Apple

According to a new report from The Economic Times of India, Apple supplier Foxconn is close to signing a deal with the Indian government to open an iPhone manufacturing plant in the country. The report claims that Apple and Foxconn have narrowed the location for the factory down to Maharashtra.

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According to a new report from The New York Times, Apple recently held a closed-door meeting with seven of the top iTunes podcasters to discuss the company’s support for the community. The meeting took place last month at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters and offered a place for the podcasters to express complaints in “frank terms” to Apple employees.

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A Tesla-style concept of the Apple Car from CarWow

One of the largest property companies in the San Francisco Bay Area has said during an investor call that Apple is seeking around 800,000 square feet of space in the area to expand its car project. The WSJ quotes Hudson Pacific Properties CEO Victor Coleman talking about rising demand for space for car R&D in the area.

We’re seeing the Toyotas of the world, the Teslas of the world, BMWs, Mercedes. Ford now is out in the marketplace looking for space. I haven’t even mentioned the 400,000 square feet that Google’s looking to take down and the 800,000 square feet that Apple’s looking to take down for their autonomous cars as well.

That would be almost a third the size of the spaceship campus Apple is currently building, which is around 2.8M square feet …

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Apple is today introducing an Apple Music plan aimed at students. The service is identical in features to the standard plan but rather than paying $9.99 per month, qualifying students can subscribe to Apple Music for $4.99 per month. The offering is rolling out today in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and more countries (via TechCrunch). Prices vary per region but the discount should be around 50% of the normal Apple Music price.

To qualify, students must be currently attending an eligible university or college and gain the discount for up to four years. Apple has partnered with UNiDAYs to verify people who sign up to the student plan are legitimate students attending a school.

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Earlier this week, we reported on an upcoming design refresh coming to Apple Music with iOS 10. Mark reported that the update would focus on “a redesigned user-interface, a few new functions, and reorganization as well as simplification of existing features.” The new interface is said to ditch the colorful translucent look of the current app in favor of a more simplistic look with a focus on album art and black & white design.

While I certainly won’t reject an interface refresh for Apple Music, I think there are a variety of things that need to change too (or even first). Read on as I breakdown what needs to be changed…

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Earlier this year Immersion Corporation, one of the leading companies in haptic feedback technology, filed a lawsuit against Apple over haptic technology used in the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and Apple Watch. Today, the company has filed a second lawsuit against Apple and AT&T in which it says the MacBook and MacBook Pro violate one patent relating to haptic feedback. Additionally, Immersion says the iPhone 6s infringes on three more of its patents not mentioned in the first lawsuit.

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In a statement, Apple has said that it will appeal a Chinese trademark ruling which saw the company lose exclusive rights to the iPhone name, allowing other Chinese companies to use the name for leather goods products. Obviously, the iPhone is Apple’s cash cow so the initial ruling was a big blow allowing legal dilution of its most-valuable brand.

Apple will take the appeal to the Supreme People’s court, the highest court in the Chinese law system …

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In the middle of seemingly stalling profits and a general slowdown of the smartphone industry — like Apple‘s notable first quarter of YoY growth drop in years — Samsung seems to be enjoying a moment of sunshine bathing.

Eleven months after losing the leadership to the Cupertino giant, the Korean manufacturer has climbed once again to the top of the US vendors’ list, as per a Counterpoint Research report (via Business Korea)…

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TIME Magazine today released its list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time and Apple appears on the list more than once. At the top of the list, however, is the iPhone. TIME says the iPhone is the most influential gadget of all time because of it “fundamentally changed our relationship to computing and information.”

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According to a report from Fortune and her LinkedIn profile, Apple has recently hired former Nest executive and co-founder of Google X Yoky Matsuoka. At Nest, Matsuoka was the head of technology. According to the report, Matsuoka is joining Apple to help with its health initiatives, including ResearchKit, HealthKit, and CareKit. Matsuoka will report to chief operating officer Jeff Williams who oversees all of the company’s health projects.

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Tim Cook’s interview on CNBC last night highlighted the huge gulf between his optimistic view of Apple’s future prospects, and the pessimistic one being expressed in both Wall Street commentary and the share price.

The share price speaks for itself. As Business Insider notes, the stock has dropped 11% since Apple announced its first-quarter earnings, and 27% over the past year. Even billionaire investor Carl Icahn – who once couldn’t stop talking about how under-valued AAPL was – sold 7M shares back in February and has now dumped the stock altogether. Not the greatest expression of confidence in the company’s future.

Analysts have been queuing up to pronounce that Apple is doomed, the iPhone is on a slide, it’s all over. Tim Cook, meanwhile, claims that Wall Street is guilty of ‘hugely over-reacting’ to a short-term glitch …

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Bloomberg speculates that India could refuse to grant Apple permission to sell used iPhones in the country citing comments from a telecommunications ministry official today.

The U.S. company’s application has been turned down, the official said, asking to not be identified, citing official policy [while] Apple declined to comment.

Apple had hoped that used iPhone sales would be a good way to get a foothold in a country where its market share is just 2%, and where 80% of phones cost less than $150. Its iPhone Upgrade Program in the United States gave the company a plentiful supply of used phones that it could have sold at much lower prices in India without sacrificing margin, which must have seemed like the perfect plan … 

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The iPhone 7 had been rumored to be dropping the analog 3.5 mm headphone jack, in favour of wireless Bluetooth or Lightning cable headphones for audio output. However, a new iPhone 7 component leak posted on Weibo disagrees with previous reports, depicting a board that includes a 3.5mm jack (in the top right of the photo above).

The 3.5mm jack is large (relative to the thinness of the phone), dates back more than a hundred years and has been superseded in terms of signal quality by the modern digital solutions, so it is plausible that Apple would want to abandon it. However, the idea of removing the port has been controversial (with complaints about existing accessory compatibility). This Chinese leak indicates it is sticking around …

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Alongside the iPad Pro last November, Apple introduced a new connectivity option for users with the Smart Connector. Originally, Apple only touted the connection as being good for easily pairing things like keyboards to the iPad. We’ve since learned a little more about the capabilities of the three-pin connection, but overarching details are still vague.

Last month, I had the chance to try out the LOGI Base dock with Smart Connector support. Prior to using it, I was totally unaware that the Smart Connector was capable of charging the iPad Pro, albeit it at a slightly slower pace. Using the LOGI Base, however, intrigued me. What are the actual capabilities of Smart Connector?

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In the latest drone flyover video of Apple’s under-construction Campus 2, this one sent in by Matthew Roberts, we get a close-up look at progress made in recent weeks on the new Apple headquarters set to open early next year.

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An iPhone 6 is at the center of an investigation of two missing Florida teens. Last July, 14-year-olds Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen set out on a boat trip in the Atlantic Ocean, but both of the bodies went missing and boys never returned. The United States Coast Guard performed an eight-day search for the boys, but never found them. Last, month, however, their boat was recovered 100 miles off the shore of Bermuda and on the boat was Stephanos’ iPhone (via ABC News).

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There was lots of news for Apple this week with the company’s Q2 2016 earnings representing some notable declines across the board despite reporting $50.6 billion in revenue and $10.5 billion in profit. But readers were more interested in the latest rumors and expectations for the upcoming iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2, as well as some new “exclusive” Apple Music and iTunes releases and this week’s new apps and updates.

Head below for all the handy links to this week’s top stories and more.

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The automotive industry is a capital-intensive industry. Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne knows it and that’s why he is open to work with Google or Apple:

“Google can buy every automaker out of petty cash. And Apple — they made a net profit of $24 billion in one quarter. This is nonsense. What are we defending? What?”

In a not yet released 2-hour interview with Automobile Mag‘s Georg Kache, Marchionne discusses the recent rumors of a FCA partnership with Google for self-driving cars and how the automaker wants to position itself in an industry disrupted by the likes of Apple, Google, Tesla and Uber.
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This week Zac and Benjamin get into new iPhone 7 rumors, news about Apple Watch 2, as well as Apple’s somewhat disappointing $50b quarter. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

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