The maker of the popular game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" says in a new U.S. lawsuit that a Singapore-based company made rip-off versions of its game, and Apple and Google have refused to stop selling them. From a report: Krafton alleged Monday in a Los Angeles federal court complaint that Garena Online's "Free Fire" games copy several copyrighted aspects of PUBG: Battlegrounds, including its game structure and in-game items, equipment, and locations. Released in 2017, Battlegrounds was one of the first and most successful "battle royale" games, a popular genre that now includes "Fortnite" and "Call of Duty: Warzone." Korea-based Krafton's complaint said Battlegrounds has sold more than 75 million copies. The complaint said Garena, owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd, began selling Free Fire through Apple and Google's app stores in 2017, and started selling another infringing game called "Free Fire MAX" last year. According to Krafton, Apple and Google have distributed hundreds of millions of copies of the Free Fire games. The complaint says Garena generated more than $100 million in revenue from Free Fire sales in the U.S. in the first three months of 2021. Krafton also named Google's YouTube as a defendant for allegedly hosting videos of Free Fire gameplay, as well as a Chinese film that Krafton says is a live-action dramatization of its game.

Microsoft lured away a veteran semiconductor designer from Apple as it looks to expand its own server-chips efforts, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From a report: Mike Filippo will work on processors within Microsoft's Azure group, run by Rani Borkar, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the move hasn't been announced. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the hire of Filippo, who also has worked at Arm and Intel. The move suggests that Microsoft is accelerating a push to create homegrown chips for its servers, which power Azure cloud-computing services. The focus on custom chips follows similar efforts by Alphabet's Google and Amazon, Microsoft's biggest cloud rivals.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple hasn't stopped selling Intel Macs just yet, but it's safe to say that we'll never see a Mac with one of Intel's 12th-generation Core processors in it. But that minor detail isn't stopping the Hackintosh community from supporting new Intel and AMD processors and platforms. The developers behind OpenCore, the most powerful and actively maintained bootloader for loading macOS on standard PC hardware, improved its Alder Lake support in this month's release, version 0.7.7. In a blog post over the weekend, the developers also detailed their efforts to update OpenCore and its associated software to work with Intel's Z690 chipset.

The key to building a functional Hackintosh is normally to build a PC that's as close as possible to actual Intel Mac hardware -- most crucially, the CPU, GPU, and chipset. OpenCore's job is to bridge whatever gap is left between your PC and real Mac hardware so that macOS boots and works properly. It adds support for reading and booting macOS filesystems, loads kernel extensions to support additional hardware, tells macOS how to handle your system's audio outputs and USB ports, and spoofs hardware to take advantage of macOS's built-in support (if, for example, your PC has a GPU that is similar to but not quite identical to a GPU included in a real Intel Mac). As OpenCore has developed and matured, it has gotten better at bridging larger and larger gaps between PC hardware and "real" Macs. It can get old versions of macOS like Tiger (10.4) and Snow Leopard (10.6) up and running on old hardware, and it can even be used to run newer macOS versions on real Macs that Apple has dropped from the official support list. It can even run macOS on AMD processors, albeit with some caveats for software that relies on Intel-specific functionality. The still-active Hackintosh Reddit community is full of people running macOS on all kinds of different hardware.

It's that sort of flexibility that will keep macOS working on 12th-generation Intel CPUs and the Z690 chipset. All of that said, running macOS on newer hardware isn't for the faint of heart, and some things just aren't going to work. Trying to use 12th-gen processors' new efficiency cores (or E-cores) can also cause general slowdowns because macOS doesn't know how to best distribute work between the different types of cores -- macOS doesn't (and never will) support Intel's "Thread Director" technology, which needs to be baked into your operating system to get the best performance. The GPUs from 11th- and 12th-generation Intel processors also won't work in Hackintoshes because they were never supported in real Macs, so you would need to rely on a dedicated AMD GPU to handle display output and other tasks (in real Intel Macs, even iMacs and MacBook Pros with dedicated GPUs still use the integrated Intel GPUs for video and photo encoding and decoding). Apple is still adding support for newer AMD GPUs in macOS releases, presumably so those cards can work in the Mac Pro -- the Radeon RX 6900 series, 6800 series, and RX 6600 XT are all supported -- but Apple could easily decide to stop supporting newer GPUs whenever it wants. And Nvidia GPUs aren't supported at all.

South Korea's telecommunications regulator said on Tuesday Apple had submitted plans to allow third-party payment systems on its App Store to comply with a law banning major app store operators from forcing software developers to use their payments systems. From a report: The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) had requested Apple and Alphabet's Google to submit compliance plans after the bill was passed in August last year and went into effect in September. Google announced its plans to allow alternative payment systems in South Korea in November to comply with the amended Telecommunication Business Act, dubbed the "anti-Google law."

Apple said that developers have generated more than $260 billion in revenue since the App Store launched in 2008, up about $60 billion from the figure it reported a year ago. From a report: The iPhone maker made the announcement Monday as part of a summary of the performance of its digital services across 2021. The company said the App Store generated a "new yearly record for App Store developer earnings last year" and that App Store sales between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve rose in the double digits from the same period a year ago. Apple didn't say how much it generated during that week in 2021 but previously said it made $1.8 billion during that period of 2020.

Some European carriers, including T-Mobile/Sprint in the United States, are blocking iCloud Private Relay access when connected to cellular data. As 9to5Mac reports, "This feature is designed to give users an additional layer of privacy by ensuring that no one can view the websites that they visit." From the report: Apple says that Private Relay is a feature designed to give users another layer of privacy when browsing the web. The first relay is sent through a server maintained by Apple, and the second is a third-party operator. The feature was announced at WWDC last June and initially slated for inclusion in iOS 15. Apple ultimately shipped the feature as a "public beta," meaning that it is disabled by default in the newest iOS 15 and macOS Monterey releases. You can manually enable it by going to Settings on your iPhone, tapping your name at the top, choosing iCloud, and choosing "Private Relay."

T-Mobile was among the carriers in Europe that signed an open letter expressing concern about the impact of Private Relay. The carriers wrote that the feature cuts off networks and servers from accessing "vital network data and metadata and could impact "operator's ability to efficiently manage telecommunication networks." In the UK, carriers including T-Mobile, EE, and others have already started blocking Private Relay usage when connected to cellular data. 9to5Mac has also now confirmed that T-Mobile is extending this policy to the United States. This means that T-Mobile and Sprint users in the United States can no longer use the privacy-preserving iCloud Private Relay feature when connected to cellular data. The report notes that T-Mobile appears to be "in the process of rolling it out," so some users might still be able to use the feature -- at least for now. "The situation could also could vary based on your location or plan," the report adds.

UPDATE: T-Mobile Says It Has 'Not Broadly Blocked' iCloud Private Relay, Blames iOS 15.2 Bug For Errors

Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid quotes a report from Apple Insider: Apple's color-coding of SMS communications in green in iMessage plays a role alongside other feature in getting teenagers to switch from Android to iPhone, a report claims, with a pressure to fit in with their peers promoting moves to turn their messages blue. The use of green and blue to show whether a message to a user is made through iMessage or via other devices has become more than a simple convenience indicator for users. It's also a form of status indicator, showing the user not only owns an iPhone, but can also make use of features on the platform that others cannot. In a profile of the color-indication system by the Wall Street Journal, teenagers and students explain how not having an iPhone and seeing green messages are seemingly a negative to them.

New York masters student Jocelyn Maher said she was mocked by her friends and younger sister when dating, if the potential suitor used Android. 'I was like, Oh my gosh, his texts are green,' and my sister literally went Ew, that's gross,'' said Maher.

Apple is apparently well aware that iMessage is a serious draw to its users, with it surfacing in the Epic-Apple trial as part of a series of claims it was used to lock users into its ecosystem. Epic pointed to statements by senior Apple management that the company had blocked the creation of an Android version of iMessage.
The Wall Street Journal headlined its piece, "Why Apple's iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble."

An anonymous reader quotes The Record: In a piece of groundbreaking research published on Tuesday night, security firm ZecOps said that it found a way to block and then simulate an iOS restart operation, a technique that they believe could be extremely useful to attackers who may want to trick users into thinking they rebooted their device and as a result, maintain access for their malware on that infected system.

The technique is of extreme importance and gravity because of the way the iPhone malware landscape has evolved in recent years, where, due to advances in the security of the iOS operating system, malware can't achieve boot persistence as easily as it once did.... As a result, many security experts have recommended over the past year that users who might be the target of malicious threat actors regularly reboot devices in order to remove backdoors or other implants.... But in a blog post on Tuesday, ZecOps said that the iOS restart process isn't immune to being hijacked once an attacker has gained access to a device, in a way to perform a fake restart where the user's device only has its UI turned off, instead of the entire OS.

Apple Silicon leader and T2 security processor developer Jeff Wilcox has left Apple to rejoin Intel and oversee architecture for all Intel System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs. AppleInsider reports: As Apple heads to the end of its self-imposed two-year transition from Intel to its own Apple Silicon, the company has lost the leader of its M1 development team. Jeff Wilcox originally joined Apple from Intel in 2013, and is now returning to that company as it works on introducing new processors. "After an amazing eight years I have decided to leave Apple and pursue another opportunity," wrote Wilcox on his LinkedIn page. "It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple Silicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends."

"I'm pleased to share that I have started a new position as Intel Fellow, Design Engineering Group CTO, Client SoC Architecture at Intel Corporation," he continued. "I could not be more thrilled to be back working with the amazing teams there to help create groundbreaking SOCs. Great things are ahead!" Wilcox returned to Intel at the start of January 2022. It's not yet known who Apple intends to replace him with as Director, Mac System Architecture. Nor is it known whether Apple tried to keep Wilcox. Further reading: Apple Aims To Prevent Defections To Meta With Rare $180,000 Bonuses for Top Talent

Alphabet's Google used the annual CES technology conference to showcase upcoming deeper ties among its devices and preview support for unlocking more cars with Android phones. From a report: The enhancements announced Wednesday included more quickly pairing accessories with devices running Google's Android and Chromebook laptop software, unlocking devices with Google software via smartwatches running Google's Wear OS and sharing content across products. The new features mirror work Apple has done with its software and hardware, an effort that has led consumers to buy more types of Apple devices. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has long touted its ecosystem as superior to Google's because of tight integration, and now Google is trying to rival that experience.

A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Google, Apple and the CEOs of both tech giants for allegedly violating antitrust laws, according to a press release. The complaint calls for the breakup of Google and Apple into separate and independent companies in keeping with the precedent of the of Standard Oil company into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron and others, the release stated. PYMNTS.com reports: Charges in the suit allege that Google and Apple have agreed that Apple would keep out of the internet search business against Google, according to the release. It also claims Google shares its search profits with Apple and gives Apple preferential treatment for all Apple devices; annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; suppression of smaller competitors to keep them from the search sector; and acquiring competing companies. Allegations also include higher advertising rates than rates that would be in a competitive system, the release stated.

Attorneys are seeking an end to the alleged billion-dollar payments to Apple from Google and asking the court to prohibit non-compete agreements between the two companies and end the profit-sharing agreement and the preferential treatment for Google on Apple devices, according to the release. "These powerful companies abused their size by unlawfully foreclosing and monopolizing major markets which in an otherwise free enterprise system would have created jobs, lowered prices, increased production, added new competitors, encouraged innovations and increased the quality of services in the digital age," Joseph M. Alioto of Alioto Law, who is representing the plaintiffs, said in the release.

Apple's mixed reality headset that's set to launch in 2022 will be equipped with three displays, according to a research report shared today by display analyst Ross Young. MacRumors reports: The display configuration will include two micro OLED displays along with one AMOLED panel, with Sony set to supply the micro OLED displays that Apple will use. The micro OLED displays will be the main displays for the headset, but it's not yet known just what the AMOLED display will be used for. Modern VR headsets don't use AMOLED technology because the pixel density is too low, so it's possible that Apple is going to add it for low-resolution peripheral vision.

Sony recently showed off a 4K display with 4000 pixels per inch designed for use with VR headsets, and the report suggests that it's possible Sony developed this display specifically for Apple. If Apple is indeed using this Sony technology, an assumed array of 4000 x 4000 pixels indicates the display for the headset will measure in at 1.4 inches diagonally. This kind of advanced display configuration will come at a "high price," and Young suggests that the headset will cost several thousand dollars, which is in line with previous reports that have indicated a price of around $3,000.

Security researcher Trevor Spiniolas has discovered a vulnerability "capable of locking iOS devices into a spiral of freezing, crashing, and rebooting if a user connects to a sabotaged Apple Home device," reports The Verge. From the report: The vulnerability [...] can be exploited through Apple's HomeKit API, the software interface that allows an iOS app to control compatible smart home devices. If an attacker creates a HomeKit device with an extremely long name -- around 500,000 characters -- then an iOS device that connects to it will become unresponsive once it reads the device name and enter a cycle of freezing and rebooting that can only be ended by wiping and restoring the iOS device. What's more, since HomeKit device names are backed up to iCloud, signing in to the same iCloud account with a restored device will trigger the crash again, with the cycle continuing until the device owner switches off the option to sync Home devices from iCloud.

Though it's possible that an attacker could compromise a user's existing HomeKit-enabled device, the most likely way the exploit would be triggered is if the attacker created a spoof Home network and tricked a user into joining via a phishing email. To guard against the attack, the main precaution for iOS users is to instantly reject any invitations to join an unfamiliar Home network. Additionally, iOS users who currently use smart home devices can protect themselves by entering the Control Center and disabling the setting "Show Home Controls." (This won't prevent Home devices from being used but limits which information is accessible through the Control Center.)

Apple hit a market cap of $3 trillion during intraday trading on Monday, tripling its valuation in under four years. Apple broke the barrier when its share price hit $182.86. From a report: The milestone is mostly symbolic but it shows investors remain bullish on Apple stock and its ability to grow. Apple showed annual growth across all of its product categories in its fourth-quarter earnings, with revenue up 29% year-over-year. While the iPhone is still the biggest sales driver, Apple's services business grew 25.6% year-over-year and delivered more than $18 billion in revenue during the quarter. And analysts see plenty of room to run. In December, for example, Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty raised the firm's price target on Apple from $164 to $200, and maintained the equivalent of a buy rating, arguing that new products like virtual reality and augmented reality headsets aren't yet baked into the share price. Huberty also said she expects Apple's App Store revenue to outperform Morgan Stanley's forecasts for the quarter and for Apple to ship 83 million units during the December quarter, 3 million more than anticipated.

Indian antitrust watchdog on Friday ordered an investigation into Apple's business practices -- in particular, the company mandating iPhone app developers to use a proprietary payments system -- in India, where the American firm commands less than 2% of the smartphone market. From a report: The Competition Commission of India, which ordered the Director General to conduct the probe within 60 days, said it is of the prima facie view that the mandatory use of Apple's in-app payments system for paid apps and in-app purchases "restrict[s] the choice available to the app developers to select a payment processing system of their choice especially considering when it charges a commission of up to 30% for app purchases and in-app purchases."

According to a new report from The Information, Apple has increased its reliance on Chinese partners, both as a way of cutting costs as well as to "curry favor with Beijing." 9to5Mac reports: Today's report from The Information comes on the heels of a separate report from the publication earlier this month in which it described a so-called secret deal between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Chinese government officials. Through this deal, Apple reportedly committed to investing more than $275 billion in China over five years.

The report details that Foxconn, which is headquartered in Taiwan, is on the verge of being unseated as Apple's top supplier by Luxshare, which is headquartered in China: "Luxshare has the potential to unseat Foxconn as Apple's top supplier. The Chinese company already exceeds Foxconn's main publicly listed unit in terms of market capitalization, though Foxconn generated roughly $105 billion from Apple in 2020 -- more than 10 times Luxshare's haul. But in terms of valuation, Luxshare has also eclipsed major Apple contractors such as Quanta Computer, Pegatron and Wistron, all of which are headquartered in Taiwan. Foxconn has become increasingly concerned about Luxshare's meteoric rise, including its significantly higher net profit margin, going so far as to form a task force to study the company, Reuters previously reported."

The report explains that Apple's move to shift more of its business to Chinese companies is part of Tim Cook fulfilling his $275 billion pledge to the Chinese government: "In shifting more business to Chinese companies, Cook, the architect of Apple's supply chain in China, is fulfilling his pledge to Beijing to expand its domestic tech industry, which will help the country reduce its reliance on companies based outside the mainland, including Taiwan -- a country China considers a renegade region. A year after Cook signed the economic agreement with China, Luxshare became the first Chinese company to secure a final assembly contract for a major Apple product, the AirPods, ending the dominance of Taiwanese firms. Apple's moves also might win over more Chinese consumers, which at times have shunned Apple in favor of local brands like Huawei based on nationalism. Apple generates nearly 20% of its revenue from the country." The report goes on to mention that Apple helped Luxshare manufature AirPods in 2017. "The AirPods were Luxshare's first major assembly contract for Apple, catapulting the company into the upper echelons of Apple suppliers that handle, pack and ship finished goods," reports The Information.

South Korea's government wants Google and Apple to block new and existing play-to-earn (P2E) games, saying such games should not receive an age rating to get listed on their respective app stores. From a report: The country's Game Management Committee in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism said in an official letter called its request "reasonable" as money gained from P2E games could be considered prizes. In Korea, prizes from gaming are allowed to be only around US$8.5 at a time. The ministry's move comes after game developer SkyPeople's P2E title, Five Stars for Klaytn, was blocked from getting a rating it required to get listed in April this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC, written by Todd Haselton: Apple's decision to ditch Intel paid off this year. The pivot allowed Apple to completely rethink the Mac, which had started to grow stale with an aging design and iterative annual upgrades. Following the divorce from Intel, Apple has launched far more exciting computers which, paired with an ongoing pandemic that has forced people to work and learn from home, have sent Apple's Mac business soaring. It wasn't always a given. When Apple announced its move away from Intel in 2020, it was fair to question just how well Apple could power laptops and desktop computers. Apple has used in-house chips for iPhones and iPads but had been selling Intel-powered computers for 15 years. It wasn't clear how well its macOS desktop software would work with apps designed to run on Intel chips, or whether its processors would offer any consumer benefits and keep up with intensive tasks that people turned to MacBooks to run. Those fears were quickly quelled.

The first M1 Apple chip was launched in 2020 in a MacBook Air laptop. It was more powerful than Intel's chip while offering longer battery life and enabling a fanless design, which helped keep Apple's new MacBook Air even quieter. It proved to be an early success. In April 2021, CEO Tim Cook said during the company's fiscal second-quarter earnings call that the M1 chip helped fuel the 70.1% growth in Apple's Mac revenue, which hit $9.1 billion during that quarter. The growth continued in fiscal Q3, when Mac revenue was up 16% year over year. That quarter, it launched the all-new iMac, which offered a redesigned super-thin metal body that looks like a screen propped up on a stand. It's slimmer than the Intel models that came before it, while offering other benefits, like a much better webcam, great speakers and a much sharper display than the models it replaced. And Apple made the launch more exciting by offering an array of colors for the iMac, which it hadn't done since it shipped the 1999 iMac. There was a slowdown in fiscal Q4, when Mac revenue grew just 1.6%, as Apple, like all manufacturers, saw a slowdown from the burst of sales driven by the start of the pandemic and dealt with supply chain woes. But fiscal Q4 sales didn't include revenue from its most exciting new computer of the year.

Apple's fiscal Q1 earnings in January will give an indication of how well all its new computers are selling. But it's clear the move from Intel has allowed Apple to move full speed ahead with its own chip development, much like it does for iPhones and iPads, the latter of which has yet to be matched by any other tablet on the market. It's no longer beholden to delays that plagued Intel, which started to lag behind AMD with its new 7nm chips. And Apple has full control over its "stack," which means it can design new computer hardware and software together, instead of letting the power of another company's chips dictate what its computers can and can't do.

Apple has put the southern India factory of Foxconn on probation following protests from workers over subpar food and accommodation conditions, a concern both the firms acknowledged and pledged to address. From a report: The iPhone maker didn't say how long the probation will last, but an Apple spokesperson in India told TechCrunch that the firm "will ensure our strict standards are met before the facility reopens." Foxconn's factory in the state of Tamil Nadu employs about 17,000 people. Protests erupted in the factory last week after hundreds of women who work at the plant and live in one of the hostels had to be treated for food poisoning and more than 100 were hospitalized, according to earlier local media reports.

Apple has issued unusual and significant stock bonuses to some engineers in an effort to retain talent, looking to stave off defections to tech rivals such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms. From a report: Last week, the company informed some engineers in silicon design, hardware, and select software and operations groups of the out-of-cycle bonuses, which are being issued as restricted stock units, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The shares vest over four years, providing an incentive to stay at the iPhone maker. The bonuses, which came as a surprise to those who received them, have ranged from about $50,000 to as much as $180,000 in some cases. Many of the engineers received amounts of roughly $80,000, $100,000 or $120,000 in shares, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the program isn't public. The perk was presented by managers as a reward for high performers.