Let’s Talk Apple — Ep. 63 (November 2018) 1

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
• Allison Sheridan from the NosillaCast Podcast – @podfeet
• Nick Riley – @spligosh

The show starts with a few quick follow up stories, followed by some Apple HR news that broke in November. The three main stories for the month are some repairability trade-offs introduced by the advanced security provided by Apple’s new T2 chip, oral arguments in US Supreme Court case regarding a class action anti-trust case brought against Apple regarding the App Store, and Apple’s new relationship with Amazon. The show finishes with a quick rundown of some smaller 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!

Followups

• As promised at WWDC, Transmit 5 is now back in the Mac App Store as a subscription app — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple VP for product marketing Greg Joswiak said the iPhone XR has “been our most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available” — daringfireball.net/…

Apple HR News

• Apple have hired Ashish Chowdhary, Nokia’s Chief Customer Operations Officer, to take over as Managing Director of South East Asia (mainly India) — www.macobserver.com/…

Main Stories

1. The security provided by Apple’s new T2 chips comes with some tradeoffs to repairability
   • Apple confirms its T2 security chip blocks some third-party repairs of new Macs — www.theverge.com/…
     > The parts affected […] are the display assembly, logic board, top case, and Touch ID board for the MacBook Pro, and the logic board and flash storage on the iMac Pro. It is also likely that logic board repairs on the new MacBook Air and Mac mini are affected, as well as the Mac mini’s flash storage
   • Regarding T2 security chips ‘blocking’ independent Mac repairs… — www.imore.com/…
2. The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case testing whether or not App Store customers have standing to sue Apple over allegations that its app store is anti-competitive.
   • In the lower courts, Apple succeeded in arguing that the class action suit should not be permitted to continue.
   • Apple’s arguments include the fact that it does not set app prices, developers do, and developers are free to set low or high prices, right down to free.
   • Apple used a 1977 supreme court decision (Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois) which found that only consumers who are direct purchasers of a product can bring an anti-trust lawsuit, and when it. comes to the App store that’s the developers, not iOS and Mac users, they are buying apps from developers, not from Apple.
   • The questions the justices asked imply they are leaning towards overturning the lower court’s decision — amylhowe.com/…
   • Should Apple lose the case, the result would be that an anti-trust trial could start.
   • The court is expected to rule next year
3. Amazon & Apple’s Improved Relationship
   • Amazon Kicks Out Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers — tidbits.com/…
   • Apple and Amazon’s new partnership comes to fruition just ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple Music support coming to Amazon Echo devices on December 17th — arstechnica.com/… & blog.aboutamazon.com/…
   • The instructions Allison mentioned for triggering Google Assistant from Siri — lifehacker.com/…

Quick Stories

• There was a lot of recognition of Apple’s socially responsible policies this month:
  • Apple awarded Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for work toward device accessibility — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple managed to improve on last year’s A rating from the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families organisation in their annual Mind the Store report by earning an A+ this year (no other company got an A+) — appleinsider.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
  • The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will award Tim Cook their Courage Against Hate award, and he will deliver a keynote address at their Never Is Now Summit in NYC on December 3 — www.macobserver.com/…
• Steve Jobs Theater Pavilion wins Structural Award for Structural Artistry — www.appleworld.today/… & www.istructe.org/…
• Apple inks deal with Ex Machina-maker A24 studio to create original films — arstechnica.com
• ApplePay News
  • Colluding Banks Allegedly Slowed Apple Pay Switzerland — www.macobserver.com/…
  • Apple Pay Kazakhstan and Belgium Have Arrived — www.macobserver.com/…
  • German Apple Pay to Launch Soon — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple is continuing to work on improving Apple Maps with pedestrian surveys underway in CA — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple Updates Pages with Ability to Publish Directly to Apple Books — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple Empowers Women With App Development Program — www.macobserver.com/…
• Apple Launches Two additional Repair Programs — tidbits.com/…
  • iPhoneX screen replacement to address touch issues
  • 13" Non-Touchbar MacBook Pros for SSD issues