The IT Nerd

Earlier this week, Apple apologized for the Siri listening fiasco. At the time I said this:

Wow. An apology from Apple. Mind blown.

I said that because Apple is notorious for not apologizing for anything unless it was in their best interests to do so. Now we might have a clue what those interests are via the Irish Examiner:

The Data Protection Commission has sought further details from Apple after it was revealed by the Irish Examiner that employees at a third-party company in Cork were listening to recordings collected from Siri.

Companies found to be in serious breach of GDPR obligations may be liable to face penalties of up to €20m, or 4% of its annual global turnover, whichever is higher.

That’s what I love about the GDPR. If you run afoul of it, you’re going to pay and pay big. This must have sent Apple into full panic mode and before you can say “there’s one more thing” out comes an apology from Apple. Which I suspect is either meant to stop them from having to cut a pretty large cheque or cut down the size of the cheque that they would have to write. How large would that cheque be? According to this, Apple’s annual turnover…. which is another term for revenue….. was $265.6 billion USD in 2018. So 4% of that is $10.62 billion USD. That’s about the size of Apple’s profits a single quarter over the last little while, and is more than the €20m floor that the GDPR specifies as a punishment. Once you see that, Apple’s apology suddenly makes sense.

So, will Apple get slapped with a fine? Well, by the time the person doing the slapping makes a statement like this, it would imply that a fine is inbound to 1 Apple Park:

This statement issued by Apple will be taken into account during the “engagement” between the company and the Data Protection Commission, added a spokesperson for the commission.

Good luck to you Apple. You’re going to need it.

It seems that more airlines are restricting the MacBook Pro in some way, shape, or form. Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways have both posted warnings on their website letting customers know that affected 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro models cannot be brought on board at all unless those models have received a replacement battery. That goes a lot further than Virgin Australia or Qantas. On top of that, United Airlines has asked passengers not to use affected models during flight.

To be frank, you can’t be surprised that this is happening as there’s no easy way for an airline to determine what year a MacBook Pro is from. Sure, there’s a online serial number check that they can use. But is an airline really going to train ground staff to do this? No. Even if they wanted to it would slow down everything from security checkpoints to boarding of aircraft. Thus restricting or banning the MacBook Pro is an easier way to go.

That’s a big problem for Apple. At the moment their flagship notebook has the reputation of a Samsung Note 7. As in it has a very bad reputation. And as the number of airlines who restrict or ban the MacBook Pro increases, the more likely this becomes a PR disaster for Apple. Not only that, why would anyone buy a MacBook Pro right now if there is all this noise going on? Sure a model bought today isn’t affected by this issue. But one is sure to get hassled at the airport simply by having one. So maybe that person will+ spring for a Lenovo or HP instead to avoid this.

Thus Apple has to do something here. At this point it’s not good enough for them to simply replace these batteries. They have to find some way to work with organizations like the European Union Aviation Safety Agency who issued warnings to airlines under their jurisdiction as well as the Federal Aviation Administration who did the same thing for US carriers to make it easy for airlines to spot affected models and not have them hassle the person who bought their MacBook Pro last week and isn’t affected by this. So far it doesn’t seem Apple is doing that. At least not in public. But they need to before this goes really sideways for them.

I’ve been very critical of Apple and how they have seemingly made it impossible to have your Apple gear repaired by someone outside an Apple Store. I say that because they’ve fought hard against right to repair legislation wherever it has appeared as evidenced by this example, or this example. Apple has also done things at an OS level to stop things like third party batteries being used in repairs. Though that’s apparently for your own good if you listen to Apple. Finally, they’ve also gone as far as suing independent repair shops. In short, Apple is giving off the impression that they don’t want you to have your Apple gear repaired by anyone by Apple. Possibly so that they can sell you a new iPhone or MacBook instead of repairing it.

That may be changing with the posting of a press release from Apple in the last hour which among other things says this:

Apple today announced a new repair program, offering customers additional options for the most common out-of-warranty iPhone repairs. Apple will provide more independent repair businesses — large or small —  with the same genuine parts, tools, training, repair manuals and diagnostics as its Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs). The program is launching in the US with plans to expand to other countries.

If you read through this, this new program is only targeting iPhones. At this point it doesn’t seem like MacBooks, iPads, iMacs or anything else is on the table. And it’s my perception that Apple is only doing this because it is facing an investigation by the Justice Department in the US. Not to mention that sooner or later, right to repair legislation will pass someplace. And as a result they’ll be forced to play ball on this front.

There’s one other thing that I should point out. From the Devil is in the detail department comes this:

• Meeting program requirements does not guarantee acceptance into the program.

I will bet you any dollar amount that this will allow Apple to reject the applications of anyone in the right to repair space who have been critical of Apple’s behavior such as Louis Rossmann. We’ll have to see if that actually happens or not. One other thing. Consumers will be getting genuine Apple parts. I bet the pricing will be such that it at best makes it a level playing field between Apple Stores and independent repair shops. And I would not be surprised if the result of that was that consumers would think twice about repair and go towards buying a new iDevice as the cost of repair would not seem to make sense. But to be fair to Apple, that’s the cynic in me making an appearance. Apple would be making a big mistake by doing either of the things that I mentioned, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

So is this a step in the right direction? Maybe. We’ll have to see how this plays out. But make no mistake. Apple isn’t doing this because they want to do the right thing. They are doing this because they are more afraid of being forced to do the right thing.

Qantas airlines is now restricting MacBook Pro laptops from checked-in luggage on concern that batteries could catch fire. All 15-inch versions of Apple’s MacBook Pro must be carried in the cabin and switched off, Qantas said in a statement Wednesday. The rule went into effect Tuesday morning. This comes after rival airline Virgin did the same thing. The reason for this ban is that Apple recalled certain 2015 MacBook Pros because the batteries in them had a tendency to catch fire. And you can expect more airlines to do the same shortly.

I don’t blame the airlines for doing this as there’s no practical way for them to tell what is a 2015 MacBook Pro and what isn’t. Thus banning everything from checked luggage is the path of least resistance. Also almost nobody carries their laptops in checked luggage. Thus this really doesn’t change the behavior of most travelers. The only thing it does is give Apple some really negative press that I suspect that it will have to deal with at some point.

It’s not every day that Apple apologizes for anything. But today is one of those days. A few minutes ago, this was posted to the Apple website where they said this among other things:

As a result of our review, we realize we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize. As we previously announced, we halted the Siri grading program. 

Wow. An apology from Apple. Mind blown.

The company also committed to making changes:

• First, by default, we will no longer retain audio recordings of Siri interactions. We will continue to use computer-generated transcripts to help Siri improve. 
• Second, users will be able to opt in to help Siri improve by learning from the audio samples of their requests. We hope that many people will choose to help Siri get better, knowing that Apple respects their data and has strong privacy controls in place. Those who choose to participate will be able to opt out at any time. 
• Third, when customers opt in, only Apple employees will be allowed to listen to audio samples of the Siri interactions. Our team will work to delete any recording which is determined to be an inadvertent trigger of Siri.

All these changes are great. But I have to agree with the thoughts of YouTube star Aaron Zollo:

This is great, but I’m surprised they didn’t do it to begin with. https://t.co/3wbJS0dH8y

— Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) August 28, 2019

I would have expected a company that claims to take privacy as seriously as Apple claims to would have done this from the jump. But clearly that wasn’t the case and now they are paying for that. Hopefully they learn from this and make future decisions with privacy at the forefront as clearly this did not happen in this case.

UPDATE: Apple has posted an FAQ on Siri privacy and grading.

Normally I don’t jump into the rumor mill when it comes to Apple products, or any other products for that matter. But because I’ve gotten so many emails in terms of the potential of a new Apple Watch, I figured that it would be more efficient to just discuss what is out there in terms of what Apple might be bringing to market.

First, Apple last week registered a number of new products in the Eurasian database which is a required activity for companies in that region of the planet if they want to sell anything there. Among the new iPhones and MacBooks that were registered were four unreleased models of the Apple Watch. This appeared on MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider at about the same time which isn’t a shock as entries in this database are a reliable means to figure out what Apple is about to release. Also of note, the existing Series 3 and 4 Apple Watches were re-registered with watchOS 6. Something confirmed by MacRumors in a tweet to me:

8 of the 12 are current Series 3 and Series 4 models.

— MacRumors.com (@MacRumors) August 21, 2019

Tied to this was this find in iOS 13 beta 7 by Brazilian site iHelpBR of assets that show two new Apple Watch variants. A ceramic version and a titanium version. Apple has had ceramic versions of the Apple Watch in the past, but they don’t presently offer that case material as an option. And there’s never been a titanium version. Though having one would make sense as many high end watches are made of the metal and Apple has tried to go high end with the Apple Watch in the past.

So what does this all mean? Here’s my guess. Apple is about to release 40mm and 44mm ceramic version and titanium versions of the Apple Watch that will use the Series 4 hardware. These will be sold alongside the existing aluminium versions and possibly the stainless steel version. I say possibly because I can see a scenario where the stainless steel version gets replaced by a titanium version as titanium is more durable and lighter.

Another thing to note is that only four new models made it into the Eurasian database. In the past, when Apple has released a new version of the Apple Watch, the company has entered six or more variants into this database. Thus this implies that Apple is not doing anything new and cool with the Apple Watch this year from a hardware perspective. And there is precedent for this as Apple went about 18 months between the release of the original Apple Watch (April 24, 2015) and the release of the Series 1 and 2 (September 16, 2016).

Another factor is that the Series 4 Apple Watch was the closest thing to a redesign of the Apple Watch that we’ve seen via the bigger screens that were present on that model. While Apple isn’t above blowing up the universe a year after redesigning a product, I am thinking that you can expect a hardware redesign to support things like a longer battery life and sleep tracking next year. And that may come via a microLED screen replacing the OLED screen as that would make the Apple Watch far more power efficient while maintaining the screen quality that Apple Watch users expect.

Finally, here’s the key thing about this. Rumors of an Apple Watch “Series 5” have been close to non-existent with the exception of the above and this picture. But if you look at rumors about a new iPhone or new MacBook Pro, they’ve been rampant. That suggests to me that Apple is either keeping what they are doing with the Apple Watch a secret, or nothing new is coming other than what I explained above. Thus my take on this is that Apple will still be selling the Series 3 and 4 Apple Watches, but add in ceramic version and titanium versions into the mix to boost sales. And a new and cool Apple Watch will be inbound next year. It will be interesting to see if I am right on or around September 10th which is when I expect the Apple Event that announces all of these products to take place.