If the probe does go ahead, Apple and Google are likely to be investigated by the Justice Department rather than the FTC … Reuters reports. Tech giants may even face two parallel investigations. The potential scope of any investigations is as yet unknown, but Apple has come under fire for alleged anticompetitive practices in respect of the App Store. It currently faces a formal antitrust investigation in Europe in connection with a complaint by Spotify, and a lawsuit in the US after a recent Supreme Court ruling....

Apple today announced that its retail store at the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall in Paris, France will close permanently on October 27th. The store’s imminent replacement was announced in September, but no definitive date was given at the time. In November, Apple will open a new global flagship store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, a historic hub for tourists and retail activity. Last month, Apple confirmed to French publication La Chaîne Info that alongside the store’s opening, some employees from Apple Carrousel du Louvre will be transitioned to the new store at a later date....

After opening the platform to a few thousand artists earlier this year, Apple is further expanding beta testing of its ‘Apple Music for Artists’ dashboard, the company announced via a tweet. Apple describe it as “everything you need to understand your music’s impact across Apple Music and iTunes.” While not particularly interesting for the end-user, it gives artists a way to view listening data, trends, hot tracks, and much more....

Apple is dropping out of a privacy trade group that has shifted towards more “industry-friendly data privacy laws.” The news was first reported by Politico and Apple confirmed the decision through a spokesperson. The change comes ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook headlining a global privacy summit next week. The trade group, which is dubbed the State Privacy and Security Coalition, is notoriously secretive. The trade group is run by the law firm DLA Piper and has been criticized for pushing privacy legislation that favors members of the industry rather than consumers....

Apple has continued its focus on augmented reality this year, adding LiDAR scanners to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro lineups. In a new interview with CNET, Mike Rockwell, Apple’s head of AR, and Allessandra McGinnis, senior product manager for AR, reiterated Apple’s bullish opinion on AR. Rockwell emphasized that one of the ways Apple can help ensure the success of augmented reality is to make sure it’s available in the Apple device ecosystem....

Apple has filed a trademark for “iWatch” in Japan, according to a filing with the Japan Patent Office from early June. The filing, which was reportedly made publicly available last week, is in reference to an Apple “handheld computer” or “watch device.” Earlier this month, reports had claimed that Apple filed for an “iWatch” trademark in Russia, but the claims at the time seemed uncorroborated. Now, with Apple having filed the same trademark in Japan, perhaps the claims from Russia are accurate…...

Apple’s Campus iBike photo credited to Everaldo Coelho “Computers are like a bicycle for our minds”, Steve Jobs said in the early days (see the below clip). Believe it or not, the Cupertino company has literally come full circle since this famous quote. Apple took a page from Google’s environment-friendly book by offering its employees bicycles to commute across their vast Cupertino campus. MacMagazine.br writes: It’s a clever – and green – move on Apple’s part....

At WWDC this year, Apple announced a variety of new ways for developers to test StoreKit functionality in Xcode and iOS 14. In a new post on the Apple Developer website, Apple informs developers that the enhancements to sandbox testing are widely available. Apple explains that developers can test in-app purchases on devices using product details set up in App Store Connect. For instance, this includes things like upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations for subscriptions....

Good news, bad news in Japan, where Apple climbed from seventh to fifth place in Japan’s cellphone market for the first time, boosted by its well-received iPhone 4 in the July-September period, local reports claim. Apple took 12.2 percent of Japan’s cellphone sales, with Sharp leading the pack at just 18.8 percent, according to IDC. Apple achieved 1.06 million iPhone shipments in the quarter, a quarter during which Japan’s cellphone biz saw 8....

Every time there’s some Apple Card news, it prompts the same question from Brits: When is Apple Card coming to the UK? Substitute France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and so on as appropriate. Only Apple knows the answer to this, but the truth is, it doesn’t much matter – because those tasty 1% to 3% Apple Cash rewards are never going to be offered in Europe … To understand the reason for this, we have to delve a little into the economics of debit and credit cards....

Apple just posted a slew of new SEC filings to their Investor Relations site. Back in 2011, the company’s Board of Directors approved an amendment that requires all restricted stock unit (compensation not actually issued until vested a certain time later) to be performance-based, rather than stock price-based. In an effort to “lead by example”, Tim Cook worked with the Board to change his large 1-million RSU 2011 award into performance-based compensation....

Ahead of the Apple Watch making its way onto the wrists of consumers, Apple has published a new support page detailing the device’s heart rate monitor. As we know, the Apple Watch includes a heart rate reader to measure a person’s intensity during workouts. With knowledge of this intensity data, the Watch is able to more accurately measure the amount of calories a person burns per day. Additionally, a user can check their heart rate at any time using a feature known as the Heart Rate Glance....

Apple has released a statement today sharing that it will be donating $1 million towards relief efforts for ongoing Southern California wildfires. This adds to the millions the company has donated this year for disaster relief. KTLA’s Rich DeMuro shared a statement from Apple this morning in a tweet. Apple has consistently donated to to recovery efforts with the slew of natural disasters we’ve seen this year. In October Apple donated $1 million for the Northern California fires and also matched employees’ donations....

Update, Nov. 8: After complying with court orders and posting a new, revised apology to Samsung on its website, many were calling out Apple for the way the new apology was displayed. As noted by users on Reddit, Apple updated its website to ensure users would never see the message unless scrolling all the way to the bottom of the homepage. Following the complaints, as noticed by CNET, Apple has apparently pulled the code from its UK site that forced users to scroll in order to see the apology....

Following an announcement last week from Apple that it was delaying support for iOS 9’s App Thinning feature due to a bug with iCloud backups, Apple today released Xcode version 7.0.1 to developers to fix related bugs. The feature was implemented in iOS 9 to allowing developers to trim down the size of large applications by marking assets for each specific type of device. At the time of Apple’s announcement, it said the feature would be delayed “due to an issue affecting iCloud backups created from iOS 9 where some apps from the App Store would only restore to the same model of iOS device....

Apple has an Indoor Survey app on the iOS App Store, designed to help pinpoint locations inside a store, restaurant or other business – but it doesn’t show up in a search, and you need to register in Apple Maps Connect to download it. By dropping “points” on a map within the Survey App, you indicate your position within the venue as you walk through. As you do so, the indoor Survey App measures the radio frequency (RF) signal data and combines it with an iPhone’s sensor data....

Apple has hired Josh Elman, a former venture capitalist at Greylock Partners, to work on the App Store with a specific focus on app discovery. Elman announced his new role on Twitter this afternoon, saying that he is “excited to get to build ways to help over a billion customers and millions of developers connect.” As Bloomberg explains, Elman led early investments in Discord as well as the precursor to TikTok during his time as a venture capitalist at Greylock Partners....

Apple this week has greatly expanded the availability of its Apple ID two-step verification, bringing the feature from 11 countries to 59 countries. Two-step verification for Apple IDs uses either iOS’s Find my iPhone application or SMS to provide login verification in addition to a password. The feature first rolled out for both Apple ID and iCloud IDs in early 2013 and it expanded to a few more countries later that year....

Update: Kapeli’s developer updated his blog post today indicating that Apple found evidence of App Store review manipulation, something the developer denies ever doing. This decision is final and Apple will not allow for an appeal. Phill Schiller has also responded (after the jump) … For unknown reasons, the developer account associated with popular developer app Dash, a utility tool providing offline API documentation, has been terminated by Apple. Consequently, both Dash apps for iOS and macOS have been pulled from the respective App Stores, crippling the developer’s business model in an instant without any explanation....

The Apex Legends datamining leaks that have made headlines over the past few weeks aren’t necessarily as accurate as they might seem. Developer Respawn Entertainment’s community manager took to Reddit yesterday to caution fans about putting too much stock in any datamined leaks, suggesting that none of them are confirmation of future content and to temper expectations as a result. Apex Legends is growing faster than Fortnite and has quickly become one of the biggest launches of 2019, but Respawn has been struggling to keep many of the game’s planned updates under wraps....