Year: 2019

Apple’s Swift lead discusses upcoming Swift 5

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2019 0

“Apple is currently working on Swift 5.0, the next major version of its the coding language the company first introduced in 2014,” Juli Clover reports for 9to5Mac. “As Apple prepares to release Swift 5.0, Ted Kremenek, who is leading the project, recently sat down for an interview with John Sundell on his Swift by Sundell podcast.”

“Kremenek is Apple’s senior manager of languages and runtimes, and he is overseeing the release of Swift 5 and is Apple’s voice on the project,” Clover reports. “In the podcast, Kremenek covers topics that include how Apple plans new features for Swift, the process by which pitched ideas turn into release features, and of course, Swift 5.”

Clover reports, “With Swift 5, apps created with one version of the Swift compiler will be able to interface with a library built with another version, something that is not the case now.”

Read more in the full article here.

The 49-minute podcast is here.

Apple Targeted in new lawsuits dealing with the iPhone, iPad, and more

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2019 0

A group of firms operating under the aegis of Optis Wireless Technology are suing Apple over seven patents connected to LTE cellular standards.

Every LTE Apple device is affected, including not just iPhones but iPads and the Apple Watch, according to court documents. The plaintiffs say that as recently as January 2017, they were talking to Apple about licensing patents on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms, but came to no agreement.

Optis and its associates appear to be patent "trolls" — businesses that produce no tangible product and instead depend on patent licenses and lawsuits to generate income. The case was in fact filed through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, infamous for siding with patent holders and being quicker than some other available courts.

Many of the plaintiffs' patents were purchased over the years from technology companies like Ericsson, Samsung, and LG. Nevertheless the complaint asks for a jury trial, and damages "at least in the form of reasonable royalties."

Based on its history Apple will likely try to get the case dismissed, or if not, settled out of court. The company already pays substantial sums in royalties, and adding more could cost millions of dollars per year.

Adding some precedent against Apple is that in August, the District Court found Huawei in violation of the same patents. That cost the Chinese smartphone maker $10.6 million.

The Optis complaint was discovered by MacRumors.

Via: AppleInsider.com

Apple Music coming to Google Home Speakers

CompuScoop Staff February 26, 2019 0

Music is apparently coming to Google Home speakers, yet another sign that Apple’s famous walled garden is beginning to show cracks and that Apple is putting its services in front of as many people as possible as hardware device sales slow.

An option to link an Apple Music account appeared this week in the Google Home app, which is used to manage Google’s smart home devices like speakers and Nest cameras. But the sign-in process for Apple Music doesn’t work in the app yet. It seems likely that Google updated the Home app with the Apple Music option before it was ready.

The move might help persuade people to switch to Apple Music from other services, at least among those who own a Google Home as opposed to Apple’s more expensive HomePod speaker. The HomePod costs $349 — though retail partners often sell it for around $299 — while the Google Home Mini is much more approachable at $50.

Google Home already supports a variety of streaming music services, including YouTube Music, Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora and Deezer. Until now, Apple appeared to be the big holdout from Google’s smart speakers, which allow people to ask Google Assistant to play music throughout their home.

Google’s larger market share in smart speakers gives Apple an opportunity to boost subscriptions to Apple Music. Apple already offers an Android version of Apple Music, which has opened its music service up to the more than 2 billion monthly active devices that run Google’s operating system. Now, those users, who are the most likely to own a Google Home, can play their songs in more places.

This is a new trend for Apple, as it begins to put more of a focus on services over device sales. At CES in early January, for example, Apple announced that iTunes was coming to Samsung TVs, which would let you purchase and stream movies and TV shows from Apple. Apple Music also recently launched on Amazon Echo devices.

Apple and Google weren’t immediately available for comment.

Via: Stock News and CNBC

Apple allowing app developers to offer discounted subscriptions to former subscribers

CompuScoop Staff February 26, 2019 0

San Francisco: In a bid to gather more customers and win back old ones, Apple is now allowing iOS, macOS and tvOS app developers to offer discounted subscriptions to past subscribers.

Using receipt validation, developers will be able to identify subscribers who have turned off auto-renewal so that they can act quickly with a promotional offer in an attempt to win them back before the end of their current subscription period, MacRumors reported on Monday.

"Apps with auto-renewable subscriptions will soon be able to provide a discounted price for a previously subscribed customers to help win back subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions," Apple wrote in a blog-post.

Like the introductory offers for new subscribers, promotional offers for previous subscribers have been made available in three categories - Free, Pay As You Go and Pay Up Front.

The "Free" category would allow users to access their subscription for free for a specific duration, the "Pay As You Go" option would allow customers to pay a promotional price for each billing period for a selected duration and the "Pay Up Front" choice would have to pay a one-time promotional price for a specific duration.

As soon as the promotional period would end, the subscription auto-renews at a standard price, according to Apple.

Apple first announced this change in its iOS 12.2 beta release notes.