Apple has climbed two places in this year’s Fortune 500 list, a ranking of U.S. companies by revenue. Apple moved from 5th place last year to 3rd this, overtaking both Chevron and new AAPL investor Berkshire Hathaway, though still sitting behind Walmart and Exxon Mobil. Reading Fortune‘s write-up of Apple, however, you might be forgiven for thinking it had fallen in the ranking rather than climbed … It seems the only positive comment bar the note on profitability is what Fortune sees as the future prospects of the Apple Car....

Apple’s iPad trademark dispute with cash-strapped display company Proview has continued to drag on despite the Chinese company claiming it was in negotiations with Apple as recent as February. Today, several reports suggested Apple and Proview are now involved in court-moderated mediation with senior officials who are boasting Apple could lose the right to the iPad trademark in China. The mediation would be the first confirmation of settlement talks between the two companies....

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple has enforced a masking mandate for its corporate employees and retail staff. Although this mandate has been revised multiple times since then, there are still some locations where Apple employees were required to wear a mask. Now the company is dropping the mask mandate “in most places” for corporate employees. Masks no longer required at Apple In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Apple’s COVID-19 Response Team told corporate employees on Monday that the company is updating its health and safety protocols “in light of current circumstances....

Speaking to the Guardian, Pascal Cagni, Apple’s general manager and vice-president, EMEA, came on strong: “We have right now the best ever product line, we keep saying this, and it’s fuelled by the fact you have got the portable line where we display growth of 35% year-on-year.” Cagni confirmed that Europe’s education markets are falling for Apple products, with “immense success all over Europe” in back to school sales. Not just that, but also in market share the Apple star is shining, he confirmed, “We have typically above 20-25% market share in each of the [European] countries....

The release of the Apple Watch Series 7 was overshadowed by the MacBook Pro event, but Apple executives still want to talk about the Series 7. Although it doesn’t bring new sensors or even a new processor, the larger screen is what people should be focusing on when thinking about buying this product. In an interview with CNET, Apple execs Alan Dye and Stan Ng explain how the new 41mm and 45mm screens can improve the Apple Watch experience for users:...

Apple design chief Ive pictured with Ikepod designer Newson Apple is building a device for the wrist, and it may even launch later this year. One of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ most famous sayings is that “we build the products that we want to use.” Apple was not pleased with the crop of phones that existed prior to the iPhone, and the iPhone arrived in 2007 and has changed the entire smartphone landscape....

As promised by Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC, Apple has expanded the App Store’s reach to 155 total territories, by adding 32 new territories today. An email to registered iOS and Mac developers went out this evening detailing the change. Apple did not specify the 32 new regions at WWDC, but today’s announcement does. The new regions are mostly within Africa, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. Here’s the full list:...

Apple giving into Russia twice this week on key civil liberties issues proves that the company’s CSAM misuse assurances cannot be trusted, argues a high-profile security expert. Apple today pulled from the App Store an opposition tactical voting app after the Russian government threatened specific local company employees with “punishment” if they refused. It turns out that Apple also turned off its Private Relay service in Russia just yesterday, likely also in response to government pressure…...

Apple was today granted a patent on the way it displays apps on the Apple Watch. It’s one of the briefest patent descriptions around, merely pointing to the associated illustration. The illustration itself is simply a representation of the apps screen of the Apple Watch. Only a monochrome version is shown online, though the USPTO notes that color version(s) are held on file. The ornamental design for a display screen or portion thereof with graphical user interface, as shown and described....

Reuters this evening reports that Apple is investing $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing. In a statement, CEO Tim Cook explained that the investment will give Apple a chance to learn more about certain segments of the Chinese market, while it will also deliver a strong return. Additionally, Cook noted that this is simply what Apple is doing currently in the car market, teasing that “we will have to wait to see what the future holds....

Update: The feature now appears to have propagated correctly, as the codename identifier is no longer visible. The app now correctly lists ‘Apple TV: Yes’ in the description for universal apps that support Apple TV. Apple is rolling out a way to see if an app in the App Store also has an Apple TV version. From this morning, App Store listings have included ‘SF.UniversalAppleTV’ labels. If present, it means that the app in question also has a universal Apple TV app available in the tvOS App Store....

Apple is expanding the repair services it offers to iPhone customers in the United States. The company has added a new onsite option where an Apple Authorized Service Provider will come to your location to perform select iPhone repair services. The new addition was first spotted by MacRumors. The onsite repair option is available in select metropolitan areas in the Untied States, including Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco....

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LyIwJgQlsc] During the opening ceremonies for this year’s Olympic Games in London, Apple aired a new television ad. The new ad is strikingly different than any other Apple ad that we’ve seen air before. This particular one is not about a product, but it is about the Apple Retail Store Genius Bar. The premise is an airplane about to land and an Apple Genius is on board to assist customers before landing (video via iClarified)....

Apple has released its fiscal year 2018 fourth quarter earnings results which include initial iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max sales as well as Apple Watch Series 4. iPhone XR launched earlier this month and didn’t make the previous quarter. Apple reports $62.9b in revenue and $14.12b profit from 46.89m iPhones, 9.69m iPads, and 5.3m Macs sold. Next quarter Apple forecasts revenue between $89 billion and $93 billion. FY18 Q4 results compare to the previous quarter’s $53....

China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless company with 665 million subscribers, confirmed Monday that it now hosts 15 million iPhones on its network with an average of 35,000 new iPhone activations each day. Back in October, its network hosted 10 million iPhones. People get excited about T-Mobile USA’s 1 million iPhones, so it is worth pointing out that China Mobile’s number is more than seven times larger than what Sprint has—and it is not even Apple’s official carrier yet....

A new poll by data research firm Toluna via Recode attempted to analyze the least trusted companies in the tech sector. Conducted between December 9 through December 15, the poll surveyed one thousand online participants asking which company they believe to be the least trustworthy with personal information. Facebook by no surprise took the number one spot, with a whopping 40% of the respondents doubting the social media giant’s ability to keep information safe....

Non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, are becoming increasingly popular. Yet Apple still doesn’t seem very open to this idea, at least not when these NFTs are sold inside iOS apps without using the App Store’s in-app purchases system. And this is what happened with Coinbase Wallet, which allegedly had its latest update denied in the App Store because of the NFTs feature. Coinbase Wallet removes feature to send NFTs from its iOS app In a Twitter thread, the official Coinbase Wallet account reported that Apple has blocked its latest iOS app release until the developers disabled the feature that lets users send NFTs through the app....

Home-based Apple call center workers in Colombia have expressed privacy concerns over plans to install AI-powered cameras in their homes, to monitor their performance. The same issue has arisen over Apple UK workers based in Albania. Apple outsources some of its call center work around the world to Teleperformance, and employees say they are being pressured to sign a contract agreeing to the cameras, despite an Apple policy prohibiting it …...

Apple is one step closer in its plans to take Apple Pay into the company’s second-largest market, China. The WSJ reports that Apple has created a company in the Shanghai free-trade zone specifically to operate its Apple Pay business in the country, and seeded it with $13.4M of capital. With China already a bigger market for Apple than Europe, and looking set to overtake the USA in size, the potential for Apple Pay in the country is huge....

Yesterday we reported on a presentation by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum that reportedly showed leaked NSA documents in which the agency claimed to have a “100 percent success rate” at installing spyware on iPhones. Following those accusations, Apple has officially responded in a statement provided to TechCrunch: The leaked NSA documents detailed in Appelbaum’s presentation above and first released on German news site Der Spiegel claimed an NSA program called DROPOUTJEEP allowed officials to access almost all data stored on an iPhone, including location, text messages, contact lists, and the device’s microphone and camera....