Month: February 2021

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  This is the current MagSafe charger, which is sold separately from the iPhone 12. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Bloomberg has published yet another report sharing details of a planned Apple product launch. This time, the publication's sources say Apple is working on a magnetically attached battery pack for iPhones—it would be the first Apple-designed iPhone battery pack that does not double as a case.

The accessory would use the MagSafe feature introduced with the iPhone 12 lineup in October. It would magnetically attach to the back of new iPhones and presumably provide power wirelessly via the Qi standard that iPhones have adopted. According to Bloomberg's sources, the first prototypes have a "white rubber exterior."

Apple has also already shipped some MagSafe accessories for the iPhone, including a charging cable that uses the magnets and other components to optimally align the charging coils and produce faster charging speeds than were possible with previous iPhone models with non-MagSafe Qi charging capability.

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Gwyneth Paltrow is at it again. Here's the scene for the perfect grift for our times:

Tens of millions of people around the country have fallen ill with COVID-19. Nearly half a million have died. Given chronic testing shortages, millions more have likely been infected and never diagnosed. Some of those infected will develop long-term effects, suffering lingering symptoms for weeks to months—or maybe longer.

Sometimes the symptoms appear to be direct extensions of the illness, such as lingering shortness of breath, cough, and/or chest pain. Other times, the symptoms may be more nondescript, such as fatigue and trouble concentrating, aka “brain fog.”

Enlarge / A Comcast van in Sunnyvale, California, in November 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Andrei Stanescu)

Comcast is delaying a plan to enforce its 1.2TB data cap and overage fees in the Northeast US until 2022 after pressure from customers and lawmakers in multiple states.

"[W]e are delaying implementation of our new data plan in our Northeast markets until 2022," Comcast said in an announcement yesterday. "We recognize that our data plan was new for our customers in the Northeast, and while only a very small percentage of customers need additional data, we are providing them with more time to become familiar with the new plan."

Comcast has enforced the data cap in 27 of the 39 states in which it operates since 2016, but not in the Northeast states where Comcast faces competition from Verizon's un-capped FiOS fiber-to-the-home service. In November 2020, Comcast announced it would bring the cap to the other 12 states and the District of Columbia starting in January 2021. But with yesterday's announcement, no one in those 12 states and DC will be charged overage fees by Comcast in all of 2021.

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The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has ruled that Uber drivers are legally workers, not self-employed contractors as Uber has argued in courts around the world. The ruling means that drivers in Britain and Northern Ireland are eligible for additional benefits and protections, including a minimum wage.

Uber claims that it merely acts as a technology provider and broker between independent drivers and their customers—much as eBay facilitates sales between buyers and sellers. In Uber's view, this means that it doesn't owe its drivers benefits like unemployment insurance, doesn't need to reimburse drivers for their costs, and isn't bound by minimum wage and overtime rules. Uber emphasizes that its drivers are free to decide when, where, and how much they work.

But critics point out that Uber exerts a lot more control over its drivers—and over the driver-passenger relationship—than a conventional platform like eBay or Airbnb. Uber sets fares, collects payments from customers, deducts its own fee, and remits the remainder to the driver. It requires drivers to accept a large majority of the rides they are offered. It handles customer complaints and kicks drivers off the platform if their average rating falls too low.

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Apple's bitter legal dispute with Epic Games over the distribution of Fortnite on iOS has now managed to rope in Valve. Apple has subpoenaed the Steam maker for a wide range of PC game sales data it says is crucial to its case. But Valve is fighting back against that subpoena, saying its information is proprietary, not relevant to Apple's case, and would be costly and difficult to generate.

As discussed in a joint letter from Apple and Valve filed with the Northern District of California court this week, Apple's November subpoena seeks two large categories of information that Valve is refusing to provide:

• Documents sufficient to show Valve’s: (a) total yearly sales of apps and in-app products; (b) annual advertising revenues from Steam; (c) annual sales of external products attributable to Steam; (d) annual revenues from Steam; and (e) annual earnings (whether gross or net) from Steam; as well as
• (a) The name of each App on Steam; (b) the date range when the App was available on Steam; and (c) the price of the App and any in-app product available on Steam.

While Valve has responded to some other parts of Apple's subpoena, Apple says that information has been "so heavily redacted that Apple cannot discern what information they might contain."