Amazon is eyeing the grocery store market, with plans to “go big” on brick-and-mortar stores.
Amazon already has some physical grocery stores, but the company is a relatively small player in the market. In an interview with The Financial Times, via Engadget, CEO Andy Jassy made clear his intention to change the status quo.
“We’re just still in the early stages,” Jassy told FT. “We’re hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side. We have a history of doing a lot of experimentation and doing it quickly. And then, when we find something that we like, doubling down on it, which is what we intend to do.”
There’s no doubt that Amazon has the ingredients to make a success of physical grocery stores. There are few companies that can match it in product availability and logistics, not to mention the buying power the company would have to negotiate low prices.
If Amazon is able to deliver on Jassy’s statement, it would also open up another arena of competition between the company and Walmart.
According to The Information, Microsoft’s Azure division now joins the list. A source told the outlet that approximately 150 individuals in the company’s digital cloud acquisition team had been let go. The team is responsible for “convincing medium-size companies to adopt cloud services such as Azure server rentals and Microsoft 365 productivity apps.”
Interestingly, the impact on the Azure team goes beyond just sales personnel. Azure test engineers, systems administrators, and product managers have posted on LinkedIn within the last few days, revealing they had been laid off.
Gaurang Deshmukh, Software Test Engineer at Microsoft, was one such individual:
With an extremely heavy heart, I have to announce that I was one of the employee impacted by #Microsoft layoffs. Despite this setback, I’m extremely grateful for my experience at Microsoft as Software Test Engineer in Azure for Operators #A4O org for over 3 years.
I was laid off from #Microsoft this week, it was a great experience working for a start up like Affirmed Networks for 4 years and then transitioning to a larger company as part of the Microsoft acquisition back in 2020. I was at Microsoft for almost 3 years and learned a lot being part of the IT and BIS teams and working on the migrations of our legacy IT systems and tools to the Microsoft’s. Working on #Azure projects and transiting legacy systems to the cloud has been amazing and I am thankful for all I’ve learned at Microsoft. I will miss being part of the Azure for Operators organization and everyone I have worked with over the past 6-7 years, but it’s time for a new challenge and journey!
During the economic downturn, the cloud segment has been one of the more resilient elements of the tech industry. While tech layoffs have become an almost daily occurrence, it is odd that the Azure team has been this heavily impacted.
Instagram has notified users that its Live Shopping feature is shutting down, effective March 16, 2023.
Meta has been cutting costs and streamlining its focus amid an economic downturn that has impacted the tech industry harder than most. Shopping is one area the company is cutting back, and Instagram’s Live Shopping is no exception.
Beginning on March 16, 2023, you will no longer be able to tag products in live broadcasts on Instagram. This change will help us focus on products and features that provide the most value to our users.
You will still be able to set up and run your shop on Instagram as we continue to invest in shopping experiences for people and businesses across feed, stories, Reels, ads and more.
Other live broadcasting features will be unaffected, including the ability to schedule a live broadcast, to invite guests to join your live broadcast, and to hold a live Q&A.
Ford has paused production and shipment of the all-electric F-150 Lightning over undisclosed battery concerns.
Ford is working hard to become the top US electric vehicle maker, with the F-150 Lightning being a critical part of that strategy. According to TechCrunch, however, the company has some concerns regarding the batteries currently being used.
While Ford did not disclose what the specific concerns are, they were evidently serious enough for the company to take such a drastic step. Interestingly, dealers that have Lightning inventory can continue selling the EVs since there has been no incidents in the field.
Microsoft is disabling Internet Explorer from most Windows 10 installations today, putting another nail in the old browser’s coffin.
Microsoft has been moving users to Edge for some time. In all respects, Edge is a far superior browser to IE. Given that Microsoft has stopped supporting IE, Edge is also a more secure option.
Today, the company will be rolling out an update to Edge that will disable IE on most Windows 10 computers.
The out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application was permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10 on February 14, 2023 through a Microsoft Edge update. Note, this update will be rolled out over the span of a few days up to a week, as is standard for Microsoft Edge updates.
All remaining consumer and commercial devices that were not already redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge were redirected with the Microsoft Edge update. Users will be unable to reverse the change. Additionally, redirection from IE11 to Microsoft Edge will be included as part of all future Microsoft Edge updates.
Microsoft may be working to bring ChatGPT-based tech to Bing, but one enterprising developer has already the AI to DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo is the privacy-focused search engine that has steadily been growing in popularity as individuals become more concerned with protecting their online privacy. Developer Adam Lui has created an extension that adds ChatGPT results to the DuckDuckGo sidebar.
Lui details the necessary steps to install the script on his GitHub page:
Install Tampermonkey (Chrome, Firefox) or Violentmonkey (Chrome, Firefox).
Visit DuckDuckGo.com and perform a search. The ChatGPT results should show up on the right.
Microsoft is incorporating an updated and improved version of the tech behind ChatGPT in Bing, but DuckDuckGPT is a nice alternative that’s available right now.
Google Photos appears to be randomly breaking for some users on iOS 16.3.1, with users advised to wait before upgrading.
Apple released iOS 16.3.1 Monday and users almost immediately began reporting issues with Google Photos. First spotted by 9to5Mac, Twitter quickly filled with comments by impacted users.
Google and the US government may be at odds about many things, but the two are in agreement on one big one: who should be responsible for cyberattacks.
In a blog post by Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs & Chief Legal Officer, and Royal Hansen, VP of Engineering for Privacy, Safety, and Security, the executives make the case that companies should be responsible for improving cybersecurity:
“Should companies be responsible for cyberattacks? The U.S. government thinks so – and frankly, we agree.”
The two execs then quote Jen Easterly and Eric Goldstein of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security:
“The incentives for developing and selling technology have eclipsed customer safety in importance. […] Americans…have unwittingly come to accept that it is normal for new software and devices to be indefensible by design. They accept products that are released to market with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of defects. They accept that the cybersecurity burden falls disproportionately on consumers and small organizations, which are often least aware of the threat and least capable of protecting themselves.”
Walker and Hansen go on to lament that cyber threats are growing, taking advantage of “insecure software, indefensible architectures, and inadequate security investment.” The solution is a complete rethinking of how software is designed and deployed.
“The bottom line: People deserve products that are secure by default and systems that are built to withstand the growing onslaught from attackers,” the executives write. “Safety should be fundamental: built-in, enabled out of the box, and not added on as an afterthought. In other words, we need secure products, not security products. That’s why Google has worked to build security in – often making it invisible – to our users. Many of our most significant security features, including innovations like SafeBrowsing, do their best work behind the scenes for our core consumer products.”
The executives emphasize the importance of security being smooth and streamlined, not the cumbersome experience that often exists today, and that results in customers choosing insecurity over inconvenience. Walker and Hansen also recognize there is no silver bullet but that significant steps can and should be taken to greatly improve the status quo.
“Of course, raising the security baseline won’t stop all bad actors, and software will likely always have flaws – but we can start by covering the basics, fixing the most egregious security risks, and coming up with new approaches that eliminate entire classes of threats,” they add. “Google has made investments in the past two decades, but contributing resources is just a piece of the puzzle. It’s work for all of us, but it’s the responsible thing to do: The safety and security of our increasingly digitized world depends on it.”
Ford unveiled plans to build a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery plant in Michigan, a $3.5 billion investment that will create 2,500 new jobs.
LFP is a new battery chemistry for the automaker, one that offers a number of advantages over traditional nickel cobalt manganese (NCM). LFP batteries are more durable, can be charged faster, and use less high-demand materials in their construction.
Ford’s new Michigan-based plant, BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, will create both NCM and LFP batteries, initially employing 2,500 workers. The company will be able to ramp up beyond that initial number as demand increases.
“We are committed to leading the electric vehicle revolution in America, and that means investing in the technology and jobs that will keep us on the cutting edge of this global transformation in our industry,” said Bill Ford, Ford executive chair. “I am also proud that we chose our home state of Michigan for this critical battery production hub.”
Initial production at the new plant is slated for 2026, but the company plans to incorporate LFP batteries in the Mustang Mach-E as soon as this year, and in the F-150 Lightning in 2024.
“Ford’s electric vehicle lineup has generated huge demand. To get as many Ford EVs to customers as possible, we’re the first automaker to commit to build both NCM and LFP batteries in the United States,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. “We’re delivering on our commitments as we scale LFP and NCM batteries and thousands, and soon millions, of customers will begin to reap the benefits of Ford EVs with cutting-edge, durable battery technologies that are growing more affordable over time.”
News of the investment was welcomed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer:
“Ford’s $3.5 billion investment creating 2,500 good-paying jobs in Marshall building electric vehicle batteries will build on Michigan’s economic momentum,” said Governor Whitmer. “Today’s generational investment by an American icon will uplift local families, small businesses, and the entire community and help our state continue leading the future of mobility and electrification. Let’s continue bringing the supply chain of electric vehicles, chips, and batteries home while creating thousands of good-paying jobs and revitalizing every region of our state. Since I took office, we’ve secured over 30,000 auto jobs and landed multiple electric vehicle and chip-making factories. We’re on the move, so let’s keep our foot on the accelerator.”
Microsoft’s LinkedIn is the latest company to be hit with layoffs, with employees in the recruiting department impacted.
Microsoft is in the midst of its announced layoffs of some 10,000 employees. When the company broke the news, executives did not reveal which departments and divisions would be impacted. As a result, the industry has been learning which employees are being let go as Microsoft makes the cuts.
The HoloLens, Surface, and Xbox divisions all recently experienced layoffs. According to The Information, the company has now confirmed that LinkedIn, specifically the recruiting department, is the latest business to be impacted.
Staff were notified Monday, although, at the time of writing, there were no posts on LinkedIn from any of the affected employees.
VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) may be looking to expand its services by managing the finances of startups it invests in.
According to Bloomberg, the company recently hired Michel Del Buono as chief investment officer. His duties will include overseeing a range of wealth-management services.
Providing wealth-management services could be a highly profitable business for the firm. Companies usually charge 1% of a client’s assets, with profits reaching as high as 50%.
While a16z did confirm Del Buono’s hiring to Bloomberg, it declined to comment on any future business plans.
Microsoft Edge is getting a major upgrade, incorporating Adobe Acrobat PDF capabilities — with one major catch.
Microsoft Edge has a PDF viewer built in, but it is fairly basic, in terms of the features it offers. Microsoft and Adobe have announced an agreement to bring Acrobat PDF capabilities to Edge, with many of them remaining free, as Microsoft explains in a blog post:
Together, the two companies are updating the PDF experience and value users have come to expect in Microsoft Edge by powering the built-in PDF reader with the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine. This will give users a unique PDF experience that includes higher fidelity for more accurate colors and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility—including better text selection and read-aloud narration. These capabilities will continue to be free of cost.
The catch, however, is that more advanced features will require a subscription:
Users who want more advanced digital document features—such as the ability to edit text and images, convert PDFs to other file formats, and combine files—can purchase an Acrobat subscription that enables access to these features anywhere, including directly inside Microsoft Edge via a browser extension. Microsoft Edge users with existing Adobe Acrobat subscriptions can use the Acrobat extension inside Edge at no extra cost.
Executives from both companies emphasized the productivity gains the collaboration will make possible.
“Bringing Adobe and Microsoft closer together is good for productivity and good for customers,” said Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President, Modern Work & Business Applications at Microsoft. “Adobe’s PDF technology in Microsoft Edge means users will have fast and secure access to critical digital document capabilities.”
“PDF is essential for modern business, accelerating productivity in a world where automation and collaboration are more critical than ever,” said Ashley Still, SVP and GM, Adobe. “By bringing the global standard in PDF experience to Microsoft Edge and the billion-plus Windows users worldwide, Adobe and Microsoft are using our joint heritage and expertise in productivity to take an important step forward in making modern, secure, and connected work and life a reality.”
Xfinity customers are in for a disappointment, with NBCUniversal cutting off free access to Peacock Premium.
NBCUniversal announced in late January that new customers would no longer be able to sign up for the free tier of its Peacock streaming service. Xfinity customers have enjoyed access to the Premium tier for free, but the company is now ending that as well.
The Streamable first reported the news after receiving confirmation from an NBCUniversal spokesperson:
A spokesperson for Peacock confirmed to The Streamable, that starting in April, new Xfinity customers will no longer receive Peacock Premium for free as part of their service. Those who already receive Peacock Premium as a free benefit as part of their Xfinity service, will have to start paying for the streaming service on June 26.
Xfinity customers will receive a discounted offer if they choose to keep the streaming service.
The PC Security Channel (TPSC) analyzed Windows 11 and found it sends massive amounts of user data to Microsoft, as well as third-party ad companies.
TPSC is a YouTube channel dedicated to cybersecurity and privacy. The channel took a brand-new laptop that had never been used and used Wireshark to monitor the computer’s traffic, starting from the moment it was booted up.
Unsurprisingly, the computer immediately connected to a number of Microsoft services, including Bing, MSN, and the Windows Update service. While it’s not surprising a Windows machine would connect to Microsoft, it is surprising that the Bing traffic was happening without the web browser ever being opened or used.
Even more surprising, Windows 11 also connected to McAfee, Steam, and Comscore’s ScorecardResearch.com, to name just a few. The last one is particularly alarming, as it is an ad-tech company. In fact, when TPSC first tried going to the website to see what ScorecardResearch.com was, the channel’s browser adblocker would not even load the page since it is a known ad and tracking domain.
To make matters worse, Microsoft connects and sends data to these servers without expressly asking the user’s permission. Instead, the company relies on a vague clause in the Microsoft License Terms to constitute permission.
Privacy; Consent to Use of Data. Your privacy is important to us. Some of the software features send or receive information when using those features. Many of these features can be switched off in the user interface, or you can choose not to use them. By accepting this agreement and using the software you agree that Microsoft may collect, use, and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement (aka.ms/privacy), and as may be described in the user interface associated with the software features.
Tom’s Hardware reached out to Microsoft and was given the following statement:
“As with any modern operating system, users can expect to see data flowing to help them remain secure, up to date, and keep the system working as anticipated,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “We are committed to transparency and regularly publish information about the data we collect to empower customers to be more informed about their privacy.”
A legitimate case can be made for Windows 11 connecting to Microsoft services, but there is absolutely no valid justification for connecting to and sending telemetry to an ad-tech company.
Interestingly, TPSC ran the same test with Windows XP and found that it only connected to Microsoft update servers, greatly undermining Microsoft’s claim that Windows 11’s connections to third parties were necessary to “remain secure, up to date, and keep the system working as anticipated.”
As we have stated at WPN many times, there is NO EXCUSE for a company that charges handsomely for a product to then turn around and try to monetize its customers’ data, let alone try to do so without express and explicit permission. And no, a couple of sentences buried in a long, legalese licensing document that few people will ever read does not count as express and explicit permission.
Microsoft should be ashamed of itself for this behavior, and one can only hope this revelation will put the companies in the crosshairs of the EU’s GDPR.
In the meantime, TPSC’s question, “Has Windows become spyware?” is one that deserves an answer.
Mycroft, the open source, privacy-respecting alternative to Amazon Echo and Google Home is shutting down after running out of money.
Mycroft was created by Joshua Montgomery, a 15-year entrepreneurial veteran with a background as an aerospace engineer. As a long-time open source advocate, Montgomery wanted to create a voice assistant that could provide the convenience of commercial options while still respecting user privacy.
After a major Kickstarter campaign, Montgomery has informed backers that the project has run out of money and will not be able to fulfill orders for the Mycroft Mark II.
“I have some unfortunate news to share and there’s no easy way to say it, so here it is,” writes Montgomery. “We will not be able to fulfill any remaining Mark II rewards.
“Since starting here in early 2020 I’ve had to make some of the toughest decisions I’ve ever faced, and none more so than at the end of last year. At the end of November, just after the Mark II entered production, I was faced with the reality that I had to lay off most of the Mycroft staff. At present, our staff is two developers, one customer service agent and one attorney. Moreover, without immediate new investment, we will have to cease development by the end of the month.”
Needless to say, the news is not going over well with backers, many of whom are questioning why the project has run out of money, despite multiple rounds of funding. Some also questioned why the company has more than 100 units on eBay for $499 each instead of sending those units to backers.
Ultimately, Mycroft’s fate is all too familiar among crowdsourced hardware projects, with many failing to overcome the cost and logistic issues involved in manufacturing.
The demise of Mycroft is also unfortunate in the wider privacy debate. While convenient, Amazon Echo and Google Home siphon gargantuan quantities of user data and are a privacy nightmare. If the Mycroft project is truly dead, it’s a major blow to the privacy-conscious.
Opera is preparing to adopt ChatGPT, with plans to integrate the AI into both its desktop and mobile web browsers.
Opera is a popular niche browser, providing a plethora of features not found in its bigger rivals. The company has announced plans to include ChatGPT in its desktop and mobile offerings, and will use it to provide webpage summaries in the browser’s sidebar.
“In more than 25 years of our company’s history, we have always been at the forefront of browser innovation. Whether inventing browser tabs or providing our users with built-in access to generative AI tools, we always push the limits of what’s possible on the web,” said Song Lin, Co-CEO of Opera. “Following the mass interest in generative AI tools, we believe it’s now time for browsers to step up and become the gateway to an AI-powered web”.
“We see the rise of Generative Intelligence as the beginning of a new future in which consumer app developers like Opera will be able to build experiences on top of AI-based platforms. We are excited to see the rapid roll-out of developer programs for solutions such as Google Bard, for example, and are starting to build and roll out new experiences in web browsing that not very long ago seemed impossible to achieve,” added Per Wetterdal, Head of Strategic Partnerships and AI ecosystem.
The inclusion of ChatGPT makes a lot of sense for Opera and fits in well with its approach to web browser design.
The tech sector has been hit with a wave of layoffs, but it’s not all bad news, especially for the workers being laid off.
Mass layoffs have become an almost daily occurrence. Over the course of 2022, the tech sector saw a whopping 241,176 layoffs. As big as that figure may be, 2023 has already seen an additional 131,132 layoffs at the time of writing (via TrueUp). Almost no portion of the tech sector is immune, with companies large and small letting workers go.
While being laid off can be a traumatic experience, the picture is not entirely doom and gloom. In fact, being laid off may be the best thing to happen to some people.
Revelio Labs looked at the state of the industry, as reported by Business Insider, and found that 75% of laid-off tech workers can expect to find a new job within three months. In fact, while tech workers are almost always in demand, Revelio Labs found that is especially true in the current climate. In contrast, 71% could expect to find a job within three months in January 2022 and only 67% in July 2021.
Perhaps most telling, Revelio Labs found that 52% of laid-off tech workers were finding jobs that paid more than the job they lost. There is such a demand for tech workers that Insider reports many employers are forced to offer a 7% premium over what their existing employees are being paid in order to attract new talent.
“The key takeaway is ‘do not despair,’” says Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs. “The job market is still hot. Although some parts of the tech industry are struggling, other companies are actively hiring.”
System76 has unveiled a new and updated version of the Pangolin, its AMD-based Linux laptop.
System76 is a US-based computer maker that specializes in Linux-compatible machines. Each component is selected for maximum compatibility, so users don’t have to worry about their WiFi or Bluetooth not working reliably. Whereas most of System76’s laptops are Intel-based, the Pangolin is the company’s AMD offering, including both an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U CPU and an AMD Radeon 680M GPU.
The fully redesigned Pangolin is ready to impress! Sleek magnesium alloy build, beautiful 15-inch display, and up to 10 hours of battery life round out its portfolio. Pursue ambition from any location. With all eyes on your System76 laptop, you’re bound to meet new allies along the way.
The new model comes with 32GB of RAM and two M.2 SSD NVMe slots that can be outfitted with up to 16GB of storage.
Pangolin is the only System76 laptop powered by both an AMD Ryzen processor and AMD Radeon graphics. The CPU—a Ryzen 7 6800U chip—tackles both at fast speeds for work and relaxation. Operate applications 40% faster and experience fluid responsiveness thanks to a higher bandwidth from DDR5 RAM and PCIe 4.0 storage.
Another nice feature is the Privacy Switch, a hardware switch that gives users the ability to instantly kill the laptop’s camera.
Like all of System76’s machines, the Pangolin comes with a choice of Ubuntu or the company’s own Pop!_OS Linux distro. PoP!_OS is based on Ubuntu, but System76 updates the kernel, graphics drivers, and select other packages to ensure maximum compatibility and performance with newer hardware. The distro also includes a number of productivity features, such as a tiling window mode, which we will cover in more detail in an upcoming review as part of our Linux Distro Reviews series.
In the meantime, users wanting the latest AMD Linux laptop can order the System76 Pangolin starting at $1,299.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai is under fire from employees over how the company has handled its response to Microsoft’s AI.
Microsoft unveiled a version of Bing that is powered by an updated version of the tech behind ChatGPT, bringing the power of artificial intelligence to web search. When ChatGPT first burst onto the scene, Google was caught off guard and has been scrambling to play catchup, unveiling its Bard AI in an effort to remain competitive.
Unfortunately for the company, the launch did not go well. Bard got one of the questions wrong in the company’s ad, and one of the presenters at the big reveal forgot to bring a phone that was crucial to the demo, according to CNBC.
The missteps are not going over well with Google employees, many of whom have been taking to Memegen, the company’s internal forum, to complain. While employees often post memes on the forum to goodnaturedly poke fun at the company, many of the responses to Google’s AI efforts took a more serious tone.
“Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic,” read one meme, accompanied by a serious picture of Pichai. “Please return to taking a long-term outlook.” The post received many upvotes.
“Sundar, and leadership, deserve a Perf NI,” read another popular meme, referencing the lowest employment performance review category. “They are being comically short sighted and un-Googlely in their pursuit of ‘sharpening focus.’”
One Googler even pointed out that the company’s handling of the unveil was confirming the industry’s fears that Google has lost its way and was caught flatfooted.
“Rushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market’s fear about us,” read a highly-rated meme.
Google is clearly in a position it is not used to being in, forced to play from behind and overcome a competitor’s technical advantage. Unfortunately, how Pichai and company have responded is not putting anyone’s fears to rest about the company’s ability to overcome this existential threat to its core business.
Google is once again in the midst of a privacy controversy, with a proposal to add telemetry to the Go programming language.
Go is a programming language developed at Google. While similar to the C language, it adds a number of important, modern additions. Russ Cox is the Google engineer that is currently taking the lead with Go development, and he has put forth a controversial proposal, one that would involve turning on telemetry in Go by default.
Cox revealed the proposal on GitHub and, predictably, it met with quite a bit of push back from other developers. The response is not surprising, since most open source developers and users are notoriously opposed to most forms of telemetry.
“Should be off by default,” wrote user Stolas. “There is no reason for a development chain to have any kind of telemetry on by default. Or, as I do understand the need for it to be on by default, it should check what the user wants on first start.”
“I think that lowering the barrier to opt-in and share data is a better solution than increasing the barrier to opt out,” added user w3bb. “People who would decline telemetry at a prompt are people who don’t want telemetry, making the life of those people harder is really bad whether it’s intentional or not.”
In addition to the open source community’s natural aversion to telemetry, the fact that it is Google behind this proposal adds to the angst. Google, unfortunately, has a long history of not respecting user privacy. Even though the telemetry being discussed is largely performance metrics about the programming language itself, many users were not comfortable with Google have yet more information about them or the tools they use.
“Personally, I don’t like the idea of automatic collection of telemetry pushed on me,” wrote Szymon Ulewicz. “Isn’t Google tracking enough information about me already?”
Some users also pointed out Google’s long history of running rough-shod over other interests in the pursuit of its own.
“Google has a history of unilateral decisions that have unintended consequences,” writes khm. “Consider this document: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/1725632?hl=en Google’s position is simple. If you don’t want us to geolocate your wifi host, reconfigure your network name to ‘_nomap.’ The desires of the network owner, local regulations, and corporate compliance are irrelevant to Google; change your SSID or we will gather your data.”
Google’s past behavior of forcing their will on other people and leaving it to them to adapt left some developers feeling that they have little say in the matter, despite the fact that Cox was asking for feedback.
“I don’t want to read into intent too much, but I am getting the distinct impression that the decision to ship telemetry has already been made, and that we are being asked to rubber stamp it,” wrote Louis Thibault. “I sincerely hope that is not the case.”
There appears to be an issue with the latest versions of iOS 16, with users reporting significantly less iPhone battery life.
Battery life is universally one of the biggest selling points for manufacturers when releasing new models. The iPhone 13 Pro Max was one of Apple’s best phones, in terms of battery life, but even that model doesn’t appear to be able to overcome iOS 16.
Writing for Digital Trends, Prakhar Khanna outlines the trouble he had upgrading from his iPhone 13 Pro Max to the iPhone 14. When the battery life didn’t compete, he went back to his old phone, only to find the upgrade to iOS 16 had destroyed its battery life as well.
Khanna described his findings:
I realized later that the problem was not the 14 Pro’s battery size, but it was iOS 16’s poor battery optimization. I only realized this when I noticed that the latest OS updates had compromised my iPhone 13 Pro’s battery life as well.
Khanna says there doesn’t appear to be any method or madness to the battery drain:
In my experience, there is no consistent battery life behavior to be pointed out. Sometimes, Spotify drains the battery, while other times, it is Twitter (two of my most used apps). But the battery drain on any app using location services is the worst on iOS 16. These apps include Maps, commuting services, dating apps, and the Camera app (if you have the location tag feature enabled).
Unfortunately, Khanna’s experience is not an isolated one, with Reddit posts and discussions on Apple’s own support forums confirming the issue. Some users have had success downgrading to iOS 15 but, until Apple provides a fix for iOS 16, there doesn’t appear to be a viable, long-term fix in sight.
