Apple Ordered to Pay Up to 13 Billion Euros in EU Tax Crackdown→

Dara Doyle and Stephanie Bodoni, writing for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. was ordered to repay a record 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) plus interest after the European Commission said Ireland illegally slashed the iPhone maker’s tax bill.

The world’s richest company benefited from a “selective tax treatment” in Ireland that gave it a “significant advantage over other businesses,” the European Union regulator said Tuesday in its largest tax penalty in a three-year crackdown on sweetheart fiscal deals granted by EU nations.

The European Commission is not saying that Apple has not paid its taxes. Rather, they have said that two tax rulings handed down to Apple by the Irish government in 1991 and 2007 had “no factual or economic justification” and constituted illegal state aid. That’s a problem in the eyes of the European Commission because profits from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India were attributed to Apple’s corporate entity in Ireland.

“Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in an e-mailed statement. “This selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014.”

The European Commission now wants the Irish government to claw back 13 billion Euros from Apple. Whilst this ruling is a significant development, it is far from the end of the story, Apple and the Irish government have already signaled their intentions to appeal the decision of the European Commission. If they do appeal, it is likely to take years for a final decision to be reached.

Update: Apple has posted an open letter from Tim Cook on their website, responding to today’s European Commission decision.

The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals. We now find ourselves in the unusual position of being ordered to retroactively pay additional taxes to a government that says we don’t owe them any more than we’ve already paid.

The Commission’s move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe. Ireland has said they plan to appeal the Commission’s ruling and Apple will do the same. We are confident that the Commission’s order will be reversed.

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Better Track Your Time with Timelines

As I type this review, I can see three devices that I can (and do) work on in some capacity with relative efficiency: a 12” MacBook, an iPhone 6s, and an iPad Pro. Along with my work at MacStories, I use these products to build and manage websites, write news stories, and get classwork done – all from the small space of my college dorm room.

Of course, I’m not the only one – millions of people have completed the transition to working from home, skipping out on the world of corporate computing for a more convenient and personal experience. There is one glaring problem, however, when discussing the move from the in-person job lifestyle: tracking time.

Timelines is an iPhone-only app that helps you manage and record your working time. For freelancers, remote workers, and students, Timelines scratches the basic itch of getting your time down into a piece of software for later action.

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Apple Announces September 7 Event

As first reported by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, Apple has announced a media event for September 7 at 10 AM. The event will be held at the Bill Graham auditorium in San Francisco.

Based on recent speculation and rumors, Apple is widely expected to introduce a new iPhone 7 line, which may eliminate the 3.5 mm headphone jack and include a dual camera system in the higher-end model. A second generation Apple Watch and refreshed Retina MacBook Pros may also be announced at the event. There have been few rumors about what to expect from a new Apple Watch, but the Retina MacBook Pro is rumored to be thinner, lighter, and include a touch sensitive strip on the keyboard that replaces the function keys and can be programmed to perform different tasks.

In addition to hardware, Apple is expected to announce release dates for iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, which have been in public and developer beta since WWDC in June. As in the past, Apple should release a Golden Master seed of iOS 10 and macOS shortly after the event, with a public release to follow within about 10 days.

Game Day: Legend of the Skyfish

Legend of the Skyfish by Crescent Moon Games is an action-puzzle game that evokes Nintendo’s Zelda franchise, but has its own unique twist that will reel you in. Legend revolves around the tale of the Skyfish, an evil creature from deep below the ocean’s surface that was awoken by the greed of fishermen. Skyfish took over the surface world and enslaved its people. You play as a girl who was saved by the Moonwhale and is in search of her little brother.

As the protagonist of the story, your main tool and weapon is a fishing pole. Whether it’s navigating the map, avoiding barriers, or defeating enemies, you can accomplish it all with your fishing pole. Fend off the attacks of mutant sea-people that roam the surface world by swinging your pole like a sword. Jump from island to island or move objects by casting your fishing line to hook special points on the map. Catch enemies and pull them into spikes and other obstacles with your fishing pole as an alternative to hand-to-hand combat. More than any other element, the creative uses to which you can put your fishing pole set Legend apart from other games.

Legend eases you into the game with several fairly easy levels in the first of three worlds, but does a nice job of getting progressively more difficult and imaginative with its puzzles. You move around the island world by dragging your finger in the direction you want to go. There are also two game pads. The first swings your pole like a sword. The second game pad casts a line from the fishing pole. By tapping the pad and shifting your finger, you aim the pole. Raising your finger launches your fishing line.

One thing that is sorely lacking from Legend is progress syncing. The game is available on iPhone, iPad, and the Apple TV, but there is no way to pick up where you left off across devices. I played on my iPad more than my iPhone, but both worked equally well. Touch is well-suited to aiming the fishing line. I played a few levels on the Apple TV too. Legend’s world looks gorgeous on a big screen, but I liked using the touch interface on iOS devices better than the Siri Remote’s tiny touch surface.

Legend has two things that help it transcend Zelda copy-cat status. The first is the clever fishing pole gameplay, which is unique and thoughtfully implemented. The second is enemies’ vulnerability to the game’s environment. Both aspects of Legend add a depth and novelty to navigating the colorful water-world and to combat that keeps the game fresh and fun throughout.

Legend of the Skyfish is available on the App Store for $3.99.

Connected, Episode 105: What Does Done Mean?→

Federico’s back, so the power of The Prompt Curse has been restored. Picturelife is dead, Ping is in headlines and iOS 10 is closer than ever.

On this week’s episode of Connected, I check back on the status of my iOS 10 review as we move closer to September. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

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Government Hackers Caught Using Unprecedented iPhone Spy Tool→

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, writing for Motherboard:

This is the first time that anyone has uncovered such an attack in the wild. Until this month, no one had seen an attempted spyware infection leveraging three unknown bugs, or zero-days, in the iPhone. The tools and technology needed for such an attack, which is essentially a remote jailbreak of the iPhone, can be worth as much as one million dollars. After the researchers alerted Apple, the company worked quickly to fix them in an update released on Thursday.

The question is, who was behind the attack and what did they use to pull it off?

It appears that the company that provided the spyware and the zero-day exploits to the hackers targeting Mansoor is a little-known Israeli surveillance vendor called NSO Group, which Lookout’s vice president of research Mike Murray labeled as “basically a cyber arms dealer.”

A great story from Motherboard that is equal parts fascinating and absolutely terrifying. The malware from NSO is able to effectively steal all the information on your phone, intercept every message and add backdoors to every method of communication on your phone. Evidence suggests that NSO has likely been able to hack iPhones since the iPhone 5.

The security researchers who first became aware of the security bugs notified Apple about 10 days ago, and Apple today released iOS 9.3.5 which fixes the bugs. Suffice to say, you should immediately install the update onto your iOS devices.

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Apple Music Festival 10 Running From September 18 to 30

Apple today announced details for its 10th annual Apple Music Festival which will once again be held at the Roundhouse in London. Headlining the festival this year will include performances from Alicia Keys, Bastille, Britney Spears, Michael Bublé, Calvin Harris, OneRepublic, Robbie Williams, The 1975 and Elton John.

“Over the past decade, the Festival has brought the biggest and best artists from all over the world to London and into the homes of millions of music fans,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of International Content. “This year’s Apple Music Festival builds on that incredible legacy and we couldn’t be more excited to have another amazing lineup to celebrate our 10th birthday.”

Like last year, the Apple Music Festival will run for 10 nights from September 18 to September 30. Additionally, every performance will be made available, “live and on-demand” to Apple Music members, as well exclusive playlists, artist news, and backstage interviews throughout September.

For more details, including how UK-based fans can win tickets to attend, visit the Apple Music Festival website.