Apple

Apple is continuing its recent hiring spree from the automotive industry for its not-so-secretive car project, this time hinting at the company’s work prototyping car parts.

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Apple has cut the price of its iPhone lineup in Japan including the brand-new iPhone SE, by approximately 10% across the board. The price drop can be seen online on Apple’s Japanese storefront, via Macotakara.

A 16 GB iPhone SE was selling for 52800 yen (483 dollars). The new price from today is 47800 yen (437), representing an approximate $50 saving in dollar terms. Full list of price changes after the jump …

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Last week, users in China mysteriously saw the iTunes Movies Store and iBooks Store shut down. At the time, it was unclear why the services went down, but now, The New York Times reports that the two stores were ordered to shut down by the Chinese State Administration of Press, Publication, Film, and Television.

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Tomorrow is officially Earth Day and while it has already revealed some of its efforts, Apple this evening has uploaded a new video to its YouTube channel highlighting its green initiatives. The ad, entitled “iMessage – Renewable Energy,” highlights the company’s renewable energy efforts and encourages every one to “show some love for the earth.”

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From iPhone 4 and beyond, I’ve never skipped out on buying a flagship iPhone. The white AT&T iPhone 4 in May 2011 was my first model, then iPhone 4s in November a month after its launch. Starting with iPhone 5, I’ve bought every flagship iPhone on day one (even camping out in line overnight at least twice). I pre-ordered the off-cycle release iPhone SE last month and switched from the top-of-the-line iPhone 6s Plus. I fully reserve the right to change my mind between now and September, but my experience with the iPhone SE so far and the current crop of iPhone 7 rumors has me thinking I just might hop off the upgrade train for the first time. Here’s why:

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Apple has just released the latest public builds of its iOS 9.3.2 and OS X 10.11.5 updates out to beta testers. Both platforms saw developer builds released yesterday, with small bug fixes noted in the release notes. Most interesting to note is that Apple once again has allowed a combination of Low Power Mode and Night Shift to be enabled simultaneously on iOS devices.

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Although Apple usually updates its iOS adoption statistics on a fortnightly basis, the company had strangely stopped updating its iOS chart last month. As iOS 9 growth appeared to have stalled, perhaps the numbers simply didn’t change significantly in that time. However, this week Apple has updated the chart with a significant jump, now reporting iOS 9 was seen on 84% of active devices as of April 18th. With iOS 10 set to be announced in June (and internal testing gradually ramping — see below), it appears iOS 9 will end up peaking around the 90% adoption mark in line with previous versions.

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Bloomberg reports that Qualcomm shares have dropped after the company’s CEO hinted that its biggest customer could switch to a rival supplier for future orders. Reading between the lines, the speculation is that its biggest customer is Apple (Samsung is the only other company close to holding that title) and that a switch to Qualcomm’s rival means Apple’s is considering Intel for LTE modem chips in the iPhone 7:

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The Information is reporting that Apple’s efforts to build out its own cloud infrastructure are being held back by company politics. Apple wants to overhaul its cloud services backends to rely on new technologies built in-house but is facing several roadblocks, attributable in part to power struggle between the Siri group and another group handling other Apple services like iMessage and iTunes.

According to The Information, one engineering manager has already resigned with more likely to follow.

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It’s been long rumored that Apple has been in negotiations with BMW and Daimler for its electric car project, with Apple perhaps considering using parts from either of the carmakers. Now, German news outlet Handelsblatt reports that talks between Apple, Daimler, and BMW have ended, citing “industry sources.”

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Just a day after a prominent legal expert described the proposed anti-encryption Burr-Feinstein bill as unconstitutional, unenforceable and harmful, Apple has called the proposal ‘well-intentioned but ultimately unworkable.’

The description is in an open letter from the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, of which Apple is a key member, alongside companies such as Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. The letter, addressed to the two Senators behind the proposed bill, explains why it would be harmful to the interests of both the U.S. people and American businesses …

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Earlier today, Apple took wraps off of a refreshed 12-inch MacBook just over a year after the line was first introduced. While Apple is touting that this MacBook is faster and offers longer battery life than last year’s model, the company is notoriously vague when it comes to sharing under-the-hood details on its product pages. We’ve done some digging, however, and will attempt to break down all of the differences between last year’s 12-inch MacBook and this year’s upgraded model.

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Apple Pay officially expanded to its sixth country yesterday with Apple adding support for Singapore and today, the company has added support for over 50 new banks and credit unions in the United States. Starting today, customers of the following banks and credit unions can add their debit and credit cards to Apple Pay and use it instead:

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For both Google and Apple, the operations on their virtual stores are hugely important, as they account for millions of dollars. However, there has historically been a disparity between the number of downloaded applications and the actual money generated by them, a trend that seems to have peaked in the first quarter of this year.

According to App Annie‘s Index Market for Q1 of 2016, in fact, Google’s Play Store saw a number of downloads that roughly doubles that of the iOS App Store, which in turns represents the platform with the highest profitability, with over 90% more revenue generated over its counterpart…

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It was announced last week that Apple would once again face off against the FBI in Congress this week after its previous testimony over the FBI’s request in the San Bernardino gunmen case. During the hearing today, which was entitled “Deciphering the Debate Over Encryption: Industry and Law Enforcement Perspectives,” Apple’s General Counsel Bruce Sewell continued to defend the need for strong user encryption. He also clarified, however, that Apple has refused requests from China for source code.

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Earlier this month, Apple announced that it would make the premium Hermès bands for Apple Watch available as a standalone purchase and today it has done just that. Now, Apple Watch customers can purchase a Hermès band for their Apple Watch separately via Apple’s online store.

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We’re nearing the one year mark of the Apple Watch’s original release. When Apple first announced the Watch I was excited to see all the creative applications, tools, and games developers would make for it. The watch was a new product category begging for creative development. After a full year, I believe we’re finally starting to see what that means, starting with Rafael Conde’s Break this Safe Apple Watch game.

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