AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
- Coming off a week of surprise product-related announcements, Apple was expecting to have a great week to close out March.
- The company held a star-studded event in Cupertino, California, where it unveiled its ambitious TV plans.
- But a handful of not-so-great things also happened to Apple last week.
Last Monday, Apple held a big event at the Steve Jobs Theater at its new headquarters in Cupertino, California, where it unveiled a handful of new premium services: for news and magazines, video games, and TV shows.
Apple’s big event went off without a hitch: Hollywood A-listers like Steven Spielberg and Reese Witherspoon unveiled their exclusive new shows for Apple’s TV Plus service, and CEO Tim Cook spent quality time with Oprah Winfrey during and after the event.
But that was just Monday. The rest of the week was not so glamorous for Apple.
Here’s what happened.
MONDAY: The week started off pretty good! Apple unveiled three new premium services at its big event, including Arcade, News Plus, and TV Plus.
Tony Avelar/AP
Lots of celebrities showed up to plug their upcoming shows for Apple TV Plus, including Jennifer Aniston, Jason Momoa, J.J. Abrams, Kumail Nanjiani, and others. Oprah Winfrey even made an appearance, to talk about her two original documentaries coming exclusively to Apple TV Plus.
It was a star-studded event — but also, Apple didn’t announce a price or even a launch date for Apple TV Plus, making some scratch their heads.
Read more: Here’s everything Apple announced at its big March event
TUESDAY: Just one day after Apple announced its subscription services for magazines and newspapers, Apple’s News app crashed on both iOS and Mac devices.
Business Insider / Screenshot
Apple fixed the crashing issues later in the day, but once the service became operational, customers complained about the app’s lack of intuitiveness.
TUESDAY: Apple continued its patent fight with Qualcomm, with one judge from the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that Apple’s iPhones infringe on a Qualcomm patent.
Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
The ruling isn’t final, but the judge recommended an import ban on iPhones that violate the patent — specifically, the iPhone 7 lineup, iPhone 8 lineup, and iPhone X models that use Intel’s chips — which would prevent them from being sold in the US. A panel of judges would need to approve this ruling before it moved on to further presidential review.
For what it’s worth, Apple was found to have not infringed on a handful of separate Qualcomm patents in a second ruling the ITC handed down on Tuesday. Apple released a statement to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, saying that Qualcomm is using these patent cases "to distract from having to answer for the real issues, their monopolistic business practices."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – dsmith@businessinsider.com (Dave Smith)