"China's control of the internet has become so strong that dissidents must cling to any crack in the so-called Great Firewall," writes Qz.

But as anti-government protests sprung up on campuses and cities in China over the weekend, Qz reminds us that "the country's most widespread show of public dissent in decades will have to manage without a crucial communication tool, because Apple restricted its use in China earlier this month." AirDrop, the file-sharing feature on iPhones and other Apple devices, has helped protestors in many authoritarian countries evade censorship. That's because AirDrop relies on direct connections between phones, forming a local network of devices that don't need the internet to communicate. People can opt into receiving AirDrops from anyone else with an iPhone nearby.

That changed on Nov. 9, when Apple released a new version of its mobile operating system, iOS 16.1.1, to customers worldwide. Rather than listing new features, as it often does, the company simply said, "This update includes bug fixes and security updates and is recommended for all users." Hidden in the update was a change that only applies to iPhones sold in mainland China: AirDrop can only be set to receive messages from everyone for 10 minutes, before switching off. There's no longer a way to keep the "everyone" setting on permanently on Chinese iPhones.

The change, first noticed by Chinese readers of 9to5Mac, doesn't apply anywhere else.

Apple didn't respond to questions about the AirDrop change. It plans to make the "Everyone for 10 Minutes" feature a global standard next year, according to Bloomberg.

"A violent workers' revolt at the world's largest iPhone factory this week in central China is further scrambling Apple's strained supply," reports CNN, adding that the revolt is also "highlighting how the country's stringent zero-Covid policy is hurting global technology firms." The troubles started last month when workers left the factory campus in Zhengzhou, the capital of the central province of Henan, due to Covid fears. Short on staff, bonuses were offered to workers to return. But protests broke out this week when the newly hired staff said management had reneged on their promises. The workers, who clashed with security officers wearing hazmat suits, were eventually offered cash to quit and leave.

Analysts said the woes facing Taiwan contract manufacturing firm Foxconn, a top Apple supplier which owns the facility, will also speed up the pace of diversification away from China to countries like India.

Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business that the ongoing production shutdown in Foxconn's sprawling campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou was an "albatross" for Apple. "Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China," he said.

Demand for iPhone 14 units during the Black Friday holiday weekend was much higher than supply and could cause major shortages leading into Christmas, Ives said, adding that the disruptions at Foxconn, which started in October, have been a major "gut punch" to Apple this quarter. In a note Friday, Ives said Black Friday store checks show major iPhone shortages across the board.
Ives' note says he believes "many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages ... of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December."

CNN also cites an analyst at TF International Securities who estimated on Twitter that more than 10% of global iPhone production capacity has been affected by the situation at the Zhengzhou campus.

Despite Apple Music supporting lossless streaming, wireless AirPods only support lossy Bluetooth codecs. Apple engineer Esge Andersen tells WhatHiFi that's not really an issue: "We want to push the sound quality forward, and we can do that with a lot of other elements. We don't think that the codec currently is the limitation of audio quality on Bluetooth products."

The Brazilian Ministry of Justice ordered in September the suspension of iPhone sales in the country after concluding that Apple harms consumers by not offering the power adapter included with the device. Even after million-dollar fines, Apple still fails to comply with the requirement -- which has now led to the Federal District-based consumer protection regulator seizing iPhones from retail stores. From a report: As first reported by Tecnoblog, Procon-DF has seized "hundreds of iPhones in different retail stores in Brasilia," the capital of Brazil. In an action named "Operation Discharge," the regulator aims to force Apple to comply with local law that requires smartphones to be shipped with the charger included in the box.

According to the report, the iPhones were seized at carrier stores and authorized Apple resellers. The regulator has ordered the banning of any iPhone model that lacks the charger included in the box. Although Apple stopped shipping the accessory for free with iPhone 12, the company also updated iPhone 11 with a new, more compact box without the charger. After the iPhones were seized, Apple Brazil requested the government to allow sales of the smartphone in the country until the final decision of the dispute. The company told Tecnoblog that it continues to sell iPhones in Brazil despite the operation.

Protests have broken out at Foxconn's vast iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, central China, as footage circulating on social media shows workers clashing with baton-wielding riot police and hazmat-suited officials. The Verge reports: The protests started after workers, who have been under strict covid lockdown for weeks, learned bonus payments would be delayed, reports The Wall Street Journal. Zhengzhou, known locally as "iPhone city," is home to an estimated 200,000 workers who are responsible for the vast majority of all iPhone production.

The Wall Street Journal reports that protests started on Tuesday evening near Foxconn employee accommodations at the Zhengzhou facility. Foxconn's strict covid controls have reportedly isolated its employees, forcing them to live and work on-site (with limited food and supplies) in order to prevent further outbreaks in Zhengzhou. Since October, many workers have escaped from the locked-down facility, leading Foxconn to promise incentives like higher salaries and bonuses to retain staff.

Video footage captured on Wednesday shows hundreds of workers protesting at the campus, chanting "give us our pay" while surrounded by riot police and people in hazmat suits. Livestream footage later that night saw protests escalating, with workers chanting "Defend our rights! Defend our rights!" as they confronted police officers, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. "Foxconn never treats humans as humans," said another person in a social media video at the scene. Other workers captured on live streams said they were protesting over food shortages in addition to the delayed payments. "They changed the contract so that we could not get the subsidy as they had promised. They quarantine us but don't provide food," said one Foxconn worker during a live stream as reported by the BBC. "If they do not address our needs, we will keep fighting."

The UK's antitrust watchdog has moved to deepen its scrutiny of the Apple and Google mobile duopoly -- kicking off an in-depth investigation into elements of the pair's mobile ecosystem dominance by probing their approach toward rival mobile browsers and cloud gaming services which it's concerned could be restricting competition and harming consumers. From a report: The move follows a market study conducted by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last year that led to a final report this summer which concluded there are substantial competition concerns -- with the regulator finding the tech giants have what it described as "an effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems that allows them to exercise a stranglehold over operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices."

At the same time, the CMA proposed to undertake what's known as a market investigation reference (MIR) with two points of focus: One looking at Apple's and Google's market power in mobile browsers; and another probing Apple's restrictions on cloud gaming through its App Store. That proposal for an MIR kicked off a standard consultation process, with the regulator seeking feedback on the scope of its proposed probe, and today it's confirmed the decision to make a market investigation -- opening what's referred to as a 'Phase 2' (in-depth) investigation which could take up to 18 months to complete. The probe will focus on the supply of mobile browsers and browser engines; and the distribution of cloud gaming services through app stores on mobile devices, the CMA said today.

A new analysis has claimed that Apple's device analytics contain information that can directly link information about how a device is used, its performance, features, and more, directly to a specific user, despite Apple's claims otherwise. MacRumors reports: On Twitter, security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry have found that Apple's device analytics data includes an ID called "dsId," which stands for Directory Services Identifier. The analysis found that the dsId identifier is unique to every iCloud account and can be linked directly to a specific user, including their name, date of birth, email, and associated information stored on iCloud.

On Apple's device analytics and privacy legal page, the company says no information collected from a device for analytics purposes is traceable back to a specific user. "iPhone Analytics may include details about hardware and operating system specifications, performance statistics, and data about how you use your devices and applications. None of the collected information identifies you personally," the company claims. In one possible differentiator, Apple says that if a user agrees to send analytics information from multiple devices logged onto the same iCloud account, it may "correlate some usage data about Apple apps across those devices by syncing using end-to-end encryption." Even in doing so, however, Apple says the user remains unidentifiable to Apple. We've reached out to Apple for comment.

There are ongoing issues apparently affecting the iCloud for Windows app, particularly in regards to photo and video storage. According to a number of online complaints from users, iCloud for Windows is corrupting certain videos. There are also reports of a more worrying problem: photos from strangers popping up in people's iCloud Photo library. 9to5Mac reports: MacRumors rounded up some of these complaints via complaints posted to their forums. According to an affected user, videos taken with the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro models aren't being properly synced with iCloud for Windows. When certain videos are recorded and the synced with iCloud for Windows, they then turn "black with scan lines, rendering the videos unwatchable."

While that problem is bad enough, some other users say they are seeing photos and even videos they do not recognize in their photo libraries. The speculation here is that these photos or videos could be from other people's iCloud libraries, though nothing has been confirmed yet. [...] These problems appear to be affecting the dedicated iCloud for Windows app itself, not the recently-launched iCloud Photos integration in Windows 11. The culprit seems to be the handoff of certain file types between the iPhone and iCloud rendering on Windows. The problem certainly appears to be a server-side issue on Apple's side, rather than something on Microsoft's side.

VMware today announced the launch of Fusion 13, the latest major update to the Fusion virtualization software. MacRumors reports: For those unfamiliar with Fusion, it is designed to allow Mac users to operate virtual machines to run non-macOS operating systems like Windows 11. Fusion 13 Pro and Fusion 13 Player are compatible with both Intel Macs and Apple silicon Macs equipped with M-series chips, offering native support. VMware has been testing Apple silicon support for several months now ahead of the launch of the latest version of Fusion.

With Fusion 13, Intel and Apple silicon Mac users can access Windows 11 virtual machines. Intel Macs offer full support for Windows 11, while on Apple silicon, VMware says there is a first round of features for Windows 11 on Arm. Users who need to run traditional win32 and x64 apps can do so through built-in emulation. Fusion 13 also includes a TPM 2.0 virtual device that can be added to any VM, storing contents in an encrypted section of the virtual machine files and offering hardware-tpm functionality parity. To support this feature, Fusion 13 uses a fast encryption type that encrypts only the parts of the VM necessary to support the TPM device for performance and security. The software supports OpenGL 4.3 in Windows and Linux VMs on Intel and in Linux VMs on Apple silicon.

An Italian administrative court on Friday rejected an appeal by Alphabet's Google against a decision by Italy's antitrust authority to fine the group, but accepted iPhone maker Apple's appeal against the watchdog's ruling. From a report: Last year, Italy's antitrust regulator fined Google and Apple 10 million euros ($10.36 million) each, claiming that the two tech groups had not provided "clear and immediate information" on how they collect and use the data of those who access their services.

The iPhone 15 Pro models are in line for a massive upgrade to their wired transfer speeds with the switch to USB-C, according to noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Unfortunately, he doesn't believe that benefit is coming to the regular 2023 iPhones. The Verge reports: He predicts that the 15 and 15 Plus will also swap in USB-C ports but, just like the 2022 10th-gen iPad, they'll be stuck with the same USB 2.0 speeds they had with Lighting. Kuo made the prediction in a series of tweets on Wednesday and says the information is from his "latest survey." (The analyst is known for getting information from supply chain sources.) He specified by predicting that the "15 Pro & 15 Pro Max will support at least USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3." If that's true, that'd mean they could transfer data at speeds up to 40 Gbps -- a boon for people who actually use the Pro phones to shoot a lot of ProRes video and raw photos, where even fast WiFi and cloud uploads aren't really a good substitute.

joshuark writes: Yikes, gadzooks, and shiver my timbers! Elastic Labs has found surprisingly that 50% of malware comes from one app: MacKeeper, ironically. Ironic in that MacKeeper claims to "keep your Mac clean and safe with zero effort." MacKeeper also has a tainted reputation for being difficult to completely uninstall and as a malicious antivirus.

A new spin on the biblical phrase, "Am I my brother's keeper..." Well, when the inmate is running the asylum. The findings appear in Elastic Security Labs' recently released 2022 Global Threat Report. As Neowin reports, MacKeeper "can be abused by threat actors because it has extensive permissions and access to processes and files."

With that said, the report found that only 6.2% of malware ends up on macOS devices, compared to 54.4% and 39.4% on Windows and Linux, respectively.

A new study has found that Apple's wireless earbuds can serve as a more affordable and accessible sound amplification device than medical hearing aids. Gizmodo reports: Inspired by a feature called Live Listen released in 2016 by Apple, which allows an iPhone or iPad to be used as sound-boosting microphone, researchers from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital wondered whether the performance of AirPods 2 and the original AirPods Pro using this feature could compare to medical hearing aids. Apple does not position Live Listen as a tool for those dealing with hearing loss but as a way for users with normal hearing to boost desired sounds, like the calls of a bird. However, the researchers found that, in some situations, consumer-level personal sound amplification products faired quite well against pricier medically prescribed solutions, and given the popularity of products like Apple's AirPods, there's no stigma associated with wearing them.

The researchers tested the $129 AirPods 2 and $249 AirPods Pro paired with iPhone XS Max smartphones running iOS 13. They compared these against the $10,000 OTICON Opn 1 behind-the-ear hearing aids and a more affordable alternative, the $1,500 Bernafon MD1. The four options were tested with 21 participants dealing with mild to moderate hearing loss, who were asked to repeat short sentences read to them by the researchers in varying environments. In a quiet setting, the AirPods Pro were found to perform as well as the cheaper hearing aids and almost as good as the premium model, while the Air Pods 2 performed the worst of all four tested devices but still helped participants hear what was being read to them more clearly than not using a sound-enhancing device at all. In a noisy environment, the AirPods Pro performed even closer to the premium hearing aid model, thanks to their built-in noise cancellation, but only when the distracting noises were coming from the sides of the participant. When the noise was coming from the front, alongside the sample sentences being read by the researchers, both wireless earbud products failed to help improve what was being heard. "Hearing aids remain the best option for those dealing with hearing loss, but for those who don't have access to them for whatever reason, a cheaper product like Apple's AirPods Pro could provide noticeable improvements in hearing and clarity for those dealing with mild-to-moderate hearing loss and could serve as a useful alternative until over-the-counter solutions are more readily available and affordable," concludes the report.

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration decided to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter and without a prescription to adults, a decision that "could fundamentally change technology," said Nicholas Reed, an audiologist at the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sony's first OTC hearing aids were announced last month.

Apple will buy some of its chips from a factory in Arizona, Apple CEO Tim Cook said last month at an internal company meeting in Germany, according to Bloomberg News. CNBC reports: Apple currently sources all of its processors from factories in Taiwan. It designs its own chips and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company manufactures the A-series and M-series processors that power iPhones and Mac computers. If Apple were to buy processors manufactured in the U.S., it would represent a significant diversification in Apple's supply chain away from Taiwan.

"We've already made a decision to be buying out of a plant in Arizona, and this plant in Arizona starts up in '24, so we've got about two years ahead of us on that one, maybe a little less," Cook said, according to Bloomberg. TSMC previously announced plans for a single factory in Arizona to open in 2024 focusing on chips that use the latest manufacturing technology. TSMC said earlier this month that it is planning a second chip factory in Arizona because of "strong customer demand."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It has been over a year now since a US District Court ruled that Apple did not violate antitrust law by forcing iOS developers (like plaintiff and Fortnite-maker Epic Games) to use its App Store and in-app payments systems. But that doesn't mean the case is settled, as both sides demonstrated Monday during oral arguments in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The hearing was full of arcane discussion of legal standards and procedures for reviewing the case and its precedents, as well as input from state and federal governments on how the relevant laws should be interpreted. In the end, though, the core arguments before the appeals court once again centered on issues of walled gardens, user lock-in, and security versus openness in platform design.

In defending Apple's position, counsel Mark Perry argued that the company's restraints on iOS app distribution were put in place from the beginning to protect iPhone users. Based on its experience managing software security and privacy on Macs, Apple decided it "did not want the phone to be like a computer. Computers are buggy, they crash, they have problems. They wanted the phone to be better." If the Mac App Store was the equivalent of a lap belt, the iOS App Store, with its costly human review system, is "a six-point racing harness," Perry said. "It's safer. They're both safe, but it's safer." While Epic argued that the iPhone's walled garden "only keeps out competition," Perry shot back that "what's kept out by walled gardens is fraudsters and pornsters and hackers and malware and spyware and foreign governments..." Providing superior user safety, Perry said, is a key "non-price feature" that helps set the iPhone apart from its Android-based competition. Users who want the more open system that Epic is fighting for can already buy an Android phone and choose from a variety of App Stores, Perry said. By doing so, though, those users "open themselves up to more intrusion" compared to an iPhone, he argued. Those kinds of "pro-competitive" security features Apple offers with its App Store restrictions legally outweigh the "minor anti-competitive effects" iOS app developers face on the platform, Perry said.

[...] Apple's Perry argued that Epic presented "no data or empirical evidence" to show that users felt locked in to Apple's app ecosystem. Epic failed to commission the usual survey that would show users were worried about switching costs or information costs in a case like this, Perry said, a "failure of proof" that he said obviates all other technical legal claims. At the same time, Perry said Epic carefully "crafted a market definition only fitting Google and Apple" in arguing its case and has not been able to bring in other developers to support a class action. Epic "didn't want to pick a fight with the consoles, didn't want to pick a fight with Microsoft," he said, despite similarities in the "walled garden" approaches in those markets. The three-judge appeals panel betrayed little as to which arguments it favored during Monday's hearing, offering pointed questions for both sides. A ruling in the appeals case is expected sometime next year.

Apple on Tuesday announced that Emergency SOS via satellite is officially available to iPhone 14 users in the US and Canada. Next month, Apple will launch Emergency SOS via satellite in France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK. Apple is enabling the feature on all iPhone 14 models that are running iOS 16.1, which was released near the end of October. From a report: If you have the feature, you'll see a new section detailing your phone's new capability of connecting to satellites, and offering a demo mode for you to get a feel for what the process is like should you ever have to use it. For those unfamiliar, Emergency SOS via Satellite will allow an iPhone 14 owner to contact emergency services when in an area without cellular or Wi-Fi coverage. The feature is triggered by calling 911 when "SOS" is shown at the top of the iPhone's screen where the cellular coverage bars are normally visible. Once you're connected to a satellite, you'll either directly exchange messages with a local dispatcher if they accept text messages, or talk with local emergency services using an Apple-trained emergency specialist as a go-between.

Apple's next major product -- a mixed-reality headset that it hopes will vault the company into a new era of computing -- isn't set to arrive until next year. But job listings and personnel changes at the company give a preview of some of the device's capabilities. From a report: Now we're gleaning additional details, thanks to Apple job listings published over the last several months and changes to the team behind the future headset -- the Technology Development Group, or TDG. A few job listings indicate that Apple is ramping up its work to bolster the device with content. The company is searching for a software producer with experience in visual effects and game asset pipelines who can create digital content for augmented- and virtual-reality environments.

The listings also imply that Apple is looking to build a video service for the headset featuring 3D content that can be played in virtual reality. This would follow the company's 2020 acquisition of NextVR, which partnered with artists and professional sports leagues to transmit VR content to headsets. Apple is also looking for engineers who can work on development tools geared toward virtual and augmented reality. Unsurprisingly, it appears that the company wants its new operating system to use App Intents, which lets apps work with features like Siri and Shortcuts.

"We are looking for a software engineer who will work on the App Intents framework to help design and implement solutions to unlock deep system intelligence, enable new developer tools, and facilitate novel user interactions from application data models which are leveraged by a variety of system services such as Shortcuts, Siri, Search, and more," one job listing for the TDG department says. The most interesting job listing is one that specifically calls out the development of a 3D mixed-reality world, suggesting that Apple is working on a virtual environment that is similar to the metaverse -- though don't expect Apple to embrace that term. Its marketing chief said at a recent event that metaverse is "a word I'll never use."

"Apple is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly harvesting iPhone user data even when the company's own privacy settings promise not to," reports Gizmodo: The suit, filed Thursday in California federal court, comes days after Gizmodo exclusively reported on research into how multiple iPhone apps send Apple analytics data, regardless of whether the iPhone Analytics privacy setting is turned on or off. The problem was spotted by two independent researchers at the software company Mysk, who found that the Apple App Store sends the company exhaustive information about nearly everything a user does in the app, despite a privacy setting, iPhone Analytics, which claims to "disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether" when switched off.

Gizmodo asked the researchers to run additional tests on other iPhone apps, including Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, and Stocks. The researchers found that the problem persists across most of Apple's suite of built-in iPhone apps....

[I]n the tests, turning the iPhone Analytics setting off had no evident effect on the data collection, nor did any of the iPhone's other built-in settings meant to protect your privacy from Apple's data collection. Mysk's tests on the App Store found that Apple receives that data along with details that can identify you and your device, including ID numbers, what kind of phone you're using, your screen resolution, your keyboard languages and how you're connected to the internet — the kind of information commonly used for device fingerprinting.

Four years after Laserlike was acquired by Apple to boost its web search technology, the founders have quit to rejoin Google. AppleInsider reports: Prior to forming Laserlike in 2015, Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary and Steven Baker were all Google employees. Their work at Apple is one reason the company has been predicted to launch its own search engine equivalent to Google's. Apple acquired Laserlike in 2018, though the deal wasn't made public until the following year. As part of the acquisition, the company's three founders were, and ultimately they led a 200-strong search team at Apple.

According to The Information, Srinivasan Venkatachary has now returned to Google. He is reportedly the company's new vice president of engineering. Venkatachary reports to James Manyika, senior vice president of technology and society. Baker and Shukla now both work on Manyika's team. It's not known whether all three quit Apple at the same time, or whether Venkatachary is just the latest to move. According to The Information's source, Apple is estimated to be about four years away from launching a Google Search rival.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple's surge Thursday was one for the record books. The world's most valuable company added $190.9 billion in market value, the most ever by a US-listed company, as softer-than-expected inflation data buoyed equity markets across the board. The jump eclipsed Amazon's $190.8 billion gain in February, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple, which after Thursday's 8.8% jump has a market capitalization of $2.34 trillion, now accounts for four out of the top five biggest daily gains. The stock remains down 17% this year.