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Apple News and Brief History

Before you can properly understand Apple News, it’s important to know its history. Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. In 1977, Apple’s sales were growing with the success of its early computers. Within a few years, Jobs and Wozniak hired designers and a production line crew. Apple went public in 1980 and was an instant success. Over the next few years, Apple shipped new computers featuring new graphical user interfaces, such as the original Macintosh in 1984. As the market for personal computers expanded through the 1990s, Apple lost market share to the cheaper Microsoft Windows on PC clones. Eventually, Wozniak and Jobs both left Apple. Jobs would go on to found NeXT and would return to Apple when NeXT was acquired in the late 90s. Apple then began a journey to the great second act in the history of the business world.

Since the release of the iPod in 2001, Apple has become a major player once again in the technology industry. After releasing the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, and the Apple Watch in 2015, Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world. Apple’s worldwide annual revenue totaled $274.5 billion for its 2020 fiscal year.

Today, Apple operates retail stores all across the world, has a growing services division, and an ever-expanding hardware lineup. The technology industry follows Apple news to see where the company is headed in the future.

Keep reading for the latest Apple news

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Apple adds around a million new store accounts (most with credit cards) every two days

Asymco’s Horace Dediu points out with the graph above that Apple has been adding about a million new store accounts every couple of days. The numbers seem to be based on Tim Cook’s announcement at WWDC that Apple now has 575,000,000 million store accounts (which we assume includes all App Store, iTunes, and Apple Online Store accounts). That means most of them have credit cards on file and as Cook noted, that’s “more accounts with credit cards than any other store on the internet.”

Apple posts new video: Making a difference, one app at a time

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGtP6ZQ6Lt8

Apple has just posted a new video to its YouTube channel titled “Making a difference. One app at a time.” The nine minute video highlights ways that developer’s apps change people’s lives.

Featured apps in the video include Skyscape Medical Resources, Galileo, Cherokee Language, and Proloquo2Go.

Coming hot off the heels of Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday, the video is a collection of stories from individuals who’s lives have been touched thanks to some of the remarkable apps developers have created for the iOS App Store.

At Monday’s keynote, Tim Cook also addressed his appreciation for developers, citing that Apple has paid developers over 10 billion dollars.

Apple today also posted its full iOS 7 promotional video to its YouTube channel (below).
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Apple changes wording of warranty policy in EU to clarify two year guarantee

Update 2: The changes appear to be EU wide as pictured above.

Update: Apple updated its warranty policy in France and Germany too. (Thanks @settebit)

Belgian consumer groups have been following the move of Italian regulators in recent months to push Apple for changes to its warranty programs in order to clarify rules regarding a statutory warranty enforced by EU law that requires companies to make sure products are free from defects for two years. It isn’t the only other nation pushing for changes to warranties, consumers groups in at least Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and Portugal had also filed lawsuits against Apple over its AppleCare and warranty practices. Now, Dutch-language a-n-v.be reports Apple has tweaked its online warranty program in Belgium to meet EU law.

The change in the online warranties tweaks the wording of Apple’s 1-year warranty for free repair and replacements to clarify the 2 year statutory warranty, much the same as what happened in Italy.

Apple published a document on its website highlighting the changes.

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Former Apple SVP and Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein responds to iOS 7: ‘the Mac has webOS stuff, too!’

Yesterday, FierceWireless published an interview with former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein. Palm released its webOS operating system in 2009 to much fanfare, however, the sales were abysmal and led to the eventual HP acquisition.

Rubinstein still remains very proud of the innovation behind webOS and believes the technology is slowly being “adopted” by other companies. With the introduction of iOS 7, many have said that features like multitasking cards resemble webOS, but Rubinstein believes the webOS influence extends even further into other operating systems like OS X and those of other companies:

FierceWireless: It seems like iOS 7 is taking lots of multitasking cues from webOS. How do you think that platform, webOS, influenced other mobile platforms?

Rubinstein: It’s not just mobile platforms. If you look at the notifications on Mac OS X, it looks just like webOS, too. We did a lot of things that were very, very innovative. Obviously, multitasking, notifications, Synergy, how we handled the multiple cards. There’s a long list of stuff we did that has been adopted by Microsoft, Apple and Android. Our over-the-air updates and mechanism has been updated by everybody. Our whole Synergy concept is now becoming much more common. I don’t think anyone has implemented it as well as we did yet, but clearly they’re all heading down that direction.

Read the entire interview here.

iOS 7’s new Inter-App Audio introduces universal audio routing between apps

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Following WWDC this week Apple’s redesign of iOS 7 and Mavericks have been getting the majority of attention, and rightfully so, but there are a few new big features coming in iOS 7 that haven’t been discussed. This morning we told you about the new MFi Game Controller framework that will make using hardware game controllers a lot smoother in iOS 7, but another important new feature in the update is inter-app audio.

The basic idea is simple: Inter-app audio will allow developers to make their app act as an output and or input for sending and receiving audio to and from other apps. In fact, we already somewhat have that functionality through third-party iOS app Audiobus. However, with Apple’s new inter-app audio feature available to devs, apps will no longer have to use a third-party app like Audiobus to send audio to one another. At first glance it seems to make Audiobus obsolete, an interesting move after Apple just recently implemented support for the third-party service in its own GarageBand app. Either way, it means a ton of new possibilities for creating music and sharing audio on your iPhone and iPad are on the way with the update to iOS 7 this fall.

We dug into Apple’s documentation on Inter-App Audio to find out how it works and also spoke with Audiobus about what this means for them:


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Apple releases iAd Workbench, shifting iAd’s focus towards app developers rather than large brands

With the latest changes to iTunes Connect, Apple has clearly changed its approach to mobile advertising. For the last three years, Apple has targeted large brands with minimum buy-ins ranging in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, uptake of iAd does not seem to have been at the level Apple expected, which has had a negative impact on developers, who have commonly observed low fill rates for their ads.

In mid 2010, Apple allowed app developers to participate in the advertising side of iAd program, by showing banner ads that link directly to their apps. With newly announced changes to iAd, which have been discussed in-depth at WWDC, Apple has furthered this push.


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iOS 7 to include support for standardized, MFi hardware game controllers, new turn-based game modes, & more for gamers

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In what seems to be an announcement lost within the buzz of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks (amongst other WWDC news), Apple will finally open up the iOS SDK to fully support hardware game controllers, enabling handheld-esque gaming experiences akin to the Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

As with background apps downloads and new Directions APIs, Apple announced hardware controller support during Monday’s keynote address in one of those ‘things we added but didn’t have time to talk about’ slides (pictured above). The slide indicates that the iOS 7 SDK will support ‘MFi game controllers,’ which is a reference to Apple’s licensing program for third-party hardware accessories. Additionally, Touch Arcade points us to images from Apple’s iOS 7 Developer Guide showing a graphic of two controllers, strikingly similar to the Nintendo 3DS and Wii Classic Controller (from left to right), showing new methods of interacting with iOS via hardware buttons and joysticks. Moreover, we can’t help but notice that this announcement comes right off the heals of Tim Cook’s pledge at D11 to be ‘more open’ than before.

There are also a few other enhancements for gamers coming in iOS 7….Here’s how Apple explains the new Game Controller framework:


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A look at the changes to Apple’s new Camera app in iOS 7 [Video]

Just like the rest of iOS 7, Apple completely redesigned the camera app that it ships on all devices. Moving away from metaphors that resemble a real camera, Apple has reworked the interface and added new features, such as camera filters and a new square photo option.

Also noteworthy is the removal of shutter animation, which has been replaced by a stark fade animation when you snap a photo. Rather then describe it any further, take a look at the video above to get an idea of what you’ll see this fall when iOS 7 is released to the public.

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Even the head of Android is excited to try out iOS 7

Sundar Pinchai, the relatively new head of Android since Andy Rubin’s departure, doesn’t mince words when it comes to his interest in iOS7. The more pessimistic among us would say that he wants to copy all of the new features but he’s probably just curious like everyone else. 
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Hands-on with iTunes Radio, Apple’s streaming music service [Video]

Apple has been long rumored to be launching a music streaming service, set up to compete with Pandora, and today, they delivered. iTunes Radio, as it’s been dubbed, lives inside of the iOS 7 Music app, as an extension of the app’s functionality.

The video above gives a full walkthrough of iTunes Radio running in iOS 7, and what you can expect when the operating system is released to the public later this year.

Hands-on with iOS 7 [Video]

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iOS 7, which was announced today at WWDC 2013, hit the developer portal not long ago, and we’ve all been busy installing it on our phones. Above you’ll find a quick hands-on with the new UI in iOS 7.

Most notably, iOS 7 ditches the classic iOS look for a flat a very white user interface. Users upgrading to iOS 7 in the fall will surely be in for a surprise when they install the new operating system on their devices.

Stay tuned for more iOS 7 video coverage coming later today.

First look at Apple’s US manufactured Mac Pro with 4K video and many new features

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Immediately following WWDC, Apple has setup Mac Pro demo machines in Moscone West, enclosed in glass cases. This first (blurry) look gives you a little idea what the machine might be like, and how much smaller it really is than the previous generation.

We’ll update this post with additional photos and video if we can grab them.

Apple has also updated its Mac Pro page, adding additional images.


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Apple announces next generation Mac Pro

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Apple has just unveiled a completely redesigned Mac Pro at WWDC. The new machine features a brand new thermal core, with state of the art Intel Xeon chips.

Unlike the previous generation Mac Pro, who’s design remained largely unchanged for years, the new Mac Pro is a cylinder, which is 1/8 the volume of the previous model. According to Phil Schiller, the entire top of the machine is a handle.

Also interesting to note is that the Mac Pro is now built in the USA.


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One prominent analyst expects new Haswell-based iMacs this month or next

We’ve heard nothing of new Haswell iMacs in the pipeline but prominent Apple Analyst Mingchi Kuo from KGI securities thinks they are on the way:

What’s new
We forecast iMac shipments to be 650k units in 2Q13, down 63% from 1.75mn units in 1Q13. We expect shipments to pick up in 3Q13 as Apple (US) launches Haswell iMac and peak season arrives. Full-year shipments are set to reach 4.7mn units.
Analysis
We attribute the shipments decline to the fact that new product shipments have peaked and due to the arrival of the consumer slow season. But we believe iMac shipments troughed in 2Q13. Apple is expected to upgrade iMac processor to Intel’s (US) latest Haswell processor in June or July. Meanwhile, the consumer peak season has arrived. Thus we expect shipments to reach 1.1mn units in 3Q13, up 69% QoQ. Full-year shipments are forecast to be 4.7mn units, up 31% YoY.

Even a July launch, if the analyst is correct, could warrant a mention at today’s WWDC. Apple did announce the current iMacs months ahead of schedule but Tim Cook subsequently told analysts at an earnings call that he regretted the decision citing some variant of the Osborne effect hurting sales.

When Apple first launched the all new, slimmed down iMac lineup leading up to the holidays in October of last year, Tim Cook quickly confirmed that Apple would run into some significant component constraints and delays for the product. The months following launch saw major delays with customers ordering the product having to wait weeks to receive their shipments and some models pushed back as far as December.

Kuo has been accurate enough in the past to warrant mentioning but his weakness has been his timings of releases so let’s keep the expectations low.

We’ll be covering every aspect of today’s WWDC so stay tuned.

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AT&T slips in some bad news ahead of WWDC: Upgrade eligibility moved from 20 to 24 months

Not a bad PR move on AT&T’s part: While everyone is getting hyped for WWDC, Ma Bell throws the same curve ball that Verizon threw at us in April. You must now wait the full 24 months to be eligible for phone upgrades rather than getting in at 20 months as you could have previously.

Today, we’re announcing a 24-month upgrade policy across all of AT&T’s wireless products and services.  This aligns device upgrade eligibility with our standard two-year wireless agreement and it applies to any customer whose agreement expires in March 2014 or later.

The move shouldn’t be a huge deal for iPhone customers who are used to two year cycles who can plan ahead to 2014.

iRadio is a go as Apple reportedly signs deal with Sony

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Earlier this year, we discovered buttons in iOS 6 that seem to imply that users will be able to purchase the songs that they listen to via Apple’s upcoming radio service.

AllThingsD reports that Apple has secured a deal with Sony to launch its long rumored iRadio service. You may recall Sony was the last major record label to secure as Apple had already signed deals with both Warner and Universal. We expect to see iRadio previewed at WWDC which kicks off Monday.

Sony Music has signed on to Apple’s forthcoming iRadio service, according to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies.

WSJ previously reported that Apple will pay Warner 10% of ad revenue, which is about twice as much as Pandora contributes. Apple’s own iAd service is set to refocus its attention on supporting the music streaming service with audio ads for the first time since its launch.

Peter Kafka goes on to report that it’s possible that Sony/ATV, its publishing wing, may not have officially inked its deal with Apple:

It’s still possible that Apple may have hurdles to clear. As of earlier this week, the company had yet to sign up Sony/ATV, Sony’s music publishing arm.

But the gaps between Sony/ATV and Apple were supposedly smaller than the ones between Sony Music and Apple were looking at a few days ago.

While Apple’s iRadio service should be announced on Monday, it is possible it won’t be available for end users until later this year when iOS 7 completes development. Similarly, the iCloud-based iTunes Match service was announced with the preview of iOS 5 and made available to members of Apple’s iOS Developer Program in June 2011, but saw a delayed launch following iOS 5’s release in October later that year.

Tune in Monday at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST for our live coverage of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference where we’ll be on location. In the mean time, you can check out our comprehensive preview of what we expect to see at WWDC.
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9to5Toys Last Call: $71 Kingston 64GB Wi-Drive for iPhone/iPad/iPod, $119 Western Digital 2TB USB 3.0 Portable HD

From 9to5Toys.com:

A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours.  We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to roundup the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... TwitterRSS FeedFacebook

Today’s Featured deals:

Other great deals we love:

Kubi is a cloud controlled robotic desktop stand for your tablet. It enables you (or whoever is on the other end of a video call) to look around and interact through the tablet. Kubi is capable of a 300° pan and a 90° tilt, and is compatible with any Bluetooth enabled tablet, from iPads to the Microsoft Surface. This product is a game-changing video conference device for anyone who works remotely. This deal expires at midnight, so get it now for $259 + Free Shipping (Marked down from $315).

Apple to offer its own iPhone trade-in program for the first time

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Just off the wires, Apple appears to be ready to offer trade-ins on iPhones for the first time according to Bloomberg. Apple currently offers a free recycling program for older devices but this would seem to follow efforts by companies such as Gazelle, Amazon and others who offer big bucks for older iOS devices and Macs.

Apple Inc. is starting an iPhone trade-in program this month aimed at getting users to upgrade to the iPhone 5 and turn in older models, people with knowledge of the plans said.

Apple has teamed up with Brightstar Corp., a mobile-phone distributor, to run the exchange program, said the people, who asked not to be identified because Apple hasn’t publicly announced the plan.

The trade-ins will only be done at Apple Retail Stores and will allow customers to recieve credit instantly. Recently, Best Buy began offering Free iPhone 5s with plan for an iPhone 4 or 4S trade-in. Apple apparently liked the idea – Brightstar counts both Best Buy and Apple amongst its client list. Apple also worked with Brightstar to help AT&T and T-Mobile with their recent trade-in promotions.

Used iPhones collected in the U.S. will only be resold in emerging markets, where Apple’s share is lower and demand for cheap devices is greater according to the report.


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Kevin Rose gives his familiar WWDC predictions [Video]

The Digg founder and current Google Ventures partner has a storied history with Apple rumors. For instance, he predicted the Retina iPad but was just over a year early on that. In that post we noted that Rose’s predictions were a bit shaky:

Rose has been very hit-and-miss over the years in terms of his Apple predictions. Prior to the launch of the first iPhone he incorrectly predicted the device having a physical keyboard and most recently, Rose claimed the new Apple TV would be called the “iTV” and would include an App Store as well as ad supported TV stations. On the other hand, Rose was correct about the Apple TV’s September launch date, iPad remote feature, and $99 price point and was also correct about the fourth-generation iPod nano’s features and even posted a photo of it. Rose was also correct about copy/paste in iOS 3.0 as well as new iTunes features.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1Nq6_ayB1tc&start=3613]

In this case, Kevin Rose’s source seems to be a big 9to5mac reader. MacBook Airs? Sure, sure. Big changes in iOS 7? Yeah, yeah and yeah. We’ll have the definitive WWDC 2013 roundup later today.

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Interactive iPhone 5S with iOS7 concept based on recent leaks

Product comparison site Recombu has created an interactive iPhone 5S with iOS7 simulator, in large part based on our exclusive preview of what to expect.

9to5Mac has heard new details about the iOS 7 redesign from sources. According to the site, iOS 7 has been described internally as “black, white, and flat all over.” Skeumorphic elements have been dropped in favour of flatter and cleaner designs, with Ive apparently saying that physical metaphors “don’t stand the test of time.”

The simulation, based on a roundup in which most of the content will be familiar to 9to5Mac readers, allows you to switch on the phone, swipe to unlock and click on a number of the app icons to see non-functional mockups of what the new apps may look like … 
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MacBook Air refresh looks set for WWDC, potentially with faster Wi-Fi

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Apple appears set to release new versions of its MacBook Air notebook computer at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, according to information provided by a source. Earlier this week, we reported that Apple is planning to release four new Mac models at WWDC, and we narrowed this down to either new MacBook Pro with Retina display models or MacBook Air models.

Today, we have received specific pricing for the aforementioned SKUs, and the price-points correspond to Apple’s current pricing for the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air models. We have yet to receive pricing information that points to the imminent availability of new MacBook Pros (as some had hoped), but perhaps the next refresh to Apple’s Pro portables will arrive in the coming months. Supply constraints to the Retina MacBook Pro line seems to imply that…


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Chatology for Mac, Flexbits’ answer to the comical search bugs in the Mac’s Messages app

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Flexibits, makers of the popular calendar app Fantastical for Mac and iPhone, have just announced their next product for the Mac. Their new app, Chatology, seeks to ease the pain of searching through conversations using Apple’s buggy Messages app.

If you haven’t tried this yourself, don’t. But often when searching on messages, the application locks up for an indeterminate amount of time. Apple doesn’t seem to be getting all of our crash/bug reports and hasn’t fixed it since its release with Mountain Lion.

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/341979376935649281

A new page on the Flexbits website shows the above image and option to signup for their mailing list, which will include updates on Flexibit’s suite of apps as well details on when you can download Chatology.

Apple publishes report detailing its economic impact on Cupertino

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Apple today published a report on its website detailing the “Economic and Fiscal Impacts Generated by Apple in Cupertino – Current Facilities and Apple Campus 2.” 

Apple notes that the report, which details a number of topics from job creation to construction of its new spaceship campus, was put together by Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. (KMA) for the City of Cupertino under contract with Apple Inc.

With net annual sales in excess of $156 billion, 16,000 employees currently based in the Cupertino area, and annual purchases from local Silicon Valley-based businesses of $4.6 billion, Apple is a cornerstone of the Silicon Valley economy and of the fiscal resources of the City of Cupertino.

Much of the report focuses on the economic impacts and future contributions of Apple’s currently under construction Apple Campus 2. In the report, Apple details how its new campus will “add an estimated 7,400 new high-quality jobs,” increase revenues for the local economy, and enhance tax revenues for the city and surrounding areas. Apple says it will support 24,000 jobs in Cupertino alone when the campus is ready in 2016.

It also detailed investments being made in public improvements surrounding its new campus including infrastructure and utility improvements and its transportation program:
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