Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 12 July 2018
How Apple's app store changed our world

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE most of all. Its "free" apps
AP Technology Writer usually display advertising
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — or make money from sub-
A decade ago, Apple scriptions or other in-app
opened a store peddling purchases, while others
iPhone apps, unlocking the charge users to download.
creativity of software de- Apple takes a cut of this
velopers and letting users action, sometimes as much
truly make their mobile de- as 30 percent.
vices their own. The app store is now the
The resulting explosion of fastest growing part of
phone apps — there are Apple's business. Together
now more than 2 million with other Apple services,
for the iPhone alone — has the app store generated
changed daily life for bil- $33 billion in revenue over
lions of people around the the year that ended in
world. March. The company says
It has unleashed new ways it has paid out more than
for us to work and play $100 billion to developers
— and to become so dis- during the past decade.
tracted that we sometimes THE OTHER SIDE OF APPS
forget to look up from our This March 19, 2018 file photo shows Apple's App Store app in Baltimore. Associated Press For all the possibilities apps
screens. It has created new have allowed, there's also
industries — think ride-hail- None of that was going on came the App Store, which lion iPhones . a dark side.
ing services like Uber, which when Apple's app store de- offered 500 programs users THE APP ECONOMY The Center for Humane
would be unimaginable buted 10 years ago Tues- could take or leave them- That app tsunami, and Technology, an advoca-
without mobile apps — and day. At the time, mobile selves. During its first week- the riches it generated, cy group formed by early
pumped up demand for phones were largely a take- end, people downloaded spawned new economic employees of Google and
software developers and it-or-leave it proposition, 10 million apps — many of opportunities. Billions of Facebook, charges that
coding schools. with features programmed them games. dollars flowed into startups many apps are engineered
But it has also opened the by their manufacturers and Apple competitors Google, dependent on their apps, specifically to capture our
door to an age of technol- customization mostly lim- Amazon and Microsoft from Uber to Snapchat to attention, often to our det-
ogy anxiety, rife with con- ited to a choice between soon launched their own Spotify to game makers like riment. That makes them
cerns that apps are serving tinny electronic ringtones. app stores. Together, Angry Birds creator Rovio. "part of a system designed
us a little too well and hold- The iPhone itself was still in these companies now of- Opportunities for software to addict us ," the group
ing our attention whether its infancy, with only 6 mil- fer roughly 7 million apps developers blossomed as says.
we want them to or not. lion devices sold during . Apple, meanwhile, has well. Apple says it shares similar
IN THE BEGINNING the device's first year. Then now sold more than a bil- Apple perhaps benefited concerns. q

Facebook faces U.K. fine over its

privacy scandal

$11.97 billion. But it would than that. According to for- company "should now
represent the first tangible mer Cambridge Analytica make the results of their in-
punishment for the com- data scientist Christopher ternal investigations known
pany's privacy scandal, Wylie, a whistleblower, the to the ICO, our committee
which tarnished its reputa- firm aimed to construct and other relevant investi-
tion, temporarily pushed psychographic profiles it gatory authorities."
down its shares and forced could use to sway the votes Facebook's chief privacy
CEO Mark Zuckerberg to of susceptible individuals. officer, Erin Egan, said in a
testify before Congress, but Cambridge Analytica shut statement that the compa-
In this Tuesday, April 18, 2017, file photo, conference workers otherwise led to few lasting down its business in May. ny is reviewing the ICO re-
speak in front of a demo booth at Facebook's annual F8 repercussions. The ICO investigation port and will respond soon.
developer conference, in San Jose, Calif. Cambridge Analytica, a found that Facebook "con- She added: "As we have
Associated Press
London firm financed by travened the law by failing said before, we should
By The Associated Press to fine Facebook 500,000 wealthy Republican do- to safeguard people's infor- have done more to inves-
Associated Press pounds ($663,000) for fail- nors, worked for the 2016 mation" and didn't inform tigate claims about Cam-
LONDON (AP) — Facebook ing to safeguard that user Trump campaign and for a its users "about how their bridge Analytica and take
is facing its first financial information. The amount while employed Steve Ban- information was harvested action in 2015."
penalty for allowing the is the maximum that the non, the Trump campaign by others." The office's deci- Facebook faces several
data-mining firm Cam- agency, the Information CEO and later a White sion isn't yet final. Facebook other investigations, in-
bridge Analytica to forage Commissioner's Office, can House adviser. will have an opportunity to cluding others in Europe,
through the personal data levy for violation of Britain's Facebook said the com- respond to the findings, af- a probe by the U.S. Fed-
of millions of unknowing data-privacy laws. pany illicitly gained access ter which the office will ren- eral Trade Commission
Facebook users. The penalty is a pittance for to personal information of der a final judgment. and, reportedly, several
A U.K. government office Facebook, which gener- up to 87 million users via an Damian Collins, the chair- others at federal agencies
that investigated the Cam- ates that sum roughly every academic intermediary, man of the U.K. Parlia- such as the FBI and the
bridge Analytica scandal seven minutes, based on although the firm said the ment's media committee, Securities and Exchange
announced its intention its first-quarter revenue of number was much smaller said Wednesday that the Commission.q