Apple plans to nearly double the workforce in its fast-growing digital advertising business less than 18 months after it introduced sweeping privacy changes that hobbled its bigger rivals in the lucrative industry. Financial Times: The iPhone maker has about 250 people on its ad platforms team, according to LinkedIn. According to Apple's careers website, it is looking to fill another 216 such roles, almost quadruple the 56 it was hiring in late 2020. Apple disputed the figures but declined to elaborate. The digital ads industry has been on edge about Apple's advertising ambitions since it launched privacy rules last year that disrupted the $400bn digital ads market, making it difficult to tailor ads to Apple's 1bn-plus iPhone users.

Since the policy was introduced, Facebook parent Meta, Snap and Twitter have lost billions of dollars in revenue -- and far more in market valuation, although there have been additional contributing factors. "It was really almost like a global panic," said Jade Arenstein, global service lead at Incubeta, a South Africa-based marketing performance company, of the impact of Apple's changes. Meanwhile, Apple's once-fledgling ads business is now "incredibly fast-growing," according to a job ad. The business has gone from just a few hundred million dollars of revenue in the late 2010s to about $5bn this year, according to research group Evercore ISI, which expects Apple to have a $30bn ads business within four years.

"Across the United States, parents are increasingly buying Apple Watches and strapping them onto the wrists of children as young as 5," reports the New York Times: The goal: to use the devices as a stopgap cellphone for the kids. With the watch's cellular abilities, parents can use it to reach and track their children, while the miniature screens mitigate issues like internet addiction.

Children and teenagers appear to have become a disproportionately large market for smartwatches as a whole. In a 2020 survey of American teenagers by the investment bank Piper Sandler, 31% said they owned a smartwatch. That same year, 21% of adults in the United States said they owned one, according to the Pew Research Center.

The use of smartwatches as a children's gadget shows how the audience for a consumer technology product can morph in unexpected ways. It has also given new life to the Apple Watch, which was unveiled in 2015 and has been variously positioned as a fitness tracker, a style statement or a way to free yourself from an iPhone.

Apple has deliberately turned the watch into a device that can be attractive for children and their parents. In 2020, the company released the Apple Watch SE, which had fewer features than a premium model and was priced $120 cheaper. Apple also introduced Family Setup, software that let parents track their children's locations, manage their contacts list and limit their notifications.

Apple has released an iOS 12 update users of older iPhone and iPad devices should download as soon as possible. Engadget reports: The new version of the company's 2018 operating system addresses a major vulnerability that Apple recently patched within iOS 15. According to a support document, the WebKit flaw could have allowed a website to run malicious code on your device. In its usual terse manner, Apple notes it is "aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited."

For that reason, you should download the update as soon as possible if you're still using an iOS 12 device. That's a list that includes the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, as well as iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and iPad mini 3. You can download iOS 12.5.6 by opening the Settings app, tapping on "General" and then selecting "Software Update."

Trademark filings suggest that Apple may be staking claim to potential names for its highly anticipated mixed-reality headset, part of the tech giant's push into its first new product category in years. From a report: Applications were filed in the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay for the names "Reality One," "Reality Pro" and "Reality Processor." Though Apple itself didn't make the filings, they follow a pattern that the iPhone maker has used in the past -- including relying on law firms that the company has previously enlisted to lock down brands. Apple's headset is expected to combine virtual and augmented reality technology and vault the company into closer competition with Meta Platforms, the leading provider of VR gear. It's been seven years since the company last went after a new hardware category with the Apple Watch.

The Washington Post shares a little-acknowledged downside to electric cars: recharging takes "upward of 15 to 30 minutes."

But scientists are already working on improvements: In a report released this week, government researchers said they have found a way to charge electric car batteries up to 90 percent in just 10 minutes. The method is likely five years away from making its way into the market, scientists said, but would mark a fundamental shift. "The goal is to get very, very close to [times] you would see at the gas pump," said Eric Dufek, a lead author of the study and scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, a research center run by the Department of Energy....

At issue is the delicate balance of trying to charge an electric vehicle battery quicker, but not doing it so fast that a rapid charge does long-term damage to the battery or plays a role in causing them to explode. Charging electric batteries fast can cause damage, reducing the battery's life span and performance, scientists said. "You've had batteries when you first got it, they were great, but after a couple years or a few hundred charge cycles, they don't perform as well," said Eric D. Wachsman, director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, an energy research organization at the University of Maryland. To try to solve this, Dufek and his team used machine learning to figure out how batteries age when charging fast. Their algorithm was trained to analyze 20,000 to 30,000 data points which indicated how well the battery was charging and whether it was aging or degrading....

Wachsman said the new research is helpful for the field. "Not too fast, not too slow," he said of Dufek's charging approach. "It's just right in that Goldilocks [zone]." But the bigger benefit, he said, would be if this method spurs car companies to make electric vehicles with smaller batteries, since they'd now have batteries that could be charged quicker and allow consumers to feel less worried about stopping periodically to get a quick recharge.

"Smaller batteries are cheaper cars," he said.

Lockdown Mode disables a series of features that can be used to hack iPhone users. But the lack of these features also makes it easier to figure out who is using Lockdown Mode. From a report: Once Apple launches the new iPhone and iPad operating system early next month, users will be able to turn on a new privacy mode that the company calls "extreme." It's made for journalists, activists, politicians, human rights defenders, and anyone else who may be worried about getting targeted by sophisticated hackers, perhaps working for governments armed with spyware made by companies such as NSO Group. Apple calls it "Lockdown Mode" and it works by disabling some regular iPhone features that have been exploited to hack users in the past. But if users turn on Lockdown Mode, they will be easy to fingerprint and identify, according to a developer who created a proof of concept website that detects whether you have Lockdown Mode enabled or not.

John Ozbay, the CEO of privacy focused company Cryptee, and a privacy activist, told Motherboard that any website or online ad can detect whether some regular features are missing, such as loading custom fonts, one of the features that Lockdown Mode disables. "Let's say you're in China, and you're using Lockdown Mode. Now, any website that you visit could effectively detect you are using Lockdown Mode, they have your IP address as well. So they will actually be able to identify that the user with this IP address is using Lockdown Mode," Ozbay said in a call. "It's a tradeoff between security and privacy. [Apple] chose security."

Canalys' North American smartphone market share numbers are out, and the big mover for Q2 2022 is once again Google, which is seeing huge growth numbers thanks to the Pixel 6. Last quarter, Canalys had Google up 380 percent year over year, and this quarter, the company is up 230 percent! ArsTechnica adds: That sounds incredibly successful, but this is Google's tiny hardware division we're talking about, so it's all relative success. The company is now at 2 percent North American market share, having shipped 800,000 devices for Q2 2022. Along with last quarter, Google is now regularly hitting whole-digit market share numbers. That's good enough for fifth place, behind Apple (52 percent), Samsung (26 percent), Lenovo/Motorola (9 percent), and TCL (5 percent). Canalys also has a list of the best-selling models. The top five are all iPhones, of course, with the base model iPhone 13 taking the top spot, followed by the super-cheap iPhone SE. The iPhone 13 Mini, which is rumored to be selling so poorly that there won't be an iPhone 14 Mini, took the ninth spot. The first Android phone on the list, the flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra, clocks in at No. 6.

The ubiquitous device is becoming a shop window for the firm's services. From a report: As it dreams up more gadgets to sell to more people, however, Apple is employing another strategy in parallel. The company has so far put 1.8bn devices in the pockets and on the desks of some of the world's most affluent consumers. Now it is selling access to those customers to other companies, and persuading those who own its devices to sign up to its own subscription services. As Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, said on a recent earnings call, the Apple devices in circulation represent "a big engine for our services business." The strategy is picking up speed. Last year services brought in $68bn in revenue, or 19% of Apple's total. That is double the share in 2015. In the latest quarter services' share was even higher, at 24%. Apple doesn't break down where the money comes from, but the biggest chunk is reckoned to be fees from its app store, which amounted to perhaps $25bn last year, according to Sensor Tower, a data provider.

The next-biggest part is probably the payment from Google for the right to be Apple devices' default search engine. This was $10bn in 2020; analysts believe the going rate now is nearer $20bn. Apple's fast-growing advertising business -- mainly selling search ads in its app store -- will bring in nearly $7bn this year, reckons eMarketer, another research firm. Most of the rest comes from a range of subscription services: iCloud storage, Apple Music and Apple Care insurance are probably the biggest, estimates Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. More recent ventures like Apple tv+, Apple Fitness, Apple Arcade and Apple Pay make up the rest. New services keep popping up. Last November Apple launched a subscription product for small companies called Apple Business Essentials, offering tech support, device management and so on. In June it announced a "buy now, pay later" service. The company claims a total of 860m active paid subscriptions, nearly a quarter more than it had a year ago.

"The nurse said to send photos so the doctor could review them in advance," the New York Times reports, decribing how an ordeal began in February of 2021 for a software engineer named Mark who had a sick son: Mark's wife grabbed her husband's phone and texted a few high-quality close-ups of their son's groin area to her iPhone so she could upload them to the health care provider's messaging system. In one, Mark's hand was visible, helping to better display the swelling. Mark and his wife gave no thought to the tech giants that made this quick capture and exchange of digital data possible, or what those giants might think of the images. With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up....

Two days after taking the photos of his son, Mark's phone made a blooping notification noise: His account had been disabled because of "harmful content" that was "a severe violation of Google's policies and might be illegal." A "learn more" link led to a list of possible reasons, including "child sexual abuse & exploitation...." He filled out a form requesting a review of Google's decision, explaining his son's infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google's rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son's first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn't get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life....

A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation. Mark didn't know it, but Google's review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him.... In December 2021, Mark received a manila envelope in the mail from the San Francisco Police Department. It contained a letter informing him that he had been investigated as well as copies of the search warrants served on Google and his internet service provider. An investigator, whose contact information was provided, had asked for everything in Mark's Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and any document, photo and video he'd stored with the company. The search, related to "child exploitation videos," had taken place in February, within a week of his taking the photos of his son.

Mark called the investigator, Nicholas Hillard, who said the case was closed. Mr. Hillard had tried to get in touch with Mark but his phone number and email address hadn't worked....

Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail.... A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions...
"The day after Mark's troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas," the Times notes, quoting a technologist at the EFF who speculates other people experiencing the same thing may not want to publicize it. "There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these."

Reached for a comment on the incident, Google told the newspaper that "Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we're committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms."

Apple is advising iOS and iPadOS users to update to the latest software version to patch two security holes that could allow an application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. They also issued a patch for WebKit, the browser that powers Safari and all third-party browsers on iOS. For this vulnerability, Apple says that "processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution."

"With two major security fixes, we recommend all iPhone users update to iOS 15.6.1 immediately and all iPad users update to iPadOS 15.6.1," writes Chance Miller via 9to5Mac. "You can do so by heading to the Settings app, choosing General, then choosing Software Update."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A British judge has ruled that a case against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia brought by a dissident satirist who was targeted with spyware can proceed, a decision that has been hailed as precedent-setting and one that could allow other hacking victims in Britain to sue foreign governments who order such attacks. The case against Saudi Arabia was brought by Ghanem Almasarir, a prominent satirist granted asylum in the UK, who is a frequent critic of the Saudi royal family. At the centre of the case are allegations that Saudi Arabia ordered the hacking of Almasarir's phone, and that he was physically assaulted by agents of the kingdom in London in 2018. The targeting and hacking of Almasarir's phone by a network probably linked to Saudi Arabia was confirmed by researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, who are considered among the world's leading experts in tracking digital surveillance of dissidents, journalists and other members of civil society. Saudi Arabia is known to be a former client of NSO Group, whose powerful Pegasus hacking software covertly penetrates and compromises smartphones.

Saudi Arabia's attempt to have the case dismissed on the grounds that it had sovereign immunity protection under the State Immunity Act 1978 was dismissed by the high court judge. In the ruling, against which Saudi Arabia is likely to appeal, Justice Julian Knowles found that Almasarir's case could proceed under an exception to the sovereign immunity law that applies to any act by a foreign state that causes personal injury. He also found that Almasarir had provided enough evidence to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the alleged assault. Saudi Arabia's claim that the case was too weak or speculative to proceed was dismissed. [...] The decision could have profound implications for other individuals targeted or hacked by NSO's spyware within the UK. They include Lady Shackleton and Princess Haya, the former wife of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Both were hacked by the sheikh using NSO spyware during lengthy court proceedings between Haya and her former husband in London. In a statement praising the decision, Almasarir said: "I no longer feel safe and I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I no longer feel able to speak up for the oppressed Saudi people, because I fear that any contact with people inside the kingdom could put them in danger. I look forward to presenting my full case to the court in the hope that I can finally hold the kingdom to account for the suffering I believe they have caused me."

Apple is in talks to make Apple Watches and MacBooks in Vietnam for the first time, marking a further win for the Southeast Asian country as the U.S. tech giant looks to diversify production away from China. Nikkei Asia reports: Vietnam is already Apple's most important production hub outside of China, producing a wide range of flagship products for the American company, including iPad tablets and AirPods earphones. The Apple Watch is even more sophisticated, according to industry experts, who say that squeezing so many components into such a small case requires a high degree of technological skill. Producing the device would be a win for Vietnam as the country attempts to further upgrade its tech manufacturing sector.

Apple has also continued to shift iPad production to Vietnam after COVID-related lockdowns in Shanghai caused massive supply chain disruptions. BYD of China was the first to assist with this shift, though sources told Nikkei Asia that Foxconn, too, is now helping build more iPads in the Southeast Asian nation. Apple is also in talks with suppliers to build test production lines for its HomePod smart speakers in Vietnam, the people said. On the MacBook front, Apple has asked suppliers to set up a test production line in Vietnam, two sources said. However, progress in moving mass production to the country has been slow, partly due to pandemic-related disruptions but also because notebook computer production involves a larger supply chain, multiple sources said. That network is currently centered on China and very cost-competitive, they added. Further reading: Apple Targets September 7 for iPhone 14 Launch in Flurry of New Devices

Netflix isn't planning to let users of its new ad-supported tier download shows and movies to their devices for offline viewing, according to code found inside of the company's iPhone app, removing a feature that customers enjoy on its regular service. From a report: The move suggests Netflix is doing what it can to distinguish the upcoming service from its current offerings. The streaming giant, which eschewed advertising for years, is planning to roll out the ad-supported level by early next year. But hints about the new service are already reflected in code hidden within its iPhone app. "Downloads available on all plans except Netflix with ads," according to text in the app that was discovered by developer Steve Moser and shared with Bloomberg News. The code also suggests that users won't be able to skip ads -- a common move in the streaming world -- and playback controls won't be available during ad breaks.

Apple is aiming to hold a launch event on Sept. 7 to unveil the iPhone 14 line, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter, rolling out the latest version of a product that generates more than half its sales. From the report: The new iPhones will kick off a busy fall product season, which will also include multiple new Macs, low-end and high-end iPads, and three Apple Watch models. Apple is updating its flagship product at a precarious time for the industry. Smartphone sales have begun to flag as consumers cope with inflation and a shaky economy. But Apple appears to be faring better than its peers: The iPhone sold well last quarter, and the company has signaled to suppliers that it doesn't foresee a dropoff in demand.

"Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue driver," reports Bloomberg.

The Verge writes that Apple "could eventually bring ads to more of the apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone and other Apple devices, including Maps, Books, and Podcasts." According to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has internally tested search ads in Maps, which could display recommendations when you search for restaurants, stores, or other nearby businesses. Apple already implements a similar advertising model on the App Store, as developers can pay to have their app promoted on a search page for a particular query, like "puzzle games" or "photo editor." As noted by Gurman, ads on Maps could work in the same way, with businesses paying to appear at the top of search results when users enter certain search terms.

Gurman believes that Apple could introduce ads to its native Podcasts and Books apps as well. [Gurman describes this as "likely".] This could potentially allow publishers to place ads in areas within each app, or pay to get their content placed higher in search results. Just like Maps, Podcasts and Books are currently ad-free.... Gurman mentions the potential for advertising on Apple TV Plus, too, and says the company could opt to create a lower-priced ad-supported tier, something both Netflix and Disney Plus plan on doing by the end of this year.
Bloomberg points out that Apple is already displaying ads inside its News app — where some of the money actually goes back to news publishers. ("Apple also lets publishers advertise within their stories and keep the vast majority of that money.")

And while you can disable ad personalization — which 78% of iOS users have done — Bloomberg notes that "Another ironic detail here is that the company's advertising system uses data from its other services and your Apple account to decide which ads to serve. That doesn't feel like a privacy-first policy."

Bloomberg's conclusion? "Now the only question is whether the customers of Apple — a champion of privacy and clean interfaces — are ready to live with a lot more ads."

Last year Rodolfo Castro made baseball history. Called up to the Major Leagues in April, the 22-year-old eventually recorded his first hit — a home run. But his next four recorded hits were all also home runs, something no player had done since 1901.

CBS News reports that this week, finally called back up to the Major Leagues, Castro again made history — of another sort: Modern technology has allowed people to take their phones, as well as the power of the internet, with them anywhere they go. Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Rodolfo Castro took his around the bases against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night.
Yep — an iPhone made a bizarre cameo in the 4th inning, reports the Associated Press: Castro and third base coach Mike Rabelo stood and stared, mortified.... Even third base umpire Adam Hamari had the perfect reaction, pointing at the phone that came flying out of Castro's back pocket during a head-first slide, trying not to giggle at the absurdity of the situation.

Those around the sport cringed along with them. "That's obviously not something that should happen," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.... This faux pas just happened to be at a televised big league game, creating a video clip seen by millions.

"I just remember getting dressed, putting my pants on, getting something to eat, using the restroom," the 23-year-old Castro said through a translator Tuesday night after the Pirates lost 6-4 to Arizona. "Never did it ever cross my mind that I still had my cellphone on me...."

It's far from the first time a phone has made a cameo on a pro sports field. One of the most famous examples came nearly 20 years ago when New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn pulled out a flip phone — remember those? — that he had hidden in the padding around the goalpost and then acted like he was taking a call after scoring a touchdown.

An ongoing dispute over privacy between Apple and Facebook is roiling the digital economy, leading companies to shift billions in ad spending as users continue to limit the data available to advertisers. The feud took off last year, when Apple rolled out iOS 14.5, a version of its mobile operating system that made it easier than ever for iPhone and iPad users to opt out of letting apps like Facebook track their activity on their devices. The two companies weren't always at odds. In fact, they were almost business partners. From a report: In the years before the change, Apple suggested a series of possible arrangements that would earn the iPhone maker a slice of Facebook's revenue, according to people who either participated in the meetings or were briefed about them. As one person recalled: Apple officials said they wanted to "build businesses together." One idea that was discussed: creating a subscription-based version of Facebook that would be free of ads, according to people familiar with the discussions. Because Apple collects a cut of subscription revenue for apps in its App Store, that product could have generated significant revenue for the Cupertino, Calif., giant.

The companies also haggled over whether Apple was entitled to a piece of Facebook's sales from so-called boosted posts, said people familiar with the matter. A boost allows a user to pay to increase the number of people that see a post on Facebook or Instagram. Facebook, which considers boosts ads, has always contended that boosts are a form of advertising, in part because they are often used by small businesses to reach a bigger audience, said one of the people. Apple, which doesn't take a cut of advertising from developers, argued that Facebook boosts should be considered in-app purchases, according to a person familiar with the matter. Apple's standard terms would entitle it to take a 30% share of those sales.

DNSFilter, a Washington, D.C.-based provider of DNS-based web content filtering and threat protection, has announced it's acquiring Guardian, a privacy-protecting firewall for iOS. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. From a report: Guardian was founded in 2013 by Will Strafach, a security researcher and former iPhone jailbreaker who in 2017 discovered that AccuWeather was secretly sending precise location data to a third-party company without a user's permission. The company's "smart firewall" iPhone app blocks apps from sharing users' personal information with third-parties, such as IP addresses and location data, by funneling data through an encrypted virtual private network (VPN). The startup, which claims to have so far blocked more than 5 billion data trackers and 1 billion location trackers, recently joined forces with Brave to integrate its firewall and VPN functionality into its eponymous non-tracking browser.

Google is kicking off a new publicity campaign today to pressure Apple into adopting RCS, the cross-platform messaging protocol that's meant to be a successor to the aging SMS and MMS standards. From a report: The search giant has a new "Get The Message" website that lays out a familiar set of arguments for why Apple should support the standard, revolving around smoother messaging between iPhone and Android devices. Naturally, there's also a #GetTheMessage hashtag to really get those viral juices flowing. For most people, the problems Google describes are most familiar in the form of the green bubbles that signify messages to Android users in Apple's Messages app. While the iPhone app uses Apple's own iMessage service to send texts between iPhones (complete with modern features like encryption, support for group chats, and high-quality image and video transfers), they revert to old-fashioned SMS and MMS when texting an Android user. Not only are these messages shown in a color-clashing green bubble but also they break many of the modern messaging features people have come to rely on.

Apple's upcoming entry-level iPad is rumored to cut the 3.5mm headphone jack, joining the iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad Mini, and the entire iPhone lineup. The Verge reports: MySmartPrice says the CAD renders are sourced from a case maker working on accessories for what will be the 10th-generation iPad. It's a substantial redesign from the classic iPad design that has been left largely untouched for years; Apple increased the display size slightly in 2017 and has made other internal hardware upgrades, but the overall look has remained consistent. It appears that's about to change, with the new iPad sharing the same flat-sides aesthetic as recent iPhones, iPads, the 14-inch / 16-inch MacBook Pro, and 2022 MacBook Air. Both 9to5Mac and MacRumors reported on the renders. But as always, treat these easily faked images with a healthy amount of skepticism.

The home button remains present, which means so do the sizable bezels above and below the display. MySmartPrice reports that the screen should be larger than the current 10.2-inch model, and there's a redesigned camera on the iPad's back reminiscent of the module from the iPhone X. The revamped iPad has a USB-C port, which would complete the transition for Apple's tablet line. These renders also include quad speakers, and that's where I get somewhat doubtful of what we're seeing: only the iPad Pro is currently outfitted with four speakers, so if this pans out, the base-level iPad would be leapfrogging both the iPad Air and Mini in the audio department. That strikes me as unlikely, but it could also serve as Apple's justification for nixing the headphone jack from a product used in many classrooms and other scenarios where support for affordable wired headphones has been meaningful.