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Apple App Store profits look ‘disproportionate,’ U.S. judge say

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A federal judge on Friday grilled Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook over whether the iPhone maker’s App Store profits from developers such as “Fortnite” maker Epic Games are justified and whether Apple faces any real competitive pressure to change its ways.

Cook testified for more than two hours in Oakland, California, as the closing witness in Apple’s defense against Epic’s charges that the iPhone maker’s App Store controls and commissions have created a monopoly that Apple illegally abuses.

App makers including music service Spotify Technology, European regulators and U.S. politicians who question whether the company that once urged the world to ‘think different’ has now become too big and too powerful.

At the end of testimony, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers questioned Cook, pressing him to concede that game developers generate most App Store revenue and help subsidize other apps on the store that pay no commission.

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Gonzalez said the profits Apple reaps from game developers “appear to be disproportionate.”

“I understand this notion that somehow Apple is bringing the customer to the dance,” she said. “But after that first time, after that first interaction, the developers are keeping customers with the game. Apple is just profiting from that, it seems me.”

Cook disagreed. “The free apps bring a lot to the table. Only the people who are really profiting in a major way are paying 30” percent commissions, he said.

Epic has tried to show that Apple’s iPhone is a lucrative platform that locks in users, pointing to an internal Apple document that Epic alleges showed the App Store had 78% operating margins. Cook said the document did not reflect the full costs of running the App Store.

The testimony constitutes Cook’s most extensive public remarks on the App Store, which anchors Apple’s $53.8 billion services business.

Gonzalez Rogers also cited a survey that found 39% of software developers were unhappy with Apple’s app distribution services.

“It doesn’t seem to me that you feel pressure or competition to actually change the manner in which you act with developers,” Gonzalez Rogers said.

Cook replied that “we turn the place upside down” to respond to developer complaints, but later conceded that he does not receive regular reports on how developers feel about working with Apple.

At the start of the three-week trial, Gonzalez Rogers also pressed Epic Chief Executive Tim Sweeney with tough questions https://www.reuters.com/technology/judge-presses-epic-ceo-during-second-day-apple-antitrust-trial-2021-05-04 on how forcing Apple to change would ripple through the software world. Sweeney said he had not thought the issue through.

The maker of “Fortnite,” an online game which pits players against in each other in an animated “Battle Royale” fight to the last survivor, has waged a public relations and legal campaign against Apple.

Epic parodied Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial and argued in court that it acts anticompetitively by only allowing approved apps on the world’s 1 billion iPhones and forcing developers to use Apple’s in-app payment system which charges sales commissions of up to 30%.

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Apple has sought to persuade Gonzalez Rogers that its rules for developers are aimed at keeping its customers’ information private and safe from malware.

“We have a maniacal focus on the user and doing the right thing by the customer,” Cook said. “Safety and security are the foundation that privacy is built on. Technology has the ability to vacuum up all kinds of data from people, and we like to provide people with tools to circumvent that.”

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; editing by Peter Henderson, Richard Pullin and Richard Chang)

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Apple announces Worldwide Developers Conference dates, in-person event – CityNews Toronto

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Apple has announced their annual developers conference will take place June 10 through June 14.

The big summer event will be live-streamed, but some select developers have been invited to attend in-person events at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, on June 10.

The company typically showcases their latest software and product updates — including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AppleTV and Vision Pro headset — during a keynote address on the first day.

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Contributing to a drop in Apple’s stock price this year is concern it lags behind Microsoft and Google in the push to develop products powered by artificial intelligence technology. While Apple tends to keep its product development close to the vest, CEO Tim Cook signaled at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in February that it has been making big investments in generative AI and plans to disclose more later this year.

The week-long conference will have opportunities for developers to connect with Apple designers and engineers to gain insight into new tools, frameworks and features, according to the company’s announcement.

The Associated Press

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iPhone 16 Rumors Point to Action Button and New, Vertical Camera Layout – CNET

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The upcoming iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro are still months away from their expected launch this fall, but a new set of images published online may give us a better sense of their potential features. Among the revelations, the iPhone 16 may include an action button, similar to the one on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, and it may have redesigned cameras in a vertical stack.

AppleInsider published a series of photos it says show dummy 3D prints of the upcoming iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro from an unnamed leaker. Aside from the action button and reworked cameras on the iPhone 16, AppleInsider also said its source found the iPhone 16 Pro to be “slightly larger” than its predecessor. Analysts had earlier said they expect the Pro model screens will grow somewhat.

Read more: iPhone 16: All the Major Rumors on Apple’s Next iPhone

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The new details suggest that a series of expected hardware updates are likely for this year’s new iPhones. Apple typically announces new iPhones around September, and the company tends to offer incremental upgrades to each new phone, introducing, over the period of several years, better cameras, screens and battery life, features that end up seeming like major upgrades when people get around to buying a new phone

Last year, Apple added a new titanium frame, action button and USB-C charging to its iPhone 15 Pro, which starts at $999. For its entry-level iPhone, Apple followed its well-worn strategy of trickling pro features down to the mainstream, adding the iPhone 14 Pro’s well-received Dynamic Island to the $799 iPhone 15, along with USB-C charging.

AppleInsider didn’t indicate whether its leaker had divined a reason for the iPhone 16’s shifted camera placements, but the two lenses will now reportedly be stacked one on top of the other, instead of diagonally. Apple has previously said it uses stacked lenses on the iPhone 15 Pro for spatial video capture, a key new technology the company highlighted as part of its $3,499 Apple Vision Pro headset, released in February.

Though AppleInsider’s leaks appear to confirm many previous rumors, not all renders and 3D prints are accurate, something the rumor blog notes itself in its report. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the veracity of the leaks.

Watch this: What Google Gemini AI on the iPhone Could Look Like

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I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

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Leaked iPhone 16 dummy units hint at larger sizes and new buttons

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The iPhone 15 Pro Max, with a 6.7-inch screen
(Image credit: Future)

We’re already counting down to the arrival of the iPhone 16 series – most probably sometime in September – and a leak showing dummy units of the upcoming phones has revealed a few of the changes we can expect to see later this year.

These dummy units are usually based on supply chain information, and have various business uses – like helping case manufacturers get their wares ready for new phones before they’re launched, for example. In this case, the images were posted to Chinese social network Weibo, as spotted by MacRumors.

Perhaps the most interesting reveal from these blocks of plastic and metal is that they show the previously rumored increase in size for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max displays – up to 6.3 inches (from 6.1 inches) and 6.9 inches (from 6.7 inches) respectively.

That’s not a huge jump of course, but it does mean more screen space for apps and media. The bezels are apparently shrinking down to accommodate the larger screens, which means the increase in the physical size of these handsets is only a slight one.

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On the button

iPhone 16 dummy units leak

The next iPhones might look a bit like this, but less blue (Image credit: Weibo)

Further reveals from this leak match up with what we’ve heard before: that all four models are going to get the Action button that replaced the Ring/Silent switch on the 2023 Pro models, as well as a brand-new Capture button for getting more creative with photos.

Also of note is the redesigned rear camera module that we think is coming to the back of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. The new vertical, pill-shaped look has been leaked already, but this is more evidence that it’s on the way – taking us back to a design that’s more reminiscent of the iPhone 12, which came out in 2020.

As always with such rumors, be somewhat cautious about reading too much into the look of these dummy units. That said, as more and more similar leaks pile up, it becomes more likely that they’re based on accurate information.

The next big Apple date for your calendar is WWDC 2024 – its Worldwide Developers Conference starts on June 10, at which time we should hear much more about what’s coming this year with iOS 18 and Apple’s other software platforms.

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Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

Leaked iPhone 16 dummy units hint at larger sizes and new buttons

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