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This week’s top stories: Apple vs FBI, Apple Pay in China, Error 53, Kanye West ditches Apple Music, more

Tim-Cook-reading

In case you missed Apple’s fight with the FBI this week, the launch of Apple in China, or any of the other big Apple stories we’ve covered, below we’ve rounded up this week’s top stories and recommended reading to get you up to date over the weekend. Enjoy. 

Apple vs the FBI

It’s been brewing behind the scenes for a while, but this week Apple’s fight against not providing government with access to locked iPhones is center stage. Things really kicked off when Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to pen an open letter earlier this week in response to a request from the FBI and the courts to unlock an iPhone belonging to a suspect in a high-profile criminal case. Apple is refusing to unlock the device, and Cook said doing so would be “‘an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.” Now, it looks like the issue will go all the way to the Supreme Court as we learned more today regarding some background on the events that lead up to this week’s very public controversy.

Apple Pay launches in China

Apple Pay is coming to a new market this week and it’s a big one for Apple: China. Earlier this week the company officially announced that developers could begin accepting Apple Pay for payments within apps, and today Apple began a gradual rollout in the country as a huge number of users rushed to register their credit and debit cards.

Apple updates iOS 9.2.1 to restore iPhones affected by ‘error 53’, apologizes to customers

This week Apple released a new version of iOS 9.2.1 that will remedy bricked iPhones affected by ‘error 53‘, a controversial bug that caused iPhone 6 units with home buttons repaired by a third-party to potentially be bricked with software updates. The bug was even the source of a potential class-action lawsuit. And that strange iPhone bug that crashes an iOS device with the date set to Jan 1, 1970 has also finally been acknowledged by Apple, and the company says a software fix is incoming.

Apple launches iPhone ‘Trade Up With Installments’ plan from $15/mo, yet another way to buy a new iPhone in the US

Apple this week announced a new way to purchase an iPhone through an Apple Store. Its new ‘Trade Up With Installments’ plan allows customers to take advantage of a combination of its existing iPhone Upgrade Program and trade-in offers. The result is a cheaper monthly installment fee on a new iPhone.

Kanye West says album won’t be released on Apple Music

Kanye West’s new album ‘The Life of Pablo’ was supposed to drop on all the usual music services last week after an exclusive event at Madison Square Garden. A few bizarre Twitter rants later, West has decided to keep his album off Apple Music and other service for good as he pushes a stream only option through the Jay-Z owned Tidal music service that West happens to have a stake in.

Honeywell’s Lyric Round HomeKit thermostat now available & we review the Ecobee Wi-Fi thermostat with HomeKit support

HomeKit products are now real things, and that means more and more quality home automation products with support for Siri voice commands are hitting the market each month. Two worth checking out this week: Honeywell’s Lyric Round HomeKit thermostat is now in-stock and shipping from the company after an unveiling back in January at CES. Compare that to one of the most popular Homekit thermostats available that we happened to review earlier this week, the Ecobee Wi-Fi thermostat.

Hands-on: Real Racing 3 with split-screen multiplayer lands on the new Apple TV [Video]

Youtube extraordinaire Jeff Benjamin is officially joining the 9to5Mac team this week and with him bringing a ton of great video content. Get started with this first look at Real Racing 3 on the Apple TV and subscribe to our new YouTube channel for the latest.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOlziUDbKFg]

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Comments

  1. Elmore Leonard - 8 years ago

    Apple vs FBI will be a precedent setting decision. I totally understand the need for greater security, but not at the expense of our civil liberties. I’m watching this one closely. Kanye West? Yawn. Big deal. No interest whatsoever over this egomaniac.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.