Apple Sued for Choosing Not to ‘Lock-Out’ iPhones Behind the Wheel to Prevent Texting and Driving

California resident Julio Ceja is seeking a class action lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of placing profit before consumer safety by choosing not to implement a lock-out mechanism that would disable an iPhone’s functionality when being used behind the wheel by an engaged driver.

Ceja demands that Apple halt the sale of all iPhones in California until a lock-out mechanism is implemented. He also demands that Apple release a software update that adds a lock-out mechanism to all iPhones already in the hands of consumers. He is not seeking further damages beyond legal fees and costs.

The complaint, filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, asserts that Apple’s willful decision not to implement a lock-out mechanism on iPhones, chiefly to prevent texting and driving, constitutes “unfair business acts and practices” under California’s Unfair Competition Law. A jury trial has been demanded.

Ceja asserts that Apple’s “enormous market share” means that it is the “largest contributor” to texting and driving, while noting it is “downright shocking” that smartphone companies like Apple “do nothing to help shield the public at large from the dangers associated with the use of their phones.”

“If texting and driving is a vessel of trouble, Apple is the captain of the ship,” the complaint alleges.

The complaint claims that Apple recognized the dangers of texting and driving, and the important role it should play in stopping it, in its lock-out mechanism patent filed in 2008 and published in 2014.

The patent notes that “texting while driving has become a major concern of parents, law enforcement, and the general public,” and further claims that “texting while driving has become so widespread it is doubtful that law enforcement will have any significant effect on stopping the practice.”

The patent describes one method where a motion analyzer would detect whether a handheld device is in motion beyond a certain speed. A scenery analyzer would be able to determine whether the holder of the handheld device is located within a safe operating area of a vehicle. Otherwise, the device could be disabled.

In other embodiments, a vehicle or car key could transmit a signal that disables functionality of the handheld device while it is being operated. To a lesser degree, a vehicle could also transmit a signal that merely sends the device a notification stating that functionality should be disabled.

In November, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended smartphone makers develop a “Driver Mode”, a simplified interface that would prevent access to non-driving-related tasks such as text messaging, social media, and viewing images and video unrelated to driving.

The complaint comes less than one month after a Texas family sued Apple for failing to enable said lock-out mechanisms to prevent distracted driving. On Christmas Eve in 2014, the family’s vehicle was struck by a distracted driver who admitted to using FaceTime while driving. The accident caused one fatality.

Apple has faced other similar lawsuits in the past. In response to a Texas lawsuit filed in 2015, Apple indicated the responsibility is on the driver to avoid distractions in a statement provided to The New York Times:

“We discourage anyone from allowing their iPhone to distract them by typing, reading or interacting with the display while driving,” Apple said. “For those customers who do not wish to turn off their iPhones or switch into Airplane Mode while driving to avoid distractions, we recommend the easy-to-use Do Not Disturb and Silent Mode features.”

Ceja himself was rear ended by a driver who was texting behind the wheel. Whether this latest complaint has merit will be up to the court to decide. Apple has yet to publicly comment on the matter.

Tags: lawsuit, distracted driving
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Apple’s Stock Reaches Highest Price Since 2015

Apple’s stock price is currently hovering around the $120 mark in intraday trading, its highest level since late 2015. The stock has been steadily climbing in value since dropping to a 52-week low of $89.47 in May 2016.

2016 marked Apple’s first year-over-year decline in revenue since 2003, and first drop in iPhone sales ever, but its stock price appears to have mostly weathered the storm. Since bottoming out, Apple has introduced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, long-awaited new MacBook Pro models, Apple Watch Series 2, and AirPods.

This year, Apple is rumored to introduce at least one majorly redesigned iPhone, a trio of iPads, and new Macs, including an updated iMac with the option for AMD graphics, new 12-inch MacBook models with Kaby Lake processors and up to 16GB of RAM, and a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Kaby Lake and 32GB of RAM.

Last month, Apple analyst Brian White said he “continues to believe Apple is one of the most underappreciated stocks in the world,” partly due to “a never ending waterfall of ‘gloom and doom’ media reports” surrounding the company.

Tag: AAPL
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Apple’s Logic Pro X for Mac and GarageBand for iOS Receive Major Updates

Apple today announced major updates for music creation software GarageBand and professional editing software Logic Pro X, introducing a number of new features for its music-related apps.

GarageBand version 2.2 for iOS devices includes the Alchemy creative synthesizer that was added to Logic Pro X in 2015, along with a new sound browser to make it easier for users to find instruments and specific sounds.

Alchemy includes more than 150 Apple-designed patches from a variety of genres ranging from EDM and Hip Hop to Rock and Pop. Using Alchemy’s Transform Pad, GarageBand users can now create “expressive synth performances.”

A redesigned Audio Recorder lets users add one-tap vocal effects to recordings and use features like pitch correction, distortion, and delay, while an interactive graphic Visual EQ and other advanced audio processing tools have been added for professional users.

Logic Pro X for Mac has been updated to version 10.3, introducing new features, a refreshed interface, and Touch Bar support, allowing the Touch Bar on the 2016 MacBook Pro to be used for music editing. The Touch Bar features quick access to navigation tools and Smart Controls, plus it can be used for playing and recording instruments using a piano keyboard or drum pads.

A new Track Alternatives feature lets users create and switch between different playlists of regions and edits, and Selection-based Processing lets users apply Logic or third-party plug-ins onto one or more audio region.

With iOS integration, Logic Pro X users can also add new tracks to Logic sessions from their iPhone or their iPad when away from their Mac, and a new share option lets users upload GarageBand-compatible versions of Logic projects to iCloud that can be opened on iOS devices. New recordings can be added via GarageBand on an iOS device and then synced back to Logic Pro X when the project is opened on a Mac.

“Music has always been part of Apple’s DNA, and we are excited to deliver yet another fun and powerful update to our music creation apps, GarageBand for iOS and Logic Pro X,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing. “These updates bring a wide range of new and highly requested features to both hobbyists and the community of pro musicians and audio engineers who rely on our software and hardware to create amazing music.”

GarageBand for iOS is provided for free to customers who purchase a new iOS device, but it’s also available from the iOS App Store for $4.99. [Direct Link]

GarageBand is provided for free to customers who purchase a new Mac, but can also be purchased from the Mac App Store for $4.99. [Direct Link]

Logic Pro X is available for purchase from the Mac App Store for $199.99. [Direct Link]

Tags: Logic Pro X, GarageBand
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Linksys Velop Whole Home Wi-Fi System review – CNET

The Good The Linksys Velop delivers fast Wi-Fi speed over a large area. Its hardware is well designed, and the system is generally easy to use.

The Bad The system is expensive and lacks basic settings as well as common features. An account is required for its mobile app to work and its parental control feature is poorly designed.

The Bottom Line The Velop is an effective mesh Wi-Fi router, but it doesn’t have a competitive edge due to its high cost and limited feature set.

Visit manufacturer site for details.

The Linksys Velop — Belkin’s first home mesh Wi-Fi system — finds itself right between the Google Wifi and Netgear Orbi in terms of performance. There is room in this new category for routers of different product tiers, but with middling performance, the fewest features and the highest price of those competitors, the Velop is hard for me to recommend.

Indeed, the new mesh system costs $500 for a set of three units (often called nodes), $350 for two or $200 for a single unit. By comparison, the Google Wifi costs $300 for a set of three or $130 for a single unit. And the Netgear Orbi costs $400 for a set of two units, which are strong enough to deliver the same Wi-Fi coverage as three units of other systems. I also saw many Wi-Fi systems unveiled at CES 2017 and when those become available later this year, all of them will cost less than the Velop.

(The Velop’s price converts to about £405 or AU$685 for the set of three, £160 or AU$275 for a single unit, or two for £285 or AU$480.)

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The Linksys Velop includes three identical hardware units, each with two auto-sensing (LAN/WAN) network ports.

Dong Ngo/CNET

Easy setup

Like all Wi-Fi systems, you use one unit of the Velop as the main router to connect to an internet source, such as a broadband modem. After that, if you have a large home, you put the rest of the nodes one or two rooms away from the main unit to automatically extend your Wi-Fi coverage.

The setup process is easy as long as you have smart phone, and like many other mesh routers, there are no alternative set up options like a web interface. Just download the Linksys app, follow the instructions to register and log in with a Linksys account the rest is self-explanatory. Keep in mind that, like the case of the Google Wifi, your home network powered by the Velop will stay connected to Linksys at all times. In my trial, the Velop’s install process took a bit longer than with Google Wifi but if you’ve used a smartphone before, you will likely be able to set up all three units in less than 20 minutes.

Dedicated back-haul

What makes the Velop better than the Google Wifi is the fact that each unit is a tri-band dual stream (2×2) router with two 5GHz bands (867 megabits per second each) and one 2.4GHz band (400Mbps). The system dedicates one 5GHz band for backhaul, the job of linking the nodes together. This minimizes the effect of signal loss, which is the 50 percent efficiency reduction that always occurs if a band has to both receive and rebroadcast the Wi-Fi signal at the same time.

This means the Velop only has to deal with signal degradation over distance. In my trial, I got full speed at up to 25 feet away; by 50 feet, I got about half the speed, and the farther out I ventured, the slower the connection between nodes would get. The mobile app has a test function that helps determine the optimal distance between nodes. However, I learned from Belkin that the threshold was set at just 50Mbps, basically fast enough to deliver a moderate residential broadband connection. So yes, if you want Wi-Fi coverage over a very large area, about 5,000 square feet or more, the Velop can do it but your Wi-Fi speed will suffer.

LG G6 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Next month, we’ll see many phone makers such as Lenovo and Nokia unveil new handsets at Mobile World Congress, the largest trade show for the mobile industry that’s held every year in Barcelona, Spain.

Included on that list is LG, which recently teased an “ideal smartphone” before the show. Though the company didn’t officially say it will debut the G6 (the presumed name of its next flagship), chances are high it’ll be the G6 at MWC.

So far, here are the things that are likely true about the G6:

• Waterproof design
• Feature skinnier bezels (“big screen but smaller body”)
• Offer one-hand usability
• Won’t be modular or have modular accessories

Here’s what’s rumored

• A 5.7-inch display or smaller (“fit into my pocket”)
• An 18×9 aspect ratio

Perhaps the most notable item on this list is the fact that the G6 won’t be modular. The previous G5 flagship had a detachable chin, which users can use to swap out a new battery or other accessories like a camera grip or a high-definition digital-to-analog audio converter. (Watch CNETers struggle to figure it out here.) Though the concept was novel, the phone didn’t sell so hot. And despite LG saying at the end of last year that it wouldn’t rule out modularity just yet, it ultimately decided to ditch the feature.

Another item to note is the phone’s water resistance. LG has never made a waterproof flagship before, and went as far to say that it was “not that useful” in a 2014 interview with Trusted Reviews. But as both Apple and Samsung made their headlining phones splash proof (not to mention Sony doing it for years prior), it comes as no surprise that LG is changing its tune and following suit.

Again, no formal announcement has been made by LG about the G6, except for its promotional video. CNET will be on the ground at MWC 2017, which kicks off on February 27. Until that time comes, we’ll update this piece continually as more details of the phone roll out.

Viio Vezzo Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Vezzo is one of three smart mirrors from Viio that can play music and take phone calls.

Viio

Need to call your friend while you put in your contacts? A company called Viio has created mirrors that let you chat through your mirror. Viio equips its mirrors with Bluetooth, so you can connect them wirelessly to your mobile device, tablet or computer. The built-in microphone and speakers let you make phone calls or play music directly through the mirrors. And if you’re just concerned with how you look, the Viio mirrors include LED lights around the perimeter.

The Viio mirrors come in three different models — the Vezzo, Vero and Vetta — that cost $395, $445 and $695, respectively. You can order the mirrors online and in a few Home Depot, Best Buy and Lowe’s stores in Canada. Home Depot and Lowe’s will begin to sell the mirrors in the US this spring. (The site doesn’t yet ship to the UK or Australia, but those prices range from £320 to £565, or AU$520 to AU$920.)

Smart mirrors might be the next hot category as tech companies begin to make health and beauty products. The company Simplehuman has its own line of smart mirrors that customize light settings based on selfies you save in the accompanying app. And an auto-sensing smart mirror called Juno has raised more than $425,000 during its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, thanks to features like light settings just for reading, makeup or selfies.

Viio features

• Auxiliary cord connection
• Anti-fog button
• 6-hour battery or permanent plug
• Wood backing to mount on walls
• Vezzo: 24×32 inches, $395
• Vero: 30-inch diameter circular mirror, $445
• Vetta: 24×64 inches, $695

Video: Google Pixel vs OnePlus 3T camera showdown!

The OnePlus 3T is a legit competitor to the Pixel XL, and for a whole lot less money than Google’s latest phone — almost $400 less, in fact. In terms of specs and user experience, they’re both pretty similar. However, if you stump up the cash for a Pixel XL, one thing that gets you is Google’s legendary Pixel camera.

We’ve all seen the ads — it’s supposedly the “best smartphone camera ever!” And that plays out in real life too — the Pixel does take spectacular photos. So how does the cheaper challenger measure up? It’s time to find out, in our Pixel vs 3T camera showdown video!

• Android Central on YouTube
• Google Pixel + Pixel XL review
• OnePlus 3T review

Our forums are about to get super awesome, but we need YOUR help!

A new forum is coming!

It’s been quite awhile since our forums got a refresh, and they’re starting to look a little outdated. And sometimes, as many of you have mentioned in the past, they can load a bit on the slow side, too. We’ve heard all your feedback and definitely appreciate hearing from you about how we can make the site better for everyone! Over the last several months our tech and design teams have been working SUPER hard to create a new forum for Android Central readers that is both functional AND visually pleasing. As you can imagine, redesigning everything was a pretty massive undertaking, and not something we wanted to rush. The good news is we are now ready to test out the new design, but we NEED YOUR HELP.

If you’re interested in helping us test the new design, please head on over to this forum thread to get started. Your feedback is crucial to this process, because we want the redesign to be something YOU are happy to use! And who knows, maybe your feedback will earn you a t-shirt from your favorite Mobile Nations site!

Again, hit up this link to learn how you can easily activate the new design right now. We’ll talk with you in the forums!!

Get regal with these Disney Princess wallpapers!

It’s a good time to be a Disney Princess fan.

We’ve got a new Beauty and the Beast coming up with a star-studded cast, Tangled’s got a new series coming out this spring, and we’ve got more princesses coming back to the big screen and the Great White Way! There’s a lot to cheer on, and we’ve got some wallpapers to keep that princess pride on your home screen while you wait for your favorite royals’ returns.

Our favorite frying pan-wielding couple is back for new hair-raising (and hair-growing) hijinks in the first series based on a Disney Princess film in almost twenty years. Rapunzel is getting back her beautiful blonde locks, and this time they’re scissor-proof.

That said, I’m not that excited about the hair: I’m excited about seeing Flynn and Rapunzel figuring out their place in castle life and in each other’s lives. Seeing someone who was raised in complete isolation and a wanted and nearly executed criminal learn to live in the castle is great material. We just need to see if Disney Channel is willing to make the most of it.

I See the Light by Umintsu

Are you excited? ‘Cause I’m excited. I promised myself I wouldn’t get too excited, and then they started slipping us tastes of Emma Watson singing and I couldn’t help it. Like many Beauty and the Beast fans, I was so apprehensive about this project because it’s ridiculously easy to screw up so many parts of this story and this world, but I think they nailed it, and that’s great, because as many issues as people take with this story, I still love Belle and Prince Adam’s story.

I love the idea of love being able to see past the exterior and see the truth within. Within Belle’s beauty, we see intelligence and compassion. Within Beast’s rage, we see fear, confusion, and inexperience.

And I look forward to seeing through the beauty in the new film and seeing something more, something there that wasn’t there before.

A Tale by Grodansnagel

Frozen isn’t coming to Broadway until next year, but if you live in Denver, good news! The previews start there in August, and with essentially an extra hour to fill, we can look forward to new musical numbers, new icy magic, and even more importantly, we can look forward to more sisterly love and drama.

Frozen is a story about two sisters, even if we spend half the film treating it like a traditional princess love story with Anna, Hans, and Kristoff’s love triangle. The hug Anna and Elsa share during the thaw isn’t just relief at Elsa not killing Anna with her icy magic, it’s heart-wrenching relief and joy for two sisters who were separated for so long being truly reunited.

Thaw by noodlerface

Mulan is slated for late next year, and while they’re still in the process of casting the film, I’m excited anyway. While we’d already been introduced to princesses that took their fate into their own hands (or tried to), Mulan was the first ‘princess’ who fought for what she wanted on the battlefield. What’s more, she was willing to risk everything on and off the battlefield for strategies she didn’t know would succeed. She set off an avalanche without knowing if she’d be able to outrun it. She fought the leader of the Hun army without any plan at all! She’s awesome, and I can’t wait to see her kick butt on the big screen again!

Mulan by kazel-lim

Ariel is my favorite princess (shocking, I know), and I have no qualms telling you the new live-action film in early production for her makes me antsy as all get out. Even diehard fans will tell you that this is gonna be a monumental undertaking. Remember how easy I mentioned it was to mess up things in Beauty and the Beast? The Little Mermaid bumps that difficulty up about three or four magnitudes because half the film has to be believably underwater.

Technical difficulty aside, Ariel is a princess that deserves to be back on the big screen with more time to flesh out her personality and motivation. Ariel is a princess that dreams of another world, a woman with curiosity and passion that she’ll follow anywhere. She’s a princess who taught me so much — about the power of a woman’s voice, about determination and about how much hair in movies is a LIE.

Look at that hair! LOOK AT IT! Even in the darkness of the deep ocean, that hair seems to shine, it bobs and curls in the currents but never gets in her face and never, ever tangles! Even Rapunzel’s 70-foot glowing, golden locks would tangle and snag when she left her ivory tower, but Ariel’s hair is never unkempt, never unruly, it is perfect. And I don’t know what magic the Trident cast on it to get it that perfect, but can I get some of that?

Ariel-Underwater magic by LadyShalirin

Motorola releasing Nougat for unlocked Moto Z in Feb, Moto Z Play in March

Nougat for the unlocked Moto Z is coming sooner than you think.

Waiting is never easy, especially when the wait doesn’t make sense. In the case of the unlocked Moto Z, sold directly to consumers by Motorola, users have been waiting nearly two months for an update to Nougat that was rolled out to the Verizon variant in late November. Usually, unlocked versions receive updates first because they require purportedly require less testing and don’t need to adhere to carriers’ strict guidelines for network performance and optimization.

The good news is that Motorola has confirmed to us that Nougat will be rolling out to the unlocked Moto Z in February, though the spokesperson neglected to say when in the shorter month it would arrive. The person also let us know that both the Verizon and unlocked versions of the Moto Z Play, our favorite mid-range phone of last year, would get Android 7.0 in March.

The discrepancy between the Verizon and unlocked versions of the Moto Z is due to the fact that the former was released in late July, while the latter came out at the end of September. It may seem like there’s nothing between the two, but they’re on separate software paths, with different teams working on them, since the unlocked version is optimized for AT&T and T-Mobile.

The Moto spokesperson hinted, but would not confirm, that the Moto Z Play update would arrive for unlocked and Verizon units at the same time during March.

Moto Z, Moto Z Force and Moto Z Play

• Moto Z + Z Force review!
• Moto Z Play review
• The Hasselblad True Zoom is a Mod to remember
• Moto Z specs
• Moto Mods custom backs
• The latest Moto Z news
• Discuss in our Moto Z forums

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