Apps
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Final Cut Pro 11 begins a new chapter for video editing on Mac — Apple PR
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Apple also updated Logic Pro, adding Quantec Room Simulation — appleinsider.com/…
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Quick Stories
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Apple slashes MacBook Pro speaker repair costs — appleinsider.com/…
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The campaign group Toxic-Free Future has released their 2024 Retailer Report Card, and Apple tops the rankings — appleinsider.com/…
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The report's aims:
"The 2024 Retailer Report Card grades the largest retailers in the U.S. and Canada on their actions to eliminate highly hazardous chemicals and plastics and replace them with safer solutions."
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Apple was the only company to get an A grade with a score of 84%, the next closest retailers are Sephora & Walmart with 69% & 65%
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Apple have extended their return periods again, from 8 November items can be returned until January 8th (usual policy is 2 weeks) — www.cultofmac.com/…
- Related: from November 29th to December 8th Apple Pay transactions in Apple's stores will support Product RED — www.cultofmac.com/… (to mark world AIDS day on 1 Dec)
Legend
Note: When the textual description of a link is part of the link it is the title of the page being linked to, when the text describing a link is not part of the link it is a description written by Bart.
| Emoji | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A press release or official statement. | |
| A link to audio content, probably a podcast. | |
| flag | The story is particularly relevant to people living in a specific country, or, the organisation the story is about is affiliated with the government of a specific country. |
| A link to graphical content, probably a chart, graph, or diagram. | |
| A link to an article behind a pay-wall. | |
| A pinned story, i.e. one to keep an eye on that's likely to develop into something significant in the future. |