Apple’s highly anticipated all-new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR have been slated for a fall release since being unveiled at WWDC last June. Now Apple has officially announced that the new professional Mac and display will be available starting in December and hit that deadline. Apple shared the official word in the Newsroom post today for the brand new 16-inch MacBook Pro. This comes after Bloomberg reported just yesterday that the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR would become available in December....

Today Apple’s highly-anticipated Apple Arcade video game streaming service launched in limited fashion to iOS 13.1 beta testers ahead of Thursday’s launch. At this stage of the rollout, only 53 games are available on the service, with more surely to come soon. Apple says that eventually, over 100 games will be available on Apple Arcade. One of the key features of Apple Arcade is its ability to play games offline while on the go....

Apple Card has added yet another 3% Daily Cash partner, this time marking the first expansion to restaurants. Panera Bread announced today that Apple Card users can now get 3% Daily Cash when they pay with Apple Pay in the Panera Bread app, on the web, or in-cafe. As Panera Bread points out in its announcement, this is the first time that a restaurant has signed on to offer 3% Apple Card rewards....

Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced in an email to employees that this year’s Thanksgiving vacation will be extended with pay. Cook also thanks all employees for an amazing 2012. Retail employees obviously won’t get the extended break during Thanksgiving, but they will have the opportunity for extra days off at another time. Cook announced a similar break extension last year. (Image: Wired) Apple is having another incredibly successful year, thanks to all of the hard work by you and your teams....

Ahead of WWDC 2020 kicking off on June 22, Apple today has offered additional details on this year’s schedule. Apple has confirmed that the all-virtual WWDC will include a keynote address, Platforms State of the Union, 100+ engineering sessions, all-new Developer Forums, 1-on-1 labs with more than 1,000 Apple engineers, and more. While Apple had already confirmed that WWDC 2020 would start on June 22, specific details were unclear given the new all-online format prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic....

. Apple’s doing another iTunes countdown, this time to the 50 billionth app downloaded. Along with the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes gift card, Apple also greets you with the all time most downloaded free and paid apps. Some interesting notes: The top paid and free iPad apps are somewhat surprising. The $10 Pages word processor (Content Creation!?!) and Microsoft’s Skype chat and conferencing: Coolest facts IMO: Instagram jumps from #19 to #3; Google Maps and YouTube in top charts already; 15 out of 25 paid iPad apps are games....

According to a new report from Hickory Daily Record, Apple is expanding its data center operations in North Carolina with the purchase of $3 million worth of land in Conover, Catawba County. The purchase would include 218.885 acres and another 0.251 acres for a new solar farm. HDR cited “deeds and a plat book at the Catawba County Register of Deeds”: According to the report, the land is located on the East side of Lai Ber Drive Extension in Conover, with a portion located on the West side of the road....

We’re only a week away from Apple’s rumored September special event at which the company is expected to introduce the so-called “iPhone 13.” Now a new FCC filing from Apple has revealed a revised version of the MagSafe Charger, which may indicate an update to the company’s MagSafe lineup of accessories coming along with the new iPhone. Based on the filings, we can’t tell that there is anything different about this version of the MagSafe Charger....

Late Sunday night, whoever runs the official Apple iBookstore account on Twitter retweeted a very explicit tweet. The Apple-owned account also favorited the tweet according to some users who spotted it. Ironically, the contents of this tweet would almost certainly be disallowed in the all too wholesome App Store. [tweet https://twitter.com/MichaelSteeber/status/310977708576346113] Followers were a bit shocked by the post, which was almost immediately removed from the page. [tweet https://twitter.com/InstTechQueen/status/310976462360571905] [tweet https://twitter....

Apple has announced today that it has invested in the biotech startup SweetBio and VC firm VamosVentures as part of its growing Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. Apple explains that SweetBio is helping to heal patients through its advanced wound care product. Apple announced in a press release: Apple expanded its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) earlier this year, investing $100 million into the program and searching for new ways to “dismantle systemic barriers to opportunity and combat injustices faced by communities of color....

With flat music sales and booming app ecosystem, iOS app revenue should zoom past song sales by 2015 the latest. By one estimate, iOS developers and record labels together have pulled some $16.6 billion in cumulative revenues on Apple’s iTunes content store since its inception, according to an interesting analysis by Asymco’s Horace Dediu. Even if it involves a lot of guesswork and peering inside the crystal ball, the author’s thinking is determined by known iTunes milestones and revenue data from Apple’s quarterly findings....

Apple has successfully defeated an attempt by TikTok and others to bypass App Tracking Transparency in China. Chinese tech giants believed that Apple wouldn’t dare to block popular apps like TikTok and QQ, but Apple apparently called their bluff … Background Apple allows developers to anonymously track users using a system known as Apple’s Identifier For Advertisers (IDFA). This allows advertisers to track that the same person saw an ad for their product within a particular app, and subsequently visited their website....

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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard in Apple management. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac. Today, I’m happy to say that we’re kicking it off with a brand new webinar on the top mistakes that Apple IT managers make. In this video (below), I work through each mistake and explain why it’s a problem. Network Capacity One of the biggest problems I see with a lot of organizations comes down to planning with network capacity....

Apple has announced a new version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. It is thinner and lighter than the previous generation, coming in at 3.46 pounds and 0.71-inches thin. It also has new Intel Haswell processors for better battery life. The new battery comes in at 9 hours on a single charge. The new laptop also has new graphics and faster PCIe-based flash (60% faster). Faster, 802.11ac WiFi and Thunderbolt 2 are also in the mix....

Apple today has stopped signing iOS 13.2. This comes after iOS 13.2.2 was released to the public last week with bug fixes and performance improvements, including a fix for background app performance and RAM management. When Apple stops signing an iOS build, it means users are no longer able to downgrade to that version via iTunes/Finder. Reverting to older iOS builds is common for those in the jailbreak community and can sometimes also be useful for users who experience significant bugs after updating to the latest version of iOS....

Tile has made an accusation of Apple breaking promises to work toward resolving the dispute between the two companies, and says that indeed things are even worse than they were. The dispute centers around Apple’s apparent intention to launch AirTags, which will directly compete with Tile trackers — small devices attached to gadgets and other valuables to track their location … Background In January, Tile appeared before a congressional antitrust hearing, accusing Apple of making two changes in order to place Tile at a competitive disadvantage with the anticipated AirTags product....

Joining a wider industry shift, Apple announced that it is working to replace exclusionary language in its developer documentation and APIs with alternative terminology. Renaming things takes time and effort as large parts of infrastructure have to migrate in response. For third-party developers in the App Store, Apple will be changing the names of APIs used in their code where appropriate, which will also necessitate engineering work to migrate. Examples of exclusionary terminology include using a noun like ‘master’ to describe the primary code repository....

Apple is experiencing some issues with its developer services this afternoon including App Store Connect and TestFlight. Update: Apple has fixed the issues. Apple confirmed the outages that are affecting some developers on its System Status dashboard. The problems popped up around 11 am PT/ 2 pm ET today and are impacting App Store Connect, the App Store Connect API, and TestFlight. For all three services, Apple notes that “Users are experiencing a problem with this service....

A Quartz report citing banking sources says that Apple is considering the use of iMessage to handle its expected person-to-person service to complement Apple Pay. Apple is reported to be in talks with banks to agree terms for the service. It’s believed that Apple wants banks to act as the payment processors so that it can steer clear of the murky world of financial regulation, leaving it to do what it does best: the front-end....