Apple quietly expanded this week the availability of Ultra Wideband (UWB), which is present in some of its devices, to more countries. UWB technology is used by Apple’s U1 chip to provide precise location and spatial awareness. The expansion is likely part of iOS 14.7, which was released earlier this week to users. As noted by MacRumors, Ultra Wideband technology is now available in Argentina, Pakistan, Paraguay, and the Solomon Islands, according to a support page on Apple’s website....

For the first time ever, Apple partnered with The Ellen Show to give the whole audience an iPhone, the iPhone XR. In a rather cringey skit with Julia Roberts, Ellen DeGeneres announces to the crowd that they are all getting the brand new iPhone. The Ellen Show always does 12 days of giveaways for the holiday season but never before has Apple participated in what are essentially paid promotional segments. You can watch the 3-minute sequence below....

Following preliminary approval it received in August, Apple has been granted the final court approval it needed in its $450 million ebook settlement, according to a Reuters report. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote previously expressed concern over the proposed settlement citing a clause in the agreement that she called “most troubling”, but today called the settlement agreement “within the range of those that may be approved as fair and reasonable.”...

Earlier this week, Apple told developers in its DTK Apple silicon program to be prepared to return the early access prototype Mac mini soon. It said developers would receive a $200 credit towards the purchase of an M1 Mac as a token of appreciation. However, this announcement was not met too kindly by the community. Apple has ‘heard the feedback’ and has increased the credit accordingly … Last year, developers could apply to get early access to Apple silicon hardware, in the form of a Mac mini featuring a A12X chip inside, along with dedicated developer technical resources to help them get their apps compatible with ARM faster....

WWDC 2020 is scheduled to be held in June as a “completely new online experience” due to COVID-19 concerns. But first, Apple is inviting some selected developers to attend a webinar about accessibility ahead of the WWDC. Developers are being invited by email to register for the live event on April 23, 2020, as shown by Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter. According to Apple, the webinar is about how developers can improve their apps by supporting accessibility features....

Apple has upped the screenshot limits for developers today, as announced on the Apple Developer News blog. Apps can now have up to 10 screenshots per device form factor, increased from the previous limit of 5 per device. This change applies to the iOS App Store, tvOS App Store, and watchOS App Store. The number of screenshots displayed in search results is still limited to a maximum of three portrait screenshots or one horizontal screenshot....

Apple has shifted its focus to Services as part of its efforts to combat slowing iPhone sales. In a new investor note, Morgan Stanley now says the App Store could show better-than-expected revenue growth for the month of August, citing new data from app analytics platform Sensor Tower. The data from Sensor Tower suggests that August App Store revenue saw its biggest year-over-year growth since February of 2018, and “the largest month-over-month acceleration since early 2015....

Apple famously sits on a huge stockpile of cash – $215B at the latest count – but a new report from corporate credit rating agency Moody’s puts the number into perspective. It shows that if you exclude banking & finance, a sector that sits on a lot of cash by definition, just three companies hold 23% of all the corporate cash in the USA: Apple, Microsoft and Google. GeekWire notes that this is the first time that all five of the top spots have been held by tech companies, with Apple holding twice as much as Microsoft and three times as much as Google …...

So, you have a great blog and want to run an iPad or iPhone giveaway that would drum up interest and keep those eyeballs glued to their screens… Hope you read Apple’s Guidelines for Third Party Promotions first. Fortune’s Philip Elmer De-Witt did some digging and figured out the document imposes all kinds of restrictions on sweepstakes that are no doubt attractive for your audience, but also devaluing Apple’s reputable brand....

Apple has acquired education technology startup LearnSprout for an undisclosed sum, via Bloomberg. LearnSprout’s software lets teachers track student progress and test scores, organize class achievement targets and more school-oriented features. The acquisition follows Apple’s announcement of iOS 9.3, which includes several major new features for iPads in education, including multi-user account switching. LearnSprout’s features were mainly marketed at PC and Mac users. With an Apple acquisition, it is likely the technology will be ported to iOS as Apple continues to push iPad into education sectors....

Following months of rumors, Apple today officially unveiled the 4.7″-screened iPhone 6s and 5.5″-screened iPhone 6s Plus, the “S”-series sequels to last year’s hugely successful iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — billed by Apple as the most popular iPhones ever. Preserving their predecessors’ physical sizes and glass-and-metal industrial designs, the new models have been updated with a collection of enhancements, including: 3D Touch, force-sensing technology that adds new gestures “peek” and “pop,” which bring up modal windows and things hidden under panes....

Apple first announced the A14 Bionic chip as it unveiled the iPad Air in September. Now just ahead of the company revealing its iPhone 12 lineup that will also feature the chip, Apple’s VP of platform architecture Tim Millet shared more insight on designing the chip and the impressive performance they’re seeing, how Apple is thinking about chip design for the future ranging from iPhone to Mac, and more. Apple’s Tim Millet and Tom Boger, senior director of Mac and iPad product marketing for an interview with Engadget diving into the A14 Bionic chip....

Back in 2014 following Apple’s acquisition of Beats, the company planned to transition away from Beats’ design firm Ammunition. Naturally, most assumed that Apple would then be using its own design teams for future Beats products. But we’ve learned that Ammunition is continuing to work with Apple in some capacity, at least collaborating on the design of its latest BeatsX and Beats EP headphones. Before Apple acquired Beats, Ammunition and its founder Robert Brunner, who happens to be a former director of industrial design at Apple from 1989 to 1996, was acting as chief designer for Beats by Dr....

Apple is already facing one class action lawsuit alleging that customers were unknowingly using up substantial amounts of mobile data, and it now faces a second. The issue at stake in this new suit is that the iPhone 5/5s could silently switch from Wi-Fi to LTE under some circumstances, resulting in mobile data usage even when the phone was on Wi-Fi. This was fixed for Verizon users back in September 2012, but law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP claims that Apple didn’t fix it for AT&T users until more than two years later....

Jay Blahnik, one of the lead directors behind the health and fitness features in iOS 8 and Apple Watch, is this month continuing his tour around the globe discussing his thoughts on health and fitness. Tomorrow, August 5th, Blahnik will host a question and answer session at the North Michigan Avenue Apple Store in Chicago. During the Q&A session, Apple promises that attendees will get essential tips for staying healthy and active....

Apple has released a formal statement asserting its company’s commitments to human rights and freedom of speech. Apple says it believes in the “critical importance of an open society” and “the best way we can continue to promote openness is to remain engaged, even where we may disagree with a country’s laws”. A group of investors had voiced concerns about how much Apple defers to China’s censorship demands, such as removing VPN apps from the App Store or moving citizen’s iCloud data to Chinese-controlled data centers....

One of the issues Apple has seen antitrust scrutiny from governments around the world is the removal of third-party parental control apps. Now a Russian investigation that started last year has concluded that Apple abused its dominant market position by pulling them. Apple started removing third-party parental control software from the App Store in late 2018. That was just as its own Screen Time app became available with iOS 12....

Korea Times (via Fortune) is reporting that Apple and Samsung are in talks designed to settle all future patent disputes out of court. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller believes that a settlement will be reached “very soon.” Mueller believes that a one-time payment from Samsung to Apple for all past infringements will allow both companies to move on, establishing a cease-fire agreement which would commit both parties to staying out of court for a set timeframe....

Of course Apple has a succession plan in place for when Steve Jobs steps down as CEO. But revealing that is probably not a great idea. Plus, isn’t it pretty obvious by now? AAPL investors agree. As a result, the company is under no obligation to disclose its plans about how the company would be run if CEO Steve Jobs had to step down. Investors have expressed concern regarding the future of Apple leadership after, Jobs, who will turn 56 Thursday, announced a medical leave from the company last month....

A glitch in BioWare’s MMORPG Anthem is allowing players to combine Javelins. Anthem takes players to a world abandoned by the gods, with the only signs that they were there left behind in the form of tools of creation. One such tool, called the Anthem of Creation is so powerful that an evil organization called the Dominion wants to claim it for itself, which would potentially give its group an unlimited amount of power....