Apple’s MacBook Air, iPad Pro and more devices on sale today

Deals. Best Buy is currently running a major 3-Day Anniversary sale on Apple products. You can find up to $300 off on MacBook Pros, up to $150 on MacBook Airs and even some deals on the iPhone SE. Moving on, B&H also has the 2018 12.9in iPad Pro for $350 off, leaving the 64GB, Wi-Fi + Cellular variant for $800 shipped. We also have deals on Sony earbuds, Razer Gaming keyboards and more in the links in the description. Buy Sony WF-SP800N Truly Wireless Sports headphones Buy Razer BlackWidow Elite gaming keyboard

Microsoft Surface Duo gets 3 years of Android updates, and a new demo video

For those of you guys interested in buying the Microsoft Surface Duo and you’re not so sure yet. Well the company officially announced it 2 days ago and now, they shared a full 35 minute demo video of Panos Panay showing you what the product can do. According to them, their aim with this product is not to “reinvent the phone” but is a vision of better mobile productivity for the Surface fans and people who love Office, Teams and Outlook. Microsoft also announced that they will be committing to 3 years of software updates for the Duo, as they should for the $1400 price tag. Thing is, I mean I love Excel on anything but Android.. But other than that I know of no human being that can claim that they love productivity apps. We’ll see.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 won’t include ToF sensors

And, we know that Samsung ditched their whole ToF approach with the Galaxy Note 20 as, well, we all know what happened with the S20 Ultra. According to a new report from the Elec, the ToF sensor won’t be making it to the Galaxy S21 either but, Samsung isn’t giving up in the technology. According to this report, the reason why the S20’s ToF wasn’t doing so hot is because it wasn’t as powerful as direct ToF which is what other companies like Apple are using from companies like Sony. Apparently Samsung is now working on their own ToF solution and now, the “technological advancements” will depend on them and not third party companies. We’ll see if they are able to develop something for the Note 21.

Facebook is now sued over allegedly gathering biometric data on Instagram

Let’s talk about what Facebook has done with Instagram… yeah that sounds about right. For starters, the company is being sued in the state of California for “collecting, storing and profiting” off biometric data of more than 100M users, specifically for facial recognition technology. The lawsuit claims that Instagram uses a “face-tagging” tool which uses facial recognition to create “face templates” which are stored in Facebook’s database without the user’s consent. They even use your tagged pictures so, you didn’t even have to post it yourself for this to happen. According to Bloomberg, they’re facing up to $5K per violation, meaning do the math when you multiply that times 100M. On another note, TechCrunch is reporting that there’s a “bug” in their system which would retain deleted photos and messages on their servers for over a year. Now, the bug has been conveniently patched but, apparently there was no evidence of abuse, if that even means something.

Apple without WeChat could mean disaster for the iPhone in China

Earlier this week we covered some predictions from Ming Chi Kuo over how the US ban on WeChat could affect Apple on a major scale. Well, according to a Bloomberg report, things could pan out the way Kuo predicted. Apparently there was a massive survey conducted on Chinese iPhone users and 95% of them said that they would replace their iPhone if WeChat was banned from the App Store. This translates to around 1.2M users from the survey alone. Most of them made comments over how this ban “would force them into switching their phones as WeChat is very important to them” with someone even saying that the ban would turn the iPhone into simple “electronic trash” as WeChat is one of their most essential apps. The details of the ban still aren’t clear yet as, it could just be a thing in the States but if it’s completely banned from the App Store, it looks like Apple will be suffering. It also looks like Apple, Disney, Ford and other companies have warned the White House about what this ban would mean so, let’s see how it plays out.

Story of the day:

Epic Games claims Google forced OnePlus, LG to scrap Fortnite deals

Epic Games mocks Apple’s 1984 Macintosh ad after Fortnite’s removal from App

Store Fortnite removed from Google Play Store after getting kicked off the App Store

Now, let’s talk about Fortnite… yeah you heard that right. Yesterday, the game was removed from both, the App Store and Google Play, as the company added a direct payment option in the game that would save customers 20% on their in-app purchases, preventing Apple from taking their 30% cut from each purchase. You guys know the Amazon Kindle story where it was banned years ago until Amazon removed the in-app purchase model and forcing you to use a browser to make purchases. As for Google, apparently Epic was working on a deal with both OnePlus and LG, to offer the Fortnite launcher pre-installed in their phones and Google reportedly forced them to back out of the deal as well as the direct payment option in the app. Epic Games is reportedly filing a lawsuit against both of them for anti-competitive restrictions on their stores. Android Users at least have the advantage of being able to side load the APK and Samsung Devices still have it available on the Galaxy Store, but iOS users are screwed. Epic even put out a short video mocking Apple’s famous 30-year old “1984” ad and ending theirs with “Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly, Apple is Blocking Fortnite to billions of devices. Join the fact to stop 2020 from becoming 1984″ as a reference to George Orwell’s novel. Other companies like Spotify which have had issues with the App Store and Apple in the past have come out in support of Fortnite. We’ll keep you posted. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/pocketnowsub http://pocketnow.com Follow us: http://flipboard.com/@Pocketnow http://facebook.com/pocketnow http://twitter.com/pocketnow http://google.com/+pocketnow

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