Bloomberg IPhone users in the US are rushing to install messaging app WeChat days before President Donald Trump is set to ban downloads in the country. WeChat downloads surged to make it the 100th most-downloaded app in the US, according to mobile analytics firm SensorTower. It has typically ranked between 1,000th and 1,500th this year. This is the first time ...
Read More »Technology
Singapore to pay its citizens for keeping healthy with Apple watch
Bloomberg Apple Inc. and the government of Singapore have partnered on a two-year health initiative dubbed LumiHealth, which is built around tracking and rewarding user behaviour through the Apple Watch gadget and an iPhone app. As part of the scheme, Singapore residents will be able to earn as much as S$380 ($280) in rewards and vouchers by completing goals and ...
Read More »Apple updates iPad Air with all-screen look, lifts price to $599
Bloomberg Apple Inc. announced a revamp to the iPad Air that makes the tablet look like the pricer iPad Pro line by removing long-time features such as the Home Button and adding an edge-to-edge screen. The updated iPad Air has a 10.9-inch edge-to-edge screen similar to the iPad Pro. That’s up from 10.5-inches on last year’s models. Prices start at ...
Read More »Once a handset superpower, Nokia still commands a potent weapon
Bloomberg A good decade after Nokia Oyj’s mobile-phone business suffered a fatal blow at the hands of the iPhone, the Finnish company is still feeding off a lucrative asset that it salvaged from the wreckage. Nokia retained a catalogue of thousands of wireless communications patents that is steadily growing thanks to a thriving research operation. Now an attempt to change ...
Read More »TikTok pushing forward with deal to meet looming deadline
Bloomberg TikTok is pressing forward with plans for a sale of its US operations ahead of a mid-September deadline, according to a person familiar with the matter, even as signs emerge that the video-sharing app is facing pressure to shut down rather than make a deal. The app, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., is still considering bids from two possible ...
Read More »Facebook has a new plan to fight climate misinformation
Bloomberg In the geographic heart of the tech industry, it was hard to think of anything except the orange skies, dark and tinted by wildfire smoke. The image software on iPhones failed to capture the dystopian hue, or the feeling of being surrounded by it. Silicon Valley workers tweeted that it felt like night time, or a perpetual sunset, or ...
Read More »Google drops plan to rent Dublin office
Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Google unit walked away from a plan to rent space in Dublin for as many 2,000 workers, shelving one of the city’s biggest real-estate deals in recent years. Google had been in talks to rent about 202,000 square feet (18,766 square meters) of space at the Sorting Office, close to the Irish capital’s south quays, adding to ...
Read More »Apple preparing 75mn 5G iPhones alongside new watches, iPad
Bloomberg Apple Inc. has asked suppliers to build at least 75 million 5G iPhones for later this year, roughly in line with last year’s launch, in a sign that demand for the company’s most important product is holding up in the midst of the global pandemic and recession. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant anticipates shipments of these next-generation iPhones may ...
Read More »Apple, Google update Covid-19 alert system to increase adoption
Bloomberg Apple Inc. said the ability to use contact tracing without an app will roll out to iPhones, while Google said Android devices will get this capability in a more limited form later this month. The companies said this will increase adoption of the system, which has begun to identify Covid-19 exposures. It will still only work in regions where ...
Read More »Centricus, Triller seek to buy TikTok assets for $20 billion
Bloomberg Centricus Asset Management Ltd. and Triller Inc. are seeking to buy TikTok’s operations in the US and several other countries from ByteDance Ltd. for $20 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Investors led by London-based Centricus will partner with US-based Triller, another video and music-based social networking app, which would have a minority stake in a ...
Read More »