In between Dec 20 and Jan 3, Apple said that customers purchased about $1.1 billion worth of app and in-app purchases which is a new record. Last year, Apple made about half a billion dollars in revenue. In 2015, customer spent a total of $20 billion on app purchases like Minecraft, Trivia Crack, as well as social networks such as Facebook Messenger and Snapchat. All in all, gaming and subscription apps did the best, like Clash of Clans and Hulu.

Not only has it been creating revenue, Apple has definitely seen growth in jobs. According to the new Progressive Policy Institute Report by Michael Mandel, Apple said it created 1.9 million jobs in the U.S., including 1.4 million through the App Store for developers, entrepreneurs, and some non-IT staff.

The App Store has consistently been the selling point for Apple products. This is a ray of hope because iPhone sales- the largest source of company profits- are expected to drop. Analysts do see revenue decreasing for 2016. Steve Koenig, a Consumer Technology Association market researcher, said that a number of factors, including a strong dollar and weak economies in parts of the world that had been driving new tech spending, indicate that 2016 will be a slower year for global tech spending overall.

The App Store will still continue to provide Apple with a distinguishable selling point because it helps keep customers coming back and gets them to buy more Apple products. Even more, Apple just launched a version of the App store for the Apple TV, expanding its presence to the family room.

Article via Washington Post, January 6, 2016

Photo: Apple. Tree. via Stuart Maxwell [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Tech giant Apple is under scrutiny for factory conditions overseas. Despite the company’s efforts to regulate its manufacturers, a recent report by China Labor Watch indicated that many improvements are still to be made.

The report, released this Thursday, detailed criticisms of an iPhone factory in Shanghai. The organization urged Apple to raise staff wages, which currently amount to $1.85 an hour. Employees work shifts of 9 hours a day, in addition to a minimum of 20 hours overtime each week during the busy September season—when Apple prepares to release the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus—in order to cover living expenses. Including overtime, workers generally earn $753 a month. China Labor Watch also noted cramped living dorms and a lack of adequate safety training.

Apple does make an effort to monitor its manufacturers, however. The company audits the companies in its supply chain on a regular basis and releases the reports independently. Apple also sets the guideline of a 60-hour maximum workweek, which 92 percent of factory staff were compliant with for the majority of 2014. That number fell to 75 percent September of last year, when Apple primed to release the iPhone 6. In the Shanghai factory featured in the recent report, only 42 percent of employees worked 60 hours or less a week.

Apple also is advocating clean energy usage by its manufacturers, and announced new solar power and energy efficiency projects in China this Thursday. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook commented, “Our culture is to leave the world better than we found it.”

Article via CNET, 22 October 2015

Photo: RT @ BGR via Humans Developer [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

In the past, only five malware-infected applications have made it into the Apple App Store. That number has grown, though, as 25 apps have been identified and pulled from the App Store for containing malware. This cyber breach is due to a program called XcodeGhost, an imitation of the program Xcode, which is the platform develops utilize to make programs for iOS and Mac. While the official Xcode program takes about half an hour to download in the United States, the time is almost triple for developers in China. Most decide to download the program from local servers, which allowed the counterfeit XcodeGhost to be substituted for the real Xcode program and downloaded in in its place. Thankfully, apps developed using this malware have not been observed to steal any sensitive information from users that have downloaded them. Still, though the apps appear to be harmless, the attack on the App Store is notable according to Palo Alto Network’s Director of Threat Intelligence, Ryan Olsen. The firm was the first to report the existence of the malware-tainted apps, and Olsen states that the cyber breach reveals that the Apple App Store isn’t impenetrable.

To prevent another cyber breach, Apple will provide a way for Chinese developers to download an official copy of Xcode domestically, and Apple is “working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps” according to an Apple spokesperson.

Article via CNETSeptember 22, 2015

Photo: Apps via Pixel Fantasy [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

The best protection against widespread government surveillance now comes from major tech companies, including those accused of collecting mass amounts of data to sell to other companies seeking targeted advertising.

The FBI has accused Apple of aiding criminals by offering default encryption in the new iPhones it sells. Government reproach is also directed towards Google, which is offering the same encryption for its new Android phones. However, the majority of Americans are grateful for the tech companies’ new developments; a recent Pew survey found that 65 percent of people believe that there aren’t enough limits on government surveillance.

Smartphone encryption is not the only guard against surveillance, either. Google and Yahoo announced that they’re both working on end-to-end encryption in email, and Facebook was established on a Tor hidden services site so that people with access to network traffic can’t access user data.

Encryption tools are generally difficult to operate, and thus only tech-savvy users have been able to achieve full privacy. As a result, anyone using encryption tools was unique and therefore suspicious to government officials. With new integrated encryption, privacy will be more universal, and those previously using encryption systems will be better camouflaged.

Articles: The Center for Internet and Society, September 9, 2015

Photo: DC Ralley Against Mass Surveillance via Susan Melkisethian [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Antipoaching, the act of refusing to hire employees from a rival company, may not seem like the best business strategy for large tech companies like Google or Apple who are always capitalizing on the “next big thing”. However, a civil law suit was filed against several companies including Google, Apple, Adobe, and Intel for antipoaching and is now recently being settled for $415 million after movie studios Pixar and Lucasfilm and financial software company Intuit settled previously. The companies involved in the lawsuit were accused of agreeing to not hire certain employees from each other which allowed each company to retain employees they would rather not lose. While antipoaching does sometimes serve the best interests of the company as a whole, some employees looking to earn a higher salary or explore other opportunities outside their place of work feel that the antipoaching agreement hindered their abilities to move up in their fields. Earlier versions of the lawsuit also included allegations that the antipoaching agreement allowed companies to artificially keep salaries low.

Even though all of the companies involved in the lawsuit chose to settle, many of the companies continued to state that they believed they had done nothing wrong. A statement released to CNET from Adobe by one of their spokespeople explained that, “Adobe firmly believes that our recruiting policies have in no way diminished competition for talent in the marketplace…Nevertheless, we elected to settle this matter in order to avoid the uncertainties, cost, and distraction of litigation.” A similar statement was released by Intel back in January when the settlement was originally proposed.

Article via CNET, September 3, 2015

Photo: Google Headquarters – Mt View via Servizi Multimediali [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]