Apple's new Chief People Officer, the large-scale test rollout of Apple Pay Later, and the difficulties Apple faces in shifting its manufacturing base to India
| 1. Apple will split its retail and human resources (HR) leadership roles when it hires its first-ever Chief People Officer. Carol Surface is set to become Apple's head of HR, taking over the responsibility from Deirdre O'Brien, who simultaneously led Apple's retail and HR operations following the departure of former retail chief Angela Ahrendts in 2019. |
| 2. Apple is facing obstacles in its manufacturing pivot to India, reports the Financial Times citing people familiar with the matter. The tech giant found that only 50% of the components produced by Indian firm Tata are at a high enough standard to be assembled into Apple products, despite Tata seeking to become a major part of Apple's supply chain |
| 3. Thousands of Apple's retail employees have been offered access to a test version of Apple Pay Later. The move signals that Apple is preparing for a public release of its much-anticipated buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, which was originally intended to be launched in Sept. 2022. |
| 4. Apple will scrutinize customers' spending histories and device ownership when deciding whether to issue loans through Apple Pay Later. The company is establishing the rules for approving transactions for its "buy-now-pay-later" program, which is set to become the first financial service ever backed by Apple. |
| 5. Audiobook voice actors have expressed concern that Apple may have used them to train their digital replacements, reports Wired. Audiobook distributor Findaway Voices was recently acquired by Spotify, prompting complaints from authors and narrators who claim that they were not made aware of a contract clause that may have allowed Apple to use their work to produce synthetic voices for audiobooks. |
| 6. Apple has released a fix for a software vulnerability that allowed hackers to carry out zero-day attacks on Apple devices. The bug, hidden in Apple's frequently targeted WebKit browser engine, was revealed by The Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. |
| 7. The success of Apple Silicon is helping ARM weather a major downturn in the global PC market. Data from Counterpoint Research shows that the U.K.-based semiconductor firm will see resilient demand through 2023 largely due to Apple's decision to base its M1 and M2 processors on ARM architecture. |