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Apple no longer needs antitrust monitor

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The United States Department of Justice has ruled that Apple Inc. have improved their compliant to their antitrust compliance program to an adequate degree. The U.S. Justice Department ruled that the monitoring term appointed by the court did not need to be filed for extension, stating that Apple Inc. met compliance.

Apple Persists Through Difficult Relationship

According to Reuters, a letter filed late on Monday 12th October 2015, in Manhattan Federal Courts states that this decision to no-longer file for a monitoring extension was “not an easy one” as it was stated that Apple “never embraced a cooperative working relationship with the monitor”.

The relationship between the assigned monitor, Michael Bromwich, was termed a “challenging relationship”. Michael Bromwich was appointed as antitrust monitor to Apple after it was discovered that Amazon was responsible for conspiring to raise e-book prices.

Apple Allegedly Involved in Fixing E-Book Prices

Apple acknowledged that their relationship was with Bromwich “rocky at times”, in a joint-letter to U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, but agreed to their compliance obligations. Michael Bromwich is a former U.S. Justice Department Inspector General and began his monitoring of Apple’s antitrust compliance policies in October 2013.

Judge Cote determined that Apple had conspired with five book publishers between the years of 2009 and 2010, to attempt to slow down competitors by raising e-book prices. The publishers involved were Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group Inc, News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Penguin Group Inc, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH’s Macmillan. They have thus settled allegations placed against them.

$450 Million Appeal

Judge Cote’s discovery upheld an appeal made in June 2015. The appeal made by Apple attempted to argue the fact that they had been involved in behavior purposed at fixing prices.

Apple is apparently still deciding whether to attest this decision at the U.S. Supreme Court. If the decision stands, Apple will be required to pay $450 million in settlement of related claims. Claims are made by thirty one different states, Washington D.C., numerous consumers and Puerto Rico. At least for now Apple no longer have an antitrust monitor looking over their shoulder.

 

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The wait is over: Facebook Messenger for Apple Watch arrives

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Facebook Messenger has, as expected, arrived for the Apple Watch. The integration of Facebook Messenger for Apple Watch has been a much anticipated feature, which now allows conversations, your contacts and more to be shown directly on your Apple Watch. You can send voice clips, emoji’s, stickers and likes as well as allow you to subscribe to groups and pages through this native WatchOS 2 application.

This new Facebook Messenger is extremely responsive and makes interactions quick and near-effortless. It is frills-free and is exactly what is needed by a platform requiring extreme ease of use and problem-free interaction.

Facebook Messenger with Multitasking

The multitasking features of Apple’s iPad are featured, as reported the The Verge, and Spotlight delivers results quickly. You can message and interact with friends and family whilst carrying out something else online at the same time. The convenience of being able to watch a movie, browse the web or social network amidst every moment of everyday life is likely to become a pain for friends and family, unless they own an Apple watch themselves of course!

No ads are displayed within Facebook’s messenger, they have opted not to directly monetize the WatchOS application. The influx of regular Facebook users is likely to affect their revenue through conventional means of accessing the network nonetheless.

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WatchOS 2 Brings New Apple Watch Apps

With the release of WatchOS 2 came a flood of new apps for your Apple Watch. Facebook Messenger for Apple Watch was announced at Apple’s “Hey, Siri” launch event. Flagship applications for the Apple Watch included iTranslate, a GoPro app, and a health care application named Airstrip.

A new range of sports watches were also unveiled, with the highlight being the new gold and rose-gold coloured Apple Watch Sport. Given the amount of distractions now conveniently placed upon your wrist, it is likely that most Apple Watch owners will never know what the time actually is. After all, time flies when you are having fun.

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Apple blocks Been Choice app

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Just when we thought we had seen the end of in-app advertising, Apple wipes the iStore clear of a host of applications that it deems unsafe and insecure. Been Choice was an in-app blocker that was capable of blocking even Apple’s own ads from within their news feed. Apple blocks Been Choice from the app store as a result of carrying out practices that enabled them to view encrypted traffic. Due to the way that Been Choice routes traffic, Apple was quick to pick up on the fact that the data being transported was also being diverted to an ad-removal server, which in turn left it vulnerable. Apple is not going to let your sensitive data lay around to fall into the wrong hands.

Root Certificates Cause Insecure Traffic

Whilst the motives for this function of the Been Choice app are most likely free from malicious intent, the installing of “root certificates”, as was the case with their app, allows for the viewing of data on a packet to packet level, bypassing any encryption used. Apple holds a sincere commitment to protecting customers’ security online, always looking out for the privacy of their consumers. In this particular case however there was also reference to the damage that in-app ad-blocking will create to steady revenue streams across the world. Safari in-browser ad-blockers were unaffected by the app store clean-up.

Been Choice Back to the Drawing-Board

Been Choice responded on Friday 9th 2015, stating that they would resubmit their application once adapting it remedy complaints from Apple. They are confident that it will meet fully compliance, stating in a Tweet “We will remove ad-blocking for Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance and Pinterest and resubmit tomorrow to comply”. Apple may have blocked Been Choice for now and details are unclear over the level of ad-blocking functionality that will be provided by Been Choice when it returns, but the trending ad-blocker is definitely not gone for good.

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13th of October brings 21.5-inch iMac with 4K Display

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As reported by 9to5mac‘s sources, we are scheduled to see the release of the brand new Retina 4K 21.5-inch  iMac on Tuesday 13th October. This iMac features a high quality graphics processor and outstanding 4K supporting resolutions up to 4096 x 2304. Apple fans are eagerly awaiting these new 21.5-inch iMacs which is due for release, preloaded with Mac OS X 10.11, El Capitan. It is going to prove to be interesting to see of El Capitan performs on the hardware that it was designed for.

Outstanding 4K Display

Graphics have received a complete overall and are the main focus of this fantastic new mac. In actual fact the other aesthetic features have not changed at all. The 4K display is highly anticipated and translates to a pixel density of 218 pixels per inch. Users across the world have been questioning whether or not this iMac features an update to Skylake.

Unfortunately it is not likely that next week will bring anything new in the form of Skylake, despite eager demand we are left with a Broadwell chipset. Shipments are expected to begin with a supply of roughly 1.5 million units. Retina has been out of reach for most users and this new iMac appears to be changing that trend through its relative affordability.

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High Demand for 21.5-inch iMacs

4K Display iMacs have been in high demand and Apple is most likely expecting their 1.5 million units to not last long.  With the launch of the 21.5-inch 4k iMac in about a week, fans are asking whether or not we will see a simultaneous launch of the new Magic Mouse 2 featuring Force Touch integration and Apple’s new Bluetooth Keyboard with extended battery life. This is one of the biggest updates seen in recent years to the iMac platform, with the last update of a similar magnitude being in 2013.

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Apple iPod may be reaching end of product life cycle

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Apple Inc. owes a large amount of their success to the top-selling iPod. Over recent years the sales of the iPod have been dwindling. This can be attributed to the increase in smartphone users, almost all of which rather use their phones for their music listening needs.

The iPod Nano has received no updates at all over the last three years and the Apple iPod touch has not had any major design changes either. Sales of the iPod have dropped so much that Apple Inc. refused to reveal their sales for the last quarter. Will Apple soon retire iPod altogether?

iPod Touch May Have Hope

Even those iPod fans do have some hope on the horizon in the form of possible RAM and chipset upgrades next year, the future is not bright for the Apple iPod. The iPod Nano is most likely a device to be retired, although the iPod touch still holds a chance of being upgraded.

There is a high possibility that the Apple Watch will replace the iPod as music listeners’ streaming device of choice. After all it does make more sense that the tech giant would put more resources into their newest, trending platform. With WatchOS 2.0 being released the Apple Watch is likely to be flooded with apps that will give it functionality far out-reaching the scope of an iPod.

No Place for Apple iPod

Any iPhone holds capabilities equal to, or greater than that of the current range of Apple iPod. In actual fact one can see further evidence of the decline of the iPod by Apple’s change to their website, whereby they replaced iPod’s category with Apple Music.

According to a report from BidnessETC, we could very soon be forced to say goodbye to our trusty iPods. With technology such as the iRing in the distant future, there is simply no place for a device designed to just play music from a limited, fixed amount of storage.