Apple has removed several predatory lending apps from its App Store in India this week, days after media and app store shoppers questioned the legitimacy of those services. Manish Singh for TechCrunch: Pocket Kash, White Kash, Golden Kash, and OK Rupee are among the apps that Apple pulled from the store this week. The apps offered fast-track lending to consumers in India, climbing to the top 20 of the finance list on the App Store in recent weeks. But they also levied outrageously superfluous charges, according to hundreds of user reviews. The lenders also employed downright unethical tactics to get the borrowers to pay back. “I borrowed an amount in a helpless situation and […] a day before repayment due…

A Wired wag will “bet everything that Apple’s Vision Pro will flop,” calling it ” a rare misfire” and an “unavoidable failure.” Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer Kate Knibbs for Wired: This is not a “revolutionary” gadget, no matter how confident Tim Cook looks when he says it is. It’s a rare misfire, and a sign that Apple is losing its ability to turn tech-geek novelties into normie must-haves. It doesn’t augur the future so much as suggest that Cupertino doesn’t have a clear view forward… [A]n Apple headset, no matter how nifty its specs, is still a big honking gizmo plonked between its wearer and the rest of the world, inherently a barrier more than a conduit……

A Wired wag will “bet everything that Apple’s Vision Pro will flop,” calling it ” a rare misfire” and an “unavoidable failure.” Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer Kate Knibbs for Wired: This is not a “revolutionary” gadget, no matter how confident Tim Cook looks when he says it is. It’s a rare misfire, and a sign that Apple is losing its ability to turn tech-geek novelties into normie must-haves. It doesn’t augur the future so much as suggest that Cupertino doesn’t have a clear view forward… [A]n Apple headset, no matter how nifty its specs, is still a big honking gizmo plonked between its wearer and the rest of the world, inherently a barrier more than a conduit……

Macworld WWDC 2023 is creeping up, and with Apple fans starved of event hype since the iPhone 14 launch well over eight months ago, expectations are high. Of course the Reality Pro headset, if the company has managed to get it finished in time, will be the flagship announcement. But one of Apple’s less heralded products might be the sleeper hit of the show. Last month, the respected leaker-analyst Mark Gurman claimed watchOS 10 will be so good that no one will care about the (reportedly rather underwhelming) new Apple Watch hardware coming later in the year. What that means in practice seems to be an updated interface, and while the use of the word “updated” rather than “new” implies…

Macworld On Thursday, Apple released a slew of updates that bring a few new features to the iPhone and Mac. But much more importantly, the updates include three critical zero-day patches for security vulnerabilities that are known to have been actively exploited. The most alarming of the bugs allow a hacker to access personal data and take over your device via a malicious app. The WebKit flaws span Apple’s family of devices and have been patched in iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, watchOS 9.5, macOS 13.4, and tvOS 16.5, but also iOS/iPadOS 15.7.6, macOS Monterey 12.6.6, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.7, as well as Safari 16.5. All of the updates include the same five WebKit fixes, with three of them known…

Macworld When I bought my first iPad at the Apple Store on Regent Street, when it hadn’t yet been released in my home country of Sweden, it seemed an almost magical device. The screen, which at that point offered neither ProMotion nor even a high resolution, nevertheless felt like a window into a digital world. But best of all was the battery life and especially the amazing standby time, which was superior to just about all the alternatives. Today? Not so much. What the heck happened? If I pick up my iPad Pro after leaving it unused for a few days, chances are the battery will be somewhere around 30% at best, or zero at worst. After the same amount…