Benjamin Mayo

There are more signs that Apple is aggressively expanding its ad business. In today’s edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Gurman says that Apple VP Advertising Platforms Todd Teresi aims to bring annual revenue into the ‘double digits’, up from about $4 billion-per-year today. That means (at least) a tripling of its current ad business is in sight.

Gurman says that Apple has already tested adding sponsored results to search results in the Maps app, similar to the App Store Search Ads program. Ads could also possibly start appearing in the Apple Books and Apple Podcasts storefronts in future.

Apple is continuing to invest in original podcast production. Bloomberg today reported that Apple has signed a deal with award-winning production company Futuro Studios.

Under the arrangement, Apple funds Futuro’s development of new podcasts but retains rights to the intellectual property to convert any of the works into video content — television shows and movies — for its streaming service Apple TV+.

Apple today premiered Luck, its first feature film released as part of an exclusive deal with Skydance Animation. The multi-year deal will see Skydance produce 3D animated movies and TV shows exclusively for Apple TV+.

Skydance is headed up by long-time Pixar veteran John Lasseter (who left the company a few years ago following incidents of professional misconduct), and has brought many high-profile Pixar producers along for the ride, as they look to recreate the Pixar formulae independent of Disney.

New family animated movie Luck debuts today on Apple TV+. This is Apple’s first 3D animated feature film, made in partnership with Skydance Animation, as Apple looks to compete against Pixar for the prestige of top-tier animated movies. Here’s how to watch Luck.

As part of Apple’s fall product cycle, we are expecting an update to the base model 10.2-inch iPad later this year. 9to5Mac previously reported specs for the new model: A14 chip, 5G cellular, and USB-C port for charging and data transfer.

MySmartPrice today published alleged schematics of the new iPad. Most notably, the design includes a raised camera module.

Package delivery and order tracking is one of the new features coming to the Wallet app in iOS 16. This is technically in the betas now, but no merchant partners have released support yet, so it’s essentially unusable. Hopefully, we’ll see something alongside iOS 16’s release in the fall; presumably, the Apple Store app will support it so you can track your new iPhone on your old iPhone.

However, Apple recently published sample payloads as examples in its developer documentation, which gives us our first look at the UI in the action.

Just last week, Apple announced an expansion of its App Store Search Ads program with two new ad placements in the iOS App Store.

Apple currently presents ads in apps like the App Store, News, and Stocks as well as more recent launches such as during Apple TV Friday Night Baseball streams. And recent accelerated hiring trends in the ads platform unit indicate that Apple’s advertising expansion is not slowing down, via Digiday.

Update: Amazon is currently discounting $59 off an Apple TV 4K, beating the Apple gift card value with a straight-up price drop.

Last month, Apple launched a rare $50 gift card promo for Apple TV purchases in the United States. It ran from July 1 through July 14. This promotion has now returned, running until August 15.

This time, the promotion is also available in other countries. In the UK, customers can get a £40 gift card with Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD purchase at the Apple Store. Apple Australia offers $70 AUD in value. The deal is also available in European countries; customers in France, Spain and other markets can get a 50 euro gift card.

In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots, the Secret Service has been blasted for losing text messages sent around that time about the attack, potentially violating federal record preservation laws.

Via Politico, the Secret Service says one reason why this happened was that the automatic backup systems the Secret Service used could not access iMessages, as they are stored encrypted on the phone.

The Sky Go app is now available to download on Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K devices. Millions of UK Sky customers have been impatiently waiting for this to arrive for years.

Sky (parent company Comcast, who also released the similar tvOS Xfinity Stream app in the US last month) is the largest premium TV provider in the United Kingdom. The Sky Go app now allows the Apple TV to be used instead of needing the cable box, by streaming live channels over the internet at home and (as the name suggests) on the go.

Apple’s space drama For All Mankind announced today that the show has been officially renewed for season 4. Although rumors of a renewal have been swirling for a while now, the official news just dropped as part of the San Diego Comic-Con For All Mankind panel.

The critically acclaimed sci-fi alt-reality series is currently in the middle of airing its third season on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

Apple TV+ is available through the TV app on Apple devices, many smart TVs, PlayStation, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other platforms. The service also offers a rudimentary web experience to access Apple original TV shows and movies through a web browser, available at tv.apple.com.

Development on the website has been excruciatingly slow. For instance, the Up Next watchlist only came to the web-app a few months ago. Today, it gains another basic feature that people naturally expect from a streaming app: the ability to search for shows by name.

Apple TV+ today received 52 nominations for its content at the 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards. The recognition was led by hit comedy Ted Lasso and this year’s breakout sci-fi workplace drama Severance.

Ted Lasso was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series again, following its awards sweep last year. Severance saw top-line recognition for Best Drama Series, Adam Scott as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, ad both John Turturro and Christopher Walken got Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nominations.

Russia has apparently demanded that Apple store user iCloud data relating to Russian citizens domestically. Apple has seemingly refused to comply, based on an Interfax news report (via Reuters).

The court fined Apple 2 million roubles (worth approximately $34,000) for non-compliance. Russian courts have increasingly clashed with (predominantly US-based) big tech companies over issues of content censorship and data control in the months since the country invaded Ukraine.

The new MacBook Air with M2 chip is now available to order, with first units shipping to customers from Friday, July 15. The base model MacBook Air with M2 chip is priced at $1199, or $1099 for education buyers.

The new MacBook Air features the most significant design change to the MacBook Air line in a decade, with a uniformly flat enclosure, larger display and thinner screen bezels. Like the 2021 MacBook Pros, the front camera is now housed inside a display notch. The M2 chip powers improved CPU and GPU performance, approximately 20% faster than the already-fast M1 MacBook Air.