At least five global companies currently have dedicated executive roles that oversee trust matters. None are from Asia-Pacific, according to Jinan Budge, principal analyst with Forrester, where she looks at Asia-Pacific security and risk research. She pointed to a 2022 prediction, in which Forrester expected at least 15 Global 500 organisations to appoint chief trust officers. Reporting directly to their CEO, these roles initially would look at security, privacy, and risk management, before expanding their efforts to encompass brand strategy, corporate values, and other human-centric aspects of trust....

Update: Responses from Epic and Spotify added below. Apple’s App Store commission cut is a very clever way to reduce the antitrust pressure on the company, but it’s not a magic bullet. Early responses suggest that both complaints and investigations will continue. Apple has reduced its commission from 30% to 15% for the overwhelming majority of developers – all those earning less than a million dollars a year in net revenue …...

The joint Google/Apple contact tracing API for coronavirus has ‘a stunning blindspot’ claims one company working on a rival approach designed for adoption by businesses for their own employees, as a second company says there is good reason for companies to use a location-based approach. Not everyone has a smartphone, says Microshare, which is instead proposing the use of Bluetooth badges, keyrings, and wristbands … The Financial Times carries the report, which suggests that businesses may go their own way, rather than rely on government apps which use the Apple/Google API....

Apple kicked off its Today at Apple program in retail stores last year and continues to expand it. In addition to its normal classes, Apple recently announced that it will be holding a “Music Lab” session in at its Union Square location in San Francisco with Wu-Tang Clan frontman RZA… AppleInsider explains that RZA himself will be at a “Developing Your Sound” session on January 27th at the Apple Union Square store in San Francisco, which is now full....

[Update 5:30 PM ET: Apple has acknowledged a 4+ hour issue on its system status dashboard with “slower than usual performance when using iCloud Drive, Photos, and Backup” but not App Store issues although the outage appears to be resolved.] The App Store on both iOS and the Mac appears to currently be experiencing issues with downloading new and previously purchased apps as well as app updates for some but not all users....

Apple and the Maine Department of Education are swapping out iPads for MacBooks after a survey found that students and teachers alike favored laptops for older students. The deal means that there will be no additional cost to schools for exchanging the devices, reports the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal. Auburn School Department Technology Director Peter Robinson said that the success of iPads in primary grades had make them look like the right choice at the time, but they have turned out to be less than ideal for older students …...

That years-long patent infringement battle between Apple and Samsung isn’t over yet. A judge has just ordered the two sides to return to court yet again. Apple was originally awarded $1B after a court ruled that Samsung infringed its iPhone patents. That was later reduced to $339M, but Samsung argued that it was still too much and fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court – where it won....

An Apple coronavirus donation has been doubled as the company seeks to provide additional help in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook today announced on Weibo that the company would be contributing more than 50 million yuan ($7M) in total … Reuters reports that Apple’s original donation was intended for emergency response to the crisis, while the balance is intended to have a longer-term impact. The donations in China are not the company’s only contribution to the fight against the global pandemic....

Addigy, a popular Apple enterprise device management company has announced a record quarter amid the growing trend in remote work. The 6-year-old company saw more new customer revenue in this past quarter than any other quarter in the company’s history. Along with the shift to remote work, Addigy is seeing strong demand from managed service providers who are reselling Adiggy’s ADM platform as part of their own Apple enterprise services. Addigy signed over 50 new MSP clients in Q3 alone....

Apple today announced a substantial $5M donation to Hand in Hand, a relief fund that is providing Hurricane relief in the wake of two huge hurricanes hitting the US South. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We applaud Hand in Hand for bringing together people from all over the country to help one another at a time when so many desperately need it. In addition to Apple’s direct contribution to the relief and recovery efforts, we’re making it easy for anyone in the US to make their own donations to Hand in Hand through the App Store and iTunes....

A new study funded by Apple and released today aims to show the impact that App Tracking Transparency has had on the mobile advertising industry. The study claims that App Tracking Transparency has not benefited Apple’s own advertising business, and “Apple offers greater privacy options in its own apps than is required under ATT.” The study, funded by Apple, was conducted by Kinshuk Jerath, Ph.D. from Columbia Business School. Jerath serves as a professor of business in Columbia’s Marketing Division....

While it’s likely that only a tiny number of people within Apple Park has seen an Apple Glasses prototype, I can’t help feeling like Oppo’s Air Glass is giving us a kind of sneak preview at the likely state of play. It still looks a long way from a finished product, but at the same time it’s a lot closer to a Glasses product than the type of clunky mixed-reality headsets we’re expecting to see first....

We explained way back in 2014 why you might want to have an Apple ID recovery key. In those days, it was an extra precaution you could take against getting locked out of your account. Apple abandoned recovery keys when it switched to a smarter two-factor authentication process, before reintroducing them in a new form in iOS 14. However, they now work in a different way. You definitely won’t want to enable one now, and you may not want to do so ever …...

In its latest Diversity report released today, Apple highlighted an increase in the hiring of women and underrepresented minorities and also said it’s working to improve pay equity among employees. The numbers include women making up 37% percent of new hires (versus 32% of current employees) and U.S. underrepresented minorities accounting for 27% (versus 22% of current employees). Apple includes “Black, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander” in the underrepresented group and counts new hires within the last 12 months as of June....

There are a lot of rumors about what will exactly be unveiled, but whatever it is should be exciting for Apple fans. Watch the Apple Live Stream The company is going to attempt to stream an event live again – you may recall the last one was riddled with problems (the first 30 minutes or so was painful to watch). But hopefully this goes well and you can watch it live starting at The event starts at 10am PST, 12pm CST, and 1pm EST from the company’s Town Hall Auditorium in Cupertino....

Apple has just unveiled a completely redesigned Mac Pro at WWDC. The new machine features a brand new thermal core, with state of the art Intel Xeon chips. Unlike the previous generation Mac Pro, who’s design remained largely unchanged for years, the new Mac Pro is a cylinder, which is 1/8 the volume of the previous model. According to Phil Schiller, the entire top of the machine is a handle....

Five months after Chinese and American labor watchdog groups petitioned Apple to investigate the use of potentially hazardous materials in its iPhone and iPad assembly process, the company has announced that it will make changes banning the use of at least two chemicals, the Associated Press reported today. The chemicals in question are benzene and n-hexane, which are tied to lukemia and nerve damage, respectively. After conducting a four-month study, Apple says it determined that there was no evidence to suggest that these chemicals posed a threat to workers assembling its devices in twenty-two factories, but announced that it would take steps to ensure that it would not become a problem in the future....

Last month, Apple shared an environmental report specific to the iPhone X. One detail in the report is that “100 percent of packaging fibers are sourced from responsibly managed forests, bamboo, waste sugarcane, or recycled paper.” Now, Apple has released a white paper thoroughly detailing its “Paper and Packaging Strategy”. This past summer, Apple released a video sharing its efforts to responsibly manage 100 acres of forest by 2020 as one part of the company’s three-part “Paper and Packaging Strategy”....

Our communication world is at a crossroads right now. There are multiple competing standards moving in parallel together that seem all vying to be the future of enterprise communication. Currently, 5G, CBRS/Managed 5G, and Wi-Fi 6e look to be fighting for relevancy among enterprise customers going forward. What’s the future of enterprise communication technology for the Apple-focused enterprise? Let’s dive in on next-generation communications tech. About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers has been managing an enterprise IT network since 2009....