Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/01/monday-morning-news230117/
With the US Federal Trade Commission suing Qualcomm for forcing Apple to use their modems in smartphones, Apple has now followed suit. There’s no dollar figure on how much Apple want out of Qualcomm, but the company claims Qualcomm has withheld $1 billion in payments that it owed due to Apple cooperating with the Korean Fair Trade Commission. Apple also alleges it has been “overcharged billions” by the company.
Under fire now from both the US FTC and Apple, Qualcomm’s response has been to discredit Apple’s claims. Qualcomm’s General Counsel Don Rosenberg released a statement saying that Apple’s claims of Qualcomm charging more than all other cellular patent licensors combined are baseless, with Apple also mischaracterising agreements and negotiations between the two companies.
Rumour has it Apple will be looking into a two-step Touch ID and facial recognition system for this year’s iPhone. Ming-Chi Kuo’s latest prediction stems from speculation that it’s likely Apple will switch to an OLED display with improved 3D Touch capabilities. Kuo also writes that Apple will eventually move entirely to facial recognition, but in lieu of that, will use a combination of both fingerprint and facial recognition tech.
Another rumour says Apple will be introducing a group FaceTime feature in iOS 11 later this year. According to sources for an Israeli site, up to five people will be able to participate on FaceTime group calls, and the overall iOS 11 update will be focused on social features such as iMessage and FaceTime.
9to5Mac has more from the rumour mill regarding possible iOS updates for this year. They say iOS 10.3 will potentially introduce a new “theatre” mode that will dim the screen brightness and silence all sounds, with possible iPad and Apple Pencil improvements. IOS 11, on the other hand, is expected to come with changes to Siri, a new dark mode, and maybe even some kind of camera/AR integration.
Apple’s R&D centre in Japan is on track for its planned March opening, with Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary has praised Apple for its new development saying it could lead other companies to do the same.
A report from an artist rights blog claims Apple pays almost double what Spotify does for streaming royalties. To be clear, we’re still talking about $0.00735 and $0.00437 per stream for Apple Music and Spotify respectively, but it’s interesting that Spotify’s royalties seem to have dropped from their 2015 figures, back when the company paid out $0.00521.
You can never have too many backups of data you intend to keep, and to that end, AppleInsider compares Time Machine, SuperDuper!, and Carbon Copy Cloner for making local backups of your data and even your entire computer.
Macworld’s Dan Moren says a touchscreen Mac could make sense, if Apple went about it the right way. Just like docked iPads currently live in this dichotomy the touchscreen and physical keyboard worlds, it’s possible the Mac could go down a similar path.