Apple introduces web login; challenges Google, Facebook on privacy

The company, meanwhile, retired the iTunes app for the Mac.

Apple Inc on Monday launched a "Sign In With Apple" function to rival Facebook and Google web login accounts, drawing a contrast with rivals by stressing protection of users' information.

Apple will also tighten controls on location tracking. When users sign in with their Google or Facebook Inc profiles to third-party apps, the apps often share valuable data with Google and Facebook, a practice that Apple is looking to stop. Apple said it created a system to let users generate a random, unique email to use with each app so that users do not have to reveal their real email address.

The company, meanwhile, retired the iTunes app for the Mac. Originally introduced in 2001 by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a way to load songs onto the then-new iPod, iTunes became sprawling over the years, letting users manage music and movies as well as handle backups and updates to iPhones and iPads. Apple said it will replace iTunes with standalone apps for music, video content and podcasts.

Apple delivered the announcements to app developers who descended on San Jose, California, for the annual developer conference. Apple's App Store is a key driver of the iPhone maker's services segment, which brought in $37.1 billion in revenue last year.

Apple takes a cut of sales from apps sold through the store, though that practice is under scrutiny in several legal proceedings.

Investors are looking to Apple's services business to power revenue and profits as iPhone sales decline. Revenue from the company's signature device had its biggest-year-over year drop in Apple's most recent quarter.

But the company still sold more than 10 times as many iPhones and iPads as it did Mac computers last year, so many developers focus on writing their apps for them rather than the Mac.

Apple announced an update of the Mac Pro, a $6,000-and-up high-powered machine intended for professional users such as movie editors, with pricy add-ons such as a $1,000 monitor stand. The Mac Pro has never sold in great numbers but the device is important to Apple's image as a technology leader and in courting the creative professionals who Jobs won over. Microsoft Corp has targeted the same users with its Surface Studio computers.

Buisness Standard

We don't spy for China: Huawei founder breaks silence, praises Trump

Ren told a group of reporters on Tuesday that he missed his daughter very much, and that he would wait to see if President Trump intervened in her case.

To entrepreneurs in China, he is a legend akin to Steve Jobs.

To United States officials, he is the secretive mastermind behind a company that is extending the Chinese government’s ability to infiltrate computer systems and data networks around the world.

But for all his fame and power, Ren Zhengfei, the 74-year-old founder and chief executive of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, may no longer have the luxury of letting his company’s success speak for itself.

In his first public comments since United States authorities arranged for the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, who is also Huawei’s chief financial officer, Mr. Ren told a group of reporters on Tuesday that he missed his daughter very much, and that he would wait to see if President Trump intervened in her case. He called Mr. Trump a “great president,” and said that his tax cuts had helped American business.

Ms. Meng was arrested in Canada last month on accusations of defrauding banks to help Huawei’s business in Iran. Washington is seeking her extradition, but Mr. Trump has suggested that he might intercede if it would help China and the United States reach a deal to end their trade war. Huawei has said that it is unaware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.

And last week, the Polish authorities said they had arrested a Huawei employee there on charges of spying for Beijing. The company fired the man on Saturday.

Mr. Ren insisted that his company had not spied for China.

“I love my country. I support the Communist Party. But I will never do anything to harm any country in the world,” Mr. Ren said on Tuesday. A company spokesman confirmed his remarks.

Huawei has 180,000 employees and has become the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment. It estimates that it generated more than $100 billion in sales last year, and it sells more smartphones around the world than Apple. Yet Mr. Ren seldom appears in public.

When he has spoken to the news media in the past, he has played down his achievements, attributing Huawei’s success to its employees’ hard work. He has said that his company has never spied for any government — an assertion that has not eased the concerns of American counterintelligence officials.

For most of its existence, Huawei was opaque to people in China, too.

It was founded in 1987, but it did not begin publishing the names and biographies of its board members until its 2010 annual report. Mr. Ren spoke to the news media for the first time in 2013. The next year, he told The Independent of London that he had no hobbies, prompting a colleague to lean in and suggest that he enjoyed reading and drinking tea.

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