This week in iPhone news, we'll give you the good news first and the bad news second: Apple unveiled 70 new emoji coming to iOS this year (redheads, get excited). But, Siri is now an orphan and a Chinese government-run company can censor iCloud data in China. Here's what you should know.
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Memoji, you moji, he, she, they moji
Tuesday was World Emoji Day and Apple shook things up by revealing 70 new emoji coming to iOS this year. What's in the mix? New emoji hairstyles — for all you redheads and baldies out there — and foods like lettuce, mango and cupcakes. And this is just the beginning. Apple says there will be plenty more to come, with additions to sports, symbols and jewels.
Apple loses Siri's last co-founder
Fifty-nine-year-old Tom Gruber, the last of three Siri co-founders at Apple, reportedly retired from his role as head of Siri's Advanced Development group. Google's former head of AI and search, John Giannandrea, was hired last week to adopt and improve the voice assistant. Hopefully, this new parent can develop Siri into a more expansive and accurate voice assistant (kind of like what Giannandrea did with Google Assistant).
iOS 12 will bring more Siri shortcuts, and hopefully other changes are on the way.
Sarah Tew/CNET
iCloud data is stored by the Chinese government
Remember when Apple did that commercial referencing George Orwell's "1984"? I don't (wasn't born yet), but it's relevant now more than ever. The ad depicted Apple as a non-conformist, anti-establishment company that would challenge any analogous "Big Brother" norm at that time.
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But new Chinese laws require that cloud services for Chinese citizens be operated by Chinese companies. Customer data in China also has to be stored in the country exclusively. Both laws include Apple iCloud data, which isn't raising a few eyebrows. China Telecom, a state-owned carrier in China, controls the data of over 130 million Chinese iPhone users. If I lived in China, I'd use something else to backup my iPhone.
In China, it would be a good idea to toggle off your personal data stored by iCloud.
Jason Cipriani/CNET
Other iPhone news this week:
Last week's iPhone news: These might be the 2018 iPhone screen specs, and the App Store turns 10
For this week's iPhone news, we're looking at Apple's plausible 2018 hardware lineup, a birthday and some drama in East Asia. Frequent Apple commentator and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo concurs with rumors on the new iPhone specs. Also, the Apple's App Store turned 10 and Japan is not happy about Apple's new iPhone policy. Here's what you might've missed this week.
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Spec out the 2018 iPhone hardware
There are so many 2018 iPhone rumors, and Ming-Chi Kuo just added one more. Kuo released his predictions for Apple's 2018 hardware lineup. It includes three new iPhones: one 5.8-inch OLED iPhone, a 6.5-inch OLED iPhone Plus and a 6.1-inch affordable LCD iPhone. His predictions corroborate many others, so there is at least some consistency in the sea of noise that is the perpetual iPhone rumor mill.
Ming Chi Kuo's full list of predictions for Apple's 2018 hardware.
TF International Securities
HBD App Store!
Apple's App Store hit double digits this Tuesday. Ugh, felt like just yesterday I was playing Snake on my mom's iPhone 4. Time flies, right? It's hard to imagine a time before the app store, especially now that there's an app for anything. In honor of this anniversary, we took a look back at how the store transformed phones over the past decade. Facebook won't remind you about this birthday, so mark your calendars for July 10 next year.
Apple breaks Japanese antitrust laws
Apple may have breached Japanese competition laws. The iPhone maker allegedly forced certain Japanese carriers to sell iPhones at a lower cost than their rivals. This requirement could have forced these service providers to charge higher monthly fees, impacting competition between carriers. Apple agreed to make changes to the policy, narrowly avoiding punishment.
Customers rushing in and out of the Apple Store.
James Martin/CNET
