Apple Inc spruced up its product line at an event on Tuesday, while slipping in quiet notice of a software update, now due next week, designed to enhance the privacy of iPhone users at the expense of digital advertisers such as Facebook Inc.
Timing for the software upgrade trickled out during a series of announcements for new iPads, iMac computers and more during a pre-recorded event that sometimes seemed like a one-hour infomercial for Apple.
Apple also unveiled a new subscription option for podcasts and a gadget called AirTags — coin-sized devices that can be attached to keys, backpacks, purses and other items to help people track them down via iPhone if they are misplaced.
Photo: AFP / Apple Inc
The AirTags, due in stores on Friday next week, would require the iPhone software update called iOS 14.5. That update would also include a new feature requiring apps to obtain explicit permission from users before tracking their activity and whereabouts.
Apple said in a footnote to its AirTags announcement that the update would be released at some point next week.
The new privacy tool could drain billions of US dollars of revenue from apps such as Facebook, which rely on following people around on iPhones to collect personal information that helps them sell targeted ads.
That feature, called App Tracking Transparency, would force apps to obtain permission before collecting such surveillance data, even those that are already installed on the device. To date, such apps have been free to track iPhone users automatically, unless people take the time and trouble to prevent snooping.
Apple originally planned to released the anti-tracking feature in September last year, but delayed it to give ad-dependent “free” apps time to adjust to the changes.
Facebook spent part of the delay blasting Apple for a change that it has said could make it difficult for smaller apps to survive without charging consumers.
At the same time, Facebook has acknowledged to investors that its own ad revenue could also be hurt.
On the product front, Apple is rolling out new iMacs with better cameras and speakers for improved video meetings and sound, and new iMac keyboards with the same fingerprint ID sensor that unlocks iPhones and iPads. The latest iPad Pros would work on ultrafast 5G wireless networks that are still being built out.
Apple’s new paid podcast option would join an increasingly crowded field of digital entertainment and information subscription services. Those already include several from Apple, including music and video streaming options that feed off the nearly 1.6 billion devices in use by the company’s mostly affluent customers.
The popularity of those products and services has turned Apple into one of the world’s most profitable companies with a market value of US$2.2 trillion, twice where it stood when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
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