Mike Beasley

In an interview with Fortune, outgoing Apple board member Bill Campbell discussed the years he spent at Apple, from his recruitment by John Sculley as head of marketing in 1983, to the post-Jobs era spearheaded by former COO Tim Cook. Campbell tells of a young Steve Jobs as he slowly rose to the role of CEO:

“I watched him emerge as a CEO in real time,” Campbell says. “I had a continuum with him. I watched him when he was general manager of the Mac division and when he went off and started NeXT. I watched Steve go from being a creative entrepreneur to a guy who had to run a business.”

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Yesterday Apple rolled out its new iTunes Pass service to Japan, allowing users to use a Passbook card to add credit to an iTunes account from an Apple Retail Store. Starting today, the offer is also available in the United States and Australia. Users in Canada, Germany, and the UK are also reporting seeing the feature, though it’s not officially listed on Apple’s website for those countries just yet.

To take advantage of this new program, you need to use the iTunes Store app on an iOS device to obtain an iTunes Pass. You can get one of these by tapping the “Redeem” button at the bottom of the home page within the app. To use the card, you can visit an Apple Retail Store and ask a specialist to help you add credit to your account. The specialist can then scan the barcode on the Passbook card to immediately add credit to your account.

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Late last month 9to5Mac reported that Apple would soon be launching its iPhone trade-in program in Australia. Today the Apple Store app started notifying Australian users that the offer is now available in that country. Customers who trade-in a previous-model iPhone at an official Apple Retail Store can receive up to A$250 in credit toward a new device.

Apple first debuted the “Reuse and Recycle” program in the United States last year, and has slowly been rolling it out across the world since. Earlier this year the offer was expanded to allow for iPad trade-ins as well, though that extension has yet to reach most markets.

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A new report from Re/code today suggests that Apple is currently considering hiring Jay Carney as its new head of PR. Carney worked as White House Press Secretary from February 2011 until June of this year. Prior to joining the White House staff, he worked as Miami Bureau Chief for Time Magazine and Director of Communications for Vice President Joe Biden.

Carney would replace Katie Cotton, who stepped down from the position earlier this year. It has previously been reported that Apple is looking for an external candidate to lead its communications team in the hopes of finding someone “friendlier,” although several internal candidates were also being considered.

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KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has provided accurate Apple product information in the past (timing aside), has released a new research note predicting that supply constraints on key components may result in a serious delay in the release of the larger iPhone 6 model with a 5.5-inch display. According to the note, issues with the in-cell touch panel and coloring of the device could push the launch of the device back to a post-October date, possibly as late as next year:

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Apple’s operations chief said today that the company paid out over $3 billion to small businesses that supplied Apple with parts for its products in 2013. That money was split up between around 7,000 different suppliers as part of the SupplierPay program started by the White House.

SupplierPay is an extension of a federal program called QuickPay that required the government to issue payments to small business partners within 15 days of billing in an attempt to promote economic growth. With SupplierPay, the program is extended (optionally) to private businesses like Apple.

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Apple has released a new beta version of Safari to beta testers in the AppleSeed program and Mac developers. The new version for Mavericks is 7.1, while Moutain Lion users will see version 6.2. The update includes several upgrades to the WebKit engine that powers the browser.

According to the release notes, the changes include support for WebGL, IndexedDB, and JavaScript tweaks, among other things. There is also apparently a change to the way the app handles extensions, as the beta disables all installed add-ons by default and the notes request that developers check for any compatiblity issues.

Version 7.1 will likely be the last major update to Safari for Mavericks before the launch of OS X Yosemite, which will include the all-new Safari 8. The full seed notes for this beta are below:

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Due to a security flaw discovered in its Flash Player software, Adobe released an update to the web plugin earlier this week. Today Apple confirmed that it had updated its plugin blacklist for OS X to stop the system from using a version of Flash Player older than 14.0.0.145 (or 13.0.0.231 on older systems).

According to Apple’s product security team:

Due to security issues in older versions, Apple has updated the web plug-in blocking mechanism to disable all versions prior to Flash Player 14.0.0.145 and 13.0.0.231.

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The popular Fleksy keyboard for Android will be making its way to iOS 8 this fall, according to the company behind the software. While the keyboard isn’t quite ready for a public beta, the developers say it will be ready by the release of the next-generation mobile OS.

Keeping in line with today’s update for the Android version, the iPhone version is on schedule to ship with support with over 40 languages.

The Fleksy keyboard has been available on iOS in the form of a standalone app for some time now, but with iOS 8’s support for third-party keyboards, it will finally be available systemwide. The native keyboard has already been demoed by the Fleksy developers earlier this year.

A new report compiled by Parker Associates and discovered by Gigaom revealed that the Apple TV has lost some U.S. market share to competitors like the Roku and Chromecast last year, causing it to become only the third most popular device in the category.

According to the report, Google’s Chromecast and the Roku streaming device each sold around 3.8 million units in 2013—though the figure is more impressive in the case of the Chromecast, which was only introduced in the second half of the year. Apple, on the other hand, reportedly moved 2 million devices, putting it just below the others.

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The city of Claremont, NC has agreed to annex the land necessary for Apple to build a third solar farm near its data center in Maiden, the Hickory Daily Record reported (via MacRumors). Apple will make an initial investment of $55 million and indirectly create 75 jobs while constructing the 17.5-megawatt farm, which will be located at 3123 Kelly Blvd.

The farm won’t actually be located at the Maiden data center—or even in the city of Maiden, for that matter—though it will still be located in the same county as the other property.

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Earlier today we got a quick look at a flexible iPhone 6 display, but a new video from YouTuber Marques Brownlee (embedded below) takes the supposed next-gen screen through a more complete durability test. In the video, Brownlee not only bends the flexible sapphire panel, but takes a set of keys and even a knife to it in an attempt to leave a scratch.

The beginning of video features a look at the sapphire crystal that will reportedly make up the next-generation iPhone’s display. As demonstrated in the video, the glass is extremely clear (which is why Apple currently uses it in the iPhone’s camera lens and the Touch ID sensor on the 5s). After a quick examination of the crystal-clear glass, Brownlee really put it to the test…

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Photo: Thomson Reuters

Foxconn is preparing to enhance its assembly process with a new line of robots, the CEO of the iPhone manufacturer’s parent company said during a shareholder meeting. According to the executive, Apple will be the first company to reap the benefits of the new process, likely indicating that the iPhone 6 will be the first phone to be produced by the new machines.

Each of the planned 10,000 robots will cost the company between $20,000 and $25,000, and will be capable of churning out 300,000 smartphones on average. The machines, which are said to be in the final testing stages now, won’t be available for sale to other companies, according to CEO Terry Gou, as Foxconn will likely not have enough to meet its own needs.

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Apple has been ordered by the South Korean government to revise its App Store refund policy, the Korea Herald reports. The company’s current policy requires users to submit a request for a refund and have the case reviewed by an Apple employee before a refund will be considered.

The practice was ruled “unfair” by the Fair Trade Commission after numerous requests from the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice. Apple told the Fair Trade Commission that it would create a new, automated refund system for the Korean App Store, and consider rolling the change out worldwide.

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