timcook
Latest
Judge orders Apple’s iOS and macOS chief to testify in Epic case
CEO Tim Cook will also be deposed as the case heads to trial.
Ubisoft is donating $564,000 to help rebuild Notre-Dame
Following the fire that devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris this week, Ubisoft has pledged €500,000 ($564,000) to help restore the iconic church. The studio, which faithfully recreated Notre-Dame in Assassin's Creed Unity, is also offering that game for free until April 25th on PC to honor the landmark. "We want to give everyone the chance to experience the majesty and beauty of Notre-Dame the best way we know how," Ubisoft, which is headquartered in France and has studios in Paris, said.
Hitting the Books: A candid look at Tim Cook’s time at Apple
Welcome to Engadget's excerpt series, Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.
Tim Cook calls for a regulatory body to oversee data brokers
Apple chief Tim Cook has always been a vocal champion of privacy, even going so far as to publicly criticize other tech giants' data practices. Back in 2018, he called for GDPR-like laws in the US -- now he's calling for a regulatory body to oversee the business of selling data in an OP-ED piece for Time.
Apple's year of cheap battery upgrades resulted in 11 million repairs
In a recent all-hands meeting, Tim Cook reportedly revealed that Apple replaced 11 million iPhone batteries in 2018, up from its normal 1-2 million tally. The spike was a result of Apple's price cut to its battery replacement program as part of the fallout from its iPhone throttling debacle. And it seems that trend hit Apple where it hurts: iPhone sales.
Apple reportedly hires former Facebook privacy employee turned critic
Apple has hired a former Facebook employee, turned Facebook critic, as part of its privacy team, the Financial Times reports. Sandy Parakilas worked at Facebook between 2011 and 2012, leading the company's third-party privacy and policy compliance efforts, and recently, he's spoken out about the social media giant's privacy practices. Last year, when it was revealed that Facebook had shared detailed user data with major mobile device makers, Parakilas told The New York Times that the practice had been noted internally as a privacy issue. "It is shocking that this practice may still continue six years later, and it appears to contradict Facebook's testimony to Congress that all friend permissions were disabled," he said at the time.
Apple is reportedly cutting iPhone production by 10 percent
Apple lowering its earnings guidance by a whopping $5 billion is probably a big enough indicator that the tech giant is feeling the effects of struggling smartphone sales and the US-China trade war. A new Nikkei report makes it even clearer that the tech giant isn't immune to market saturation, though: According to the publication, Cupertino has asked its suppliers to manufacture fewer iPhones than planned for January to March. Apple is reportedly cutting the overall production target of both old and new iPhones, including the XS Max, XS and XR, by around 10 percent.
Apple has big plans for health in 2019
Apple will launch more healthcare-related services this year, Tim Cook has revealed in an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer. The CEO didn't quite elaborate on the exact nature of those upcoming services, only that Apple has "been working on [them] for multiple years." During the interview, Cook stressed Apple's deepening commitment to health and wellness products. He said that in the future, if anybody asks what Apple's greatest contribution to humankind is, "health" will be the answer.
Recommended Reading: The best of 2018
Surface Go is Microsoft's big bet on a tiny-computer future Lauren Goode, Wired We're taking a look back at the most popular Recommended Reading stories of the year this week. At the top of the list is Wired's detailed piece on the $399 Surface Go, Microsoft's long-rumored smaller Surface device. Other popular RR entries this year cover Alexa and Google Assistant, an interview with Tim Cook, election hacking and fake news.
A federal privacy draft bill could arrive in early 2019
A federal privacy bill draft may arrive early next year, which could pave the way for a US version of the European Union's strict General Data Protection Regulation rules. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal is working with Republican Jerry Moran (who is chairman of the consumer protection, product safety, insurance and data security subcommittee) on a bipartisan privacy bill and expressed hope the draft will be ready soon, according to Reuters.
Tim Cook defends Apple's search deals with Google
Apple's Tim Cook is always on hand to explain why his company is better at privacy than its rivals (read Google and Facebook), which have been mired in data scandals of late. When Cook said personal information is being "weaponized against us with military efficiency," while calling on GDPR-style rules in the US, it was clear who his targets were. Reality, however, is a lot more complicated than that. Though Apple doesn't have a targeted advertising business, it still stocks Facebook's apps in its App Store and receives billions from Google to make it the default search engine on its platforms.
Once again, Facebook has a lot of explaining to do
Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for Facebook, The New York Times has come out with a bombshell exposé of the company's tumultuous last two years. That, of course, includes its handling (er, mishandling) of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal and other controversies, like the lack of transparency around Russian interference on its site leading up to the 2016 US presidential election. The paper says it spoke with more than 50 people, including current and former Facebook employees, who detailed the company's efforts to contain, deny and deflect negative stories that came its way.
Facebook responds to the New York Times' blockbuster exposé
The New York Times recently published a bruising Facebook report saying, among other things, that the social network knew about Russian interference well before it said, feared Trump supporters and lobbied against critics. The nature of the article stunned even jaded tech observers, but now Facebook has issued a point-by-point rebuttal. It denied that it knew about Russian activity as early as spring of 2016, prevented security chief Alex Stamos from looking into it and that it discouraged employees from using iPhones out of spite for Tim Cook's comments.
Tim Cook calls for GDPR-style privacy laws in the US
Apple CEO and long-time data privacy advocate Tim Cook has made an impassioned speech calling for new digital privacy laws in the US. At a privacy conference in Brussels, Cook said that modern technology has resulted in a "data-industrial complex" where personal information is "weaponized against us with military efficiency," and in a way that doesn't just affect individuals but whole sections of society.
US intelligence chief says 'no evidence' of Chinese spy chips
Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence, said there's "no evidence" that Chinese spies tampered with servers bought by up to 30 companies, including the likes of Apple and a telecom provider, as Bloomberg reported earlier this month. However, he told Cyberscoop that "we're not taking anything for granted. We haven't seen anything, but we're always watching."
Apple CEO calls on Bloomberg to retract China surveillance report
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that San Jose-based server company Super Micro installed surveillance micro-chips in the Chinese data center hardware of up to 30 companies, including Amazon and Apple. These chips were supposedly used to steal intellectual property. However, all companies that were named in the initial report have denied Bloomberg's claims. Now, Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling on the well-reputed publication to retract its story altogether, according to BuzzFeed News.
Tim Cook calls removing Alex Jones simply 'curation'
In an interview with Vice News Tonight on HBO Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly explained some of the reasoning behind removing Alex Jones and InfoWars from the company's podcast app and App Store. According to Cook, the move wasn't politically motivated, or coordinated with any other tech companies, as he denied ever discussing the subject with them. Instead, he said: "What users want from us and what we've always provided them is a curated platform. We think that what the user wants is someone that does review these apps, someone that does review the podcasts, someone that on like Apple news, where a human is selecting the top stories. And that's what we do." He also reiterated previous comments calling for some form of regulation when it comes to privacy, saying that when the free market "doesn't produce a result that's great for society, you have to ask yourself what do we need to do?" Interviewer Elle Reeve also pushed Cook on his company's business in China, but he only offered that for user data in the country "it's encrypted like it is everywhere," and as he has before, said that Apple tries to design privacy into its products. You can watch the interview in its entirety below.
Apple is happy to use women and people of color as art, not authority
Apple's 2018 iPhone event opened with a black woman busting her ass to ensure a white man's success. The introductory video is a Mission Impossible-style short featuring a young woman racing across Cupertino campus to deliver a briefcase to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who's waiting calmly backstage before the event. She arrives out of breath, and he opens the briefcase. Inside is the clicker for the presentation; he picks it up with reverence while the woman asks, incredulously, "The clicker?" She then stands, panting, behind the curtain as Cook walks out to enjoy a raucous round of applause.
Apple is now a $1 trillion company
Apple's success hit a new milestone today: It's the first publicly traded trillion-dollar American company. Yesterday the firm announced an adjusted (higher) share count, and by this morning the stock price was rising with news that the company had almost hit the trillion-dollar mark. As spotted by 9to5Mac, the iOS Stocks app (pulling from Yahoo Finance) declared it had crossed the threshold this morning, but Google Finance didn't agree. The stock price was hovering around $205 per share earlier today and has steadily rose as the trading hours pass, with CNBC reporting that stock price temporarily hit the $207.05 per-share needed to hit the record-setting market cap before falling back.
Tim Cook says Apple has never received user data from Facebook
Facebook was once again under the privacy spotlight yesterday, when the New York Times published a report suggesting the company had given at least 60 device makers access to sensitive user data. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple -- one of the companies named as an alleged recipient of this information -- has now refuted these claims. In an interview with NPR, Cook directly addressed the report, which he said "is so foreign" to Apple, as it had never received nor requested data from Facebook.
