This week's News Roundup covers three topics:

* Music News – Tidal had its one-year anniversary and announced 3 million subscribers, while SoundCloud launched its paid subscription, SoundCloud Go.
* The FBI/Apple case regarding the San Bernardino shooter finally ended as the FBI announced it had been able to access the phone with help from a third party
* Foxconn finalized its acquisition offer for Sharp.

Our Question of the Week tackled the corporate social responsibility efforts of Apple and Google and what other companies can learn from them. Aaron, who is a business professor who specializes in business ethics, talked us through the history of CSR and how it's evolved, and then covered three different areas in which Apple and Google have been involved in CSR – corporate giving/philanthropy, environmental initiatives, and what Aaron called core competencies. Aside from calling out the positive things both companies have been doing, we also discussed some criticisms of Apple and Google in this area.

Our third topic was a discussion of Microsoft's Wednesday morning Build keynote, and especially Microsoft's new conversations as a platform or bots initiative. We talked about Microsoft's strategy here as well as some of the challenges it faces. And Jan's Weekly Pick was a TV show.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast on the website at podcast.beyonddevic.es.

Episode 40 – Apple & Google CSR Initiatives, Build 2016

The Beyond Devices podcast is brought to you by Jan Dawson and Aaron Miller. Jan is the author of the Beyond Devices blog, as well as the owner and Chief Analyst at Jackdaw Research, a research and advisory firm focused on the consumer electronics market. Aaron is a business school professor, but in a past life ran one of the most popular iMovie blogs and co-authored several books in the iMovie: the Missing Manual series with David Pogue, and remains an avid follower of all things Apple.

Jan can be found on Twitter at @jandawson, while Aaron is @aaronmiller. We welcome your feedback on any of our episodes or the podcast in general.

Episode 40 – Apple & Google CSR Initiatives, Build 2016

Beyond Devices Podcast