Ben Lovejoy

With Chinese brand Huawei having risen from the ashes, a new report describes Apple heavily discounting iPhones in the country, offering up to $318 off the iPhone 15 Pro Max as it seeks to compete.

The latest round of discounts are much higher than those offered back in February, and really throws into contrast the US offer of slightly better trade-in values on older phones …

A new report says that there was a “secret meeting” between Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams and the company’s exclusive chipmaker TSMC.

It’s being speculated that the meeting may have been to agree a deal for Apple to reserve all of TSMC’s 2nm capacity, in the same way it reportedly did with 3nm tech …

A TikTok buyout by an American company appears to be the only way for the app to survive in the US, and potentially in Europe too. But potential buyers could find themselves paying a lot of money and not getting the one thing they really want: the algorithm.

Real-estate billionaire Frank McCourt and former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin are among those who have confirmed they are planning bids for the app …

We’re expecting the first stage of the Vision Pro international rollout to happen soon after WWDC, and there have been pointers to some specific countries. Canada and the UK are now said to be includedm after some earlier uncertainty.

There have so far been a number of clues to Apple’s plans for the next countries in line for launch, after the US …

Apple is continuing the rollout of Tap to Pay on iPhone, with Japan the latest country to allow small businesses to accept contactless payment without the need for a card terminal.

In addition to expanding into more countries, we’ve also seen increasing opportunities to use the tech for both businesses and customers alike …

Apple has rejected the idea of making touchscreen Macs for well over a decade now, but a recent remark by a senior company exec did appear to at least open the door to the possibility of a change of heart.

Mac and iPad marketing VP Tom Boger recently responded to a question on the topic by initially appearing to stick to the usual line – but added “I can’t say we never change our mind” …

A new supply-chain report says that the iPhone 16 battery will have greater energy density than that of current iPhones. This could potentially give the device a longer battery-life, though Apple may instead opt to use a smaller battery.

Additionally, the report says that Apple plans to swap out the aluminum battery housing for stainless steel, which has both pros and cons …

Elon Musk may have rebranded Twitter to X last summer, but one of the more notable contradictions was that URLs remained as twitter.com. That has finally changed today.

X users accessing via the web today have seen twitter.com URLs redirect to x.com. Musk announced the migration on Twi– er, X …

An EU investigation has been opened into growing concerns about teen Instagram addiction, to determine whether parent company Meta is breaking the law by deliberately seeking to make its apps addictive.

The investigation will also look into whether the company’s age-verification procedures are sufficiently robust, and the phenomenon of sending users down potentially harmful ‘rabbit holes’ …

The iOS 18 accessibility features yesterday previewed by Apple have been hailed as “life-changing” by a disability campaigner.

Accessibility advocate Colin Hughes praised Apple for responding to a key request he made via 9to5Mac back in March …

An upcoming AT&T satellite service promises to bring satellite comms to the iPhone 12 and 13 for the first time. Unlike Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite service, it will support phone calls as well as text messages.

As such, it will offer more functionality to more people than the Apple satellite comms feature, but there are a number of unanswered questions …

We’re expecting the Vision Pro international rollout to happen not long after WWDC, and we’ve now seen another element of the plan fall into place.

An “Apple wearable computer” has been granted the Chinese quality and safety accreditation it needs to be released for sale in the country …

A new Apple press release highlights Apple Watch golfing apps, as Golfshot launches a new tool to analyse your golf swing on the range.

The latest feature has been made possible by the high-frequency motion API Apple added in watchOS 10 …

A number of commenters have made the point that iPad reviews haven’t really changed in years. Each generation, the hardware gets better, and the software gets left behind. That has led some to suggest a dual-boot iPad, which can switch between iPadOS and macOS as desired.

However, former Microsoft exec Steven Sinofsky – who was President of the Windows division for several years – says this idea “is just nuts” …

There’s good news if you didn’t place a pre-order but have now decided to buy one of the latest iPads. Both the new iPad Air and iPad Pro are available for immediate store pickup today in each of the locations we checked.

Reasonably prompt delivery is also available, ranging from same-day in some locations to 2-5 days in others …

Apple is continuing its PR offensive to promote the official App Store as the safest place to buy iPhone apps, after antitrust cases forced it to open up its platform to competition. It said that it has blocked more than $7B’s worth of attempted App Store fraud.

The company says that the “potentially fraudulent transactions” were detected and blocked over a four-year period from 2020 to 2023 …

When I tried Ray-Ban Meta glasses last week, I described the AI features as largely a gimmick at this point, but still making me feel excited for a future Apple Glasses product.

Several commenters noted that the glasses do somewhat better when given follow-up questions, and I tried out this feature on another walk, to reveal a mix of hits and misses. But what’s really missing at present is integration …

MacPaw’s Setapp Mobile launches as an invitation-only beta in the EU today, offering European iPhone owners a far easier way to get access to multiple apps for a single monthly subscription than the clunky US experience.

Even better, for the lucky ones given access to the early beta, it’s free for now …

The White House has announced steep increases in a number of Chinese import tariffs, raising the prospect of another trade war between the two countries.

The last time this happened, China directly threatened to use Apple as a bargaining chip in response to new tariffs imposed by the previous administration …