After getting you addicted to the iPhone Apple offers software cure

On Monday, Apple executives will take the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose to lay out the iPhone maker’s software strategy for the next year and tease future hardware ambitions.Each year when it upgrades the operating systems that power the iPhone and iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, the company touts enhancements that tie people ever closer to their devices and keep them engrossed in the latest apps and games.This year, the company will highlight the opposite: using gadgets less.Apple engineers have been working on an initiative dubbed Digital Health, a series of tools to help users monitor how much time they spend on their devices and inside of certain applications.These details will be bundled into a menu inside of the settings app in iOS 12, the likely name of Apple’s refreshed mobile operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.“We need to have tools and data to allow us to understand how we consume digital media,” Tony Fadell, a former senior Apple executive who worked on the original iPhone and iPod, said in a recent interview. “We need to get finergrain language and start to understand that an iPhone is just a refrigerator, it’s not the addiction."Earlier this year, Apple investors Jana Partners and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System criticised the addictive nature of Apple’s devices. The Cupertino, Californiabased technology giant responded by saying it would add more “robust” parental controls to monitor the use of its products.Rising concern about smartphone addiction is less of a threat to Apple than other big tech companies. Apple makes most of its money selling hardware, and the Digital Health software upgrades will likely give users another reason to keep buying the company’s new devices.At its own developer conference in May, Google emphasized similar tools. The company has a new dashboard for Android phones that lets users monitor how long they’re using other apps and reminds people to take a break.Most of this year’s WWDC will still be devoted to making users want to pick up Apple gadgets. The company plans to show off its prowess in augmented reality by upgrading relatively new tools for iPhones and iPads.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2xwdqOj