In 2015, undoubtedly among fans of the Apple brand, but not only, there was an increase in the commotion caused by the release of the company’s first smartwatch. I owned one of them myself! Innovative, waterproof, measuring your heart rate, equipped with a flashlight, wi-fi, wireless charging, personalized clock face, and above all connected to your iPhone so that you can receive notifications from your phone through your watch, as well as the weather, steps taken, activity, music controls and many other watch-specific applications available with interchangeable bands in various colours.
Along with the production of the next series, producers enriched Apple Watches with new functions. Among other things, GPS, Bluetooth, SOS alarm, microphone, speaker, payment functions and compass. And also cooperation with Nike in new types of sports, silicone, leather, braided or steel bands. The number of new functions, however, did not change radically from model to model, one of them caused a scandal – the electrocardiography function and arrhythmia notification, which was only available to users in the United States due to the lack of appropriate medical licenses. This clearly disappointed customers, because due to the lack of this function, the previous series did not differ much from the newest one. With time, however, the company managed to reach other countries one by one.
The next, eighth edition of the smartwatch, although it does not even have a release date yet, has already aroused the emotions of future buyers. So far, in the previous series, there have been no changes in the appearance of the watch, but according to speculations and reports of people working on it, it is to be larger and have flat edges for the first time, and also be available in a third variant – for use in extreme conditions. There were also suspicions that “Apple Watch Series 8 will work under the control of a new operating system. This year’s models have watchOS 8 installed, which was presented by the manufacturer during the WWDC 2021 conference in June. So we can expect more detailed information about the system of new watches in May or June 2022. “
However, these rumours may turn out to be untrue, as well as about the new features of watches – measuring body temperature, hydration level, blood pressure, glucose monitoring and blood oxygenation for sleep apnea, which disappointed customers again.
“Don’t expect any of these soon, though. Body temperature was on this year’s roadmap, but chatter about it has slowed down recently. Blood pressure is at least two to three years away, while I wouldn’t be surprised if glucose monitoring doesn’t land until later in the second half of the decade.”
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman
Although Apple Watch is currently the most popular smartwatch on the market, but the frequent release of new products without major changes from the previous model and publicizing their premiere on unreal rumours will not satisfy its customers.
Each of us has heard about the idea of a modern and intelligent home. Self-closing doors, gates, curtains, lights that turn off when you clap your hands, your favourite song plays after saying its title, one-touch temperature control throughout the house, sensors and tons of other possibilities. Is all this possible or is it just an idealized reality?
Many of the tech companies, instead of focusing on common development and innovative solutions to smart homes for all of them and consumers, create solutions that compete with each other. For example, devices manufactured by Apple for HomeKit are based on a different system and operation than devices distributed by Amazon such as Alexa (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Cloud or Bluetooth). Which discourages consumers from using a smart home, because it takes too much time and effort to figure out which devices are compatible with each other and work in conjunction with each other, and eventually give up the whole solution.
“That’s where Matter comes in.”
What is Matter? Previously called Connected Home over IP – CHIP for short is a smart home device system. The operating system is based on the possibility of free communication between technological devices at home to increase security and efficiency of use in everyday life. Over the years, the idea has been joined by corporate giants such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung and also smaller companies.
“The smart home should be a natural evolution of our homes, bringing better appliances, better systems, better experiences.”
Matter wants to meet the expectations of an ideal smart home, all devices designed by the companies participating in the project are to interact with each other without any problems using the application. And all this is coming soon! At the end of 2022, the first devices with their certificate will be introduced. What distinguishes Matter from previous efforts to create a smart home is technology based on IP technology, which means that the solution they use is designed to provide pipelines and language for communication between devices without the need for constant internet access.
It will be a completely different, modern and, above all, effective solution for creating a smart home, meaning development for Google Home, HomeKit and many others.
The idea behind Facebook’s Metaverse is brilliant. It truly is. But I find it incredibly difficult to believe hordes of people would buy Facebook’s headsets with a 1080p camera and stereo mic. Personally, I wouldn’t like to meet with people wearing any data harvesters from Facebook on their bodies. By wearing Facebook’s products, you surrender your privacy. Simple as that.
I really don’t want to talk about Zuckerberg’s latest project because I only give him free publicity by doing so. But it’s essential to make my point.
Metaverse is ambitious. In fact, too ambitious. Facebook believes they can build the whole world right away, and to be fair, they are delusional. Let’s assume Metaverse exists for a second, though. The problem of this digital world is three-fold. Firstly, as a developer, you don’t know anything about writing programs that would run on Metaverse. Secondly, the programming language lacks libraries and frameworks to enable developers to create apps efficiently. Thirdly, there’s no user base with devices. Zero. Facebook sold like a dozen oculus sets, but that’s it.
In short, sure, the hype factor is here, and everyone is excited about Metaverse. But still, without any of the above three aspects, Metaverse doesn’t exist outside of Facebook’s marketing team.
On the other side of the “spectrum” are Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Apple is told to release its next “big thing” in the next year. The next big thing will be either a VR or AR headset. No matter which headset Apple will introduce, Apple’s digital world will outgrow Facebook’s Metaverse from day one.
source: The Wall Street Journal
The graph above illustrates the projection of sales of AR glasses in the upcoming three years. As you can see, it’s forecasted that Apple will sell almost five times more units than Facebook will, only in the first year. What’s more, in 2025, Facebook is predicted to be the second smallest player on the market.
The reason Apple will destroy the competition lies in the above three factors that are absolutely essential for creating the digital universe. And Apple, one year before the predicted release of AR glasses, already fulfills 3 out of 3 factors.
Around six years ago, Apple introduced its new programming language – check. In 2017, they released ARKit – a set of APIs, libraries, and frameworks for working with AR objects and AR realties – check. And lastly, Apple has been building a user base since the day iPhone launched (now standing at whopping 900 million active iPhones) – check. And a great majority of the active iPhones can run AR apps.
That gives Apple essentially all there is to dominate the AR market overnight by simply pushing a software update. What’s more, the developer base already knows the process of developing AR apps for iOS.
Now let’s talk about another critical aspect – computing power. To run AR programs, you need enormous computing power. The hardware must run tens of billions of operations every second, fit in a small box, and be highly energy-efficient (meaning how many operations you can make out of a battery charge). And wow, what a surprise! For more than ten years, Apple has been developing precisely these kinds of chips. The ones that are both extremely energy efficient and have unmatched performance. This fact already creates a tremendously significant competitive advantage over Facebook.
Another significant aspect of AR is the number of use cases. With Facebook’s oculus, you can play games, call friends and watch some videos on youtube. I’d say that’s pretty limited. Thus, to survive, Metaverse will need to extend capabilities that will take time to develop. Apple will offer many more, besides the above use cases, such as maps, music, tv, podcasts, and fitness services from the launch day. So, the services that Apple offers are much more wide-ranging than Facebook’s offering.
Closing Thoughts
This relatively long analysis was supposed to show you why Facebook’s Metaverse has no significant future and how their competition will relegate them to the background in the upcoming years. Facebook’s failure will lie in almost every area of creating the digital world, starting with the user base with digital-world-running capabilities, going through chip performance, and ending on limited use cases.
Of course, the subject of the digital world becomes much more complex when we start discussing the effects of living on the internet on the human psyche. For now, though, I wanted to focus only on the technological aspects of this matter.
So-called ‘Pegasus’ first made it to the headlines in 2016, however public opinion was not fully aware of how severe danger it poses to civil liberties until last year, when it was revealed that the programme was used to spy on and steal data from thousands of independent journalists and activists in dozens of countries. Last week, as a consequence of US blacklisting the company that created Pegasus, Apple sued NSO Group for breaching the privacy of Apple products’ users. The company also decided to notify via e-mail or via SMS every user who may have been a victim. It is clear that such type of spyware is very dangerous to our privacy and to our liberty. Before I elaborate on that, here’s some facts about Pegasus.
What is Pegasus?
Pegasus is a spyware developed by Israeli company NSO Group that is used to target mainly mobile phones. The company claims that the products is only sold to authorised goverments in order to crack down on organised crime like human trafficking or prevent terrorist attacks, all for the public safety (source: official site of NSO Group).
However it is known, that in many cases it is the opposition, or the journalists criticising the government who are under the surveillance. It is suspected, that even Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and French president Emmanuel Macron might have fallen victims to company’s infamous spyware. Some of the clients are also authoritarian regimes, which while having disdain for human rights, most probably won’t be held accountable for the invigillation.
How does it work and why it is particurarly dangerous?
Most of countries have secret services, which gather our private data without consent, and on the spyware market there are many products which fulfill the same goal. However the key reason why Pegasus is particurarly dangerous is its methods of infecting the devices.
Primary targets of Pegasus are mobile phones. Vast majority of mobile phones have either Android or iOS. There is no operational system which will prevent your phone from getting hacked, but there are differences between the systems, which make your device safer or less safe. One of key factors on that matter are frequent software updates. If the patches and bugfixes are coming out rarely and with a delay, then it is much easier to exploit vulnerabilities in device’s security, as they won’t be patched out anytime soon, which is unfortunately the case with Android. The only mobiles which are getting firmware (iOS) updates are iPhones, which are made by the same company – Apple. However Android can be easily modified by the producers, which tend to install a User Interface (UI). In this case, this is a disadvantage, because before each update is made available, the new version of firmware needs to be integrated with producer’s UIs, which prolongs the whole process dramatically. In addition, devices with Android tend to receive less OS updates before ending the support than iPhones.
Pegasus can infect the device via several different paths. Most obvious and plain one is sending a SMS to the victim’s phone with link, which, when clicked, hacks the device. It doesn’t sound like anything special, but if that approach fails, then the operator may attempt at taking control over the target by other, more dangerous method.
Spyware’s operator may use an exploit in device’s security in order to send a message, which hacks it without victim’s involvement. Then the software roots/jailbreaks the target, gaining control over the victim’s photos, messages, e-mails and also gaining the ability to overhear victim’s calls or what is being spoken to the device’s microphone. When a device is compromised, the victim completely loses it privacy, because the potential amount of data which can be stolen is tremendous. Up to very recently, most of people under surveillance of this program had no idea, that they might have been spied on. In case the operator finds out, that the victim might know about the breach, he may remotely delete the program from the device.
Closing Thoughts
The program poses a direct threat to any user under its ‘supervision’. Spyware’s operator gains even our very intimate data, which makes it easy to blackmail the victim or their family. Also, the very fact that even disclosed information is vulnerable to the breach, can be used to our great disadvantage, as all our aims and plans, that were sent to someone are reveled to the Pegasus’s client, in present time. If a prominent government’s dissident writes to someone about their plan to for example enter a foreign embassy or consulate, the secret services may trap him and prevent him from reaching the place, if they know his plans.
It is suspected, that a Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, was spied on by Pegasus for a few month preceeding his assasination in Saudi consulate in Istanbul. When it comes to our more local, polish background, a prosecutor, who investigated whether the government’s action preceding last year’s presidential election were legal or not, received on her iPhone a message from Apple, that most probably she had been spied on, on a basis of her actions as a prosecutor.
Fortunately, not everyone may become a victim to this vicious spyware. In order, to use Pegasus on someone, a client (most of the time a country’s government) needs to but a license, which is very costly (as much as $650 000 for spying on 10 iPhones). Buying addtional license for 100 devices costs approximately $800 000. The system maintenance draws 17% of a price each year it is being used. This limits its use to key targets. If you are not important activist or a dissident, or one of themost wealthy entrepreneurs in your country you probably are not a target of Pegasus.
However, be aware that no-one in developed countries is safe from invigilation. What you should do, regardless of whether you may be a victim of Pegasus or not, is to take necessary precautions: keep your device updated, use strong passwords and safety measures and avoid suspicious links or networks in order to protect your privacy.
EU has accused Apple of improper competition practices. The Commission accused Apple of breaching EU rules of fair competition as they believe Apple holds a dominant position – specifically in the market of music streaming.
Apple’s App Store charges a 30% commission fee on all subscriptions bought through their system. On top of that, they forbid advertising other subscription options through their app on the App Store. If you remember their dispute with Epic Games, Fortnite was kicked from the App Store exactly for breaching their latter part of the policy mentioned.
EU claims that Apple is distorting what was supposed to be a healthy competition and that ultimately the system takes toll on the customers, due to the fact that companies partnering with Apple have to up their prices in order to combat the 30% ‘Apple tax’.
If Apple is found guilty they will have to face a fine of 10% of annual revenue which accounts to $27 billion, and adjust their business model so that it works in a way that doesn’t affect healthy competing.
Apple responded to the accusations with:
“Spotify has become the largest music subscription service in the world, and we’re proud for the role we played in that. Spotify does not pay Apple any commission on over 99% of their subscribers, and only pays a 15% commission on those remaining subscribers that they acquired through the App Store. At the core of this case is Spotify’s demand they should be able to advertise alternative deals on their iOS app, a practice that no store in the world allows. Once again, they want all the benefits of the App Store but don’t think they should have to pay anything for that. The Commission’s argument on Spotify’s behalf is the opposite of fair competition.”
Spotify has its own take:
“Today is a big day. Fairness is the key to competition… we are one step closer to creating a level playing field, which is so important for the entire ecosystem of European developers.”
“Ensuring the iOS platform operates fairly is an urgent task with far-reaching implications. The European Commission’s Statement of Objections is a critical step toward holding Apple accountable for its anticompetitive behavior, ensuring meaningful choice for all consumers and a level playing field for app developers.”
Another parties also join in opposing apple in their anticompetitive practices as Apple is pressured the situation is yet to escalate, although slowly Apple is seen taking a step back – lowering the % fee, and skipping it for some services. We have yet to see what will happen as Apple is pressed with more and more antitrust complaints.
The main event every Apple fan is waiting for is a spring conference to be held on the 16-th of March. Its subject-matter is new devices introduction and one of them is iPad mini6.
The design of the iPad mini series has not been changed since the time it was first introduced (in 2012), and that’s what makes it so recognizable. However, this time the company decided to change its traditions and make a totally new design, hardware and screen.
An almost frameless 8,4-inch screen will take about 90% of the front panel, while its parameters are 195 x 126,6 mm in comparison with its previous 203 x 134,8 mm version. A hybrid OLED panel is going to be used in the device, which is almost two times thinner than a standard OLED panel. Apple’s designers and engineers decided to place a dactyloscopy sensor below the screen; this decision will provide much more space for placing the hardware.
iPad mini6 will be based on the Apple A14 processor, just the same as it is used in Apple iPhone 12 series. This is a super-fast 64-bit processor, comprising 6 cores, which can be clocked up to 3,1GHz and shows a great performance as well as low temperatures in both regular usage and gaming.
It is expected to see a new version of iPad Pro with a similar to iPad mini LED panel, except the fact it also has a 12,9-inch diagonal screen. So far, no other information about devices is added.
The AirTags and Apple Card that has been introduced before is also mentioned by the informant, but now the card will be available in many more countries.
As it was reported earlier, Samsung is the only supplier of those collapsible panels for the foldable iPhone, but DigiTimes reports, that LG Display – a South Korean technological giant, is going to help Apple with the first iPhone foldable-screen creation.
It is predicted as in the case with an OLED 7,3-7,6 inch screen, Apple is going to provide the device with a stylus similar to S Pen. Also, Apple has introduced a new kind of construction of the hinge part, which is inside the case, unlike the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip presented. This kind of construction is aimed to prevent dust inside the hinge system or phone itself.
Besides, Apple is reported to use a chemical hardening of the ceramic protection screen, that can’t be broken while flipping and it will prevent unevenness on the screen caused by multiple folding. It is still unknown if a protection glass (as the company is going to begin using a protection glass starting from iPhone 12s) on the back smartphone panel is awaited and there is still no information about the camera module, that will be used in the device.
However, the smartphone is planned to have 8Gb of RAM and what is more stunning – 1TB of flash memory, which makes the device one of the most spacious phones in the world. The cost of it is predicted to be about $1500, which is quite fine according to the company’s market position, but for example, the cost of its main competitor – Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is about $1300-$1400.
An unknown Chinese source announced the design of a new iPhone 12s Pro in high resolution, and it demonstrates the main differences in the way it looks and a few differences in general characteristics.
In general, it looks just like its previous “brother” – iPhone 12: it has got a flat frame along the perimeter of the whole case and a square camera module. Even though, all the surfaces, including the camera module, will be covered with a protection glass, as has already been reported before.
The smartphone is informed to lose its charging port. There are only holes for a speaker and microphone in the lower part of the phone. It is really hard to say now if it is an advantage. It means the phone will be charged by wireless chargers only and it is predicted, Apple will refuse regular chargers due to the MagSafe technology. Also, it will help to make the phone more protected from water and dust, however, lots of complaints are expected to appear on the point.
Some good news for gamers – iPhone 12s Pro will get a 120Hz refresh-rate screen (also, they say that there might be a possibility to buy a 180Hz or 240Hz iPhone modification), which will resurrect Apple-gamers’ opinion after the grand fiasco of iPhone 11 Pro Max. And of course, it will get a dactyloscopy sensor located below the screen. A great-known notch will be smaller, which will give a bit more space for the screen itself. Also, Apple agreed upon bringing Touch ID back, moreover, they made an in-display function for it. One of the possible reasons for this decision is the effect of COVID-19, as many iPhone 10 and 11 series users struggled with unlocking their phones due to wearing a face mask.
An official presentation of the iPhone 12s series is expected to be held later this year, approximately in September.
Reading Time: 2minutesRecently Apple has presented their new products – iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Max and iPhone 12 Pro. However, many users are unhappy about the new line of the company, though they even got the new A14 Bionic core inside all of their models.
The problem is Apple decided to decrease the battery capacity of all 12 series devices, but according to the information given on the official website, the number of working hours didn’t change in comparison with iPhone 11 series. Unfortunately, when the situation comes to 3D-gaming sessions, the issue has become even more perceptible.
According to the Phone Arena 3D Gaming Battery Test results, iPhone 11 can be playable 2,5 times longer than the new flagman of the Apple company, where iPhone 11 can stay out of charge for more than 7,5 hours and iPhone 12 can be used for only 3 hours. This fact neglects the user experience of using A14 Bionic, to the side of its previous version. What is the most striking, that iPhone 11 can handle even more time without charging, than its higher brother iPhone 11 Pro.
However, many mobile gamers search for playing on non-iOS phones, as Android-powered phones give them more opportunities and better gaming experience. For example, if you look at the top segment of Android phones, you will be highly interested in using Xiaomi Mi10 Pro, that can handle around 10 hours of gaming, and Samsung Galaxy S20 (and it’s FE version), with more than 8 hours no-charging gaming, as these phones are completed with powerful 8-core processors (Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 for Xiaomi and Exynos 990 for Samsung).
Concerning regular users, iPhone 12 Pro, surprisingly, is on the top of the PhoneArena Browsing Battery test, but still stays lower than Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro and Google Pixel 5.
Generally speaking, I would not recommend buying iPhone 12 series for those, who use their phone mostly for playing games, but for those, who prefer style over high performance it will really be a great choice!
Recently a post went viral on 9to5mac about aFaceTime breach which allowed you to listen and see the person you were calling without them knowing or accepting the call. But this post is not about the bug itself, it’s about Apple’s response.
On 19th January Michele Thompson’s 14 year old son made this discovery and a day later his mom tried reporting the bug to Apple. She sent a video, emailed, faxed them, made posts about it on Facebook and Twitter, but to no avail. Apple decided to disable Group FaceTime calls after more than a week after the report made by Michele T, on Monday 28th of January. They announced to have it fixed later this week.
The bug is now branded as FacePalm and got pretty popular so beware what you say when someone calls you. On top of that, a lawsuit have been filed towards Apple by a Houston Texas-Based Lawyer who claims that the exploit enabled an unknown entity to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client.
This puts Apple in a pretty bad light, since they are pretty good at boasting how secure their products are and how they care about their customers. During the CES 2019 Conference Apple put up a poster which said:
Whatever happens in you iPhone, stays in your iPhone.
If an exploit like that went through testing and got released it makes me wonder how many more infectious bugs can be out there to discover and used for a wrong cause.
