Apple has just announced its plans to switch from Intel CPUs in Macs to silicon of its own design, based on the ARM architecture. This means that Apple is now designing its own chips for iOS devices and its Mac desktop and laptops. Apple said it will ship its first ARM Mac before the end of the year, and complete the Intel -> ARM transition within two years. Apple will bring industry leading performance and performance-by-watt with its custom silicon....

Once in a while, Apple announces the acquisition of another company or startup, but now, new research from GlobalData shows that Apple is in fact investing heavily in artificial intelligence. The research reveals that Apple has acquired more AI companies than anyone else between 2016 and 2020. Apple comes ahead of companies like Accenture, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook when it comes to the acquisition of companies and startups that specialize in AI....

Apple Business Chat was first introduced in 2018 and allows users to directly communicate with businesses via iMessage. The beta service has expanded with several new features and today, Sprint users can connect directly with an agent straight from their iOS device. Today’s press release outlines the streamlined experience: Sprint chief digital officer, Rob Roy, described the move today. Start a conversation in Apple Business Chat by visiting the ‘Contact Us’ page on Sprint....

Apple VP Lisa Jackson has tweeted a photo of the first graduating class from the Apple Developer Academy in Naples … The Developer Academy is a partnership between the University of Napoli and Apple. The initiative was first announced in January of last year as the European iOS App Development Center, and opened in October of that year. Apple sponsored the entire cost of the nine-month program, making it completely free of charge to students, who also each received the latest MacBook, iPad and iPhone....

SuperApple.cz claims that even though Apple has been reluctant about releasing a smaller iPad, Apple is still working on two models with screen sizes close to 6 inches. Specifically, the report claims that Apple is working on a 5.7-inch model and another model just below 6 inches. They claim that this information comes from two separate sources so the minimal size difference might really not be a difference at all....

Apple has shared a series of new ads for the iPad and Apple Pencil on its Turkey YouTube channel this week. The new ad series highlights images drawn on the iPad by children, touting the precision of the Apple Pencil… In total, Apple has shared five new iPad advertisements as part of this series. Each video focuses on an image drawn but a young iPad user, with the child themselves narrating the thought process behind the creation....

Bloomberg did some digging around after Apple’s acquisition of FoundationDB, believed to be geared to improving the performance of its cloud services (something it could definitely benefit from), and found that the company also acquired a British data analysis company back in 2013, likely for the same reason. The purchase of [FoundationDB] follows a deal for closely held Acunu Ltd., a U.K.-based data analysis company, Apple said. Both purchases show Apple is placing more emphasis on the development of solid data infrastructure to help provide services to its legions of global consumers beyond iPhones and iPads....

Apple has been toying with the idea of MacBooks with built-in cellular connectivity since 2007. Although Steve Jobs said a year later that the company had ‘considered’ it but decided against it at the time, the company continues to file patents for the idea, the latest one filed last year and granted today. The patent describes how the gap between the main and lid section of a MacBook could be used to provide an aperture for what Apple describes as Isolated Cavity Antennas …...

Just as China approved eleven iPod nano design patents, Apple’s had a field day today with the United States Patent & Trademark Office awarding the company eighteen new patents. Patently Apple got the hang of them all (here and here) and we’re highlighting two key inventions. Before we dig deeper, Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive are credited among the inventors of the iPhone’s stainless steel band. There, now you know who to blame for the death grip non-issue....

A series of apparent iPhone 8 leaks still haven’t answered one of the biggest questions about this year’s flagship iPhone: will the fingerprint sensor be embedded into the display? We know that Apple has numerous patents for this type of embedded fingerprint technology, and it also appears clear that the display will occupy almost the entire front face of the device, but some claimed leaks do show a fingerprint sensor on the back of the case....

The latest update for Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends includes significant changes to inventory space and the player’s ability to stack various items. In addition to the large amount of meta changes, players can expect a load of new content. This large update begins the System Override event, which adds a limited-time game mode and a heap of Apex Legends cosmetic items. As usual, a prize track of collectible event cosmetics will be available until March 14th, when the event ends....

Apple and Salesforce have announced a redesigned Salesforce Mobile App, a brand new skills-acquisitions app, and a next-generation SDK as the next stage in the strategic partnership created back in 2018. Apple CEO Tim Cook is also speaking tomorrow at the Dreamforce conference… The new and updated apps are exclusive to iOS and iPadOS. The latest version of the Salesforce Mobile App now supports Face ID and Siri shortcuts, alongside the CRM company’s own Einstein Voice Assistant....

Apple is sending out invitations to an education event on March 27. Using the tagline ‘Let’s take a field trip,’ Apple says that the event will focus on ‘creative new ideas for teachers and students’ … We’ve seen two invitations so far, in the USA and UK, both inviting people to an event taking place at a high school in Chicago. The invitation contains no details of either the content or format of the event....

Apple has today announced that it sold 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units in the first three days of sales. This includes the 4 million units sold in the first 24 hours of preorder sales. Apple’s newest iPhones have consistently been out of stock across the world, particularly the iPhone 6 Plus which is believed to have faced production issues, limiting the number of available devices for sale....

A week ahead of the Monday, June 8th Worldwide Developers Conference kickoff keynote, Apple has announced that it will be live streaming the event, which starts at 10 AM Pacific/ 1 PM Eastern Time. The company has updated its Apple Events application on the Apple TV to feature next week’s streaming video. Apple is yet to update its website, but the company will likely stream the keynote on its website for both Macs and iOS Devices running the Safari Web browser....

Senior vice president and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer is on first today for Apple’s Q3 2013 earnings report and just provided some updates on the company’s iTunes sales, retail stores and much, much more. Not only did the App Store have its best week and best month last quarter, Apple added a ton of content to the iTunes store thanks to new additions to the Apple TV with HBO and WatchESPN....

Apple takes user privacy very seriously. The company believes that privacy in software, hardware, and services is part of a user’s rights and should be valued as such. Apple today shared its latest transparency report for the period of July 1 – December 31, 2017. The report shows that Apple received a staggering 29,718 demands to access 309,362 devices in the second half of 2017. Of these requests, Apple complied with 79 percent....

Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams attended the 30th anniversary celebrations of A-series chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and took the opportunity to say a few words about the importance of AI in general – and the phone as an AI tool in particular. Reuters reports that he said that AI could be used to transform the healthcare sector, an industry he described as ‘ripe’ for change. He said that the phone was a major AI platform....

Apple comfortably retained its position as 5G smartphone market leader in the first quarter of this year, despite the seasonal dip after the combined launch and holiday quarter. All iPhone 12 launch sales were in the final quarter of last year, with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro going on sale in October, and the iPhone 12 mini and Pro Max the following month … Although the new models continued to sell well into this year, two factors did see Apple’s share of the 5G smartphone market drop off in the first quarter....