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Apple Announces Chief Financial Officer Transition



Apple today announced that Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

As part of a planned succession, Kevan Parekh, Apple’s Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, will become Chief Financial Officer and Join the executive team.

“Luca has been an extraordinary partner in managing Apple for the long term. He has been instrumental in improving and driving the company’s financial performance, engaging with shareholders, and instilling financial discipline across every part of Apple. We’re fortunate that we will continue to benefit from the leadership and insight that have been the hallmark of his tenure at the company,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“For more than a decade, Kevan has been an indispensable member of Apple’s finance leadership team, and he understands that company inside and out. His sharp intellect, wise judgement, and financial brilliance make hime the perfect choice to be Apple’s next CFO.”

CNBC reported Apple announced Monday that it will place Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri on Jan. 1 with current Apple insider Kevan Parekh. 

Maestri will continue to lead teams focusing on IT, security, and real estate development.

Parekh, the incoming CFO, had been a top Maestri lieutenant as the company’s vice president of financial planning and analysis.

Maestri was named Apple CFO in 2014 before the stock began a torrid run, partially powered by strong demand for iPhones. Apple stock is up more than 800% since Maestri became CEO.

During his tenure as finance chief, Apple more than doubled annual sales and net income and expanded its gross margin. In 2014, Apple’s annual sales were about $183 billion. Last year, Apple reported $383 billion in revenue. 

Reuters reported tech giant Apple on Monday named Kevan Parekh as its chief financial officer, replacing company veteran Luca Maestri who will transition from the role on Jan. 1, 2025.

The leadership change comes ahead of Apple’s multiple product launch this fall season, which analysts have called the biggest software upgrade for the iPhone.

It includes artificial intelligence features, which are crucial for Apple as it looks to reverse a slowdown in global sales, particularly in China, and better compete with rivals who have rolled out AI upgrades.

Parekh, who has been with Apple for more than a decade will join the company’s executive committee, most recently served as vice president of financial planning and analysis.

In my opinion, it is not unusual for large companies to shuffle people around as needed. That said, it appears that this transition will take place in January 2025, just a few months from now.


Apple Reportedly Announces iPhone 16



Apple will be unveiling new products on September 10, with the announced phones going on sale on September 20, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, TechCrunch reported.

That lineup will reportedly include iPhone 16, with larger screens on the Pro models and a new button just for taking pictures. The phones should also support Apple Intelligence, the company’s suite of AI features announced earlier this year.

The event could also include announcements of the Apple Watch Series 10, which will be thinner than past models, with a larger screen, as well as new AirPods, with noise cancellation coming to more models.

Gurman also reported that Apple is planning to update its Macs with the M4 processors, but the new Macs probably won’t be announced until later in the fall.

Gizmodo reported Apple has set the date for its next big hardware release — at least, the company will soon enough. Before Apple has the chance to send out its invites, Bloomberg beat it to the punch and declared Sept. 10 is the date of Apple’s big event.

According to Gizmodo, Apple’s most routinely rumormonger, Mark Gurman, reported based on anonymous sources that the iPhone 16 (and its odd brown hue), along with new AirPods and Apple Watches, will arrive on the second Tuesday of next month. 

It’s the date most people reported on Apple for any length of time already assumed, so its not too big of a surprise. Last year’s iPhone 15 announcement came on Sept. 12, the second Tuesday of the month.

Sept. 10 is the same date proposed by a fake invite that made the rounds earlier this week. It was prompted by a routine leaker who goes by Majin Bu on Twitter. Another tweet by the account @lorevfx claimed they created the invite in Figma using an AI-generated texture and then sent it to the leaker. Apple’s email invites always look so spartan, so it doesn’t take that much know-how to fake one.

9to5Mac reported: According to some new tweets from Mark Gurman, Apple has scheduled a mandatory meeting for all Apple Store employees shortly after the iPhone 16 event, which is expected to take place on September 10th. The meetings are happening on either the evening of September 12th and the morning of September 13th, depending on the store.

Gurman notes that these meetings are on an unusual schedule, since Apple usually holds these meetings on a Sunday rather than during the week. However, it seems Apple will be following a different strategy for this year’s iPhone launch.

In a follow up tweet, Gurman also says that Apple has begun training retail employees on Apple Intelligence, and that he expects it to be a key part of the sales pitch for iPhone 16 at Apple Stores.

In my opinion, I think that there will be a lot of people lining up outside their local Apple Store, hoping to purchase an iPhone 16.


Apple Says Patreon Must Switch To Its Billing System



Apple has threatened to remove creator platform Patreon from the App Store if creators use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS, instead of using Apple’s own in-app purchasing system for Patreon’s subscriptions, TechCrunch reported.

In a blog post and email to Patreon creators about upcoming changes to memberships in the iOS app, the company says it’s begun a 16-month-long migration process to move all creators to Apple’s iOS in-app purchase system by November 2025, the company said.

However, if creators choose the latter option, they won’t be able to offer memberships in the iOS app until they adopt Apple’s iOS in-app purchase system, as Apple’s rules will apply as of this November.

Patreon posted news titled: “Apple’s requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon. Here’s what you need to know”

Apple is requiring that Patreon switch to their iOS in-app purchase system starting this November, or risk being removed from the App Store. Here’s what’s coming, and what you can do about it.

Patreon exists to let creators make what they love for their biggest fans, and earn an income doing it on their own terms. Everything we build is to make those two things easier for creators. For you.

Unfortunately, Apple is requiring us to switch over to their in-app purchase system for all iOS transactions or else risk being kicked out of the App Store altogether — and their in-app purchase system is not built with our same level of creator-first flexibility.

In situations like this – where a partner is forcing us into a change that we don’t believe is best for creators — we use these three principles to guide our decisions:

Transparency — Communicating to you early and clearly to help you understand exactly what is happening and what your options are.

Control — Giving you a clear understanding of the tradeoffs, so that you can decide what’s right for your business.

Stability — Making sure that you’re able to maintain you earnings and continue to grow your business throughout this process.

Apple’s requirements

As we first announced last year, Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024.

This has two major consequences for creators:

Apple will be applying their 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased in the Patreon iOS app, in addition to anything bought in your Patreon shop.

Any creator currently on first-of-the-month or per-creation billing plans will have to switch over to the subscription billing to continue earning on the iOS app, because that’s the only billing type Apple’s in-app purchase system supports.

Engadget reported Patreon users need to know about two main changes. By this November, all creators can only offer a subscription-based plan on iOS as the app store doesn’t support other formats, such as first-of-the-month or per-creation plans.

As a result, Patreon is rolling out a 16-month-long migration process that will shift all memberships to subscriptions by November 2025. At that point, subscription-based plans will be the only option available, unfortunately proving Apple’s far-reaching power.

In my opinion, it sounds as though Apple is trying to prevent Patreon from doing what it has done for a long time — giving creators an opportunity to make money from their Patreon subscriptions.


Apple Releases First Preview Of Its Long-Awaited iPhone AI



Apple on Monday released the first version of Apple Intelligence, its suite of artificial intelligence features that will improve Siri, automatically generate emails and images, and sort notifications, CNBC reported. 

The new software called Apple Intelligence was released in the developer beta of iOS 18.1. It is also available in similar releases for iPad and Mac. It is currently only available to registered Apple developers. Apple’s developer program costs $99 a year.

In addition, users will have to register for a waitlist inside Apple’s settings app after updating to gain access to the service, which involves pinging Apple servers for more complicated requests.

Later this year, it will be released to the public, but the 18.1 version number suggests Apple Intelligence will not be released alongside new iPhone hardware, which is expected to be running iOS 18 in the fall.

9To5Mac reported Apple is rolling out the first beta of iOS 18.1 to developers today. This update is available for iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max and includes the first set of Apple Intelligence, such as Writing Tools, new features for Mail and notifications, upgrades to Photos, and more.

The first iOS beta is available today to registered developer beta testers. There is not a currently public beta of IOS 18.1, and there’s no timeline for when that will change. Again, the update is only available for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the only two iPhone models that support Apple Intelligence.

Wall Street Journal reported the first wave of Apple Intelligence tools won’t be in the initial iOS 18 release this fall. Instead, they’ll be part of iOS 18.1, which is expected a few weeks later.

In the past, Apple has released the new iOS in mid-September, followed by the first big update in October. Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and Meta hav already released generative-AI tools to users.

An Apple spokeswoman wouldn’t comment on the exact timing.

On Monday, the company released a developer-only beta version of iOS and iPadOS 18.1 and MacOS Sequoia 15.1, which include some of those Apple Intelligence tools. Keyword: some. Text-summarization tools and some Siri enhancements are there but the promised visual tools and ChatGPT integration aren’t coming until later this year.

To test the new tools, developers will have to download the latest build of iOS 18.1 and then sign up for the Apple Intelligence wait list. This helps the company ensure sufficient server capacity, Apple said. The company didn’t say if or when Apple Intelligence would be available in the iOS 18.1 public betas. 

In my opinion, it sounds like Apple has decided to jump into using AI. Apple users might be interested in what the AI can – eventually — do when it rolls out. My hope is that the AI doesn’t glitch. 


Apple, Nvidia Anthropic Used Thousands Of Swiped YouTube Videos To Train AI



Tech companies are turning to controversial tactics to feed their data-hungry artificial intelligence models, vacuuming up books, websites, photos, and social media posts often unbeknownst to the creators, WIRED reported.

AI companies are generally secretive about their sources of training data, but an investigation by Proof News found some of the wealthiest AI companies in the world have used material from thousands of YouTube videos to train AI. Companies did so despite YouTube’s rules against harvesting materials from the platform without permission.

One investigation found that subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos, siphoned from more than 48,000 channels, were used by Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Anthropic, Nividia, Apple, and Salesforce.

The dataset, called YouTube Subtitles, contains video transcripts from educational and online learning channels like Khan Academy, MIT, and Harvard. The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the BBC also had their videos used to train AI, as did The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

9TO5Mac reported a number of tech giants, including Apple, trained AI models on YouTube videos without the consent of the creators, according to a new report today. 

They did this by using subtitle files downloaded by a third party from more than 170,000 videos. Creators affected include tech reviewer Marquees Brownlee (MKBHD), MrBeast, PewDePie, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel.

The subtitle files are effectively transcripts of the video content.

The downloads were reportedly preformed by a non-profit called EleutherAI, which says it helps developers train AI models. While the aim appears to have been to provide training materials to small developers and academics, the dataset has also been used by several tech giants, including Apple.

According to 9to5Mac, it’s important to emphasize here that Apple didn’t download the data itself, but this was instead preformed by EleutherAI. It is this organization which appears to have broken YouTube’s terms and conditions.

The Verge reported as part of its investigation, Proof News also released an interactive lookup tool. You can use its search engine feature to see if your content— or your favorite’s YouTuber’s — appears in the dataset.

The subtitles dataset is part of a larger collection of material from the nonprofit EleutherAI called The Pile, an open-source collection that also contains datasets of books, Wikipedia articles, and more. Last year, an analysis of one dataset called Books3 revealed which authors work had been used to train AI systems, and the dataset has been cited in lawsuits by authors against the companies that used it to train AI.

In my opinion, scraping from content creator’s works – even if it’s only the audio part of the YouTube video – should be illegal. The work made by humans should not be fed to AI systems without the creator’s consent. 


Apple Reaches Deal With EU Regulators To Open Up Mobile Payments



EU antitrust regulators on Thursday accepted commitments from Apple to allow access to its tap-and-go payments technology to rivals, bringing an end to a four-year investigation, CNBC reported.

“The commission has decided accept commitments offered by Apple. These commitments address our preliminary concerns that Apple may illegally have restricted competition when it comes to mobile wallets and iPhones,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said during a news conference.

The EU formally launched an investigation relating to Apple Pay in 2020. The probe looked at the terms and conditions Apple sets for integrating Apple Pay in apps and websites, as well as concerns around the tap-and-go technology and alleged refusals of accessing Apple Pay.

In 2022 the European Commission found that Apple Pay could restrict competition as it was the only option for iPhone users. Apple has since suggested several commitments to address the concerns and in January it offered to give its rivals access to contactless payment and mobile wallet technology.

“The commitments bring important changes to how Apple operates in Europe add to the benefit of competitors and customers,” Vestager said.

The iPhone maker now has until July 25 to implement the commitments, Vestager said. All developers will then be able to offer mobile wallets for iPhones with the tap-and-go technology, she explained. The commitments are set to remain in effect for 10 years.

The European Commission posted: Commission accepts commitments by Apple opening access to ‘tap and go’ technology on iPhones

…In its investigation, the Commission preliminary concluded that Apple abused its dominant position by refusing to supply the NFC input on iOS to competing mobile wallet developers, while reserving such access only to Apple Pay.

The Commission’s preliminary view is that Apple’s refusal excluded Apple Pay’s rivals from the market and led to less innovation an choice for iPhone mobile wallets users.

Such behavior may breach Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which prohibits the abuse of a dominant position.

The Commission concluded that Apple’s final commitments would address its competition concerns over Apple’s restriction of third-party mobile wallet developers’ access to NFC payments in stores for EEA iOS users. It therefore decided to make them legally binding on Apple.

The commitments will remain in force for ten years and apply throughout the EEA. Their implementation will be monitored by a monitoring trustee appointed by Apple who will report to the Commission for the same time period.

ArsTechnica reported: In two weeks, iPhone users in the European Union will be able to use any mobile wallet they like to complete “tap and go” payments with the ease of using Apple Pay.

In a press release, the EU’s executive vice president, Margrethe Vestager, said that Apple’s commitments in the settlement address the commission’s “preliminary concerns that Apple may have illegally restricted competition for mobile wallets on iPhones.”

Arguably, providing outside developers access to NFC functionality on its devices is the biggest change. Rather than allowing developers to access this functionality through Apple’s hardware, Apple has borrowed a solution prevalent in the Android ecosystem, Vestager said, granting access through a software solution called “Host Card Emulation mode.”

In my opinion, Apple is going to have to work hard to keep its commitments to the European Commission and make changes to how it handles “tap and go”. Apple’s deadline is July 25.


Microsoft And Apple Drop OpenAI Seats Amid Antitrust Scrutiny



Microsoft has given up its seat as an observer on the board of OpenAI while Apple will not take up a similar position, amid growing scrutiny by global regulators of Big Tech’s investments in AI start-ups, Financial Times reported.

Microsoft, which has invested $13bn in the maker of the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, said in a letter to OpenAI that its withdrawal from its board role would be “effective immediately”.

Apple had also been expected to take an observer role on OpenAI’s board as part of a deal to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone maker’s devices, but would not do so, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Apple declined to comment.

OpenAI would instead host regular meetings with partners such as Microsoft and Apple and investors Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures — part of “a new approach to informing and engaging key strategic partners” under Sarah Friar, the former Nextdoor boss who was hired as its first chief financial officer last month, an OpenAI spokesperson said.

The move comes as antitrust authorities in the EU and US examine the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI as part of broader concerns about competition in the rapidly growing sector.

CNBC reported Microsoft said it would give up its observer seat on the OpenAI board amid regulatory scrutiny into generative artificial intelligence in Europe and the U.S. 

Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, Keith Tolliver, wrote a letter to OpenAI late Tuesday, saying that the position had provided insights into the board’s activities without compromising its independence.

But the letter, seen by CNBC, added that the seat was no longer needed as Microsoft had “witnessed significant progress from the newly formed board.” CNBC reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI for comment.

The European Commission previously said Microsoft could face an antitrust investigation, as it looked at the markets for virtual words and generative artificial intelligence.

The commission, which is the executive arm of EU, said in January that it is “looking into some of the agreements that have been concluded between large digital market players and generative AI developers and providers” and singled out the Microsoft-OpenAI tie-up as a particular deal that it will be studying.

9To5Mac reported: Just eight days after it was revealed that Apple Fellow Phil Schiller would join the OpenAI board as an observer, it’s now being reported that this won’t happen.

Instead, OpenAI will simply commit to regular meetings with Schiller and other partners and investors…

The change of plan appears to relate to antitrust concerns. Regulators in both the U.S. and Europe are already investigating Microsoft’s investment OpenAI, and it was possible that Apple could have opened itself up to a similar investigation by taking a seat on the board, even without voting powers.

In my opinion, OpenAI needs to rethink if they really want a board of people from larger corporations involved in what OpenAI does. Microsoft and Apple seem to not want to have a seat on the board.