Linked List: June 12, 2024

Wednesday, 12 June 2024

Mac Virtualization in MacOS 15 Sequoia Now Supports Logging In to iCloud ★

Andrew Cunningham, writing at Ars Technica:

But up until now, you haven’t been able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS, or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who just wanted easy access to their iCloud data from within a VM.

This limitation is going away in macOS 15 Sequoia, according to developer documentation that Apple released yesterday. As long as your host operating system is macOS 15 or newer and your guest operating system is macOS 15 or newer, VMs will now be able to sign into and use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services just as they would when running directly on the hardware.

Nice change. Makes me wonder if this is related to Apple’s use of virtualization to allow security researchers to inspect the OS images for its Private Cloud Computer servers for Apple Intelligence.

(Via Dan Moren.)

Arm, Qualcomm Legal Battle Might Disrupt ‘AI PCs’ ★

Max A. Cherney:

The British company, which is majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group sued Qualcomm in 2022 for failing to negotiate a new license after it acquired a new company. The suit revolves around technology that Qualcomm, a designer of mobile chips, acquired from a business called Nuvia that was founded by Apple chip engineers and which it purchased in 2021 for $1.4 billion.

Arm builds the intellectual property and designs that it sells to companies such as Apple and Qualcomm, which they use to make chips. Nuvia had plans to design server chips based on Arm licenses, but after the acquisition closed, Qualcomm reassigned its remaining team to develop a laptop processor, which is now being used in Microsoft’s latest AI PC, called Copilot+.

Arm said the current design planned for Microsoft’s Copilot+ laptops is a direct technical descendant of Nuvia’s chip. Arm said it had cancelled the license for these chips.

My initial reaction when I see reports of legal disputes like this is “Eh, they’ll settle.” But look at the Apple-Masimo dispute over blood oxygen sensors — that’s still dragging on as we head into summer.

Also: Is there any company that Qualcomm hasn’t gotten into a knock-down, drag-out legal battle with over licensing or patent issues? It’s like, of course Qualcomm is trying to stiff Arm on licensing fees. That’s how Qualcomm rolls.