An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As part of the Apple Lisa's 40th birthday celebrations, the Computer History Museum has released the source code for Lisa OS version 3.1 under an Apple Academic License Agreement. With Apple's blessing, the Pascal source code is available for download from the CHM website after filling out a form. Lisa Office System 3.1 dates back to April 1984, during the early Mac era, and it was the Lisa equivalent of operating systems like macOS and Windows today. The entire source package weighs is about 26MB and consists of over 1,300 commented source files, divided nicely into subfolders that denote code for the main Lisa OS, various included apps, and the Lisa Toolkit development system.

First released on January 19, 1983, the Apple Lisa remains an influential and important machine in Apple's history, pioneering the mouse-based graphical user interface (GUI) that made its way to the Macintosh a year later. Despite its innovations, the Lisa's high price ($9,995 retail, or about $30,300 today) and lack of application support held it back as a platform. A year after its release, the similarly capable Macintosh undercut it dramatically in price. Apple launched a major revision of the Lisa hardware in 1984, then discontinued the platform in 1985. [...] Lisa OS defined important conventions that we still use in windowing OSes today, such as drag-and-drop icons, movable windows, the waste basket, the menu bar, pull-down menus, copy and paste shortcuts, control panels, overlapping windows, and even one-touch automatic system shutdown.

Apple today announced that Advanced Data Protection is expanding beyond the United States. MacRumors reports: Starting with iOS 16.3, the security feature will be available globally, giving users to option to enable end-to-end encryption for many additional iCloud data categories, including Photos, Notes, Voice Memos, Messages backups, device backups, and more. iOS 16.3 is currently in beta and expected to be released to the public next week.

By default, Apple stores encryption keys for some iCloud data types on its servers to ensure that users can recover their data if they lose access to their Apple ID account. If a user enables Advanced Data Protection, the encryption keys are deleted from Apple's servers and stored on a user's devices only, preventing Apple, law enforcement, or anyone else from accessing the data, even if iCloud servers were to be breached.

iCloud already provides end-to-end encryption for 14 data categories without Advanced Data Protection turned on, including Messages (excluding backups), passwords stored in iCloud Keychain, Health data, Apple Maps search history, Apple Card transactions, and more. Advanced Data Protection expands this protection to the vast majority of iCloud categories, with major exceptions including the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps. For more information, you can read Apple's Advanced Data Protection support document.

Music streaming service Spotify, along with other media firms such as Deezer, urged the European Commission to take action against Apple for anticompetitive and unfair practices, in a joint industry letter on Wednesday. From a report: The letter, addressed to the European Union antitrust regulator's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, demanded the Commission to act fast for the welfare of European consumers. Spotify has for years accused Apple of abusing its market position using its App Store rules to stifle competition. It has previously submitted antitrust complaints against Apple in various countries, alleging the 30% charge Apple requires developers to pay on its App Store has forced Spotify to "artificially inflate" its own prices. "We are writing to you to call for swift and decisive action by the European Commission against anticompetitive and unfair practices by certain global digital gatekeepers, and Apple in particular," read the letter, which was signed by chief executives of media firms Schibsted, Proton and Basecamp.

Apple has announced a new $299 HomePod smart speaker with a similar form factor to the original HomePod released in 2018. From a report: It will be sold alongside the HomePod Mini, the smaller version of the speaker introduced in 2020, and features support for the new smart home standard Matter, allowing it to control compatible accessories. The new HomePod is available to order starting today, and will begin shipping February 3rd. The original HomePod had an unusually rocky lifespan for an Apple product. Originally announced in 2017 with a December ship date, the $349 smart speaker was subsequently delayed to February 2018. When it was eventually released, the HomePod's voice assistant Siri fared poorly against Alexa and Google Assistant, and reviewers criticized how locked into Apple's ecosystem the smart speaker was. Despite getting a $50 price cut in 2019, the HomePod was eventually discontinued in 2021.

Apple has postponed the launch of its lightweight augmented-reality glasses indefinitely due to technical challenges, but is still planning to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. Reuters reports: The iPhone maker's mixed-reality headset - which combines both augmented and virtual reality -- is set to launch in this year's spring event, Bloomberg said, adding that the device will cost around $3,000. Apple's mixed-reality device would compete with the likes of Meta Platforms' Quest Pro virtual and mixed-reality headset, which it launched late last year for $1,500, half of the Apple device's reported price.

The Cupertino, California-based company now plans to focus on lowering the price of the follow-up version of its mixed-reality device, expected as soon as 2024 or early 2025, instead of working on the AR glasses, according to the report. Apple will aim to do so by using chips on par with those in the iPhone rather than components found in higher-end Mac computers.

According to new research, Google is working on a new Bluetooth tracker device to compete with Apple's AirTags. 9to5Google reports: Since 2021, Google has included ultra-wideband (UWB) connectivity in its high-end "Pro" phones like the Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro. For now, the hardware has only been used for niche cases like unlocking a luxury car or sending files to a friend, but it's been clear that Google intends for UWB to be used more often. [...] To build up its own "Finder Network," compete with Apple AirTags, and potentially make UWB more useful on Pixel phones, Google is reportedly developing its own tracking accessory. The information comes courtesy of Android researcher and frequent Pixel leaker Kuba Wojciechowski.

The tracker is said to be in development under the codename "Grogu" -- a reference to the popular Star Wars series "The Mandalorian" -- alongside the alternate names "GR10" and "Groguaudio." The only other tidbits that have been uncovered so far suggest that the Nest team is seemingly taking lead on the development and that the tracker may be available in multiple colors. The "Groguaudio" codename suggests that Google's tracker would potentially come equipped with a speaker. On Apple's AirTags, a built-in speaker serves as both a privacy measure and a location aid, as if you move someone else's AirTag after it's been separated from them, it will beep. This is just one of many potential privacy issues that Google will need to work through before launching a tracker accessory like this one.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A viral tweet today highlights a somewhat frustrating limitation with the Apple TV software. As of a recent software update, tvOS expects users have access to an iPhone or iPad in order to do things like accept new iCloud terms and conditions, or update their Apple ID settings. Although most people who use the Apple TV 4K box are deeply ensconced in the Apple ecosystem, this doesn't apply to everyone. Up until recently, the Apple TV could be used essentially independently. It was assumed to be a standalone device, not an accessory. Not so much, anymore. Moreover, these changes mean Apple TV users who have Macs -- but no personal iOS devices -- are also left in the lurch.

Most of the Apple TV can be used without needing access to other Apple hardware. You can set up the Apple TV from scratch completely independently, install apps, and make purchases. Typical Apple ID management duties can be performed from a web browser on a PC, if occasionally necessary. However, there are some tasks -- seemingly more prevalent than ever as of tvOS 16 -- that the Apple TV expects you to do on an iOS device signed in with the same account. This viral tweet from @hugelgupf showcases perhaps the most egregious example: accepting new iCloud terms and conditions requires an iOS device.

The Mac Mini is Apple's next computer to get the bump up to the M2 chip -- and this time around, it's being offered with the Pro version of Apple's processor, too. From a report: The new model was announced this morning in a press release, with a starting price of $599, and is available to order today, with availability beginning Tuesday, January 24th. The Mac Mini's baseline configuration includes the M2 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It features an HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, and a standard headphone jack, alongside two USB-A ports and two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports -- an upgrade from the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the previous generation.

The M2 Pro configuration of the new Mac Mini features 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and an additional two Thunderbolt 4 ports alongside the ports already available on the standard M2 model. This configuration will set you back $1,299, more than double the price of the baseline model. This is the first time Apple has brought Pro-tier chips to the Mini. The Mini was previously only offered with the entry-level M1 chip -- the same one used in MacBook Air. This time, it's being offered with one of Apple's more powerful chip series. The M2 Max, however, is so far only being offered in the MacBook Pro.

Apple has announced new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring its latest M2 Pro and Max chips. From a report: The M2 Pro model will launch with a 12-core CPU, up to 19-core GPU, and up to 32GB of unified memory, while the M2 Max includes up to 38 cores of GPU power and support for up to 96GB of unified memory. The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $1,999, with the 16-inch model starting at $2,499. Both are available to order online today and will start shipping and appearing in Apple stores on January 24th.

Apple says the M2 Pro has double the amount of transistors the M2 shipped with and nearly 20 percent more than the M1 Pro. It also features 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, twice what's available on the regular M2. All of this power should result in better performance in apps like Adobe Photoshop and Xcode. Apple claims the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro "is able to process images in Adobe Photoshop up to 40 percent faster than with M1 Pro, and as much as 80 percent faster than MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 processor." The M2 Max chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Pro, but much like the M1 Max, it really pushes the GPU power more. Apple claims the M2 Max is up to 30 percent faster than the M1 Max in graphics and can apparently "tackle graphics-intensive projects that competing systems can't even run." Chips aside, the latest MacBook Pro models now include Wi-Fi 6E3 and a "more advanced HDMI" (probably HDMI 2.1) that supports 8K displays up to 60Hz and 4K displays up to 240Hz.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: Apple has suffered a setback in its long-running Apple Watch patent infringement battle with medical technology company Masimo. A court has ruled that Apple has indeed infringed one of Masimo's patents in the Apple Watch Series 6 and up. Masimi is seeking a US import on all current Apple Watches. If granted, this would effectively end Apple Watch sales in the US, as the company would not be allowed to bring in the devices from China.

The battle between the two companies has a long history. Back in 2013, Apple reportedly contacted Masimo to discuss a potential collaboration between the two companies. Instead, claims Masimo, Apple used the meetings to identify staff it wanted to poach. Masimo later called the meetings a "targeted effort to obtain information and expertise." Apple did indeed hire a number of Masimo staff, including the company's chief medical officer, ahead of the launch of the Apple Watch. Masimo CEO Joe Kiano later expressed concern that Apple may have been trying to steal the company's blood oxygen sensor technology. The company describes itself as "the inventors of modern pulse oximeters," and its tech is used in many hospitals.

In 2020, the company sued Apple for stealing trade secrets and infringing 10 Masimo patents. The lawsuit asked for an injunction on the sale of the Apple Watch. Apple has consistently denied the claims, and recently hit back with a counterclaim of its own, alleging that Masimo's own W1 Advanced Health Tracking Watch infringes multiple Apple patents. Reuters reports that a US court has ruled against Apple on one of the patent claims.

Apple has promised to enhance disclosures about why it expels certain apps from its App Store, following claims that the tech giant's secretive decision-making process threatens freedom of expression in countries such as China and Russia. From a report: Activist investors secured the commitment from Apple earlier this month, according to three people familiar with the agreement. Last March nearly a third of shareholders at its annual meeting backed a resolution calling for greater transparency in its relations with foreign governments. Petitioners led by Azzad Asset Management, a faith-based investor in the US, and British activist investment platform Tulipshare had called on Apple to give more detail on why certain apps were pulled from the App Store after some Bible and Quran study tools were inexplicably banned from China in late 2021.

The company has long been criticized for acquiescing to foreign governments' requests that certain apps be removed. Encrypted messaging tools WhatsApp and Signal are not allowed in China's App Store, for instance, nor are The New York Times or some social media apps. It will now give investors more detail about apps that are taken down in its Transparency Report, which currently only tells investors how many apps each country has requested be removed, whether the request is based on a legal violation, and whether Apple complied, according to the people familiar with the agreement.

Despite years of resistance, Apple is now working on adding touchscreens to Macs, according to a report today from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The report claims that a new MacBook Pro with an OLED display could be the first touchscreen Mac in 2025. MacRumors reports: Gurman said Apple engineers are "actively engaged in the project," indicating that the company is "seriously considering" producing touchscreen Macs. The first MacBook Pro with a touchscreen would retain a traditional laptop design with a trackpad and a keyboard, but the display would gain support for touch input like an iPhone or iPad. The first touchscreen Macs are likely to use macOS, as Apple is not actively working to combine iPadOS and macOS, according to the report. iPhone and iPad apps are available on Macs with Apple silicon chips, though, unless a developer opts out.

Apple has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a touchscreen Mac over the years, so this would be a major reversal in philosophy for the company if it moves forward with these plans. In 2010, for example, Steve Jobs said that "touch surfaces don't want to be vertical" due to arm fatigue associated with holding up a finger to the screen. And in 2021, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus said the Mac was "totally optimized for indirect input" and said the company did not feel there was a good reason to change that at the time.

Apple is planning to start using its own custom displays in mobile devices as early as 2024, an effort to reduce its reliance on technology partners like Samsung and LG and bring more components in-house. From a report: The company aims to begin by swapping out the display in the highest-end Apple Watches by the end of next year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The screens upgrade the current OLED -- organic light-emitting diode -- standard to a technology called microLED, and Apple plans to eventually bring the displays to other devices, including the iPhone. The changes are part of a sweeping effort to replace Apple supplies with homegrown parts, an undertaking that will give the company more control over the design and capabilities of its products. The tech giant has dropped Intel chips in its Mac computers in favor of in-house designs and plans to do the same with the key wireless components in its iPhones.

Apple today shared an update on its subscription businesses and global App Store, noting that the tech company has now paid out a record $320 billion to app developers since 2008 -- a number that reflects the revenue apps have generated, minus Apple's commission. From a report: In addition, the tech giant said it now has more than 900 million paid subscriptions across Apple services, with subscriptions on the App Store driving a "significant" part of that figure. [...] The company noted that more than 650 million visitors from 175 regions worldwide visit the App Store every week and it's still delivering new experiences. Among the highlights was the launch of Apex Legends on mobile earlier this year, and the growing popularity of a new form of social networking with BeReal, Apple's "app of the year."

Apple is working on a new in-house chip that would power cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth functionality on its devices, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Verge reports: The company is also developing its own chip that would replace the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip it currently uses from Broadcom, Bloomberg says, which it wants to begin using in devices in 2025. Bloomberg also shared some new information about Apple's efforts to develop its own cellular modems to replace Qualcomm's. While Qualcomm recently said it expects to have the "vast majority" of 5G modems for 2023 iPhones, Bloomberg says Apple will use its own modems "by the end of 2024 or early 2025." It will apparently start by using its custom modem in one product and fully transition them over the course of approximately three years.

Apple, after seven years of development, is nearly ready to launch its first mixed-reality headset. But the focus on this new product will lead to an otherwise muted 2023. Bloomberg: I first wrote in 2017 about Apple's ambition to launch a high-performance AR-based headset -- complete with its own operating system, App Store and dedicated chips. Back then, Apple had aimed to get it to market by 2019. Over time, the delays stacked up. Apple had plans to launch the device in 2020, then 2021 and then 2022. The final postponement, at least for the moment, happened last year. Up until fairly recently, Apple had aimed to introduce the headset in January 2023 and ship it later this year. Now the company is aiming to unveil it this spring ahead of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, I'm told.

Apple has already shared the device with a small number of high-profile software developers for testing, letting them get started on third-party apps. The device's operating system, dubbed "Borealis" inside the company, will be publicly named xrOS. With the current plan, Apple could introduce the device to consumers -- likely under the name Reality Pro -- and then get developers up to speed on its software features in June. On this timeline, the company would then ship the product later in the fall of 2023.

"France's data protection authority, CNIL, fined Apple €8 million (about $8.5 million) Wednesday," reports Gizmodo, "for illegally harvesting iPhone owners' data for targeted ads without proper consent." It's an unusual sanction for the iPhone maker, which has faced fewer legal penalties over privacy than its Big Tech competitors. Apple makes privacy a selling point for its devices, plastering "Privacy. That's iPhone." across 40-foot billboards across the world.... Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals," the CNIL said in a statement. The CNIL's fine calls out the search ads in Apple's App Store, specifically. A French court fined the company over $1 million in December over its commercial practices related to the App Store....

With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to protect their information. That violates EU privacy law, according to the CNIL.... The newer versions of the iPhone operating system corrected the problem, presenting users with a prompt before the advertising data was collected. Gizmodo also notes this response from an Apple spokesperson. "We are disappointed with this decision given the CNIL has previously recognized that how we serve search ads in the App Store prioritizes user privacy, and we will appeal. Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads."

Gizmodo calls France's fine "a signal that Apple may face a less friendly regulatory future in Europe."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple has informed suppliers that it has canceled plans to release a fourth-generation iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo previously said that the fourth-generation iPhone SE would be canceled or postponed, but he now firmly believes that the device has been canceled. In a post on Medium today, Kuo said that Apple planned to introduce its first in-house 5G chip in the fourth-generation iPhone SE, but that is obviously no longer expected to happen since the device is apparently canceled. Instead, Kuo said it is likely that Apple will continue to rely on Qualcomm for 5G chips in 2024, including for the iPhone 16 series.

Kuo said Apple planned to test the 5G chip in the iPhone SE before rolling it out to iPhone 16 models to ensure that real-world performance was acceptable: "Due to concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to par with Qualcomm's, Apple initially planned to launch its baseband chip in 2024 and let the low-end iPhone SE 4 adopt it first, and decide whether to let the iPhone 16 use its baseband chip depending on the development status of iPhone SE 4. However, the cancelation of the iPhone SE 4 has significantly increased the chances of Qualcomm remaining the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the 2H24 new iPhone 16 series, which is better than the market consensus that Qualcomm will start losing iPhone orders in 2024."

Google is continuing on with its #GetTheMessage campaign attempting to convince Apple to adopt the RCS messaging protocol, this time taking out a large New Year's-themed ad at Harmon Corner in Las Vegas. From a report: The digital billboard urges Apple not to "drop the ball" on fixing its "pixelated photos and videos." Hey Apple, it's Android, the ball may have dropped on 2022, but you don't have to drop the ball on fixing your pixelated photos and videos. [...] After the short message, the billboard scrolls through RCS code, ending with a plea to customers to "Help Apple #GetTheMessage," the hashtag that Google has been using for the campaign.

At CES this week, AMD announced a suite of new chips for notebooks and desktop computers, with one notable announcement being the company's new AMD Ryzen 7040 series of processors for ultrathin notebooks that will compete with Apple's M1 Pro and M2 chips. MacRumors reports: The AMD Ryzen 7040 series of chips are "ultrathin" processors based on the 4nm process, and the highest-end chip part of the family is the Ryzen 9 7940HS. The Ryzen 9 7940HS has eight cores, 16 threads, and 5.2GHz boost speeds. Announcing the new chip, AMD CEO Lisa Su made bold claims about its performance, saying it's up to 30% faster than Apple's M1 Pro chip. In specific tasks, AMD claims the chip is 34% faster in multiprocessing workloads than the M1 Pro and 20% faster than the M2 in AI tasks.

One cornerstone of Apple silicon is energy efficiency, and in that area, AMD claims the new AMD Ryzen 7040 series will offer 30+ hours of video playback in ultrathin notebooks. Built directly into the series of chips is Ryzen AI, a dedicated AI engine embedded in the processor. AMD chips configured with Ryzen AI are 20% faster in AI tasks than Apple's M2 chip while being 50% more energy efficient, according to the company.

To showcase the new chip's performance, AMD compared the performance of a high-end Intel chip, the M1 Pro, and its new Ryzen 9 7940HS processor rendering an object in the popular application Blender. In the time-lapsed video shown on stage, the M1 Pro lags behind the Ryzen 9 7940HS in rendering the object. AMD says it made its performance claims against a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro, 32GB of unified memory, and 1TB of SSD storage running macOS Monterey. The M1 Pro is not Apple's highest-end and most powerful chip for laptops, which is the M1 Max, and AMD did not compare its chip to the M1 Max. After roasting the M1 Pro, Ian Zelbo from FrontPageTech noticed AMD running their CES keynote on multiple 14-inch MacBook Pros. "Obviously these are contracted employees, and it means nothing," he tweeted. "I just always find stuff like this hilarious."

We do too... It's akin to the "Twitter for iPhone" line on tweets that have gotten Android promoters in hot water multiple times over the past several years.