Enlarge/ A stack of broken Chromebook laptops at Cell Mechanic Inc. electronics repair shop in Westbury, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
Chromebooks and MacBooks are among the least repairable laptops around, according to an analysis that consumer advocacy group US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) shared this week. Apple and Google have long been criticized for selling devices that are deemed harder to repair than others. Worse, PIRG believes that the two companies are failing to make laptops easier to take apart and fix.
The “Failing the Fix (2024)” report released this week [PDF] is largely based on the repairability index scores required of laptops and some other electronics sold in France. However, the PIRG’s report weighs disassembly scores more than the other categories in France’s index, like the availability and affordability of spare parts, “because we think this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates and because the other categories can be country specific,” the report says.
PIRG’s scores, like France’s repair index, also factor in the availability of repair documents and product-specific criteria (the PIRG’s report also looks at phones). For laptops, that criteria includes providing updates and the ability to reset software and firmware.
PIRG also docked companies for participating in trade groups that fight against right-to-repair legislation and if OEMs failed to “easily provide full information on how they calculated their products.”
Chromebooks, MacBooks lag in repairability
PIRG examined 139 laptop models and concluded that Chromebooks, “while more affordable than other devices, continue to be less repairable than other laptops.” This was largely due to the laptops having a lower average disassembly score (14.9) than the other laptops (15.2).
The report looked at 10 Chromebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP and gave Chromebooks an average repair score of 6.3 compared to 7.0 for all other laptops. It said:
Both of these lower averages indicate that while often considered an affordable choice for individuals or schools, Chromebooks are on average less repairable than other laptops.
Google recently extended Chromebook support from eight years to 10 years. PIRG’s report doesn’t factor in software support timelines, but even if it did, Chromebooks’ repairability score wouldn’t increase notably since the move only brought them to “industry norms,” Lucas Gutterman, Designed to Last campaign director for the US PIRG Education Fund, told me.
Enlarge/ The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.
He added, though, that the current “norm” should improve.
At the very least, if it’s no longer financially viable for manufacturers to maintain support, they should allow the community to continue to maintain the software or make it easy to install alternative operating systems so we can keep our laptops from getting junked.
Turning to its breakdown of non-ChromeOS laptops, PIRG ranked Apple laptops the lowest in terms of repairability with a score of D, putting it behind Asus, Acer, Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Lenovo. In this week’s report, Apple got the lowest average disassembly score out of the OEMs (4 out of 10 compared to the 7.3 average)
Enlarge/ These mounted displays near the entrance let visitors touch, but not use, a Vision Pro.
Kyle Orland
For decades now, potential Apple customers have been able to wander in to any Apple Store and get some instant eyes-on and hands-on experience with most of the company’s products. The Apple Vision Pro is an exception to this simple process; the “mixed-reality curious” need to book ahead for a guided, half-hour Vision Pro experience led by an Apple Store employee.
As a long-time veteran of both trade show and retail virtual-reality demos, I was interested to see how Apple would sell the concept of “spatial computing” to members of the public, many of whom have minimal experience with existing VR systems. And as someone who’s been following news and hands-on reports of the Vision Pro’s unique features for months now, I was eager to get a brief glimpse into what all the fuss was about without plunking down at least $3,499 for a unit of my own.
After going through the guided Vision Pro demo at a nearby Apple Store this week, I came away with mixed feelings about how Apple is positioning its new computer interface to the public. While the short demo contained some definite “oh, wow” moments, the device didn’t come with a cohesive story pitching it as Apple’s next big general-use computing platform.
Setup snafus
After arriving a few minutes early for my morning appointment in a sparsely attended Apple Store, I was told to wait by a display of Vision Pro units set on a table near the front. These headsets were secured tightly to their stands, meaning I couldn’t try a unit on or even hold it in my hands while I waited. But I could fondle the Vision Pro’s various buttons and straps while getting a closer look at the hardware (and at a few promotional videos running on nearby iPads).
Two Vision Pro headsets let you see it from multiple angles at once.
Kyle Orland
Nearby iPads let you scroll through videos and information about the Vision Pro.
Kyle Orland
The outward-facing display is very subtle in person.
Kyle Orland
Without an appointment you can feel the headstrap with your hands but not with your skull.
Kyle Orland
To Apple’s credit, it did not even try to hide the external battery in these store displays.
Kyle Orland
After a few minutes, an Apple Store employee, who we’ll call Craig, walked over and said with genuine enthusiasm that he was “super excited” to show off the Vision Pro. He guided me to another table, where I sat in a low-backed swivel chair across from another customer who looked a little zoned out as he ran through his own Vision Pro demo.
Craig told me that the Vision Pro was the first time Apple Store employees like him had gotten early hands-on access to a new Apple device well before the public, in order to facilitate the training needed to guide these in-store demos. He said that interest had been steady for the first few days of demos and that, after some initial problems, the store now mostly managed to stay on schedule.
Unfortunately, some of those demo kinks were still present. First, Craig had trouble tracking down the dedicated iPhone used to scan my face and determine the precise Vision Pro light seal fit for my head. After consulting with a fellow employee, they decided to have me download the Apple Store app and use a QR code to reach the face-scanning tool on my own iPhone. (I was a bit surprised this fit scanning hadn’t been offered as part of the process when I signed up for my appointment days earlier.)
It took three full attempts, scanning my face from four angles, before the app managed to spit out the code that Craig needed to send my fit information to the back room. Craig told me that the store had 38 different light seals and 900 corrective lens options sitting back there, ready to be swapped in to ensure maximum comfort for each specific demo.
Sorry, I think I ordered the edamame…
Kyle Orland
Shhh… the Vision Pro is napping.
After a short wait, another employee brought my demo unit out on a round wooden platter that made me feel like I was at a Japanese restaurant. The platter was artistically arranged, from the Solo Knit Band and fuzzy front cover to the gently coiled cord leading to the battery pack sitting in the center. (I never even touched or really noticed the battery pack for the rest of the demo.)
At this point, Craig told me that he would be able to see everything I saw in the Vision Pro, which would stream directly to his iPad. Unfortunately, getting that wireless connection to work took a good five minutes of tapping and tinkering, including removing the Vision Pro’s external battery cord several times.
Once everything was set, Craig gave me a brief primer on the glances and thumb/forefinger taps I would use to select, move, and zoom in on things in the VisionOS interface. “You’re gonna pretend like you’re pulling on a piece of string and then releasing,” he said by way of analogy. “The faster you go, the faster it will scroll, so be mindful of that. Nice and gentle, nice and easy, and things will go smoothly for you.”
Fifteen minutes after my appointed start time, I was finally ready to don the Vision Pro.
A scripted experience
After putting the headset on, my first impression was how heavy and pinchy the Vision Pro was on the bridge of my nose. Thankfully, Craig quickly explained how to tighten the fit with a dial behind my right ear, which helped immediately and immensely. After that, it only took a minute or two to run through some quick calibration of the impressively snappy eye and hand tracking. (“Keep your head nice and still as you do this,” Craig warned me during the process.)
Enlarge/ Imagine this but with an Apple Store in the background.
Kyle Orland
As we dove into the demo proper, it quickly became clear that Craig was reading from a prepared script on his iPhone. This was a bit disappointing, as the genuine enthusiasm he had shown in our earlier, informal chat gave way to a dry monotone when delivering obvious marketing lines. “With Apple Vision Pro, you can experience your entire photo library in a brand new way,” he droned. “Right here, we have some beautiful shots, right from iPhone.”
Craig soldiered through the script as I glanced at a few prepared photos and panoramas. “Here we have a beautiful panorama, but we’re going to experience it in a whole new way… as if you were in the exact spot in which it was taken,” Craig said. Then we switched to some spatial photos and videos of a happy family celebrating a birthday and blowing bubbles in the backyard. The actors in the video felt a little stilted, but the sense of three-dimensional “presence” in the high-fidelity video was impressive.
After that, Craig informed me that “with spatial computing, your apps can exist anywhere in your space.” He asked me to turn the digital crown to replace my view of the store around me with a virtual environment of mountains bathed in cool blue twilight. Craig’s script seemed tuned for newcomers who might be freaked out by not seeing the “real world” anymore. “Remember, you’re always in control,” Craig assured me. “You can change it at any time.”
From inside the environment, Craig’s disembodied voice guided me as I opened a few flat app windows, placing them around my space and resizing them as I liked. Rather than letting these sell themselves, though, Craig pointed out how webpages are “super beautiful [and] easy to navigate” on Vision Pro. “As you can also see… text is super sharp, super easy to read. The pictures on the website look stunning.” Craig also really wanted me to know that “over one million iPhone/iPad apps” will work like this on the Vision Pro on day one.
Apple is purportedly working on a foldable iPhone internally, according to “a person with direct knowledge of the situation” speaking to The Information. They’re said to be clamshell-style devices that fold like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series rather than phones that become tablets like the Galaxy Z Fold or Google’s Pixel Fold.
The phones are also said to be “in early development” or “could be canceled.” If they do make it to market, it likely wouldn’t be until after 2025.
The report has a long list of design challenges that Apple has faced in developing foldable phones: they’re too thick when folded up; they’re easily broken; they would cost more than non-foldable versions; the seam in the middle of the display tends to be both visible and feel-able; and the hinge on an iPad-sized device would prevent the device from sitting flat on a table (though this concern hasn’t stopped Apple from introducing substantial camera bumps on many of its tablets and all of its phones).
If many of those challenges sound familiar, it’s because it’s a detailed list of virtually every bad thing you could say about current foldable Android phones, even after multiple hardware generations. Our first Pixel Fold didn’t even survive the pre-release review period, and those well-earned durability concerns plus the relatively high cost have limited foldable phones to roughly 1.6 percent of all smartphone sales, according to recent analyst estimates.
It makes sense that Apple would be testing some big swings as it thinks about the next era of iPhone design; our iPhone 15 review called them the iPhone’s “final form,” insofar as it feels like there’s not much room to continue to improve on the iPhone X-style full-screen design that Apple has been iterating on since 2017. It sounds like foldable phones will only be in Apple’s future if the company can manage to overcome the same issues that have tripped up other foldables—though to be fair, the company does have a pretty good decadeslong track record on that front.
Apple is being forced to make major changes to iOS in Europe, thanks to the European Union’s “Digital Markets Act.” The act cracks down on Big Tech “gatekeepers” with various interoperability, fairness, and privacy demands, and part of the changes demanded of Apple is to allow competing browser engines on iOS. The change, due in iOS 17.4, will mean rival browsers like Chrome and Firefox get to finally bring their own web rendering code to iPhones and iPads. Despite what sounds like a big improvement to the iOS browser situation, Google and Mozilla aren’t happy with Apple’s proposed changes.
Earlier, Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte gave a comment to The Verge on Apple’s policy changes and took issue with the decision to limit the browser changes to the EU. “We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple’s proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps,” DeMonte said. “The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations—a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.” DeMonte added: “Apple’s proposals fail to give consumers viable choices by making it as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari. This is another example of Apple creating barriers to prevent true browser competition on iOS.”
Apple’s framework that allows for alternative browser engines is called “BrowserEngineKit” and already has public documentation as part of the iOS 17.4 beta. Browser vendors will need to earn Apple’s approval to use the framework in a production app, and like all iOS apps, that approval will come with several requirements. None of the requirements jump out as egregious: Apple wants browser vendors to have a certain level of web standards support, pledge to fix security vulnerabilities quickly and protect the user’s privacy by showing the standard consent prompts for access to things like location. You’re not allowed to “sync cookies and state between the browser and any other apps, even other apps of the developer,” which seems aimed directly at Google and its preference to have all its iOS apps talk to each other. The big negative is that your BrowserEngineKit app is limited to the EU, because—surprise—the EU rules only apply to the EU.
Speaking of Google, Google’s VP of engineering for Chrome, Parisa Tabriz, commented on DeMonte’s statement on X, saying, “Strong agree with @mozilla. @Apple isn’t serious about supporting web browser or engine choice on iOS. Their strategy is overly restrictive, and won’t meaningfully lead to real choice for browser developers.”
Today, you can download what look like “alternative” browsers on iOS, like Chrome and Firefox, but these browsers are mostly just skins overtop of Apple’s Safari engine. iOS app developers aren’t actually allowed to include their own browser engines, so everything uses Safari’s WebKit engine, with a new UI and settings and sync features layered on top. That means all of WebKit’s bugs and feature support decisions apply to every browser.
Being stuck with Safari isn’t great for users. Over the years, Safari has earned a reputation as “the new IE” from some web developers, due to lagging behind the competition in its support for advanced web features. Safari has gotten notably better lately, though. For instance, in 2023, it finally shipped support for push notifications, allowing web apps to better compete with native apps downloaded from Apple’s cash-cow App Store. Apple’s support of push notifications came seven years after Google and Mozilla rolled out the feature.
More competition would be great for the iOS browser space, but the reality is that competition will mostly be from the other big “gatekeeper” in the room: Google. Chrome is the project with the resources and reach to better compete with Safari, and working its way into iOS will bring the web close to a Chrome monoculture. Google’s browser may have better support for certain web features, but it will also come with a built-in tracking system that spies on users and serves up their interests to advertisers. Safari has a much better privacy story.
Even though only EU users will get to choose from several actually different browsers, everyone still has to compete in the EU, and that includes Safari. For the rest of the world, even they don’t get a real browser choice; competing in the EU browser wars should make the only iOS browser better for everyone. The EU rules have a compliance deadline of March 2024, so iOS 17.4 needs to be out by then. Google and Mozilla have been working on full versions of their browsers for iOS for at least a year now. Maybe they’ll be ready for launch?
Sometimes, it’s worth taking a moment to note the end of an era, even when that ending might have happened a long time ago. Today, Apple announced that it considers the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro obsolete. It was the last MacBook Pro to include an optical drive for playing CDs or DVDs.
This means that any MacBook Pro with an optical drive is no longer supported.
Regarding products deemed obsolete, Apple’s support page on the topic says:
Products are considered obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago… Apple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, and service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products. Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.
Apple stopped selling the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro in October 2016 (it was available for a while as the company’s budget option in the Pro lineup), so anyone doing the math saw this coming. Further, it’s been years since this particular Mac was supported by the latest Apple OS releases. Released in 2020, macOS Big Sur ended support for the device, though older versions of macOS continued to get security updates.
The exclusion of an optical drive in subsequent MacBook Pro models was controversial, but it’s now clear that whether Apple was jumping the gun at that point or not, optical drives have fallen away for most users, and many Windows laptops no longer include them.
Apple still sells an external optical drive it calls SuperDrive that can read and burn CDs and DVDs. However, it hasn’t been updated in ages; it still uses USB-A, which most Mac hardware no longer includes. So, even if you have Apple’s external CD/DVD drive, you probably need an adapter to use it with your modern Mac.
That’s a sign of just how relevant optical drives are for today’s users, but this seems like a good time to remember a bygone era of physical media that wasn’t so long ago. So farewell, mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro—honestly, most of us didn’t miss you by this point.
Apple is “deeply concerned” that proposed changes to a United Kingdom law could give the UK government unprecedented power to “secretly veto” privacy and security updates to its products and services, the tech giant said in a statement provided to Ars.
If passed, potentially this spring, the amendments to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) could deprive not just UK users, but all users globally of important new privacy and security features, Apple warned.
“Protecting our users’ privacy and the security of their data is at the very heart of everything we do at Apple,” Apple said. “We’re deeply concerned the proposed amendments” to the IPA “now before Parliament place users’ privacy and security at risk.”
The IPA was initially passed in 2016 to ensure that UK officials had lawful access to user data to investigate crimes like child sexual exploitation or terrorism. Proposed amendments were announced last November, after a review showed that the “Act has not been immune to changes in technology over the last six years” and “there is a risk that some of these technological changes have had a negative effect on law enforcement and intelligence services’ capabilities.”
The proposed amendments require that any company that fields government data requests must notify UK officials of any updates they planned to make that could restrict the UK government’s access to this data, including any updates impacting users outside the UK.
UK officials said that this would “help the UK anticipate the risk to public safety posed by the rolling out of technology by multinational companies that precludes lawful access to data. This will reduce the risk of the most serious offenses such as child sexual exploitation and abuse or terrorism going undetected.”
According to the BBC, the House of Lords will begin debating the proposed changes on Tuesday.
Ahead of that debate, Apple described the amendments on Monday as “an unprecedented overreach by the government” that “if enacted” could allow the UK to “attempt to secretly veto new user protections globally, preventing us from ever offering them to customers.”
In a letter last year, Apple argued that “it would be improper for the Home Office to act as the world’s regulator of security technology.”
Apple told the UK Home Office that imposing “secret requirements on providers located in other countries” that apply to users globally “could be used to force a company like Apple, that would never build a backdoor, to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving UK users of these protections.” It could also “dramatically disrupt the global market for security technologies, putting users in the UK and around the world at greater risk,” Apple claimed.
The proposed changes, Apple said, “would suppress innovation, stifle commerce, and—when combined with purported extraterritorial application—make the Home Office the de facto global arbiter of what level of data security and encryption are permissible.”
UK defends proposed changes
The UK Home Office has repeatedly stressed that these changes do not “provide powers for the Secretary of State to approve or refuse technical changes,” but “simply” requires companies “to inform the Secretary of State of relevant changes before those changes are implemented.”
“The intention is not to introduce a consent or veto mechanism or any other kind of barrier to market,” a UK Home Office fact sheet said. “A key driver for this amendment is to give operational partners time to understand the change and adapt their investigative techniques where necessary, which may in some circumstances be all that is required to maintain lawful access.”
The Home Office has also claimed that “these changes do not directly relate to end-to-end encryption,” while admitting that they “are designed to ensure that companies are not able to unilaterally make design changes which compromise exceptional lawful access where the stringent safeguards of the IPA regime are met.”
This seems to suggest that companies will not be allowed to cut off the UK government from accessing encrypted data under certain circumstances, which concerns privacy advocates who consider end-to-end encryption a vital user privacy and security protection. Earlier this month, civil liberties groups including Big Brother Watch, Liberty, Open Rights Group and Privacy International filed a joint brief opposing the proposed changes, the BBC reported, warning that passing the amendments would be “effectively transforming private companies into arms of the surveillance state and eroding the security of devices and the Internet.”
“We have always been clear that we support technological innovation and private and secure communications technologies, including end-to-end encryption, but this cannot come at a cost to public safety,” a UK government official told the BBC.
The UK government may face more opposition to the amendments than from tech companies and privacy advocates, though. In Apple’s letter last year, the tech giant noted that the proposed changes to the IPA could conflict with EU and US laws, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation—considered the world’s strongest privacy law.
Under the GDPR, companies must implement measures to safeguard users’ personal data, Apple said, noting that “encryption is one means by which a company can meet” that obligation.
“Secretly installing backdoors in end-to-end encrypted technologies in order to comply with UK law for persons not subject to any lawful process would violate that obligation,” Apple argued.
To comply with European Union regulations, Apple has introduced sweeping changes that make iOS and Apple’s other operating systems more open. The changes are far-reaching and touch many parts of the user experience on the iPhone. They’ll be coming as part of iOS 17.4 in March.
Apple will introduce “new APIs and tools that enable developers to offer their iOS apps for download from alternative app marketplaces,” as well as a new framework and set of APIs that allow third parties to set up and manage those stores—essentially new forms of apps that can download other apps without going through the App Store. That includes the ability to manage updates for other developers’ apps that are distributed through the marketplaces.
The company will also offer APIs and a new framework for third-party web browsers to use browser engines other than Safari’s WebKit. Until now, browsers like Chrome and Firefox were still built on top of Apple’s tech. They essentially were mobile Safari, but with bookmarks and other features tied to alternative desktop browsers.
The changes also extend to NFC technology and contactless payments. Previously, only Apple Pay could fully access those features on the iPhone. Now, Apple will introduce new APIs that will let developers of banking and wallet apps gain more comparable access.
Developers will have new options for using alternative payment service providers within apps and for directing users to complete payments on external websites via link-outs. They’ll be able to use their apps to tell users about promotions and deals that are offered outside of those apps. (Apple warns that it will not be able to provide refunds or support for customers who purchased something outside its own payment system.)
Apple says it will give users in the European Union the ability to pick default App Stores or default contactless payment apps, just like they already can for email clients or web browsers. EU users will be prompted to pick a default browser when they first open Safari in iOS 17.4 or later, too.
Developers can “submit additional requests for interoperability with iPhone and iOS hardware and software features” via a new form.
All of the above changes impact only the EU; Apple won’t bring them to the United States or other regions at this time. There is one notable change that extends beyond Europe, though: Apple says that “developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog.” That opens the door for services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass or Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
Apple notes that “each experience made available in an app on the App Store will be required to adhere to all App Store Review Guidelines,” which could still pose some barriers for game streamers.
Apple’s Vision Pro went up for preorder this morning at 8 am ET. As expected, shipment dates for preorders quickly backed up to March as initial supply was accounted for. Regardless of whether you’re in for the start or taking a wait-and-see approach with Apple’s ultra-pricey new device, though, we have access to a little more information about the device than we did before thanks to updates to the Apple Store website.
The product page for Vision Pro reveals configurations and pricing, and a new specs page clarifies answers to some questions we’ve had for a while now.
You’ll find all the relevant new information below. We’ve also updated our “What to expect from Apple Vision Pro” roundup with new information from the specs page.
Hardware specifications
As previously rumored, the Vision Pro has a variant of the M2 chip with an 8-core CPU (4 performance cores and 4 efficiency), a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core NPU. It has 16GB of unified memory.
There’s also the new R1 chip, which Apple claims achieves “12‑millisecond photon‑to‑photon latency” and 256GB/s memory bandwidth.
As for the display, we didn’t learn too much new here. As Apple has stated before, the two displays push 23 million pixels combined. They support refresh rates of 90 Hz, 96 Hz, and 100 Hz, and support playback of 24 fps and 30 fps video. Apple claims 92 percent DCI-P3.
The specs page also reveals that Vision Pro supports AirPlay at up to 1080p on iPhones, Macs, Apple TVs, and AirPlay-capable smart TVs.
Storage comes in three configurations. The base 256GB model costs $3,499. Bumping up to 512GB adds $200, and going to 1TB adds another $200.
The device’s camera supports both spatial photo and video capture, and Apple lists the specs as an 18 mm, ƒ/2.00 aperture at 6.5 stereo megapixels.
Additionally, there are six world-facing tracking cameras, four eye-tracking cameras, a TrueDepth sensor, a lidar scanner, four inertial measurement units, a flicker sensor, and an ambient light sensor. The headset authenticates the user by looking at their iris.
On the audio front, we’re looking at a six-mic array for audio capture. Apple isn’t super specific on the specs page about the speakers, noting only that the device offers “spatial audio with dynamic head tracking” like AirPods Pro and “personalized Spatial Audio and audio ray tracing.” Vision Pro also supports low-latency, lossless audio with the second generation of AirPods Pro.
Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3.
Apple promises two hours of battery life for “general use” and says video watching can be up to 2.5 hours. The specs page also clarifies that Vision Pro can be used while charging the battery, which is something Apple had previously stated but then confusingly removed from its online documentation. This page seems to settle that.
The headset weighs between 21.2 and 22.9 ounces (600–650 g) depending on the light seal and headband used. That doesn’t include the battery pack, which weighs 353 g. That means Apple made the headset substantially lighter by pushing the battery to a separate unit.
Accessories and additional purchase options
As with its other hardware products, Apple offers AppleCare+ for Vision Pro. It’s $499 for two years, or $24.99 per month for perpetual coverage.
That price might seem awfully steep, but Apple lists the repair fees for the device on its service page and repairs without AppleCare+ will be even pricier—up to $2,399, depending on what’s broken. Any damage to the front glass panel will cost $799 to fix.
Apple Vision Pro Travel Case.
Apple
Apple Vision Pro battery.
Apple
Apple Vision Pro Solo Knit Band.
Apple
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band.
Apple
Apple Vision Pro Light Seal.
Apple
Apple Vision Pro Light Cushion.
Apple
ZEISS Optical Inserts.
Apple
Belkin Battery Holder for Apple Vision Pro.
Apple
There are also a few optional accessories or replacement components you can buy, including:
Apple Vision Pro Travel Case ($199) – A pill-shaped case that contains and protects the headset along with its attachments and battery.
Apple Vision Pro Battery ($199) – A replacement for the battery that comes with the headset. You could also buy one of these to double your capacity while traveling, like for a long flight.
Apple Vision Pro Light Seal ($199) – The soft part of the headset that conforms to your face when you put the device on your head. This includes two light seal cushions, each in a different size.
Apple Vision Pro Light Seal Cushion ($29) – This attaches to the end of the light seal, and is intended to be removed for cleaning. It’s available in four sizes: N, N+, W, and W+.
Apple Vision Pro Solo Knit Band ($99) – One of two variations of the band that keeps Vision Pro on your head. This is the version that simply wraps around the back of your head. It’s available in three sizes: small, medium, and large.
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band ($99) – The version that wraps around both the back of your head and the top. This also comes in small, medium, and large.
ZEISS Optical Inserts ($99+) – Lens inserts for those who wear glasses, as glasses won’t fit inside the device. Available in prescription and reader variations. You don’t need these if you wear soft contact lenses.
Belkin Battery Holder for Apple Vision Pro ($49.95) – A third-party accessory for either attaching Vision Pro’s battery to your belt or pants, or securing it with a cross-body strap.
Starting today, if you buy an Apple Watch Series 9 or Watch Ultra 2 it won’t be able to tell you your blood oxygen levels, a feature that Apple heavily touted when first introducing the capability in 2020. Although the watches will be less capable than watches of the same model sold before today, Apple is selling the pared-down watches at the same prices as before.
On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied [PDF] Apple’s request that an import ban on the smartwatches be lifted for the duration of Apple’s appeal of the ruling that blocked the watches. Apple expects its appeal to take at least a year to be resolved.
In its ruling, the court said:
Our determination is governed by four factors: (1) whether the movant has made a strong showing of likelihood of success on the merits; (2) whether the movant will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.
In January 2023, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Apple Watches infringe two patents for light-based pulse oximetry functionality and components owned by California-headquartered Masimo.
After US President Joe Biden declined to veto the ruling, Apple filed an appeal and pulled the watches on December 21. The company received a temporary stay that enabled it to sell the watches with the questioned capabilities from December 27 until 5 pm ET yesterday. But yesterday’s ruling resulted in the stay being lifted, forcing Apple to either stop selling the watches or to continue selling them but with the disputed feature removed.
When reached for comment, an Apple spokesperson told Ars Technica:
Pending the appeal, Apple is taking steps to comply with the ruling while ensuring customers have access to Apple Watch with limited disruption. These steps include introducing a version of Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the United States without the Blood Oxygen feature. There is no impact to Apple Watch units previously purchased that include the Blood Oxygen feature.
In a statement shared by Bloomberg today, Masimo CEO Joe Kiani said that Wednesday’s decision “affirms that even the largest and most powerful companies must respect the intellectual rights of American inventors and must deal with the consequences when they are caught infringing others’ patents.”
Same watches, different abilities
Starting today, Apple will only sell the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, which both came out in September, with a US Customs and Border Protection-approved software workaround that disables blood oxygen monitoring capabilities. These watches will be available at Apple’s physical and online stores, Apple said. They also have part numbers ending in “LW/A,” per updated Apple support materials.
Users of newly purchased Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches will still have a blood oxygen icon on their watch, but upon tapping the icon, the watch will say, “The Blood Oxygen app is no longer available. Learn more in the Health app on your iPhone.” Once they go to the Health app, users can access a support article on Apple’s website explaining the situation.
Apple’s general product page for the Apple Watch and its websites for the Series 9 and Ultra 2 now include tiny footnotes at the bottom, noting that its watches no longer have the blood oxygen monitoring capabilities that they were announced with. When asked why the watches aren’t less expensive without pulse oximeter functionality, Apple’s rep said that pricing isn’t based on a single feature. It’s worth noting that the watches haven’t become cheaper to make, as they still have the same components as before.
Since the US ITC’s ruling only affects the US, Apple will continue selling the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 with blood oxygen monitoring capabilities outside the US.
Apple didn’t respond to Ars’ questions asking if it will redesign its watches so that they can offer blood oxygen monitoring without infringing on any patents. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Apple has “been working on a software update that changes the blood-oxygen app and its algorithms in a way that might circumvent” patent infringement but keep the feature.
Apple has developed a backup plan for if the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 are import banned again. As it currently appeals the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC’s) ruling that its watches violate a patent owned by Masimo, Apple has come up with a software workaround that strips its current smartwatches of their controversial blood oxygen monitoring capabilities.
In January 2023, the ITC ruled that the Watch violated one of California-headquartered Masimo’s light-based pulse oximetry patents. The Apple Watch Series 6, which came out in 2020, was the first Apple smartwatch to use a pulse oximeter sensor.
Facing a US import ban of the current Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2, both released in September 2023, Apple started pulling the smartwatches on December 21. But on December 27, Apple, which filed its appeal against the ITC’s ruling on December 26 (after US President Joe Biden declined to overrule the ITC ruling), received an emergency interim stay from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, allowing it to continue selling the Watch.
On Monday, Masimo sent a letter [PDF] to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as spotted by 9to5Mac, stating that US Customs and Border Protection decided on January 12 that Apple has redesigned the Watches so that they do not contain pulse oximetry functionality.
Apple accomplished this through a “software workaround” for smartwatches recently shipped to its physical stores, according to a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman on Monday. However, the stores will not sell the redesigned watches until Apple headquarters tells them to, Bloomberg reported.
The publication noted that Apple will probably only release the Watches that can’t monitor blood oxygen levels if the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denies Apple’s request that its stay be upheld for the duration of its appeal against the ITC ruling, which Apple expects to be at least a year, an Apple spokesperson told Ars Technica. Apple expects that ruling to come as early as today.
Currently, the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 are still available with blood oxygen monitoring, an Apple spokesperson confirmed to Ars. But Apple hasn’t confirmed how long that will be the case, jeopardizing demand and the perceived value for Apple’s latest smartwatches.
Longer term, Bloomberg also reported that Apple is developing a software update that alters the watches’ blood oxygen monitoring app and algorithms so that users can still check out their blood oxygen but without Apple infringing on any patents.
For the ITC’s part, it responded to Apple’s requests for an extended stay on the import ban in a court filing on January 10 [PDF]. It stated that Apple has provided “a weak and unconvincing case” and that the tech giant’s arguments “amount to little more than an indisputably adjudicated infringer requesting permission to continue infringing the asserted patents.”
Prospective owners of the Apple Watch who value blood oxygen monitoring should keep an eye open for the appeals court’s ruling because it could swiftly result in Apple Watches that they’re considering buying missing a key feature.
Market research firm IDC has released some stunning smartphone market share numbers for 2023. The number one smartphone OEM is now Apple. The IDC says Apple hit an “all-time high market share” number for 2023 and that Apple has “the number 1 spot annually for the first time ever.” The analyst group says this represents “a sort of shifting of power” in the smartphone market.
That all-time high market share puts Apple at 20.1 percent for 2023, a 3.7 percent growth over 2022. Nearly everyone on Team Android is way down, with Samsung now in second place after losing 13.6 percent in 2023 for 19.4 percent market share on the year. Chinese firm Xiaomi is down 4.7 percent for 12.5 percent market share, and Oppo (the parent company of OnePlus) dropped 9.9 percent and is fourth, with 8.8 percent of the market. Next up is “Transsion,” a company that is definitely not a household name but is big in emerging markets like Africa. Transsion is a big winner, with 30 percent growth from 2022 to 2023. With 8.1 percent market share, it takes the fifth spot.
Apple is usually not first in sales because the average iPhone purchase is much more expensive than an average Android phone. Samsung’s cheapest phones can be had for about $50, and while you can get a wildly expensive foldable that costs a lot more than an iPhone, Samsung’s bestselling models are often the midrange “A” series, which are in the $200–$450 range. Other Android manufacturers are in the same boat, with low-volume halo products and high-volume cheap devices.
According to Omdia’s top-10 model sales list for 2023, Apple’s bestselling phone—and the bestselling phone model in the world—was the $1,100 iPhone 14 Pro Max. The world’s second bestselling phone is the $1,000 iPhone 14 Pro. Third is the iPhone 14, which cost $800 for most of 2023. Apple’s cheapest phone is the iPhone SE at $429, but that model doesn’t sell well. The point is that Android manufacturers usually win these market share charts by selling cheap and midrange phones, but Apple was able to take the top spot while existing only in the mid-to-premium phone space. The industry lingo for this is “average sell price” (ASP), and for Q2 2023, the IDC has the average Android phone at $250, while the average iPhone costs $949.
In 2020, Apple was fourth in market share behind Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi, which made sense given Apple’s more expensive product line. In 2023, Apple beat all these Android OEMs while selling dramatically more expensive products. The IDC’s Nabila Popal wraps up the numbers by saying, “Apple’s ongoing success and resilience is in large part due to the increasing trend of premium devices, which now represent over 20% of the market, fueled by aggressive trade-in offers and interest-free financing plans.”
Enlarge/ Artist’s conception of iOS developers after today’s Supreme Court ruling, surveying a new landscape of payment options and subscription signaling.
Epic Games
The Supreme Court declined to hear either of the petitions resulting from the multi-year, multi-court Epic v. Apple antitrust dispute. That leaves most of Epic’s complaints about Apple’s practices unanswered, but the gaming company achieved one victory on pricing notices.
It all started in August 2020, when Epic sought to work around Apple and Google’s app stores and implemented virtual currency purchases directly inside Fortnite. The matter quickly escalated to the courts, with firms like Spotify and Microsoft backing Epic’s claim that Apple’s App Store being the only way to load apps onto an iPhone violated antitrust laws.
The matter reached trial in May 2021. The precise definitions of “games” and “marketplace” were fervently debated. Epic scored a seemingly huge victory in September 2021 when a Northern California judge demanded that Apple allow developers to offer their own payment buttons and communicate with app customers about alternate payment options. An appeals court upheld that Apple’s App Store itself wasn’t a “walled garden” that violated antitrust laws but kept the ruling that Apple had to open up its payments and messaging.
Today’s denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its “anti-steering” language anticompetitive. Links and messaging from developers should soon be able to send users to alternative payment options for apps rather than forcing them to stay entirely inside Apple’s App Store, resulting in a notable commission for Apple.
Epic’s goals to see Fortnite restored to the App Store or see third-party stores or sideloading on iPhones remain unfulfilled. This is not the case with Epic’s antitrust suit against Google, which in mid-December went strongly in Epic’s favor. With a unanimous jury verdict against Google, a judge this month will determine how to address Google’s violations—potentially including Epic’s request that it and other developers be allowed to issue their own app stores and payment systems on Android devices.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that the Supreme Court’s denial means the “battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States” and that it was a “sad outcome for all developers.” Sweeney noted that as of today, developers on Apple’s platforms can “tell US customers about better prices on the web.” And he noted that regulatory and policy actions around the world, including the upcoming EU Digital Markets Act, may have further impact.
Apple has yet to comment on today’s Supreme Court decision.
