Tim Cook Speaks on Privacy in New Interview: ‘We Try Not to Collect Data’

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke with Charlie Rose in a two part-interview, and the second segment of the show is airing tonight. In the second half of the interview, Cook focuses on the driving force behind Apple, his own personal values, and the company’s thoughts on privacy.

Cook’s first comments are on Apple’s privacy views, and he says that the company tries to collect as little data about its users as possible and that he believes that people “have a right to privacy.”

Our view is that when we design a new service we try not to collect data. So we’re not reading your email. We’re not reading your iMessage. If the government laid a subpoena on us to get your iMessages, we can’t provide it. It’s encrypted and we don’t have a key.

Our business is based on selling [products]. Our business is not based on having information about you. You are not our product.

As he has stated previously, Cook says that no one has backdoor access to Apple’s servers. “We would never allow that to happen,” he says, repeating his prior statement on the issue. “They would have to cart us out in a box before we would do that.”

On his values, Tim Cook says that he believes in treating all people with dignity, regardless of color, religion sexual orientation, and gender. “Everyone deserves respect.” Cook goes on to say that Apple is driven by a goal to enrich people’s lives and change the world, not to be the largest company.

You know, I was at — I was at Compaq at a time where the objective was to become a $40 billion company. Well, employees don’t get excited about that. This isn’t something you wake up and you go, “I’m going to take the hill today to do 40″ — I mean, you know? It’s just not that. But changing the world? These are the things that people work for. And this pushes people. And so, this is who we are as people. And it’s the values of our company. It’s been the values of our company forever. And it’s to Steve’s credit. He put these values in the company… I know I probably said it too many times, but it’s a privilege of a lifetime to be there, because I think there’s no place like it on earth.”

The first part of the Charlie Rose interview aired on Friday, with Tim Cook speaking about Steve Jobs’ continued influence on Apple Products, the company’s thoughts on the Apple TV, and the decision to buy Beats Electronics.

During the first half of the interview, Tim Cook also said that Apple is working on products that “no one knows about” and that “haven’t been rumored about yet,” noting that some of the products may go on to be released while others will be shelved.

Tim Cook’s full commentary on Apple and privacy issues will be available when the complete second part of the interview airs later tonight on PBS.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

How to get the new U2 album ‘Songs of Innocence’ out of your iTunes

Apple capped its iPhone 6 & Apple Watch launch event last week by announcing it would give away copies of a brand-new U2 album to all iTunes users — but some people aren’t happy about it. In apparently shocking news to the folks from Cupertino, not every single person in the world is a fan of the Irish rock band. Many were upset when the album suddenly appeared in their iTunes library, and, depending on a user’s settings, sometimes downloaded itself onto mobile devices. There is a way to hide albums from view in iTunes, but if you just can’t live with Songs of Innocence being tied to your account, Apple has pushed out a tool to eradicate it from your account forever. Go to this webpage, click remove album, enter your account info and poof — it’s gone, although you may still need to delete any downloaded copies. We hope next time Apple will ask before shoving a new LP into our libraries — unless it’s Detox.

Filed under: Internet, Apple

Comments

Source: Remove ‘Songs of Innocence’, iTunes Support FAQ

.CPlase_panel display:none;

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Models Popping Up in China, Vietnam Ahead of September 19 Launch

Though the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are not expected to be delivered to customers and released to stores until Friday, September 19, some devices have already begun showing up in Vietnam and China.

According to Dan Tri [Google Translate] an iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were spotted in a Red River restaurant in Vietnam by an AP reporter, who confirmed the legitimacy of the devices.

The reporter is said to have tested features like Messages and Siri to confirm that the devices seen in Vietnam were real, and Dan Tri snapped several photos of the two phones. The images show off the size difference between the two models and how the devices fit into a pocket.

Dan Tri also shares some details on the two new devices, suggesting that despite the size increase, the iPhone 6 Plus is comfortable to hold and feels like “a miniature mini iPad.” The cameras, though protruding, are not much of a hinderance, and two phones are “fast” and quick to open apps.

iPhone 6 models have also appeared in China, with users on the MacX.cn forums sharing several photos of the devices.

Apple was unable to keep a tight rein on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus this year, with several parts leaking out ahead of the iPhone announcement. Enough parts leaked, in fact, that Feld & Volk was able to assemble a functional iPhone well ahead of release, and the weekend before Apple unveiled the two devices, a fully functional version of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 was shared by a Chinese user.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be in retail stores beginning on Friday, September 19. Early pre-orders placed on September 12 will also begin arriving on that date, though a few lucky customers often get their devices delivered early due to shipping errors and the logistics of delivering hundreds of thousands of devices simultaneously.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Macy’s Announces iBeacon Expansion, Support for Apple Pay [iOS Blog]

Macy’s today announced plans to expand its partnership with Shopkick, which will see more than 4000 shopBeacon devices installed in Macy’s stores across the United States by the end of September.

Macy’s and Shopkick originally teamed up in November of 2013 to roll out the first retail based iBeacons, allowing customers to access location-specific deals, discounts, and recommendations in the Shopkick app while in a Macy’s retail store. Customers will get these types of notifications in all Macy’s locations beginning this fall, and in early 2015, Macy’s will be able to offer discounts tailored by specific departments in each store.

Along with plans for an iBeacon expansion, Macy’s has also announced that both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores will be some of the first retailers to support Apple Pay, Apple’s new mobile payment service. With Apple Pay, customers will be able to pay for purchases in stores using an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, or Apple Watch.

As announced on Sept. 9, 2014, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores will be among the first retailers to support the new Apple PayTM mobile payment system which will be available beginning this fall on new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus mobile devices, as well as on the newly unveiled Apple Watch. The convenience of mobile payment at the point-of-sale is becoming increasingly interesting to customers, and Apple Pay offers an opportunity to further simplify the point-of-sale process in Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores in an easy, secure and private manner. More details will be available in October, when the new service is scheduled to launch.

Macy’s has also announced several other plans for technological improvements across its retail stores, including revamped apps, same day delivery in select markets, new handheld point-of-sale devices, smart fitting rooms, and more.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Apple Watch Already Facing Questions Concerning User Privacy

Though it won’t be released until early 2015, Apple’s new wearable device is already facing public scrutiny over privacy issues. Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen has sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking several questions about how the Apple Watch will operate and requesting a meeting with Apple representatives.

In the letter, Jepsen addresses several issues he has with the Apple Watch, and requests that Apple explains what data the device will collect and how the information will be stored, along with its policies on apps that access health information.

In his letter, the Attorney General noted several areas of concern, including:

-Whether Apple will allow consumers to store personal and health information on Apple Watch itself and/or on its servers, and if so, how information will be safeguarded;

-If and how Apple will review application privacy policies to ensure that users’ health information is safeguarded;

-If and how Apple intends to enforce policies that require the rejection of applications that provide diagnoses, treatment advice, or control hardware designed to diagnose or treat medical conditions that do not provide written regulatory approval;

-What information Apple Watch and its applications will collect from users, and how Apple and application developers will obtain consent to collect and share such information from these individuals; and

-How Apple intends to monitor and enforce applications’ compliance with its guidelines concerning users’ health information.

Many of these questions actually seem to pertain more to Apple’s HealthKit APIs, and several of the answers are detailed in Apple’s Review Guidelines for developers that were updated in June.

In the document, Apple says that HealthKit information will not be stored in iCloud and that apps attempting to store health data in iCloud will be rejected. It also states that apps will not be able to share data with third parties without express user consent and that all apps that provide diagnoses or treatment advice will be rejected.

Introduced on September 9, the Apple Watch is designed to be both fashionable and functional, aiming to encourage its users to be more active. It includes an accelerometer and four lenses designed to monitor heart rate, with the information collected displayed in several accompanying fitness apps. The heart rate and fitness data will also likely integrate with the Health app in iOS 8, which is designed to aggregate health and fitness data from a wide range of devices that have taken advantage of the HealthKit API.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Apple to Preinstall iLife and iWork on Higher-Capacity iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Models [iOS Blog]

Taking advantage of the high storage capacities available on its 64 GB and 128 GB iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models, Apple will be including the free iLife and iWork apps on those models preinstalled. The 16 GB models will still be eligible for the free apps, but users will have to download them manually, based on early word from a MacRumors source and now seconded by a separate source who provided 9to5Mac with details from Apple’s internal documentation on the matter.

The preinstalled apps includes iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and iTunes U, all of which are currently offered as free downloads the first time the App Store is launched on a new device.

Apple last year updated its iLife and iWork apps and started offering the two suites for free with the purchase of a new Mac or iOS device. New device owners received the apps for free in the App Store with the option to download them to their devices at any point in time.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Retina iMacs and Apple Displays Within Reach as New DisplayPort 1.3 Spec Finalized

With Dell having announced its upcoming 5120 x 2880 “5K” display that would be the equivalent of a Retina 27-inch iMac or Apple Thunderbolt Display and Apple rumored to be launching its own such display later this year, connectivity options for such displays have now taken a significant step forward with today’s official release of the DisplayPort 1.3 specification by the Video Electronics Standards Association (via 9to5Mac).

The new standard offers a 50 percent increase in bandwidth to 32.4 Gbps, or 25.92 Gbps of uncompressed video data once overhead is accounted for.

The increased bandwidth enables higher resolution monitors, including recently announced 5K monitors (with pixel resolutions of 5120 x 2880) using a single DisplayPort cable, without the use of compression. It will also enable higher resolutions when driving multiple monitors through a single connection using DisplayPort’s Multi-Stream feature, such as the use of two 4K UHD monitors, each with a pixel resolution of 3840 x 2160, when using VESA Coordinated Video Timing.

Apple has been rumored for some time to be working on Retina iMacs and displays, but connectivity bottlenecks have been one of the factors slowing progress in that area.

The previous DisplayPort 1.2a standard offered enough bandwidth to support 4K displays without compression, but pushing resolutions to 5K has presented difficulties for connectivity. With the new DisplayPort 1.3 standard, which will presumably be built into future Thunderbolt implementations, computer manufacturers such as Apple will be able to fully support the new high-resolution displays set to hit the market in the coming months.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Apple Creates Tool for Users to Delete Unwanted U2 Album

During Apple’s keynote announcement, the company announced plans to provide U2’s new album, “Songs of Innocence,” to all iTunes customers for free. Rather than letting customers choose to download the album on their own, however, Apple pushed it to iTunes accounts, causing some devices to automatically download the album without explicit user permission.

The move upset users who did not want to have U2’s album listed on their devices, which has now prompted Apple to create a process for removing the album from user’s devices. According to Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr, who gave a statement to Re/code, customers were asking Apple how to delete the album after it was distributed, which has led Apple to create both a tool and a support document that outlines the process for removing the album from iCloud.

Here’s Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr’s explanation: “Some customers asked for the ability to delete ‘Songs of Innocence’ from their library, so we set up http://www.itunes.com/soi-remove to let them easily do so. Any customer that needs additional help should contact AppleCare.”

To remove the U2 album, users are directed to Apple’s new removal tool that will automatically remove the U2 album from an account after signing in with an Apple ID and password.

Apple warns that once the album has been removed from an iTunes account that it will no longer be available as a previously purchased album. Users have until October 13, 2014 to manually reinstall the album for free.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Apple Releases Third OS X Yosemite Public Beta

Apple today released the third Yosemite public beta for beta testers, following the release of the second Yosemite public beta on August 21. The last developer beta, Developer Preview 7, was released on September 2.

The software update can be downloaded through the software update function of the Mac App Store.

It’s likely the new public beta includes content released in the last developer update, version 7, which included a new look for Dark Mode, several tweaked icons, and the removal of the “Software Update” option from the main Apple menu.

Apple is expected to release OS X Yosemite to the general public later this year, possibly following an October event that may introduce new iPads.

.CPlase_panel display:none;

Photos From Inside a 747 Flying iPhone 6 Units to the U.S.

As retailers prepare to begin sending out iPhone 6 and 6 Plus pre-orders to customers, shipping company employees behind the scenes are working hard to transport the phones from China to the United States. One MacRumors reader who works in shipping has posted photos of 195,000 iPhone 6 and 6 Plus pre-orders that he flew from China to Alaska in a 747, which will then be sent on to Chicago.

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus orders in cargo plane, courtesy of goforblacksky.

Yep, that’s what I do. I fly stuff. Privileged to be a small part of the Apple supply chain. Just landed a 747 full of iPhone 6’s in Anchorage. Another crew will take the airplane on to Chicago. It’ll be on the ground at O’hare about 9am Sept. 15. I gave it a little extra gas coming over the Pacific, just to get them here a little quicker. You’re welcome

According to the poster, goforblacksky, the massive load of phones weighed approximately 256,000 pounds. Though the photo shows the cargo under tarps and concealed, a second shipping photo from China Daily depicts a similar plane loaded with iPhones departing from the Henan province in China bound for Chicago last week.

Photo of a different plane being loaded with iPhones, courtesy of China Daily
Customers who pre-ordered early from carriers like Verizon have already begun receiving shipping notifications, and customers who placed orders from Apple and were lucky enough to receive a 9/19 shipping date are seeing their phone statuses listed as “Preparing for shipment.” Apple orders may begin shipping out later today.

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus orders will begin arriving to customers on Friday, 9/19, which is the date that the iPhone will also begin appearing in stores. Apple will have additional iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units available for customers willing to wait in line and purchase in store on that date.

Photo looking down inside the airplane at iPhone 6 and 6 Plus orders, courtesy of goforblacksky
Currently, all pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have sold out. iPhone 6 orders placed on Apple’s online store now have shipping estimates of 7 to 10 days, while iPhone 6 Plus orders have shipping estimates of three to four weeks.

.CPlase_panel display:none;