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Microsoft To End Support for SwiftKey on iOS Devices From October 5, 2022

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Microsoft has evidently confirmed that the firm is terminating the support for SwiftKey predictive text keyboard on iOS. The firm has updated its support page to point out the news that iPhone users can no longer download this application as of October 5 since it will be delisted on the App Store.

support for SwiftKey
Image Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Director of Product Management at SwiftKey, Microsoft, Chris Wolfe has claimed that the firm will continue to support for SwiftKey on Android and confirmed the delisting, stating:

“As of October 5, support for SwiftKey iOS will end and it will be delisted from the Apple App Store. Microsoft will continue support for SwiftKey Android as well as the underlying technology that powers the Windows touch keyboard. For those customers who have SwiftKey installed on iOS, it will continue to work until it is manually uninstalled or a user gets a new device. Please visit Support.SwiftKey.com for more information.”

Source: pcmag.com

What is SwiftKey

SwiftKey is a common keyboard application for smartphones that provides predictive texting with AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms. This app attempts to guess what the users want to say even before they type and also enables users to type in multiple languages simultaneously and they don’t have to switch between languages. Additionally, the application provides multiple different and unique customizable themes and many more things.

SwiftKey has been downloaded by more than 500 million users on their Android devices. That may be the reason why the app will continue to be available and supported on Android. SwiftKey received its last update for Android in May that made it easier for the users to delete text and it has also added an additional option to disable the automatic spaces after every punctuation.

Microsoft acquired the SwiftKey platform was already one of the highly popular keyboard applications on Android and iOS as it has achieved revenue of about 250 million dollars in 2016. It was rolled out on Android in 2010 and arrived on iOS in 2014.

SwiftKey’s technology is also being used in Windows 11, particularly for the windows touch keyboard, and furthermore, it is also capable of syncing the clipboard data between Windows and Android devices.

Why Microsoft is terminating SwiftKey on iOS

The U.S tech giant has not given a clear reason for its decision to end the SwiftKey support for iPhone users. They might be facing issues and challenges to provide the enhanced cross-device experience that it wants for iOS users. Furthermore, some users on Reddit indicated that the iOS version of SwiftKey has not even received the latest update for about a year.

The firm has also updated the Android client ability of SwiftKey with the ability to sync clipboard over devices using the cloud recently which is difficult to be done on the iOS platform since Apple’s closed ecosystem prohibits certain applications from accessing important parts of iOS and maintains some restrictions on were these keyboards can or cannot be used.

They cannot be used to type passwords or other passcodes and they can be forbidden on smartphones that are locked down through MDM (mobile device management) software. Apple has added certain most common third-party keyboard features to the built-in iOS keyboards in recent years such as searchable emoji and swiping to type

This might be the reason why apps like Phone Link are only available and accessible on Android and not on iOS. Since the SwiftKey keyboard is discontinued, users can switch to other alternatives like Google’s Gboard.

Moto G72

Moto G72 India to Launch on October 3, 2022: Check Specs and other features

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Recently, Motorola unveiled numerous smartphones all over the world. Despite this, the company doesn’t intend to stop releasing new smartphones. The company will reportedly announce yet another phone next week, according to the most recent source. Under its G series, Motorola is introducing a brand-new smartphone in India. The Moto G72 is scheduled to go on sale in the country on 3rd October. On its official Twitter account, Motorola shared the new smartphone and provided the launch date.

Moto G72
Image Source: gadgets360.com

The smartphone is also featured on Flipkart, confirming its characteristic features. With multiple launches planned, the upcoming month is going to be busy for smartphone manufacturers and enthusiasts. Google has also declared that the Pixel 7 series will debut in India. 

In advance of the Moto G72’s debut, the company has now disclosed some of the most important details, including availability. As with other Motorola smartphones, the forthcoming smartphone will be offered via Flipkart. The smartphone will be available in two colors: Meteorite Grey and Polar Blue.

It has been announced that the smartphone would have a punch-hole pOLED display with a center alignment and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The phone will feature HDR10 support, DCI-P3 color gamut, 10-bit color, and 1,300 nits of brightness. The manufacturer affirmed that the phone will support IP52-rated water-repellent and include an in-screen fingerprint scanner.

The Moto G72 will have a triple camera system with a 108-megapixel primary camera, an ultra-wide camera that also functions as a depth sensor, and a third camera. In this model, there will also be a specialized macro camera. The manufacturer has also hinted that the phone will have twin Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers. The forthcoming Motorola smartphone will be driven by a MediaTek Helio G99 SoC along with 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of internal storage, providing strong performance.

The phone will come pre-installed with the stock Android 12 operating system. A 5,000mAh battery that supports 33W rapid charging will power the phone out of the box.

According to Motorola, the new smartphone will resemble the Edge 30 Fusion quite a bit, but unlike the G71, it won’t support when it debuts. However, Motorola hopes to make up for that by introducing the G72 to its sector of the Indian smartphone market for the first time with a 1,300-nit, 120Hz pOLED display with a 10-bit color rated to mimic a billion colors. The smartphone will come pre-installed with Android 12 and Motorola India’s steadfast ThinkShield security protections. 

Motorola Mobility LLC, branded as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics company, and a subsidiary of Lenovo. Motorola primarily makes and sells Android smartphones. In 2011, the company was divided into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, two independent public businesses, following a $4.3 billion loss from 2007 to 2009.

Motorola Mobility took ownership of the firm’s consumer-oriented product offerings (such as its mobile phone market, TV set-top boxes and cable modems) and Motorola Solutions took ownership of the firm’s enterprise-oriented business units. Since Motorola Mobility was spun out during the reorganization, Motorola Solutions is typically seen as the immediate successor to Motorola, Inc. Motorola Mobility( handset division) was purchased by Lenovo in 2014 from Google.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare announces a $1.25 Bn “Workers Launchpad” investment initiative program for startups

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Cloudflare, a renowned firm for providing security, performance, and reliability services helping to develop a better internet has declared a new funding program for startups on 28th September 2022 in partnership with leading venture capital investors.

Cloudflare
Image Source: secutec.eu

The Workers Launchpad Funding Program will offer up to 1.25 billion USD of financing to various startups developing applications on Cloudflare Workers which is a highly scalable serverless computing platform that enables and assists developers to create or augment apps without maintaining or configuring the costly infrastructure.

“If there is one thing venture capitalists look for in the companies they fund, it is the potential to achieve significant scale. Startups that build on Cloudflare Workers are building on a platform made to automatically support serious scale,” said Matthew Prince, Co-founder, and chief executive officer of Cloudflare. “While we can provide the technology, we’re thrilled to partner with some of the leading venture capital firms on the Workers launchpad funding program, who will potentially invest more than a billion dollars in funding towards great startups built on Cloudflare workers as they scale”

Source: ciosea.economictimes.indiatimes.com

Cloudflare claims, startups can scale so fast by using a platform that it acquired last year known as Zaraz which promises to speed up website performance with a single line of code, in a related press release.

This funding program is undoubtedly about Cloudflare aiming for hugely lucrative products such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure as far as we can tell. When the Cloudflare Chief Executive Officer, Prince Matthew, was asked why Cloudflare thinks it can steal market share from these much larger firms.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘stealing’ market share from anyone,” he said. “It’s a matter of earning market share, and the way you earn market share is by providing a better product at a more affordable price.”Asked how much more affordable, he said merely that it’s “significantly less expensive than the legacy public clouds” because of how it’s built. As Prince explains it, modern browsers “encounter new, untrusted code with nearly every page they open online today. They need a way to quickly and safely execute that code [and use a] technology called isolates to achieve that.” Cloudflare Workers, which is the name of the platform, “takes the isolates technology inspired by the browser and makes it available as a developer platform.”

Source: techcrunch.com

Cloudflare is in partnership with twenty-six leading venture capital enterprises such as Altimeter Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Amplify Partners, Altos Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Boldstart Ventures, Decibel, IVP, Cowboy Ventures, FirstMarks, Meritech, Lightspeed, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Root Ventures, Emergence Capital, Pear, Scale Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Silverton Partners, Signal Peak, StepStone Group, Threshold Ventures, Venrock, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock and Vertex Ventures US to assist developers through Cloudflare Workers to develop their applications.

Any private firm worldwide which is building on Cloudflare Workers is qualified for applying to the program. Companies will receive a cash investment from these partner firms if they get selected by these participating firms. They will also receive mentorship and assistance from Cloudflare.

As of now, thousands of developers all over the world rely on Cloudflare Workers to build and deploy applications without maintaining or configuring the expensive infrastructure.

The developers can deploy code close to their users, maintaining the speed, performance, and scale of Cloudflare to their customers with its network spanning more than 275 cities across 100 countries around the world. More than 5,00,000 developers have developed on Cloudflare’s developer platform and launched more than three million applications since 2017.

Fast Company

After an Apple News feed hack, Fast Company takes down its website

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Fast Company, a US-based business news publication, stated on Wednesday that two racist offensive push notifications were delivered to consumers via its Apple News alerts as a result of a high-profile media feed hack.

Fast Company
Image Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

As soon as the situation was rectified, Apple took down the Fast Company channel from its platform. In order to offer push alerts to Apple consumers who subscribe to the news publisher’s channel, news publishers utilizing the Apple News aggregation application can link existing digital publishing tools to Apple News.

Fast Company claims that such publishing tools were compromised by hackers. Two offensive and racist push notifications were sent by hackers one minute apart, according to a tweet from Fast Company, which also stated that the Apple News stream had been suspended while the problem was examined.

Before it vanished, the hackers left a statement on Fast Company’s website explaining how they gained access by using a password that was used by numerous users, including an administrator.

The hackers gave the following message, “Wow, Fast Company. Despite the public defacement of your site, which boasts millions of visitors, all you did was hastily change your database credentials, disable outside connections to the database server, and fix the articles. What an absolute disgrace of a news source, and one that I would personally avoid due to how little they care about user security.”

The hacker behind the intrusion, who goes by the handle “Thrax,” however, released a sponsored content article before the site was taken down that described how the attackers were able to hack the magazine. According to the message, Fast Company had login details that were “ridiculously easy” and used on numerous accounts, such as an administrator.

The hacker was able to send out emails using any @fastcompany.com email thanks to the attacker’s access to a variety of sensitive data, namely authentication tokens, Apple News API credentials, and Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) tokens. The Fast Company hacker stated they were unable to access client records because they were probably kept in a database server.

The hacker claims to have earlier compromised the photo-sharing portal ClickASnap and the self-described free-speech social media platform USA Life. In a separate message posted on Sunday to a well-known hacking forum, the attacker stated they were going to release a database with 6,737 Fast Company employee information. This database included information on the employees’ email accounts, password hashes, unpublished drafts, etc.

Reuters attempted to access the Fast Company website on Tuesday night, but it was unavailable and the page gave a 404 error. Following the shutdown, Fast Company claimed that the notifications were sent using a hack of its content management system, which is used by news organizations to publish and maintain their stories.

Business, technology, and design are the main topics of the American business magazine Fast Company. It is accessible online and in print. Six print issues are published each year. Fast Company is owned by the publishing firm Mansueto Ventures LLC.

Samsung partnered with Axis Bank

Samsung partnered with Axis Bank to launch their credit card in India

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Samsung India declared its first ever credit card in India on Monday 26 September 2022. Samsung partnered with Axis Bank and visa to launch this credit card that will offer the users a 10 percent cashback on all Samsung products and services around the year.

Samsung partnered with Axis Bank
Image Source: indiatoday.in

It has entered a crowded category that sees about 50 firms compete for users’ attention in the world’s second-largest internet market.

“The Samsung Axis Bank Credit Card, powered by Visa, is our next big India-specific innovation that will change the way our customers buy Samsung products,” said Ken Kang, President and CEO, Samsung South-West Asia.

Source: siasat.com

The South Korean tech giant, Samsung partnered with Axis Bank headquartered in Mumbai, and Global payments processor Visa to launch the cards known by the name ‘Samsung Axis Bank Credit Card’.

There is a monthly cap of 2500 INR (roughly $31) on the signature card. However, the infinite card extends that limit by four times.

The cashback is capped at 10,000 INR ($123) yearly on the signature card and 20,000 INR (about $246) on the infinite card.

The second largest smartphone seller in India, Samsung, has claimed that it will provide its customers with exciting financing options on credit cards. These cards are especially aimed at serving users in smaller Indian cities and towns.

Even if the space that Samsung is entering is really crowded and narrow but the opportunity here is undoubtedly large. According to industry estimates, Indian banks have issued about a billion debit cards to customers in the country but only fewer than 25 million unique individuals in the nation have a credit card.

Users will receive rewards on their spending through their cards and get access to deals from local companies such as food delivery platform Zomato, fashion e-commerce Myntra, grocer Bigbasket, online pharmacy Tata’s 1 mg, and Urban Company.

The announcement made on Monday underscores smartphone makers growing attempt to expand their services. Chinese giant, Xiaomi, which dominates the smartphone market in the country, rolled out a payment service powered by UPI in India in 2019 and started to lend customers last year.

Co-branded cards are generally beneficial for both the partner brand and the customers as it enables power users of a brand to get higher benefits as they spend more time with the brand.

“We realize that 70 percent of consumers are upgrading their devices within 12 months of purchase in the country. This co-branded credit card will help them save their hard-earned money while enjoying new devices with this industry-first offering,” Raju Pullan, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, told IANS.

“The card is RBI-complaint and meets all the latest requirements of the central bank, including on tokenisation. The consumer electronics and technology space is open for disruption and we are the first, along with Samsung, to distrust this space,” Sanjeev Moghe, President and Head, Cards and Payments at Axis Bank, told IANS.

Source: siasat.com

On the signature card, the annual fee is $6.13 before taxes. However, the infinite card levies a charge by 10 times the current value. The firm claims that it will soon begin accepting applications from customers for the card.

The card also provides complimentary airport lounge access, dining offers, a fuel surcharge waiver, and access to a bundle of offers from Axis Bank and Visa.

MD and chief executive officer of Axis Bank, Amitabh Choudhary, said that their main focus is to provide product prepositions and cares for the customers’ evolving needs and offer them a seamless experience.

iPhone 14 in India

iPhone may get cheap as Apple starts manufacturing iPhone14 in India.

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Apple Inc. revealed on Monday that it will make the newest iPhone 14 in India as the tech giant moves some of its manufacturing out of China. Since 2017, Apple has been producing iPhones in India, however often they were older models. Apple recently introduced the newest iPhone 14 model in its collection.

iPhone 14 in India
Image Source: macrumors.com

The device is being produced in the Sriperumbudur factory near Chennai by the company’s international partner Foxconn. Apple will sell phones made in India both domestically and internationally. In the next few days, users in India will start receiving the iPhones manufactured locally.

Apple continues to produce the majority of its iPhones primarily in China. Even while the majority of the world works to open its communities, Beijing has continued to use the tactic of lockdowns to quell Covid revivals. Production has been halted at facilities across China due to lockdowns caused by the zero-Covid policy, and certain possible weak links in Apple’s supply chain have been revealed.

Apple has been working to increase revenues in India, the second largest smartphone marketplace in the world, in the interim. According to Counterpoint Research, Apple only held a 3.8% market share in the country last year while cheaper rivals like Samsung and China’s Xiaomi continued to rule.

However, in the second quarter, Apple was the best top seller in the ultra-premium( phones over Rs. 45000) category. That’s because its iPhone 13 devices from the previous generation had good sales.

By 2025, according to analysts, Apple will gradually reduce its dependence on China, where it has been manufacturing the large bulk of its gadgets for more than a decade, and develop India into a worldwide hub for iPhone production.

According to research released earlier this month by JP Morgan analysts, Apple would increase its production capabilities in India to manufacture 25% of all its iPhones by 2025 and relocate 5% of worldwide iPhone 14 production there by late 2022. In recent years, India has drawn investments from Apple’s production partners Wistron and Foxconn by providing generous subsidies as Delhi works to establish the nation as a manufacturing hub.

JP Morgan analysts claim that India is a suitable location due to the presence of global production giants as well as “ample labor resources and competitive labor prices.”

As its capacity for domestic production of iPhone 14 in India grows, many people would anticipate a decrease in the price of Apple’s mobile devices there. The standard iPhone 14 model costs Rs. 79,900 which is equivalent to $799 in the United States. The entry-level iPhone Pro Max has a retail price of $1,099 in the United States, but it costs $1,717 in India.

Apple has boosted its investment in India during the past five years, despite the fact that it only has a small share of the country’s market. It introduced the country’s online Apple Store two years ago, and it has since announced that it’s working on the inauguration of the first-ever physical Apple Store in the nation.

Samsung, a rival to Apple, has already established one of its largest plants in India and views it as a crucial global manufacturing base. The market leader in smartphones, Xiaomi from China, as well as rivals Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus all, assemble some of their products locally.

The Information recently reported that Google also plans to move some of the manufacturing of its Pixel products to India. The business announced last week that it would introduce the next Pixel 7 devices in India after forgoing shipping flagship models there for two generations.

Apple’s emphasis on production in India demonstrates the tech giant’s intention to spread production outside of China and grow its client base in India, which is currently a minor market for the business.