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In the event you really feel that Apple did not carry out something new in November 2022, then you’re in all probability one of many many whose iPhone 14 Professional hasn’t arrived but. Or maybe you’ve got acquired one, but for some unusual motive do not occur to have turn out to be stranded in a distant place away from cell reception.

Apple’s greatest launch of the month, for customers, was the reasonably wonderful Emergency SOS through Satellite tv for pc. Introduced alongside the iPhone 14 vary, the service was turned on for customers within the US and Canada in November, with chosen different international locations to comply with in December.

You must hope that you’d by no means want the power to name for assist from deep within the wilderness, or excessive up a mountain, however you additionally know it can occur to somebody.

The moment Apple introduced out Crash Detection, it was instantly and sadly being examined in real-life accidents. Whereas with Emergency SOS through Satellite tv for pc, there have been no experiences of incidents… in November.

There have been in December, although, simply days after the service was switched on.

Smaller scale launches

So Emergency SOS is large if you happen to’re concerned in an accident and it is the best way you get to continue to exist. For many of us, it is spectacular, however we’ll by no means expertise it.

Consequently, it certainly feels as if Apple didn’t carry out a lot in November, actually not in comparison with its October haul of latest units. Anticipated launches like Apple Music Classical did not occur, and nor did we see any M2 MacBook Professional releases.

However there was Oceanic+ for the Apple Watch Extremely. Truly made by Huish Outside, it was offered by Apple at Watch’s launch as being what made the Apple Watch Extremely right into a dive laptop.

Samsung introduced out advertisements and options

In the meantime, Samsung introduced out a cellphone function that may be very acquainted to Apple customers. The iPhone’s Again Faucet, the place you actually faucet on the again of the iPhone and it may run accessibility options or Shortcuts, is now on sure Samsung telephones.

Solely, it’s as if Samsung heard that this function was in accessibility, and misheard that as “inaccessibility.” The steps it’s important to undergo to get this factor to work are ludicrous.

That is the issue with Android options. You hear that Android does this and that, but it surely seems that just some Android telephones do, after which with problem.

Which is one way or the other not some extent Samsung raised throughout its “On the Fence” advert.

Ignoring this subject that you simply may need to purchase 5 totally different Android telephones to get all the options Android followers say Apple is late to, it is nonetheless true that Apple is late to them. This advert exhibits somebody actually on a fence, serious about transferring from iPhone to Android particularly due to these varied options.

It is presumably important, although, that he by no means makes the leap within the advert.

Apple is not nervous about Android

So Samsung mocks Apple with one hand, whereas it copies it with one other. Usual, standard, and Apple is hardly involved about all of it.

That mentioned, this month Apple executives can be forgiven for not even noticing what Samsung is engaged on since they needed to be way more nervous about how Foxconn was not working a lot in any respect.

Apple’s largest producer of the iPhone noticed its largest iPhone manufacturing facility dropped at a halt by China’s extreme COVID lockdown measures. Whereas Foxconn moved some iPhone manufacturing to India, it was by no means going to be sufficient.

Consequently, November noticed Foxconn saying that its income progress predictions had been now little greater than childhood desires. And Apple made the uncommon transfer of issuing a press release about how the lockdowns had been affecting the manufacturing of the iPhone 14 Professional.

The quick model is that the problem might be why you possibly can’t get an iPhone 14 Professional from Apple on-line earlier than Christmas.

Foxconn has main employees issues

As you’ll have seen, China’s lockdowns had been so notably extreme that the residential inhabitants rioted about them. So did Foxconn employees — but it surely seems that they’d extra to complain about.

Foxconn and the native authorities agreed on a “closed loop” system, the place employees might work within the manufacturing facility after which sleep within the manufacturing facility dorms. That does not precisely sound like a dream job at the most effective of occasions, however November was not the most effective of occasions.

When confined to barracks, you’re depending on the meals being provided by the corporate and on this case, allegedly, that was a foul factor. A scarcity of meals was practically the final straw, however not fairly.

The actual final straw seems to have come from when Foxconn, within the face of all its issues, determined to create some extra. Though it later claimed this was a “technical error,” what occurred is that employees promised bonuses had their contracts altered to make them ineligible.

It was mentioned first that lots of of Foxconn employees rioted, however then after the state of affairs eased — and Apple apparently despatched a workforce to the positioning — issues modified. Foxconn determined to pay round 20,000 rioters provided that they left the corporate.

We’ll by no means know what Apple’s workforce mentioned to Foxconn, and we cannot ever know if that workforce additionally spoke to the employees.

It might be humorous in the event that they informed the employees to unionize.

Talking of employees

Unions and Apple is a subject that won’t go away, however November did appear to shine a specific gentle on it. And it was additionally the month that Apple Glasgow turned the primary UK Apple Retailer to unionize.

This is the factor. Again within the day, Apple Shops employees had been ambassadors for the Apple manner of doing issues.

That would normally imply them advising clients to purchase some place else if that was the precise factor for them to do. This month, we heard tales of gross sales drives, of stress to upsell, of laminated tree charts designed to inspire employees into promoting, promoting, promoting.

Apple Shops turned an astounding success by not copying different retailers. Now it is copying them, and doing so at a time when retail is struggling, and the heavy promoting approach is at finest solely working within the very quick time period.

Maybe it was true that unionization meant bringing in a 3rd get together, and that may impair the connection between Apple and its employees. That is actually Apple’s place right now, however from what we realized in November, there is not a relationship.

For one occasion, a employee mentioned this month that complaining to Apple about something was like “writing to Santa” for all the nice it did.

Whereas if unions weren’t going to assist, Apple would not be spending cash on hiring labor-busting legal professionals. Nor, as we additionally heard this month, would Apple be sending anti-union managers round its shops.

Or there may be simply this. Earlier this yr, Apple elevated the beginning pay for retail employees from $20 per hour to $22.

Perhaps Apple would have performed that anyway, in an economic system the place it is shedding folks and slicing again on hiring. Maybe it’s completely coincidental that the increase occurred when employees are speaking to unions.

Talking of layoffs

Employees relations at Apple certainly had been so much higher this month than they had been at Twitter. However then Twitter’s new proprietor Elon Musk did discover a distinctive manner of easing employees issues — by firing them.

Studies range over how a lot of Twitter’s workforce has been laid off, not least as a result of Musk retains hiring some again when he figures out what they did all day. However at occasions it is mentioned that 70% of Twitter employees are gone.

It seemed more and more doubtless in November that Twitter itself may very well be gone from the App Retailer. Whereas Tim Cook dinner mentioned publicly that he was relying on Twitter to proceed moderating its content material, Twitter was publicly not moderating its content material.

And also you knew that Twitter was at risk as a result of Musk went on the offensive, in nearly each sense of that phrase. Musk can not win the argument that he’s not permitting hate speech on Twitter when he’s permitting hate speech on it, so he took the politician’s strategy.

Musk tried to alter the battleground. Twice.

First, he briefly railed in opposition to what he referred to as Apple’s “hidden tax,” the 15% to 30% price Apple expenses for being on the App Retailer. That is so well-known that it requires a hitherto unfamiliar definition of the phrase “hidden.”

When that did not work, Musk went for the argument that Apple has paused promoting on Twitter, subsequently Apple is in opposition to free speech. You could possibly possibly make a extremely tortuous argument that it is advertiser spending that helps the service, subsequently Apple was eradicating that help.

However you did not purchase that and neither did anybody else. Simply as nobody would purchase a Twitter cellphone if Apple did drop the service.

We’ll by no means know if Musk had a 3rd fatuous battleground to attempt, although, as a result of, on the final day of November, he was referred to as in to Apple Park.

He is offered this as Tim Cook dinner giving him a private tour of Apple Park, but it surely feels a lot extra like him being despatched to the headmaster.

November was a heavy month

There have been some lighter moments in November 2022, and even perhaps a small however promising glimpse into the long run, too.

That glimpse sport from the world’s first foldable iPhone, besides it, wasn’t made by Apple. And it is not excellent.

However for instance of engineering ability and sheer laborious effort, it was uplifting. Plus you realised simply how a lot you need an actual iPhone fold.

As a substitute of giving us that, although, Apple retains on introducing these different issues, like MagSafe. Which is how in November 2022, a person was capable of fish out his misplaced iPhone from beneath floorboards.

It is nonetheless not clear why he did not simply raise the floorboard, however there you go.

And talking of there you go, November 2022 was the final time a specific reporter noticed considered one of his AirPods. Throughout a reside information report about rising crime charges, a hen stole the journalist’s AirPod proper out of his ear.

There’s in all probability some symbolism to be discovered there. However let’s as an alternative flip our consideration to December 2022, when there may be nonetheless apparently a lot Apple is because of launch.