Apple

Earlier this month, the United States Patent Office made a non-final ruling that one of Apple’s design patents for the original iPhone is invalid within Apple’s long-running lawsuit against Samsung, according to a report from FOSS Patents. This particular patent, as seen in the drawings above, references the overall design of the original iPhone launched in 2007. It is known as the “D’677” patent in court proceedings and legal documents. FOSS explains the reasoning behind the invalidation:

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Just over four months since the Apple Watch began its Apple Retail Store debut for try-ons, Apple has started to tweak the process this week, according to Apple Retail employees. Until this week, a customer who walked into an Apple Store seeking to try on Apple Watch was required to make an appointment and provide details such as their name and Apple ID to an Apple Store employees.

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Apple today has debuted three new video ads for Apple Music on its YouTube channel. The ads focus on the music available via the streaming service, the service’s Connect social network, and the effect music can have on those who “live and breathe” it. The ads all tout that Apple Music has “All the artists you love and are about to love, all in one place.”

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It appears plans for future Apple wireless accessories have (again) been spoiled by the FCC. According to a pair of filings that hit the organization’s website yesterday, Apple is preparing to soon debut new versions of its Bluetooth Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. According to images indicating the FCC label location on the accessories, the new mouse will be called the “Magic Mouse 2.” As for the new wireless keyboard, there are no indications of a name change as of yet.

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Apple today added two new accessories for Apple Watch that will make the wearable fit wrists as large as 245mm. The first accessory, simply called Link Bracelet Kit, costs $49 from Apple and includes six additional links to expand the Link Bracelet to fit wrists as large as 245mm. Apple also today introduced a new Sport band size in L/XL that also fits up to 245mm wrists. Previously, the Sport band only extended to 210mm.

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Less than a month from now, Apple is expected to officially unveil its new A9 chip. This will be the ninth A-Series processor including the original A4, which powered the first iPad, iPhone 4, fourth-generation iPod touch, and second-generation Apple TV. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the A-series chips to Apple’s devices, as they’ve helped the company to achieve everything from major processing leaps to impressive power efficiency and — often taken for granted — guaranteed UI smoothness for every year’s newly-launched devices.

With the iPhone 6S just around the corner, we’ve started to receive tips purporting to reveal how much better the A9 will perform than the A8 processors found in the latest iPhones, iPad Air 2, and iPod touch. While we wouldn’t characterize the numbers we’ve seen as reliable, they led us to look back at the history of A-series chips, and consider what can reasonably be expected from the A9. Read on for our thoughts…

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In its seemingly never-ending legal battle between Apple, Samsung earlier this summer asked a federal appeals court to reconsider the U.S Federal Circuit Court’s decision to uphold damages from a 2012 ruling. Today, San Jose Mercury News reports that the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected Samsung’s request to have its case reheard.

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While Apple is expected to unveil a new Apple TV set-top box at an event next month, its rumored internet TV service will not make an appearance at that event according to a new report out of Bloomberg. The report says that Apple, while it originally wanted to launch its streaming TV service this year, has decided to push the service back until some point in 2016. We also reported earlier this year that Apple’s streaming TV service would likely launch after the refreshed hardware.

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Ahead of the new iPhones currently rumored to be announced on September 9th, Samsung has today announced the latest in its Galaxy line of smartphones. The Korean company introduced the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, as well as a larger S6 Edge called — yes, it’s a bit of a mouthful — the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+. The company also detailed the launch of its Samsung Pay mobile payments platform.
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Amid falling sales of the device, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is working with more than 40 tech companies to make the iPad a more appealing work tool. Apple is reportedly working with officials from professionals in the business app market to train its own specialists to better sell towards workforces, which will lead to

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Apple this year will be platinum sponsor of Code2040’s fellowship program geared toward increasing diversity in the tech industry, the company shared with Buzzfeed. Through its sponsorship, Apple will hire 10 of the fellowship program’s 80 students as paid interns working at the company’s Cupertino headquarters.

Denise Young Smith, Apple’s VP of Worldwide Human Resources, said the partnership with Code2040 will offer new opportunities to young Latino/as and African-Americans:
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Nearly one year after launching its first devices with NFC chips, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, to enable the Apple Pay mobile payments system, Apple has joined the official NFC Forum as a top-tier sponsor. Along with the sponsorship role, Apple has joined the forum’s Board of Directors, according to the forum’s official website. The site lists representation from Aon Mujtaba, a Director on Apple’s Wireless Systems Engineering team for the iPhone. Paula Hunter, the NFC Forum’s Director, made the announcement by saying that the organization is “delighted to welcome Apple to [its] board of directors as an NFC Forum sponsor member.”

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Several contradicting reports have come out recently regarding the possibility of Apple introducing an iPhone 6c next month alongside its refreshed iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Now, Fiksu reports that it has seen two new iPhones in its web traffic logs for the month of July: iPhone 8,1 and iPhone 8,2. Notably missing is any device that could be the rumored iPhone 6c.

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I love the Apple ecosystem. It’s not perfect, and the gap between it and the Google alternative isn’t as great as it used to be, but to my mind it’s still by far the best solution for anyone looking to have all their data and content available across both desktop and mobile devices.

But there’s one notable gap in my own use of the Apple system: books. Despite the fact that my iPad is my primary ebook reader, I still use the Kindle app and buy my books from Amazon rather than Apple … 
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While Force Touch on the Apple Watch allowed Apple to add an additional layer of buttons to a small display, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus screens don’t lack for either real estate or buttons. So why would Force Touch be desirable on larger displays? Following up on our May report that Force Touch is coming to Apple’s next iPhones, sources who have used the iPhone 6S have provided new details on how Force Touch works and feels under iOS.

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The iPhone 6 was the iPhone many had long been waiting for, offering a larger screen size and NFC support for Apple Pay. Unsurprisingly, it opened to record sales, and has continued to break sales records ever since.

But Apple’s ‘tick tock’ strategy –a major new iPhone one year and an updated model based on the same form factor the following year – means that the company has to work much harder to sell its S models. With little visual difference (and the average mass-market customer oblivious to processor upgrades), Apple has to rely on a headline new feature to persuade people that it’s worth the upgrade.

For the last couple of S models, Apple has offered pretty convincing reasons to buy: the 4S gave us Siri, and the 5s introduced Touch ID – both appealing features that were easy for non-tech customers to understand. But if the rumors are correct that Force Touch is the headline new feature of the iPhone 6S, this is one of five reasons I think the company’s rumored ambition to make 90M units by the end of the year could be a tough number to turn into sales … 
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Apple last month kicked off its annual Back to School promotion, announcing that it is giving away a free pair of Beats Solo 2 headphones with the purchase of any eligible Mac. At the time, however, the promo was limited to Apple retail stores, with the promise of the deal coming later on to Apple’s online store. Starting today, however, Apple’s Back to School promotion is now available via Apple’s online store.

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Apple has just debuted a revamped version of its website with a focus on all-new product pages. As part of the redesign, the Apple Online Store has been removed from the site’s main navigation bar, with the option to buy each product now available exclusively on the product’s page.

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