The tech behemoth’s latest iPhone features a new USB-C charging port and titanium frame for its higher-end models.



Apple has unveiled the iPhone 15, with the base models 15 and 15 Plus priced at $799 and $899 respectively, in its most anticipated product event of the year. The higher-end 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will be priced at $999 and $1,199 respectively.



As usual, the iPhone 15 will come equipped with a better camera and upgraded processing power, but it will also feature a significant change: a USB-C port for charging and data transfers. Apple was forced to do away with its Lightning port in iPhones after the European Union passed a law last year that requires all mobile devices to accommodate a common&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/10/26/weve-no-choice-apple-says-iphones-will-switch-over-to-usb-c-chargers-to-comply-with-new-eu-law/?sh=786790cabcde">USB-C&nbsp;</a>charger.



The consumer tech giant also announced two new makes of the Apple Watch: the Apple Watch Series 9, which it said was its first carbon neutral product ever, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Sustainability was one of the central themes of the event, where Apple detailed its increased use of recycled materials like cobalt in the battery and energy efficient manufacturing and transportation practices to produce the Apple Watch Series 9. This comes ahead of the company’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.



With inconspicuous changes in design and appearance, the screen sizes for the standard iPhone 15 models are the same as before (6.1 inch and 6.7 inch), but the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max have a slightly larger display as their bezels are thinner than previous iPhones, the company announced. The Pro iPhones are built with Grade 5 titanium frames for the first time rather than stainless steel, making them the lightest Pro phones Apple has ever built.



Similar to its predecessor, iPhone 15 has a matte finish, but the edges of the phone are more rounded than before. The regular models are available in pink, yellow, green, blue and black while the Pro models come in black, blue and white titanium. All new phones have the “Dynamic Island,” an interface that was first added to iPhone 14 Pro that lets users see notifications in the black pill-shaped notch at the top of the display.



Apple touted the phone’s upgraded camera capabilities: a 48-megapixel camera sensor is replacing the 12-megapixel and lets users zoom into photos while capturing minute details and nuances. The new Pro phones come with a feature that uses machine learning to detect when a person is in the photo, enabling you to automatically switch to portrait mode even after a photo has been taken.



If you’re on a call using the iPhone 15 Pro, a machine learning-based feature called “voice isolation” prioritizes the speaker’s voice and drowns out background voice. The phones are also enabled with an emergency SOS service and roadside assistance while off the grid.



The pricier models come with a performance edge, thanks to a new A17 chip. All new iPhones are embedded with a new ultrawide-band semiconductor, a technology that uses radio waves to send and receive signals, to make location tracking on the Find My app more accurate.



The ring/mute slide switch, which has never changed since Apple launched the original iPhone in 2007, has been replaced in iPhone 15 Pro models with an “Action Button” that can be customized to set different functionalities like starting a voice recording, launching the camera or opening the flashlight.



For the Apple Watch Series 9 and a second generation of the Apple Watch Ultra , the look and design for the new watches has remained consistent, but their guts have gotten an upgrade, with 30% faster processing speed and brighter screens. The two new Apple Watches are equipped with a feature that lets users double tap their index finger and thumb to carry out actions like accepting or ending a call, and playing or pausing music with just one hand.



Apple’s latest product reveal comes at a crucial time for the company. Demand for smartphones is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-06/apple-iphone-15-comes-amid-us-sales-slowdown-tim-cook-q3-earnings-comments-lkzfs14u" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">slowing</a>&nbsp;down across the industry, and Apple’s iPhone sales dropped about 2% year over year in the third quarter of 2023. Core to its business, iPhones, Apple Watches and AirPods accounted for about 60% of Apple’s $394.3 billion annual revenue in 2022.



Although more mainstream, the new iPhone and Apple Watches aren’t the only products that Apple announced this year. In June, alongside new Macs, Apple introduced the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnpaczkowski/2023/06/07/this-is-what-its-like-to-use-apples-new-vision-pro-mixed-reality-headset/?sh=43c3323539e4">Apple Vision Pro</a> mixed-reality headset, its first major new product category since the Apple Watch made waves in 2015. The iPhone 15 lets users create photos and videos that are compatible with the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple Holds Product Unveiling Event

Apple Kills Lightning In iPhone 15 And Announces Carbon Neutral Apple Watches

Apple Store in Shanghai, China

Inside Apple’s Impossible War On Child Exploitation

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple shares tumbled Wednesday amid a broader market gain due to a report on lowered iPhone 14 production, shedding about $50 billion in market capitalization, but analysts say the dip is an unnecessary knee jerk reaction and retain a strong view on the current iPhone cycle.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Apple stock fell by as much as 4.4% to $145.03, a two-month low, in Wednesday morning trading after Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-28/apple-iphone-14-sales-not-strong-enough-to-trigger-production-boost" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>&nbsp;the company backed off plans to ramp up iPhone 14 production by as many as six million units in the second half of 2022 due to faltering demand.



However, Bloomberg reported Apple still expects to match its goal to produce 90 million iPhone 14 units in the second half of the year, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/apple-expects-to-sustain-iphone-sales-in-2022-as-market-slows" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in line</a> with its reported estimate in July, and Morgan Stanley and Citi analysts each wrote in Wednesday notes their projections for iPhone demand remained unchanged.



Worries about iPhone 14 demand are “more bark than bite,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.



Demand for the pricier iPhone 14 Pro models outpaces demand for the base models, according to Bloomberg, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote “the iPhone 14 Pro demand is robust and this will enable Apple to power through near-term macro headwinds much better than feared by the Street.”



Apple shares recovered value in later trading, closing down only 1.3%, though Apple was the only company on the Dow Jones Industrial Average down for the day.<img decoding="async" src="https://img.connatix.com/pid-546f0bce-b219-41ac-b691-07d0ec3e3fe1/546f0bce-b219-41ac-b691-07d0ec3e3fe1/1.png" alt=""><img decoding="async" src="https://img.connatix.com/pid-546f0bce-b219-41ac-b691-07d0ec3e3fe1/e8869d3f-0f3e-474a-a43d-be85f87597b4/5f0ba3f9-4a2c-4501-ba59-91685227137f.jpg?crop=390:292,smart&amp;width=390&amp;height=292&amp;format=jpeg&amp;quality=60&amp;fit=crop" alt="3 Big Questions For Milwaukee Bucks’ Training Camp">



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



Apple shares&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/losers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fell</a>&nbsp;more than those of any other large-cap companies in Wednesday trading. Despite Apple’s decline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and S&amp;P 500 each rose by more than 1% as the market looks to snap its week-long losing streak. Apple’s stock is down 19% year-to-date, outperforming the S&amp;P 500’s 23% drop in the period.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Apple <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/09/07/apple-launch-new-iphones-watches-airpods/?sh=789800da1287">unveiled</a> the new iPhone models at a September 7 launch event, along with several other products. The company, which produces most of its iPhones in China, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d5fc0566-9916-449d-953f-85b4d325bcc0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> Monday it began to produce some iPhone 14 models in India as the company looks to diversify from political tension and supply chain snags originating in China. Apple will move 5% of iPhone production to India by year’s end and 25% of all iPhone production to the country by 2025, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/21/apple-to-move-25-iphone-production-to-india-by-2025-20-ipad-and-apple-watch-to-vietnam/?tpcc=tcplustwitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to a report from JP Morgan analysts last week.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-28/apple-iphone-14-sales-not-strong-enough-to-trigger-production-boost" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple Ditches iPhone Production Increase After Demand Falters</a> (Bloomberg)



By Derek Saul, Forbes Staff

Apple’s iPhone 14 Series On Sale In China

Apple Stock Plunges 3% On Report About Dampened iPhone Demand—But Analysts Say Drop Is Unwarranted

Apple will no longer include a pair of wired headphones or a power adapter with new iPhones, the company announced Tuesday as it unveiled the iPhone 12, in an effort to cut down on packaging and reduce emissions.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h4>



The iPhone 12 will only come with a USB-C to Lightning cable for charging.



You’ll have to buy a $19 USB-C&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHJA3AM/A/20w-usb-c-power-adapter?fnode=0a7b838307dd2d3e1b0dc6a2de553c6ff3e52ed8b2eaf127f34cd572d847b4f501a95dde9421a9bc58f07b94142b368f4ae32b69d1202e66f11b3f4281a39d1a3af71a870de2797eb984b6550607b2d756cca5c6be5db801fb1e33322cd95a39" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">charging brick</a>&nbsp;separately if you want to use the cable in the box, though you can still charge your phone with any old iPhone charger with a Lightning connector.



Earpods will cost another $19 if you don’t already have a pair or use wireless Airpods.



Apple says the move is part of the company’s effort to become 100% carbon neutral by 2030.&nbsp;



Removing accessories, Apple says, will use fewer raw materials and thinner packaging, which allows Apple to put 70% more units on a single shipping pallet to reduce carbon emissions.



Lisa Jackson, Apple&#8217;s vice president for environment policy and social initiatives, suggested Tuesday that many customers already have Apple’s wired headphones and charging bricks, saying 700 million Earpods and 2 billion power adapters have already been sold.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">CHIEF CRITICS</h4>



&nbsp;Some criticized Apple for using the environment as an excuse to increase margins and lower shipping costs, especially because Apple isn’t also lowering prices. CNET&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-12-wont-include-earbuds-or-power-adapter/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&amp;UniqueID=7449213A-0D7E-11EB-85BB-57844D484DA4&amp;PostType=link&amp;ServiceType=twitter&amp;TheTime=2020-10-13T18:03:53" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">noted</a>&nbsp;the move may be a way to offset the costs of including ultrawide 5G support, which usually pushes up phone prices even higher. But many assailed Apple for forcing customers to buy yet another accessory. “Apple has found yet another way to force you to buy an expensive dongle/adapter for its expensive gadgets in order to make said gadgets work,” Jason Koebler of&nbsp;Vice&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxqwk9/apple-will-make-you-buy-a-dollar20-charging-brick-to-charge-dollar1000-iphone-12-pro" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a>.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



&#8220;Taken altogether the changes we have made for iPhone 12 cut over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. It&#8217;s like removing 450,000 cars from the road per year,” Jackson said.



&#8211;By Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff

Apple_announce-iphone12pro_10132020

New iPhones Won’t Come With Headphones Or A Charging Box Anymore

Apple hit a new milestone on Wednesday, becoming the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a market capitalization of over $2 trillion and doubling in valuation over the last two years.



KEY FACTS



The iPhone maker’s stock is up almost 55% so far in 2020, and shares have rallied more than 106% since the market hit a low point amid the coronavirus recession on March 23 (compared to the benchmark S&amp;P 500’s gain of 51% over that period).



Now trading at nearly $470 per share, Apple’s stock is at an all-time high, and Wall Street analysts are still quite bullish that it can continue to rally: 61% give it a “buy” rating and 27% a “hold” rating, according to Bloomberg data.



Apple’s market cap now eclipses that of other U.S. tech giants, including Microsoft ($1.7 trillion), Amazon ($1.6 trillion), Google parent Alphabet ($1.1 trillion) and Facebook ($761 billion).



Apple was also the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, which it did just over two years ago, on August 2, 2018.



On July 31, 2020, after reporting strong&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/07/apple-reports-third-quarter-results/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">third-quarter earnings</a>, Apple surpassed Saudi state oil giant Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.



While Saudi Aramco&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/12/saudi-aramco-hits-2-trillion-market-cap-on-second-day-of-trading.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">surpassed a $2 trillion valuation</a>&nbsp;in December 2019, plunging oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic have since hurt its stock.



SURPRISING FACT



At $2 trillion, Apple’s market value is now&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1296095582533148674?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">higher than the GDP</a>&nbsp;of numerous developed countries, including Italy, Brazil, Canada, Russia and South Korea, to name a few.



WHAT TO WATCH FOR



Apple shares are about to get more affordable for investors, too. The company will finalize its four-for-one stock split at the end of August, which means a single share will be worth around $117. While the value of the company will remain the same, there will now be more shares available trading at lower prices.



KEY BACKGROUND



Apple has thrived during the pandemic, as many people were forced to stay at home. The company has benefited from work-from-home trends and strong online sales; It posted record third-quarter earnings in late July, with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/07/apple-reports-third-quarter-results/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nearly $60 billion in revenue</a>, not to mention double-digit growth in its products and services segments.



FURTHER READING



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/13/competition-from-apple-wont-derail-peloton-analysts-say/">Could Competition From Apple Derail Peloton? Not So Fast, Analysts Say</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/24/apple-microsoft-amazon-google-and-facebook-make-up-a-record-chunk-of-the-sp-500-heres-why-that-might-be-dangerous/">Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google And Facebook Make Up A Record Chunk Of The S&amp;P 500. Here’s Why That Might Be Dangerous</a> (Forbes)



-Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff

DOUNIAMAG-US-IT-APPLE-NEWS-FEED

Apple Becomes First U.S. Company Worth More Than $2 Trillion

Apple’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48110709" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iPhone sales have dropped</a>&nbsp;in recent quarters, particularly in China, where cheaper rivals Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi have gained traction. Smartphone revenue fell 17% for the latest three months to $31 billion, but the stock jumped 5% on the results. One big reason: record-high services revenue.



The company’s services division includes its App Store, Apple Pay, iTunes, cloud services and more. It is now the second biggest segment for Apple after the iPhone, with revenue of $37 billion in 2018, and Morgan Stanley expects it to&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/08/apples-services-will-grow-to-over-100-billion-per-year-in-2023-says-analyst" target="_blank">top $100 billion in 2023</a>. The projected growth speaks to the power of the Apple brand.



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here for the full list of The World&#8217;s Most Valuable Brands</a>



Apple tops&nbsp;Forbes’ annual look at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world’s most valuable brands</a>&nbsp;for the ninth straight time.&nbsp;The brand of the tech giant is worth $205.5 billion, up 12% over last year. It is the first time a brand crossed the $200 billion threshold.



Apple has made an art form of moving its customer base from one product category to another. Mac users adopted the iPod, followed by the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Customers trust the brand will work seamlessly across all categories in the Apple ecosystem, which has helped make the Cupertino, California-based company the most valuable in the world. Services is the next frontier for the company and brand.



While Apple maintains its spot at the top, Google is closing fast with a value of $167.7 billion, up 23%. The Apple brand was worth more than twice as much as the ubiquitous search brand just four years ago.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The World’s Most Reputable CEOs 2019 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2019/05/22/the-worlds-most-reputable-ceos-2019/" target="_blank">The World’s Most Reputable CEOs 2019</a>



Google has cornered the global search engine market with a 92% share over the past 12 months,&nbsp;<a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to StatCounter</a>&nbsp;(Bing, 2.6%, and Yahoo, 1.9%, are miles behind). Like Apple, Google has used its brand to move into other categories of consumers’ everyday life from email to Web browsing to maps to cloud storage.



While many global consumer brands struggle with the changing habits of their customers, the biggest tech brands continue to be juggernauts. Microsoft ($123.5 billion) and Amazon ($97 billion) round out the top four and both jumped more than 20% in value.



One tech brand that was dinged over the past 12 months is Facebook, which ranks fifth overall. It was the only brand in the top ten to fall in value, to an estimated $88.9 billion, down 6% from last year. The number of active Facebook users reached 2.4 billion this year, but the social media brand has been hampered by concerns around data protection, privacy policies and fake news.



Coca-Cola is the top brand outside of tech, with a value of $59.2 billion, up 3%, and ranked sixth overall.



Brands: By The Numbers



The 100 most valuable brands are worth a cumulative $2.33 trillion, up 8% over last year. Tech brands were the top gainers, led by e-commerce giant Amazon, up 37% to $97 billion. Other big winners: Netflix (+34%), Google (+27%) and Adobe (+27%). H&amp;M had the biggest fall, down 12% to $11.5 billion. The Swedish retailer has struggled and cut prices last year on clothing to clear excess inventory. More than 20 brands declined in value, including ESPN (-10%), GE (-8%) and Hyundai (-8%).



U.S. companies landed 56 brands among the top 100, as well as 80% of the top 10. Germany (11 brands), France (7) and Japan (6) were the next most prolific countries of origin. Brands from 16 countries made the final cut.



In addition to the proliferation of tech brands (20 of the top 100), financial services (13), automotive (11), consumer packaged goods (10) and retail (8) were the most common industries.



Methodology



We began with a universe of more than 200 global brands, which include both corporate and product brands. We required brands to have more than a token presence in the U.S., which eliminated some large brands like multinational telecom firm&nbsp;Vodafone&nbsp;and Chinese e-commerce behemoth&nbsp;Alibaba.



Our first step in valuing the brands was to determine revenue and earnings before interest and taxes for each one. We gathered these from company reports, Wall Street research and industry experts.&nbsp;Forbes averaged earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) over the past three years and subtracted from earnings a charge of 8% of the brand’s capital employed, figuring a generic brand should be able to earn at least 8% on this capital.



Forbes&nbsp;applied the corporate tax rate in the parent company’s home country to that net earnings figure. Next, we allocated a percentage of those earnings to the brand based on the role brands play in each industry. Brands are crucial when it comes to beverages and luxury goods, but less so with airlines and fuel, when price and convenience are more important.



To this net brand earnings number, we applied the average price-to-earnings multiple over the past three years to arrive at the final brand value. For privately held outfits we applied earnings multiples for comparable public companies.



-Kurt Badenhausen; Forbes Staff

960×0

The World’s Most Valuable Brands 2019: Apple On Top At $206 Billion

Apple makes the most secure phones in the world. At least, that’s the common assumption.



But increasingly Android models are as difficult, if not trickier, to break into as the iPhone, according to search warrants and forensic industry sources.



One&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6024482-Angel-Angulo-Phone-Search-Warrant.html" target="_blank">warrant</a>&nbsp;unearthed by&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;detailed a case in which cops seized an LG Android phone after swooping on suspected drug dealer, Angel Angulo, who’d allegedly sold methamphetamine to an undercover cop. Upon Angulo’s arrest the police obtained the phone from inside the his Ford Mustang, though the search warrant didn&#8217;t detail what exact LG model.



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The police obtained the LG in January and even had permission to force open the device by holding it up to Angulo’s face or depressing his fingerprint to unlock with facial or fingerprint recognition. 



But agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have not been able to find a way to bypass the lock screen with their current forensic tools and techniques. 



They&#8217;ve now asked for an additional 120 days to access the device, according to a&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6024473-Cellebrite-Gets-Update-to-Help-Get-Android.html" target="_blank">filing</a>&nbsp;from the ATF. (No legal representation was listed for the defendant. The Department of Justice hadn’t responded to a request for comment at the time of publication).



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Huawei Lawyer Says CFO Meng A ‘hostage’ After US Presses Charges (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/01/29/huawei-lawyer-says-cfo-meng-a-hostage-after-us-presses-charges/" target="_blank">Huawei Lawyer Says CFO Meng A ‘hostage’ After US Presses Charges</a>



iPhones less secure than Android now?



Sources in the forensics community tell&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that the security of Google’s operating system has become, in some cases, too strong to allow police (or anyone else with direct access to an Android phone) inside. “Some would say iPhones are less secure,” said one source from a large forensics provider.



Google, like Apple, has been continually adding security features to Android, said Vladimir Katalov, CEO of Russian forensics provider Elcomsoft. One of the key updates to Android over the years remains Secure Startup, which encrypts all internal storage so the data within should be accessible only to someone with a passcode or other form of authentication, like a face or a finger.



The anonymous source noted that a considerable amount of resources go into penetrating the defenses of iPhone operating systems, and once a hack works on one iOS device, it should work on all the others. The same cannot be said for Android, which is fragmented across manufacturers’ home-brew updates and countless phone models. If a police officer or forensics professional finds a way to break into a Google Pixel, for instance, the same hack might not work on any other devices.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/28/google-facebook-twitter-fail-to-live-up-to-fake-news-pledge/" target="_blank">Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge</a>



“While some Android phones can be accessed using generic methods, each new model may contain unique features which require a more customized approach,” said Peter Sommer, professor of digital forensics at Birmingham City University in the U.K. “In addition there are instances of standard Android phones being heavily modified to have secure features.”



The issue of Android security is particularly pressing for Huawei, the world&#8217;s largest manufacturer of Android phones, which is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2019/05/22/huawei-disaster-will-impact-android-in-one-clear-way/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">set to lose access to Google&#8217;s security updates</a>&nbsp;on newer devices. That’s because of the Trump administration’s ban on American companies doing business with the Chinese telecoms giant.



iPhone still trumps Android in some cases, though. When&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;tested a range of Android phones’ facial recognition systems, there were clear disparities in the security of the technology across the different devices. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/12/13/we-broke-into-a-bunch-of-android-phones-with-a-3d-printed-head/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3D-printed head was able to open all the Android phones tested</a>, but it worked much quicker and in all light conditions on a OnePlus 6, whereas Samsung and LG phones were tougher to crack.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;also tested Apple’s facial recognition with the fake head. In that case, it proved impenetrable.



&#8211;Thomas Brewster;Forbes Staff

960×0 (1)

Google Is Making Android As Difficult To Hack As iPhone—And Cops Are Suffering

Software pirates have hijacked technology designed by Apple Inc to distribute hacked versions of Spotify, Angry Birds, Pokemon Go, Minecraft and other popular apps on iPhones.



Illicit software distributors such as TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox have found ways to use digital certificates to get access to a program Apple introduced to let corporations distribute business apps to their employees without going through Apple’s tightly controlled App Store.



Using so-called enterprise developer certificates, these pirate operations are providing modified versions of popular apps to consumers, enabling them to stream music without ads and to circumvent fees and rules in games, depriving Apple and legitimate app makers of revenue.



By doing so, the pirate app distributors are violating the rules of Apple’s developer programs, which only allow apps to be distributed to the general public through the App Store. Downloading modified versions violates the terms of service of almost all major apps.



TutuApp, Panda Helper, AppValley and TweakBox did not respond to multiple requests for comment.



Apple has no way of tracking the real-time distribution of these certificates, or the spread of improperly modified apps on its phones, but it can cancel the certificates if it finds misuse.



“Developers that abuse our enterprise certificates are in violation of the Apple Developer Enterprise Program Agreement and will have their certificates terminated, and if appropriate, they will be removed from our Developer Program completely,” an Apple spokesperson told Reuters. “We are continuously evaluating the cases of misuse and are prepared to take immediate action.”



After Reuters initially contacted Apple for comment last week, some of the pirates were banned from the system, but within days they were using different certificates and were operational again.



“There’s nothing stopping these companies from doing this again from another team, another developer account,” said Amine Hambaba, head of security at software firm Shape Security.



Apple confirmed a media report on Wednesday that it would require two-factor authentication &#8211; using a code sent to a phone as well as a password &#8211; to log into all developer accounts by the end of this month, which could help prevent certificate misuse.



Major app makers Spotify Technology SA, Rovio Entertainment Oyj and Niantic Inc have begun to fight back.



Spotify declined to comment on the matter of modified apps, but the streaming music provider did say earlier this month that its new terms of service would crack down on users who are “creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements” on its service.



Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds mobile games, said it actively works with partners to address infringement “for the benefit of both our player community and Rovio as a business.”



Niantic, which makes Pokemon Go, said players who use pirated apps that enable cheating on its game are regularly banned for violating its terms of service. Microsoft Corp, which owns the creative building game Minecraft, declined to comment.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">SIPHONING OFF REVENUE</h4>



It is unclear how much revenue the pirate distributors are siphoning away from Apple and legitimate app makers.



TutuApp offers a free version of Minecraft, which costs $6.99 in Apple’s App Store. AppValley offers a version of Spotify’s free streaming music service with the advertisements stripped away.



The distributors make money by charging $13 or more per year for subscriptions to what they calls “VIP” versions of their services, which they say are more stable than the free versions. It is impossible to know how many users buy such subscriptions, but the pirate distributors combined have more than 600,000 followers on Twitter.



Electronic Arts&#8217; new game challenges Fortnite



Security researchers have long warned about the misuse of enterprise developer certificates, which act as digital keys that tell an iPhone a piece of software downloaded from the internet can be trusted and opened. They are the centerpiece of Apple’s program for corporate apps and enable consumers to install apps onto iPhones without Apple’s knowledge.



Apple last month briefly banned Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc from using enterprise certificates after they used them to distribute data-gathering apps to consumers.



The distributors of pirated apps seen by Reuters are using certificates obtained in the name of legitimate businesses, although it is unclear how. Several pirates have impersonated a subsidiary of China Mobile Ltd. China Mobile did not respond to requests for comment.



Tech news website TechCrunch earlier this week reported that certificate abuse also enabled the distribution of apps for pornography and gambling, both of which are banned from the App Store.



Since the App Store debuted in 2008, Apple has sought to portray the iPhone as safer than rival Android devices because Apple reviews and approves all apps distributed to the devices.



Early on, hackers “jailbroke” iPhones by modifying their software to evade Apple’s controls, but that process voided the iPhone’s warranty and scared off many casual users. The misuse of the enterprise certificates seen by Reuters does not rely on jailbreaking and can be used on unmodified iPhones. -Reuters



-Stephen Nellis and Paresh Dave

Man hacking into computer

Software Pirates Use Apple Tech To Put Hacked Apps On iPhones

Apple Inc plans to cut the price of some of its flagship iPhones for only the second time in the device’s 12-year history, pegging its retail value to past prices in local currencies outside the United States instead of the rising U.S. dollar. 



The move is an attempt to stem weak sales of the iPhone, particularly in overseas markets such as China, where a 10 percent rise in the U.S. dollar over the past year or so has made Apple’s products &#8211; which already compete at the top end of the market &#8211; much pricier than rivals.



Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook disclosed the plan on Tuesday after the company reported the first-ever dip in iPhone sales during the key holiday shopping period. The company has only once before cut iPhone prices, shortly after it debuted in 2007.



Apple did not say in which countries it would adjust iPhone prices. Resellers in China already began cutting iPhone prices earlier this month after Apple lowered its sales forecast for the quarter ended in December.



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The company priced its new iPhone XS, which was released in September, at $999, the same price in U.S. dollars as its predecessor, 2017’s iPhone X.



That worked for U.S. consumers, but in countries such as China and Turkey the local currency had fallen so much against the surging U.S. dollar, it made the phone significantly pricier than its predecessor a year before. Apple had essentially asked the consumer to bear the cost of the strengthening dollar.



On Tuesday, Cook said Apple will adjust foreign prices in some markets by resetting them at or close to what they were one year before in local currencies. Effectively that means Apple will absorb the cost of the strengthening dollar.



“We’ve decided to go back to (iPhone prices) more commensurate with what our local prices were a year ago, in hopes of helping the sales in those areas,” Cook told Reuters in an interview.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">RISING DOLLAR HURTS APPLE SALES</h4>



In the company’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Cook also highlighted the impact of foreign exchange problems in Turkey, where he said the local lira had depreciated by 33 percent against the dollar and Apple’s sales were down by $700 million from the previous year. In November, Apple also cited currency pressure on its prices in Brazil, India and Russia.



Apple has not said when or how often it might reset its prices because of foreign currency changes.



Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the price adjustments may not extend to its services business, which includes Apple Music and the App Store.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/investment/2019/01/15/not-so-fast-can-elon-musk-really-open-teslas-china-gigafactory-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Not So Fast: Can Elon Musk Really Open Tesla’s China Gigafactory This Year? (opens in a new tab)">Not So Fast: Can Elon Musk Really Open Tesla’s China Gigafactory This Year?</a>



While that unit beat analyst expectations with $10.8 billion in sales in the quarter ended in December, growth has slowed compared to previous years.



Apple posts revenue drop but optimistic on China



Maestri said slower growth was partly because prices rose for users in non-U.S. markets.



“Roughly 60 percent of our services business is outside the United States, and as you know, the U.S. dollar has appreciated in recent months,” Maestri said. “And in general, we tend not to reprice our services for foreign exchange on a very frequent basis.” -Reuters



-Stephen Nellis

gettyimages-1090831872-594×594

Apple Lowers Some iPhone Prices Outside US To Offset Strong Dollar

At Apple&#8217;s last annual developer conference in June, one new tool captured the attention of developers perhaps more than any other product or tool introduced that day. Called ARKit, the tool for iOS 11 enables developers to create augmented reality applications that place digital objects in the real world.
With a new set of iPhones announced on Tuesday &#8211; iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X &#8211; Apple now offers the best hardware and software platform for developing AR applications.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2017/09/12/live-blog-all-the-news-about-apples-new-iphones-watch-and-more/#8791c005f8e9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Read more: Apple News Wrap Up: IPhone 8, IPhone X, Face ID, Wireless Charging, Animated Emojis And More)</a>
Developers are jumping on board and spending a considerable amount of time, money and effort to take full advantage of ARKit. Ikea&#8217;s head of digital transformation, Michael Valdsgaard, said 70 employees at the retail giant spent nine and half weeks weeks toiling day and night on an ARKit app. The result, Ikea Place, allows customers to place digital versions of Ikea furniture in their homes before spending money on something that doesn&#8217;t work outside of a store setting.
Ikea starting toying with an AR tool in 2013, Valdsgaard told Forbes. But earlier versions required dedicated AR headsets, which lack the ubiquity of iPhones. That severely limited rollout. The experience was also never very solid. ARKit handles the complicated task of measuring the room and its dimensions to accurately place objects.
&#8220;We never had the vehicle or platform to make AR really good,&#8221; Valdsgaard said. &#8220;This is what ARKit does.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/09/11/battling-giants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Battling Giants</a>
But placing furniture may not be ARKit&#8217;s most compelling use. The Machines, a multiplayer strategy game Developer Directive Games demonstrated at the Apple event, places a battlefield in the real world in which players direct combat by moving their iPhones.
Apple&#8217;s ARKit does have limitations. It can detect horizontal surfaces like floors and tables, but not vertical surfaces like walls. Valdsgaard predicts that Apple will soon add this function.
Although ARKit will support iPhones as old as the iPhone 6s, it looks like AR apps will really shine on the latest hardware announced on Tuesday. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus will contain Apple&#8217;s latest chip, the A11 Bionic. It has a six-core central processing unit  &#8211; two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores &#8211; Apple&#8217;s first custom graphics processing unit, and an image signal processor. The CPU core will handle the world tracking, the ISP will do real-time lighting estimation, and the GPU will generate digital images.
&#8220;It’s clear Apple is focused on AR as a platform and is building their phones with the hardware needed to enable great experiences,&#8221; said Scott Montgomerie, cofounder and CEO of Scope AR, an enterprise AR developer.
More important for AR hardware will likely be the iPhone X, Apple&#8217;s highest-end device. Inside the iPhone X is the A11 chip as well as a processor dedicated to neural network computing. The neural network models are supposed to more accurately track faces and the world around them, which could make for some more compelling AR experiences.
Google, Microsoft and Facebook all have competing AR developer platforms. At one point, Google was trying to push its own hardware platform with Project Tango, a depth-sensing camera system it offered to third-party phone makers. Only two phone makers &#8211; Asus and Lenovo &#8211; have adopted Tango, but the resulting phones have been lackluster. Tango received little developer support.
Now Google is trying a similar to approach to Apple ARKit, ARCore for Android. But like everything else in the Android ecosystem, Google has a hard time controlling what&#8217;s happening on the hardware side. Only Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 will support ARCore at launch.
Valdsgaard says he is glad Google decided to move beyond Tango to support AR development, but Ikea has been just working with Apple&#8217;s AR platform for now.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve been focusing just on Apple,&#8221; Valdsgaard said. &#8220;Ikea is for many people. How can we reach many people? We need to focus on the biggest AR platform the world.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Aaron Tilley</a>, FORBES STAFF
&nbsp;

Apple, Not Google Or Facebook, Will Define The Future Of Augmented Reality

When the iPhone emerged in 2007, it came with all the promise and pomp of a major Steve Jobs announcement, highlighting its user interface and slick design as key selling points. We know now that the iPhone transformed the mobile phone business, the internet economy and, in many ways, society as a whole. But technically speaking, the iPhone was not very innovative.
Its software and the interface idea were based on the iPod, which was already <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-20130426">reinventing the digital music industry</a>. Touchscreens had appeared on earlier phone and tablet models, including <a href="http://oldcomputers.net/apple-newton.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s own Newton</a>. And <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">top-line Nokia phones</a> had more memory, better cameras and faster mobile connectivity. What made the iPhone transformative was the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shift in concept underpinning the entire iPhone project</a>: Its designers did not create a telephone with some extra features, but rather a full-fledged hand-held computer that could also make calls and browse the internet.
As a <a href="http://www.internationalinnovation.com/how-digitasation-is-changing-the-working-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scholar of management, design and innovation</a>, I find it hard to predict what the next truly revolutionary technological development will be. In the 10 years since the launch of the iPhone, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">so much about modern life, commerce and culture has changed</a>. In part that’s because the iPhone, and the smartphone boom it spurred, created a portable personal technology infrastructure that’s almost infinitely expandable. The iPhone changed the game not because of its initial technology and cool user interface but rather as a result of its creators’ imagination and courage.
<h2>Inventing mobile apps</h2>
As the iPhone took shape, its designers found themselves <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/the-one-device/9781478915836/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">torn between making a phone or a computer</a>. Engineers and marketing executives alike worried the new device would kill the iPod market that had <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/09/14/without-music-apple-would-be-nothing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">driven Apple’s corporate resurgence for five years</a>. Nokia, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263438/market-share-held-by-nokia-smartphones-since-2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the biggest player in the cellphone market at the time</a>, had similar technologies and prototypes, and also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304388004577531002591315494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feared outcompeting</a> its own successful mobile phone product lines that used a simpler and more old-fashioned software platform than that on which iPhone was built.
Apple took the leap, however, by installing a fully capable computer operating system on the iPhone, along with a few small application programs. Some were phone-related, including a program that handled making and receiving calls, as well as <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new way to display voicemail messages</a>, and a system that kept different contacts’ text messages separate. Others were more computer-like, including an email app and a web browser. Of course, the music-playing features from the iPod were included too, linking the phone with the emerging Apple music ecosystem.
Initially, that was about it for apps. But <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/164137/meet-geohot-guy-who-unlocked-the-first-iphone-and-hacked-the-sony-ps3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skilled computer engineers and hackers</a> knew they were holding a palm-sized computer, and set to work writing their own software and <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/213904/how-far-weve-come-the-original-iphone-jailbreak-took-74-steps-jailbreak/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">getting it running on their iPhones</a>. That was the dawn of the now-ubiquitous app. Within a year, these apps were so popular, and their potential so significant, that <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1134503/iphone2update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s second version of the iPhone operating system</a> made it easy (and legal) for users to install <a href="http://www.phonecruncher.com/features/00942/the-first-ever-apps-on-the-app-store-gone-but-not-forgotten/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apps on their phones</a>.
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
The prospect of making a fully functional hand-held computer changed how users and manufacturers alike thought about mobile phones. For Apple and every other phone company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-smartphones-2011-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">software became much more important than hardware</a>. What apps a phone could run, and how quickly, mattered much more than whether it had a slightly better camera or could hold a few more photos; whether it flipped open, slid open or was a bar-style; or whether it had a large keyboard or a small one. The iPhone’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-reaction-first-iphone-2015-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">keyboard was on-screen</a> and software-generated, making a function that had required dedicated hardware into one running on generic hardware and dedicated software.
At the time of the iPhone launch, Nokia offered about 200 <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">different phone styles to meet all the different needs</a> of its hundreds of millions of customers. There was just one iPhone model at the start, and in the ensuing decade there have been only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">14 major styles</a> – though today they come in different colors, not just white and black as the original did. This is the power of software functionality and related simplicity.
The heightened importance of software on a mobile phone shifted the industry’s economy as well. The money came now not just from selling devices and phone services, but also from marketing and selling apps and in-app advertisements. <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/6/8/11889298/google-apple-subscription-app-revenue-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">App developers must share revenue</a> with the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">companies that control smartphones’ operating systems</a>, providing serious earning power: Apple holds <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">about 15% of the mobile phone market</a>, but reaps <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170308000345" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of global smartphone profits</a>.
Whatever the next tech industry game-changer is, and whenever it arrives, it will likely have some connection to the smartphone and related infrastructure. Even today, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/13/virtual_reality_is_made_o_smartphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exploring virtual reality</a> requires only installing an app and connecting just a bit of additional hardware to an existing phone. Similarly, smartphone interfaces and cameras already <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410889,00.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitor and control intelligent and automated homes</a>. Even as devices are developed to operate all around us, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/alphabets-new-plan-to-track-10-000-people-could-take-wearables-to-the-next-level-76620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">even in our clothes</a>, many of them will be able to point to the iPhone as a conceptual ancestor and inspiration.  &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kalle-lyytinen-336943" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Kalle Lyytinen</a>, Iris S. Wolstein Professor of Management Design, Case Western Reserve University
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Tag: iPhone

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