As Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference rises in popularity, a close-knit community of related developer and designer-driven events has grown around the weeklong conference. Returning again in 2018 is the annual Layers conference, a three-day design event hosted right across the street from WWDC. This year’s speaker list has been partially announced, and includes several notable presenters. Update: The full speaker schedule for Layers is now available here. Layers began in 2015 under the direction of former Apple employees Jessie Char and Elaine Pow....

Apple has doubled the storage of its most expensive iCloud storage plan from 1 TB to 2 TB, retaining the same $9.99 per month price point. The old 1 TB plan is no longer available, so Apple still offers a total of three paid iCloud storage plans. The company has also announced that multiple users will be able to share a single iCloud storage plan with Family Sharing in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra....

Apple has made several changes to its factory security guidelines to help prevent leaks, according to a new report from The Information. According to the updated guidelines, the company’s manufacturing partners can no longer collect biometric data such as fingerprints or face scans from Apple employees, but the same does not apply to factory workers. The Information says that it obtained an internal Apple document outlining the changes. One change is that manufacturing partners with which Apple works, such as Foxconn and Pegatron, are no longer allowed to collect biometric data from Apple employees, but they are still free to collect such data from their own employees, even if those employees are making Apple products....

Exclusive: This is ‘iPhone XS’ — design, larger version, and gold colors confirmed Exclusive: Apple Watch Series 4 revealed — massive display, dense watch face, more ‘iPhone Xs Max’ likely name for 6.5-inch OLED flagship, sources say Before the event even started today, the leaks continued with Apple’s sitemap confirming iPhone Xs, iPhone Xr, and iPhone Xs Max product names, six iPhone Xr colors, and the Apple Watch Series 4 with new sizes, gold stainless steel and gold Milanese Loop bands, and likely no ceramic Edition:...

Apple has updated its Apple Events app for Apple TV ahead of next week’s “By innovation only” iPhone 11 event. The event will be live streamed as usual, and the Apple Events app for tvOS will allow users to tune in directly on their Apple TV. iPhone 11 event on Apple TV With today’s update, the Apple Events app now features a light and colorful theme to match the invites for next week’s gathering....

Apple is active at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which officially kicked-off last Thursday. Variety reports this evening that Apple’s first purchase at Sundance is a film called “Hala,” which is described as a coming-of-age drama. The film is written and directed by Minhal Baig, with Jada Pinkett Smith serving as executive producer. It’s unclear how much Apple paid for the film. The film stars Geraldine Viswanathan in the title role, as well as Purbi Josh, Azad Khan, Gabriel Luna, and Anna Chlumsky....

Apex Legends Mobile is one of the strategic battle royale shooter video games that’s all set within the immersive Apex Legends universe. It offers a legendary character-based gaming experience with squad battles and fast-paced combat. It’s doing really well and has become one of the most downloaded mobile games. Meanwhile, if you want to know about the Apex Legends Mobile Changing Name steps then you can follow this guide. If in case, you’re not satisfied with the current name in your Apex Legends Mobile game then you can easily replace it with another name by following this article....

Update: Apple confirmed the purchase with its usual boilerplate statement to TechCrunch: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” Apple has acquired LuxVue Technology, a company that develops low-power, microLED-based display technology for consumer tech products, according to a report from TechCrunch. Apple has not yet confirmed the purchase, but TechCrunch adds that it’s “heard Apple acquired the company to add to their hardware innovations area....

Following in the tradition of previous years, Apple is preparing customers for it’s annual sale in Japan starting January 2. In the past Apple used to hand out ‘lucky bags‘ to customers containing a multitude of different products, though that promotion appears to have ended back in 2015. This year’s sale isn’t quite clear as to what it entails. Roughly translated, Apple Japan’s site reads “Apple’s first sale is on January 2nd....

Apple is attempting to open its own stores in India, as reported by the Business Standard. However, India has regulations that require companies to source 30% of its components from Indian companies. Apple is requesting that this restriction be relaxed so that it can set up stores legally… According to the report, members of Apple management met with country officials to discuss the problem. A DIPP (the department which controls Indian foreign investment policy) representatives said:...

Apple today has enhanced its iWork suite of iCloud apps to include much improved collaboration, new document options, and more file storage. iWork includes the Pages word processor, Keynote presentation maker, and Numbers spreadsheet manager, and it is likely that supporting apps for iOS and OS X will become available in the near future… The new collaboration features allow for over 100 people to collaborate on a single file in either Pages, Keynote, or Numbers....

Apple chipmaker TSMC said that the earthquake that hit southern Taiwan earlier this month caused damage that will impact production, but has not yet given a clear indication of the scale of the problem. The company is one of two chip fabricators for the iPhone 6s, and is expected to be the sole manufacturer of the A10 chip for the iPhone 7. The 6.4-magnitude earthquake on February 6 killed 116 people and injured many more, with significant damage also caused to manufacturing facilities …...

Apple is breathing new life into its award-winning Shot on iPhone ad campaign. According to TechCrunch, the company is launching a new series of images in the campaign that focus on color. The campaign is called Colors and will put images shot with an iPhone on billboards across many countries. Apple says that all images in the new campaign will focus on showcasing bright and vibrant colors users see around them on a daily basis....

As Apple TV+ and the company’s other Services continue to grow with more content, Apple is investing in the backend with a big hire for its technical team. Reported by the Wall Street Journal, Apple has poached one of Netflix’s top engineers, Ruslan Meshenberg. The WSJ highlights that Apple has faced challenges with rolling out a variety of its Services over the years like Apple Maps, iCloud, and Apple Music. Looking to head off issues as Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and more expand the company has made a big hire for its internet-services team this week....

Sure but it is only a question of time. Preliminary PC numbers in the U.S. showed Apple (AAPL) jumped from 7.4% of total shipments a year earlier to 9.7% in Q4, a 24% rise, the largest unit shipment increase of any vendor. HP lost 6%, Dell lost 6.1%, Acer lost 30% in the U.S. market, and Toshiba gained 14.4%. At 10.3%, Toshiba is just slightly ahead of Apple in fourth place....

Apple’s environmental efforts are notably led by its Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson, who happens to be former Administrator of the EPA after leaving to join Apple in 2013. …Tech Amici’s experience indicates that the Clean Power Plan reflects reasonable and attainable assumptions about the increasing availability of renewable generation in the nation’s power sector… Because the Clean Power Plan reflects reasonable expectations about the operations of the electricity market and the increasing use of renewable energy, Tech Amici submit this brief in support of the Plan....

Update: As usual, the event will be livestreamed online. Grab the calendar event here. Mark your calendars, folks, it’s official. Apple has issued press invites to its next media event on September 7 at Bill Graham Civic Center in San Francisco at 10 am PT. The company is widely expected to unveil new iPhones and could unveil new MacBook Pros and the Apple Watch 2 at the same event. The new iPhones are generally expected to feature a very similar design to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which suggests Apple could save the ‘iPhone 7’ name for 2017 models and use a version of the iPhone 6 name (like iPhone 6 SE) this year....

Apple has today announced several new software features for educators and students. The company is introducing a new Schoolwork app and bringing its Classroom app to the Mac, as well as a new ClassKit API. Apple says the ClassKit framework will be available in iOS 11.4. Leading Apple’s announcements today is a new Schoolwork application that lets teachers distribute handouts and create assignments. Schoolwork is cloud-based and integrates with ClassKit. The app will be available this June, in time for the 2018-2019 school year....

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Apple has hired Desi Ujkashevic, a former Ford executive, to join the efforts of the Apple Car project. Since then, questions continue to arise on whether or not the ‘Apple Car’ will become a real thing. Also referred to as ‘Project Titan’, the project is working to create Apple’s first self-driving electric vehicle. It aims to launch as early as 2025, but reports propose that the goal is a bit too ambitious....

After over a day of confusion among users, Apple has officially confirmed that Apple purchases using Apple Card are only eligible for 3% Daily Cash. This comes after many Apple Card users noticed that Apple purchases were showing 6% Daily Cash yesterday. Head below for the full details. In an email to Apple Card users, Apple confirmed the error, but added that it will honor the 6% Daily Cash bonus for affected users....