Apple

A report from China’s National Business Daily says Chinese iPhone vendors received word yesterday regarding price cuts to iPhone 8, 8 Plus, XR, XS and XS Max.

The biggest price cut comes to the iPhone XR, which allegedly is seeing a 450 yuan (~$66) discount, bringing the total XR price to 5250 yuan (about $770). Generally though, most iPhones are seeing a 400 yuan (~$59) reduction.

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On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with CNBC and spoke all-things Apple, including a defense of the company’s recent rare earnings miss, calling out reports of a failing iPhone XR and the future of Apple’s services business. During the interview, Cook was quick to address the ongoing lawsuit with California-based chipmaker Qualcomm.

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NVIDIA is having a strong CES. After announcing powerful new RTX 2000 series GPUs last year, the company took to Las Vegas this week to show off an array of new laptops featuring the accompanying mobile RTX series.

Powerful gaming laptops are getting thinner and increasingly more capable, and these new chips are certainly the best on the market. The only question left is, will we ever see these featured in a Mac?

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Analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch have suggested that Apple is facing a potentially worrisome “informal boycott” from consumers in China and India. A survey conducted by the bank’s equity research team, cited by Bloomberg, shows user interest in upgrading to iPhone dwindling, with most of the excitement coming from Samsung or Huawei products.

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Since 2008, Apple has implemented the same 70/30 revenue split on all App Store purchases. Recently however, companies have been actively fighting against the cut.

The matter has even wondered near the US Supreme Court, with arguments being heard by the court last November.

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As reported by TechCrunch, Apple is pushing HomeKit hard at CES this year. It coordinated with manufacturers to demo key new HomeKit smart home announcements to the tech press ..,

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A report from the Wall Street Journal today details how Apple (AAPL) lost $9 billion this past year due to a single “underperforming investment” — itself. The report explains that after the surplus of cash the company had through Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, Apple bought back AAPL shares at peak prices, essentially overpaying for themselves.

Even though AAPL yesterday saw its best single-day performance in over five years, the ~$10 gains made on the share price pale in comparison to the significant losses the stock saw over the past weeks.

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As the heated legal saga between Apple and Qualcomm only continues to intensify, the California chipmaker is now insisting that after asking Chinese courts to impose an all-out iPhone ban in the region, it won’t rule out imposing Chinese civil procedure to fine or detain legal representatives from Apple for disobeying the sales ban, according to Global Times China.

A lawyer representing Qualcomm said that under Chinese rules of civil procedure, Qualcomm has the right to ask a court to fine or detain Apple’s four legal representatives in China or bar them from leaving the country.

Further, the company is said to be dissatisfied with Apple’s flippancy towards the Chinese injunction as compared to the recent German one, which saw Apple immediately ban sales of iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in the country.

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A new poll by data research firm Toluna via Recode attempted to analyze the least trusted companies in the tech sector.

Conducted between December 9 through December 15, the poll surveyed one thousand online participants asking which company they believe to be the least trustworthy with personal information.

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[Update 1:33 ET: Apple says it will appeal the injunction in China (despite the ban seemingly not affecting iPhone sales.]

CNBC reported breaking news this morning that China has granted an injunction against Apple over its patent dispute with Qualcomm, a move that the chip maker claims “bans the import and sale of nearly all iPhone models in China.” Apple has issued a statement, however, saying that “all iPhone models remain available for our customers in China.”

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We learned earlier this month that Apple and Amazon struck a deal that will see iPhones and iPads officially sold on the online marketplace, and now the first listings for iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and other Apple products are starting to go live. The move puts Apple products in front of more customers just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday when the most holiday shopping happens.

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Chase is expanding its rewards program for credit card holders with a new way to buy Apple products using points. The new Apple Ultimate Rewards Store includes a variety of Apple hardware including iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, HomePod, and Apple TV. Chase is also launching a limited time offer on eligible Apple merchandise to promote the new program.

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The latest round of the Apple versus Samsung patent trial kicked off yesterday with jury selection, and it proved so difficult to find unbiased jurors that choosing eight of them from the 74 candidates took the whole of the first day …

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Aluminum is Apple’s go-to material for making many of its products sleek and durable, and now the company is taking serious steps to ensure using its favorite metal is also good for the planet.

Two major aluminum producers are announcing a “joint venture to commercialize patented technology that eliminates direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process,” and Apple played a key role in getting to this step.

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It’s been two years since Apple introduced us to its iPhone disassembly robot Liam, and now it’s time to meet the company’s newest bot: Daisy. Apple says Daisy — who you can see in action below — offers “the most efficient way to reclaim more of the valuable materials stored in iPhone” with the robot capable of disassembling and sorting parts from up to 200 iPhones per hour.

Daisy’s introduction is accompanied with Apple adding Earth Day donations through its GiveBack program to the non-profit Conservation International. Apple’s GiveBack program lets customers return old devices to Apple Stores or Apple.com for recycling, and newer devices can even be traded in for Apple Store credit.

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Bloomberg has published a new report that includes a memo sent to all Apple employees with a clear message: employees who leak internal information will be fired, face legal action when possible, and risk becoming unemployable at other companies.

The memo specifically references 9to5Mac and the iOS 11 GM leak that we received last fall which led to discovering the iPhone X name and features, Animoji, and the cellular Apple Watch Series 3 ahead of Apple’s event.

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Apple is speaking out against the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to repeal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reports. In a new filing, Apple cites “increased investment uncertainty” for the company and its supplier partners if the Clean Power Plan is reversed.

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