Apple has suffered a significant setback in an enormous unequal pay lawsuit against the corporate after a female worker allegedly found a male colleague's tax form on an office printer that suggested men on the Cupertino company were paid more for a similar jobs than Women. A judge on Friday rejected the iPhone maker's try to stop legal motion.

According to her lawsuit filed in June, Justina Jong, who worked in Apple's retail and marketing division for greater than a decade, discovered the 2019 W-2 form on a printer at considered one of the corporate's Sunnyvale offices where she was worked. The document allegedly showed that the person was paid nearly $10,000 more for a similar work than Jong, who still works at Apple.

The alleged revelation led to legal motion skyrocketing, with Jong's lawyers looking for class-action status to incorporate greater than 12,000 current and former female employees in Apple's California engineering, marketing and AppleCare units.

The lawsuit alleged that until late 2017, Apple asked job applicants about their previous salaries, which resulted in the corporate paying women lower starting salaries than men for a similar work. After a California law went into effect in 2018 that prohibits employers from asking job applicants about their salary history, Apple began asking applicants about their salary expectations, the lawsuit says. Research suggests that an individual's stated salary expectations are typically only barely higher than their previous salary. Apple's use of such information to set salaries due to this fact “had the effect of perpetuating previous pay disparities and causing women to be paid less than men,” the lawsuit says.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge last week torpedoed the corporate's try to block class-action status and dismiss it.

Apple – value greater than $3 trillion on the stock market and led by CEO Tim Cook, who received a salary of $74.6 million last 12 months — didn’t reply to requests for comment on the judge's order and the claims within the lawsuit.

The company argued in a lawsuit that the main points of every women's employment and the person decisions of their supervisors made it not possible for the court to think about their allegations together in a category motion lawsuit. The company has also claimed that Jong and the opposite two named plaintiffs within the case, Amina Salgado and Zainab Bori, did not discover any company practices that resulted in unequal pay.

Judge Ethan Schulman rejected that argument in a written order Friday, ruling that evidence have to be presented to find out whether there may be a “community of interest” among the many 1000’s of potential class motion plaintiffs, or as an alternative that a category motion will not be possible due to “individual interests.” is trouble.” There is a “reasonable possibility” that the lawsuit's allegations that Apple violated California's equal pay law meet the threshold for a class action lawsuit, Schulman wrote.

In response to Apple's claim that plaintiffs' attorneys failed to identify a company practice that results in a gender pay gap, the judge ruled that plaintiffs' claim that compensation policies are “centrally determined” and applied to everyone Californian employees are applied in the same way is sufficient for the allegation of the gender gap to be addressed.

The lawsuit highlights the problem of gender discrimination in Silicon Valley's male-dominated technology industry. Mountain View digital advertising giant Google has agreed to pay $118 million to up to 15,500 women in 2022 to settle a years-long class action lawsuit against the company latest diversity reportBy placing female workers in lower pay grades than men, giving women lower-paying jobs, promoting women more slowly and less frequently, and generally paying female workers less than men for similar work, it turns out that about a third of the workforce is women. Bay Area tech giants HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise agreed to pay $1.45 million in 2020 after the U.S. Department of Labor accused them of “systemic pay discrimination” against female employees.

Apple's latest diversity report Like Google, a workforce of around a third is women.

Jong's lawsuit also alleges that from 2015 to 2022, she was sexually harassed by a senior member of Apple's “talent development team” who allegedly touched her, stared at her, and made sexually suggestive comments. Even though Jong moved to a different department, Apple allegedly pressured her to continue working with the man — who was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit — moving him to an office next to hers in March 2022 and refusing to let her move.

Apple argued that Jong's claims stemmed from a single incident in 2019, so the statute of limitations barred it from enforcing them in court. The company also claimed that Jong did not allege “severe or widespread” harassment.

Schulman pointed out that Jong claimed the harassment continued past that date, so the statute of limitations did not apply. The judge also noted that Jong claimed her colleague sexually harassed her “often” and she “became aware that the person usually commented on the attractiveness of female employees and sometimes harassed others.” If her allegations were true, Schulman wrote, one could reasonably conclude that the man's behavior was “each severe and pervasive.”

If approved by the court, the category of 1000’s of plaintiffs can be open to all women in departments who began working at Apple within the 4 years before the lawsuit was filed, in addition to those that were hired before the lawsuit was accomplished.

Originally published: January 22, 2025 at 3:25 pm PST

Apple's impending release of the iPhone has boosted the corporate's stock price on the promise of artificial intelligence. If history is any guide, those gains look like in danger, at the very least within the short term.

After an iPhone launches, the corporate's stock typically underperforms. This sets a cautious precedent when expectations are sky-high and Apple's stock price is kind of high relative to earnings, leaving little room for error.

Apple shares fell on 12 of the 17 iPhone launch days, in keeping with data compiled by Bloomberg. Additionally, September was the worst month for Apple shares up to now decade, falling a median of three.2%. This follows a broader trend, as each the SP 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also posted their biggest percentage losses this month, in keeping with Stock Trader's Almanac.

Apple closed at $220.85 on Wednesday, down $1.92, or 0.86%.

If the newest iPhone fails to satisfy expectations when it comes to product features or sales, Apple could see a repeat of this valuation slump.

“It's easy to imagine a scenario where the market has built up all this excitement, but then you have to wait until we get concrete evidence that Apple's AI strategy is working,” said Denny Fish, who manages the $7 billion Janus Henderson Global Technology and Innovation Fund. “While there is a desire for AI capabilities, there is also room for skepticism and the price-to-earnings ratio is at the high end,” he added. “This is generally not a good time to buy.”

The company will hold a product announcement event on September 9. Bloomberg News recently reported that the newest phones will go on sale on September 20, however the AI ​​features won't roll out until October via software updates.

Apple shares have risen 39 percent since their April low, adding greater than $900 billion to the corporate's market capitalization and contributing 22.6 percent to the Nasdaq 100 Index's total gains through the period — greater than another component, in keeping with Bloomberg data.

Apple's shares are valued at 31 times expected earnings, greater than 50 percent higher than the common price-earnings ratio over the past decade. Last month, the sales multiple reached 8.8, its highest since at the very least 2000.

Optimism concerning the company's AI strategy has been a key driver of the rally. Citi named Apple its top AI pick for 2025, and Daniel Loeb's Third Point LLC recently weighed in, writing in an investor letter that “AI-related demand could drive significant improvement in Apple's revenue and profit over the next few years.”

Growth has been in brief supply at Apple for a while. Revenue has fallen in five of the last seven quarters, and analysts forecast it should rise just 1.8% in fiscal 2024 before accelerating to 7.9% growth the next 12 months. In contrast, the general SP 500 technology sector is anticipated to see revenue growth of 10.9% in 2024 and 12.7% in 2025, in keeping with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Ironically, growth has been muted due to improvements to the iPhone. Customers are keeping their phones longer because cameras and batteries have gotten higher and costlier, so there's little reason to spend money on a brand new model.

Given the importance of the iPhone to Apple's product lineup – it accounted for nearly half of revenue last quarter – Wall Street expects its sophisticated AI features to encourage more customers to upgrade, accelerating growth.

The pool of users thinking about a brand new iPhone is potentially huge. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, over 40% of Apple's 800 million-plus smartphones are iPhone 12 or older, and one other 27% of users have an iPhone 13. Less than 10% of current users have phones that may be upgraded to the AI ​​software.

However, a BI survey of U.S. smartphone users conducted in July found that artificial intelligence might not be enough to drive upgrades, which might jeopardize Apple's resurgence.

MoffettNathanson recently initiated coverage on the stock with a neutral rating, writing that the valuation “implies an iPhone upgrade cycle that is significantly larger than the 5G upgrade cycle of 2021/22.” The firm is skeptical that Apple can achieve this, especially given the rate of interest environment.

Despite these risks, there stays great optimism concerning the importance of AI to Apple's long-term growth, and the upgrade cycle is more likely to span several years.

Even if there’s a sell-off around the discharge of the brand new iPhone, the brand new iPhone will generate sales and profits over time, which could boost the stock price, says Eric Johnston, chief equity and macro strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald.

“The multiple is clearly high right now, but expensive names can stay expensive if the momentum is there,” he said. “I think that will be the case with Apple.”

Apple Inc. is planning a new edition of the Mac mini, the corporate's smallest desktop computer ever, as a part of a significant overhaul of the Mac line with AI-focused chips.

The latest model, due later this 12 months, will mark the primary major design change to the Mini because it was redesigned under Steve Jobs in 2010, people aware of the matter said. The device shall be significantly smaller than its predecessor and nearly the scale of an Apple TV set-top box, in line with the people, who asked to not be identified since the work is classed.

The updated mini is considered one of several latest Macs coming in the subsequent few months. The company is preparing versions of the iMac desktop and MacBook Pro with M4-series chips, also for this 12 months. MacBook Airs are in development for spring, and models of the Mac Pro and Mac Studio are planned for the center of next 12 months.

The mass upgrade to the M4 processor is one other milestone for Apple: It is the primary time that the corporate has installed the identical generation of chips in all of its Macs. The M4 chip – which is already installed within the iPad Pro – is meant to power latest artificial intelligence features that Apple will introduce later this 12 months.

A spokesman for Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment on the corporate's plans.

Despite the general smaller design, the brand new Mac mini could also be larger than the present version. Today's model is about 1.4 inches tall. The updated edition will proceed to have an aluminum chassis.

The Apple TV box has a diameter of about 3.7 inches – currently lower than half the scale of the Mac mini.

Apple has tested models which have at the very least three USB-C ports on the back of the Mini, along with an area to plug in the ability cable and an HDMI port for connecting the device to TVs and monitors.

People involved in the event of the brand new Mac mini say it's essentially an iPad Pro in a small package – an approach that takes advantage of the lower power consumption of the corporate's own chips. The current Mac mini starts at $599. While the brand new model could also be cheaper to supply, it's unclear whether the corporate will pass the savings on to the patron.

Apple suppliers plan to start shipping units of the usual M4 later this month, which can launch later within the 12 months. Units with the higher-end M4 Pro won't be available to consumers until October. The Mac mini was last updated with M2 and M2 Pro chips in early 2023. It received the M1 chip in November 2020 as a part of the primary Mac lineup to feature Apple silicon.

Apple's move to its own computer processors boosted sales and accelerated the pace of upgrades, but demand for Macs has waned because the pandemic, when consumers rushed to equip their home offices.

The category generated sales of about $7 billion last quarter, up 2.5% from the previous 12 months.

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Originally published: August 9, 2024 at 11:46 am

Google's defeat in an antitrust case brought by the Justice Department casts a shadow on its partner Apple Inc., which receives annual payments of around $20 billion from the Internet search engine giant.

Apple shares fell nearly 5% on Monday after a judge ruled that Google's payments to device makers – in exchange for preferential placement of its search engine – were illegal. The ruling gave the Justice Department a victory in its first major antitrust case against Big Tech in greater than twenty years.

For Apple, this move jeopardizes a source of income that has contributed to higher sales in recent times. But the iPhone manufacturer has already broken away from its dependence on traditional Internet search engines like google. Apple is redesigning its digital assistant Siri to process queries even higher and is integrating AI chatbots into its software. The company is betting that AI technology will eventually gain the upper hand.

This underscores the federal government's battle with the technology industry: it’s moving so fast that by the point a serious reckoning comes, the industry is already busy reorganizing itself for the subsequent innovation.

Apple is integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT features into its software and plans to do the identical with Google's chatbot Gemini. Over time, the corporate may steer consumers toward AI and Siri reasonably than the online browser.

That would give Apple the power to enter into recent, non-exclusive agreements with AI vendors – including Google – that don't run afoul of the U.S. government. Still, it’s going to likely be a few years before Apple makes serious money from AI.

The decision is not any picnic for Google, considering how much money the corporate paid Apple to make the corporate's search engine the default option.

“In the short term, it could actually save them a lot of money,” says Ari Paparo, an promoting entrepreneur who previously worked at Google.

Monday's decision didn’t specify how Google could satisfy the federal government, but Judge Amit Mehta has scheduled a hearing for next month to debate the timing of a separate trial on the problem. It's unlikely the court could force Apple to drop Google as a search partner altogether as one in all the remedies, but it surely could potentially change the terms of the agreement — and create a level playing field.

One theoretical scenario can be that Apple would suggest different search engine options to consumers after they first activate their recent device. Such a system could work similarly to a menu on Apple devices within the European Union that presents a alternative of web browsers.

This approach would still leave Google as an option, but customers could also select alternatives like Microsoft Bing or DuckDuckGo. Currently, users must undergo the iPhone Settings app to vary their default search engine.

In his decision, Mehta said that the lucrative contract with Google prevented Apple from launching its search engine, “even though the company has otherwise built the capacity to do so.”

John Giannandrea, a former Google executive who heads up Apple's AI division, has his own search team working for him, but they've focused more on the search features in Apple's software than on the power to perform Google-style web queries.

Still, Apple's user interface is about to vary in the approaching months. The company will introduce Apple Intelligence, its recent suite of artificial intelligence features that would ultimately change the best way people use their iPhones and other devices.

The changes include a brand new “Type to Siri” approach that makes it easier to make use of the virtual assistant without having to talk to it, allowing users to send requests to AI engines from anywhere within the iPhone, iPad or Mac operating systems.

Originally published: August 6, 2024 at 11:22 am