Apple didn’t have much to say about its business over the past week—but that didn’t stop others.
Over the past week, Apple was hit with a class-action lawsuit over the design and functionality of its “butterfly” keyboard system on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. It was the latest in a string of complaints about alleged defects in the keyboard’s design. But like in the past when faced with criticisms about the design, Apple remained silent.
This is Coins2Day’s latest weekly roundup of the biggest Apple news. Here’s last week’s roundup.
Meanwhile, a new report showed how Apple is increasing its presence in California’s self-driving car market. And we even learned of a possible front-runner in Apple’s search for a second headquarters.
Read on for more on those stories and others in this week’s Apple news roundup:
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- The law firm Girard Gibbs this week filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against Apple that alleged that the MacBook and MacBook Pro’s “butterfly” keyboard design is “prone to fail.” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two MacBook Pro owners, comes after nearly 25,000 people signed a petition requesting Apple address the problem. An increasing number of MacBook owners have complained that the butterfly mechanism under each key causes keys to stick and fail. The lawsuit seeks damages for the class. Apple has yet to respond.
- Apple has more self-driving car permits in California than any other tech company. The iPhone maker has 55 permits to test self-driving car technology on California’s roads, topping the 51 permits Alphabet’s autonomous car division Waymo has. Tesla, which is also testing self-driving car technology, has 39 permits.
- Apple and Samsung are back in court for the patent trial that never ends. Once again, the litigation will determine whether Samsung infringed Apple’s patents and how much damages the Korean conglomerate may owe Apple. At one point, the case, which started in 2011, included patent-infringement cases around the world. Now, the companies are battling it out over the same patents in the U.S. Apple had been awarded more than $1 billion in damages, but after a series of appeals, a judge reduced those damages.
- Earlier this year, Apple announced plans to open a second headquarters somewhere in the U.S. The campus would initially house customer service employees, but it would eventually add other divisions over time. Apple has said it will announce location of the new offices this year, but a report this week, citing anonymous sources, said the company is close to choosing the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. The area, which includes Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, is close to three major universities—Duke, N.C. State, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Apple Music, which is growing at a nice clip, now has 50 million subscribers, CEO Tim Cook reported this week. That’s up from 40 million subscribers in April. Its chief rival Spotify, however, is still far ahead, with 75 million subscribers.
- In an interview this week with Bloomberg TV’s The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations, Cook offered some thoughts about how President Donald Trump could handle trade with China. He said cooperation between the countries is critical and that tariffs are not a solution. He added that a trade war with China would hurt American businesses.
One more thing… Samsung took Apple to task in a new ad this week that compared the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ to the iPhone 6 Apple that was released in 2014. It was odd, to say the least. And if you click here, you can see my take on why the ad was “ridiculous.”