New iPads, largely new Apple TV, and previous issues — October 2022 in overview

Left: Apple Retailer Australia employees on strike. Supply: Cameron Atfield, Sydney Morning Herald

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Apple could not know that this was going to be a extremely unhealthy time to launch pricey iPads that did not have sufficient to distinguish them from final yr’s fashions. Engineering plans like this would possibly take years and solely everybody voting for Brexit ought to actually have seen how delicate the economic system is.

But Apple did make a nod to the world’s state of affairs by holding the ninth technology iPad on sale. It is led to the weird state of affairs the place, evaluating efficiency, options, and particularly value, the gem within the iPad lineup is final yr’s mannequin.

Apple was luckier in its timing with the Apple TV 4K. Whereas it nonetheless does not run on the most recent processors, and whereas it nonetheless works precisely because it has for years, this time Apple lower the fee.

True, it did so by eradicating the Ethernet port, however you did not even understand there was one.

Possibly the brand new iPad is ideal for you, wherein case you purchase it. And if it is not, then you do not. It isn’t like we’ve to purchase the whole lot Apple launches.

Besides in October 2022, you had no alternative however to see what grew to become one of many month’s greatest controversies. Apple launched an expanded promoting service and if that ought to solely have been an enormous deal for advertising and marketing individuals, it grew to become an issue.

For Apple’s growth of its advert enterprise in any respect prices got here at one excruciating value. At one level in October 2022, you possibly can usually see advertisements for playing apps — positioned within the itemizing for apps which can be meant to assist gamblers give up.

Apple switched its advert growth off after complaints, however it is coming again and it is just going to develop. Hopefully it is a minimum of going to be accomplished with extra care in future.

Although it wasn’t simply Apple making an attempt to develop and get some new income. All through the month, there was a forwards and backwards as YouTube experimented with making an attempt to get some money by charging individuals to look at movies in 4K.

By the tip of the month, although, the experiment was formally over and 4K movies stay as free to look at as they at all times have been.

Do not wager on it staying that approach, although, because the experiment can not have been a technical one, it has to have been a advertising and marketing trial. If it may be turned again on with the faucet of a button, YouTube funds solely must get so poor earlier than that button will probably be pressed.

YouTube has the benefit that it makes cash off thousands and thousands of movies uploaded with out the creators’ consent, nevertheless it additionally has a drawback. There’s not quite a bit you possibly can add to how YouTube works, and positively not a lot you can persuade individuals to pay for.

So there is no solution to, as an example, design your self out of issues by discovering distinctive and compelling new solutions. That is at all times been the Apple approach, however then Apple’s design group took a success this month because it misplaced Evans Hankey.

She wasn’t as a lot a family identify as Jony Ive, however she did substitute him and he or she has been key to Apple. Not any extra, although, and if Apple has a succession plan, it wasn’t revealed in October 2022.

Whoever takes over from Hankey as chief {hardware} designer, they will must cope with a big change to the iPhone. In October 2022, the European Union lastly handed a regulation that can require all smartphones to make use of a standard charger.

Particularly, it is USB-C, and whereas there is a lot to reward concerning the thought of a standard charger, the regulation launching it is flawed. Nonetheless, Apple’s going to must swap out Lightning for a minimum of Europe, and extra possible the world.

It may well relaxation simple concerning the UK, although, because the nation has mentioned it will not comply with the EU in implementing this requirement. Simply think about the reduction at Apple Park.

By likelihood, the exit of 1 design chief was introduced across the identical time because the very temporary return of one other one. Jony Ive was once more concerned with Apple, or a minimum of Apple TV+.

It is unlikely that it entailed him popping again in to Apple Park, although. Ive is one of many govt producers on “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.” The animation is because of be screened first on BBC1 within the UK on Christmas Day, then streamed worldwide on Apple TV+.

As Ive was being CCd on emails with Apple TV+, and as Hankey was in search of the door, employees at different corporations have been having a very unhealthy time. Everybody at Twitter spent October questioning whether or not they would nonetheless have a job in November, as an example.

That was as a result of the unimaginable went by way of hoops within the month, solely to land on the finish on sure, Elon Musk has purchased Twitter. On his first day, he fired a lot of the firm’s executives, then went to city on the employees.

It is clearly been most scary for Twitter staff, a terrific lots of whom at the moment are going to be spending a variety of time engaged on lawsuits.

An issue is that for those who labored for Twitter, you clearly had a Twitter account and there wasn’t a variety of motive to have the rest. So simply as employees there sometimes found they’d been laid off by dropping on-line entry, it is also been laborious for pals to remain in touch with them.

Consequently, to not single one worker out, however Nigel, tell us for those who’re nonetheless there and okay, would you?

There was a worse place to work at than Twitter in October 2022. In the event you have been a employee at Foxconn’s important iPhone plant in Zhengzhou, China, as an example, it is 50/50 whether or not you have been working — or fleeing.

Someplace between the 2, come Apple Retailer employees. Clearly the situations weren’t as unhealthy as they allegedly have been in Zhengzhou with COVID lockdowns and an absence of meals, however there they have been worse than Apple would really like you to assume.

October noticed extra anti-union efforts from Apple, which simply mainly underscored why retail employees now want unions. Apple repeatedly says that it’s happy with its staff, and does say that it pays greater than different corporations.

But on this month Australia noticed what’s claimed to be the first nationwide strike by retail employees within the nation’s historical past — and it was employees at Apple Shops.

If this historical past strike had been by staff at every other Australian retailer, nobody studying AppleInsider would have even heard about it. This was a real case of Apple getting consideration it deserves — however as ever, there have been examples of it being made a scapegoat.

Comparable to Mark Zuckerberg blaming Apple for his making an costly VR headset. Or one thing like that.

In Zuckerberg’s thoughts, Apple is aggressively making strikes to regulate the metaverse. Comparable to totally failing to launch a headset and even admit that one is coming.

Equally, the Degree Lock+ got here out in October and some Apple Shops stocked it. That is sufficient to make it information, and ideally unhealthy information, so long as you can also make Apple look unhealthy.

On this case, the Apple-is-bad information cycle centered on how a YouTuber revealed that it is attainable to interrupt a Degree Lock+ by utilizing precisely the identical strategies that can break the common lock in your entrance door proper now.

If something, the Degree Lock+ is in the end safer than common locks as a result of, sure, it may be damaged — however it’ll ship you a notification if somebody does it.

That may be a excellent function and also you’d hardly find out about it from the press protection.

However then there was additionally Lufthansa, which allegedly made up stuff about Apple. The airline banned AirTags from its flights as a result of they’re unlawful below Worldwide Civilian Aviation Group tips — and they don’t seem to be. Not within the slightest, and earlier than the month was out, Lufthansa had backed down.

Simply to emphasize this, not one pixel of Lufthansa’s revealed argument in opposition to AirTags was true. And simply to emphasize it nonetheless additional, if Apple designed AirTags to have batteries that have been unlawful on flights, it would not simply be Evans Hankey heading for the door.

Far be it for AppleInsider to query why an airline wouldn’t need individuals to have the ability to monitor the place their baggage goes. However subsequent time you fly Lufthansa, we might perceive for those who solely took carry-on.