Let’s Talk Apple — Ep. 78 (February 2020)

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots
• Nick Riley from the Essential Apple Podcast – @spligosh
• Lynda Gousha from the Silicon Valley MUG – @llg4cdg

The show starts with a few followup stories, two notable numbers, a few legal stories, a few Apple staffing changes, and a quick overview of news related to Apple’s original content. The four main stories are the Corona virus, a kerfuffle setoff by some creating maths from AV vendor Malware Bytes, some over-hyped reporting on AFib detection with Apple Watch, and a collection of stories around HomeKit. The show ends with a quick rundown of some smaller Apple-related stories that made the news in February.

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!

Followup

• The push to break encryption continues:
  • 🇺🇸 Backdoor to encryption back on agenda in absurdly named bill — 9to5mac.com/…
  • 🇬🇧 MI5 Chief Wants ‘Exceptional Access’ to Encrypted Messages — www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇨🇳 Apple to start enforcing a rule requiring all games in the Chinese App Store to be certified as legal by the Chinese government. Developers have until June to get their paperwork in order — www.imore.com/… & www.macobserver.com/…
• 🇮🇪 Apple have changed the company registrations for their Irish entities from Unlimited to Limited, which means they will need to start filing public accounts. This should bring at least some more transparency to Apple’s tax dealings — www.irishtimes.com/…
• 🇺🇸 The US government’s scrutiny of Apple and the other major tech companies continues: The FTC is looking into the acquisitions made by Apple, Google, and more — www.imore.com/… & Feds launch a probe into Big Tech’s smallest acquisitions — arstechnica.com/…
• Apple Card transactions can now be exported in OFX — www.imore.com/…
• Fitbit rolls out blood oxygen monitoring to more users — www.imore.com/…

Notable Numbers

• Google has paid Android developers about half of what Apple has — www.theverge.com/…
• Apple Watch reportedly sold more units than every Swiss watchmaker combined — www.imore.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple forced to pay its CA Apple Store employees overtime for the compulsory bag searches the company has been imposing — www.imore.com/…
• Apple loses its attempt to force a VirnetX patent rehearing — www.imore.com/… & Apple will have to pay VirnetX $440 million after a decision not to hear its appeal — www.imore.com/…
• Gerard Williams, the former Apple exec who is being sued by Apple for starting a rival chip company on Apple’s time and with Apple’s resources as well as for poaching Apple employees is now suing Apple for poaching his employees — www.imore.com/…
• 🇫🇷 Apple fined 25 million euros in France for slowing down older iPhones with iOS — www.imore.com/…
  • Opinion: Apple is right to slow down older iPhones, here’s why — www.imore.com/…

Apple HR & Acquisition News

• Liz Schimel, head of Apple News, has left Apple — www.bloomberg.com/…
  • Related: Siri can help you follow along with all US election coverage — www.imore.com/…
• Two Apple VPs are leaving the company, Nick Forlenza, a vice president of manufacturing design is retiring, and Duco Pasmooij is said to be negotiating an exist — www.imore.com/…
• Former Warner Music executive Jeff Bronikowski joins Apple as Global Head of Strategic Music Initiatives — www.imore.com/…

Apple Original Content Update

• O’Shea Jackson Jr. will now play the lead role in Apple TV+ show ‘Swagger’ — www.imore.com/…
• ‘Swan Song’ is Apple TV+’s newest original movie starring Mahershala Ali — www.imore.com/…
• Apple TV+ Show ‘Shantram’ Halts Prodcution — www.macobserver.com/…
• Tramell Tillman joins Ben Stiller’s upcoming Apple TV+ show ‘Severance’ — www.imore.com/…
• Director Rian Johnson says Apple won’t let iPhones be used by bad guys in movies — www.imore.com/…

Main Stories

1. Corona Virus Chaos
   • Foxconn intends to quarantine workers for up to 2 weeks to combat coronavirus — www.imore.com/… & Coronavirus forcing isolation of factory workers, cut in Foxconn growth estimates — appleinsider.com/…
   • AirPods production has come to a crawl due to risk from coronavirus — www.imore.com/…
   • IPhone Maker Foxconn Warns Staff to Keep Away From Shenzhen Base — www.bloomberg.com/…
   • Foxconn, maker of Apple’s iPhone, will begin producing surgical masks to combat coronavirus — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple extends most Chinese store closures, some as far as Feb 15 — www.imore.com/…
   • Foxconn told it cannot reopen its factories by Chinese authorities — www.imore.com/…
   • Foxconn has re-opened its Zhengzhou iPhone plant, but only 10% of its workforce turned up — www.imore.com/…
   • Source says it will take “at least one to two months” for Foxconn to resume normal manufacturing — www.imore.com/…
   • Beijing Apple stores reopening February 14 — www.imore.com/…
   • Covid-19 leads to cancellation of Mobile World Congress — www.theverge.com/… & www.imore.com/…
   • Apple says that it won’t meet its Q2 earnings guidance because of coronavirus impact — www.imore.com/…
     • Related: Tim Cook explains Apple’s “slower return to normal” in leaked memo to Apple employees — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple moving production from China to Taiwan due to Wuhan coronavirus — www.taiwannews.com.tw/… & Report: Apple moving production to Taiwan amidst virus concern — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple reopens 10 more China stores including Shanghai and Guangzhou locations — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple reopens 2 more stores in China, bringing total to 17. — www.imore.com/…
   • Foxconn ‘cautiously restarting production’ at main factories — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple supplier SK Hynix orders 800 staff to stay home over coronavirus fears — appleinsider.com/…
   • Coronavirus is increasing demand for iPads as students, workers stay home — www.imore.com/…
   • Foxconn offering workers incentives as it tries to fulfill iPhone shipments — www.imore.com/…
   • 32 Apple stores reopen in China as special business hours come to an end — www.imore.com/…
   • Apple is warning shareholders attending tomorrow’s annual meeting of coronavirus risks — www.imore.com/…
   • Foxconn has turned to the ‘SARS hero’ in its ongoing battle with coronavirus — www.imore.com/…
2. AV vendor Malware Bytes made waves with an evocatively titled report claiming there are more malware threats against the Mac than against Windows PCs:
   • Malwarebytes: Malware threats per endpoint on Mac double that of Windows — www.imore.com/…
   • Research: Macs Saw Almost Twice as Much Malware as Windows PCs in 2019 — www.tomshardware.com/…
   • Malware threats on Macs outpace Windows for first time ever — www.loopinsight.com/…
   • Related Opinion: The State of Scamware on the Mac — daringfireball.net/…
3. New reporting on Apple Watch made for a very dramatic headline, but it’s a stretch. A 2019 study has found that 84% of Apple Watch’s AFib detections prove to be accurate. Paperwork submitted by Apple to the US FDA states that the watch does not reliably detect AFib when pulse rates are abnormally low or high (<50pbm & >120BPM). A 2015 paper studying people who recently developed AFib found that their average pulse was 109, and one third of them had a pulse over 120, putting them outside the Apple Watch’s reliable detection window.
   • Apple Watch may miss AFib in as many as 59% of cases despite the fancy sensors — www.imore.com/…
   • Opinion: Should consumers be wary of Apple’s heartbeat monitoring app? — www.loopinsight.com/…
   • Related: Apple, Johnson & Johnson Launch ‘Heartline’ Study — www.macobserver.com/…
4. A good month for HomeKit
   • The Smart Security Kit from abode is now HomeKit-compatible — www.imore.com/…
   • Landsea Homes introduces High Performance Homes featuring HomeKit — www.imore.com/…
   • 🇦🇺 Australian company debuts disability accommodation powered by HomeKit — www.imore.com/…
   • HomeKit support starts to roll out on routers:
     • Eero have release a firmware update to enable HomeKit support on their Eero, Eero Pro, and Eero Beacon routers. These are the first routers to get the feature announced at last summer’s WWDC — Amazon’s Eero Mesh Routers Now Support Apple HomeKit — www.macobserver.com/…
     • Homekit support is coming to Linksys routers soon — www.imore.com/…
     • HomeKit Routers: Everything you need to know — www.imore.com/…

Quick Stories

• Apple held their Annual Shareholder Meeting on the 26th of February — 9to5mac.com/…
  • Apple shareholders reject proposed board report on freedom of expression — www.imore.com/…
  • Apple confirms its first India store won’t open until 2021 — www.imore.com/…
    • Related: Apple’s smartphone business grew by 41 percent in India last year — www.imore.com/…
• Apple has joined the FIDO Alliance — www.imore.com/… & www.forbes.com/…
• App Store improvements:
  • Apple adds ability for developers to sell Mac and iOS apps as a single purchase — 9to5mac.com/…
  • Apple tells app developers how to send customized apps to schools — www.imore.com/…
• Apple brings Swift Playgrounds to the Mac — www.cultofmac.com/…

• Apple Music Teams up With Genius to Produce ‘Verified’ — www.macobserver.com/…

  Verified, the show from Genius in which artists explain the lyrics to their biggest hits, now premieres exclusively on Apple Music

• 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇦 Microsoft launched a limited trial of their XCloud gaming service on iOS for 10K users in the US, UK or Canada — www.imore.com/…

  • How to sign-up and play Xbox Project xCloud Preview tests on iOS — www.imore.com/…

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.