A new survey today aims to show the most reputable companies in the eyes of customers in China. As noted by the South China Morning Post, The Reputation Institute today released its China RepTrak rankings, breaking down brand reputation in China… According to the rankings, Apple is the 12th most reputable company in China. That puts it behind several other technology companies, including Intel at first place, Huawei at second, Google at fourth, Nokia at eighth, and Microsoft at eleventh....

Just like last time the trial was extended, Apple is again handing out credits to paying Apple TV+ customers. Customers are being notified in emails being sent out by the company today. As we first explained on January 15th, the end date of free ‘year’ trials that accompanied the purchase of eligible Apple hardware have now been extended until July 2021. To make it for fair for people who have already transitioned from a trial to a paying subscriber, Apple is giving out $4....

Apple has introduced a brand new programming language alongside a brand new version of Xcode. Swift is a big deal for developers. The language includes loads of features third-party developers have been asking for. It sits alongside Objective-C and C, meaning developers can interchange between languages in the same project. Swift includes type inference, generics and multiple return types and much much more. Swift will enable Apple developers to create new games without worrying about Objective-C cruft that has built up over the last decade....

(above, Apple’s Back to School Ads go live –thx) Last week we told you that Apple was going to unleash its Back to School sale today and would include a $100 gift card to the App Store. We’ve seen the artwork and the packages were supposed to be opened today to be displayed. That’s what the outside packaging said anyway. Late last night, @chronic tweeted that there was going to be a slight delay in the unveiling....

However, in all of those locations, you have to buy the iPhone through the mobile provider…usually saddled with a plan and/or a providor markup. But Apple is selling the iPhone right from its site in Hong Kong. I can even order one here from Greenwich Village and have it sent to a friend in Hong Kong. You can’t do this anywhere else on earth. Why? Many people buy the iPhone with the plan and then opt out for varying fees and sell it on the gray market....

Apple has officially posted its Q2 2016 earnings results with $50.6 billion in revenue and $10.5 billion in profit from the January to March quarter. Apple’s guidance last quarter first pointed to a year-over-year decline in iPhone sales for the quarter following the holiday season citing global economic issues and inflated iPhone 6 demand due to supply constraints the year earlier. Apple’s updated 4-inch iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro launched at the end of March....

Microsoft tried to launch its xCloud game streaming service on the App Store for iPhone and iPad users, but Apple rejected the app due to its strict guidelines. Now emails revealed in the Epic vs. Apple trial on Wednesday show that Apple even removed a similar app from the App Store after its existence was mentioned by Microsoft. Microsoft began testing xCloud for iOS in February of last year in a private beta, and things were going well until the company decided to release the app on the App Store....

15 Years of OS X The Steve Jobs biopic, released in 2015, exaggerated his transition from Apple. The film’s interpretation of the NeXT creation was Steve’s long-term strategy to get back into Apple one day. Watching early demos of the NeXT Step operating system and NeXT Cube never suggested this. Instead, Steve saw this as the next evolution of client computing, object-oriented programming, networking, and image manipulation. NeXT never became the next big thing in computing, but parts of it revolutionized the industry....

. At Apple’s Q4 earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked his thoughts on Microsoft’s new Surface tablet PC. Cook called it “a fairly compromised, confusing product,” and he compared it to a car that flies and floats: Cook also noted that iPhone 5 is still seeing delays but supplies are getting better: Apple announces Q4 2012 earnings: $36B revenue, $8.2B net profit, 26.9M iPhones, 14M iPads, 5.3M iPods, 4....

A new patent application published by the US Patent and Trademark Office gives us another thought-provoking insight into Apple’s thinking behind sci-fi keyboard designs. Granted, only a fraction of their patents see the light of day. Moreover, those that don’t often file is vague, too broad conceptual ideas. Nevertheless, this one’s interesting on several levels. Apple wants you to feel the keys before you hit them. The document entitled “Input Devices and Methods of Operation” proposes the use of air vents on keys (you read that right) coupled with a bunch of proximity sensors like the one inside your iPhone that prevents spray input from your face....

With Apple’s new payment card appearing to be set for imminent launch in the US, the question of when we’ll see Apple Card in the UK and other countries is back on the lips of many… We don’t yet have an answer, but we’ve at least got one encouraging sign: Apple has filed trademarks in databases in both Europe and Hong Kong. The European filing would cover the 28 European Union members, of which the UK remains one until at least October…...

What is Apple Fitness+? Ever since the first Apple Watch launched in 2015, the iPhone maker has played an increasingly active role in the overall health and wellness market. With so many of us kept largely at home during the pandemic, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company is now bringing video-lead workouts to the masses. Fitness+ is a paid subscription service that offers a catalog of workouts across various categories....

The endless patent battles between Apple and Samsung took an interesting turn this week when Apple claimed that the most recent court ruling violated the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: the right to trial by jury. Back in 2014, Apple was awarded $119.6M when Samsung was found to have violated three of the five patents in dispute. That award was overturned last month when an appeals court ruled that Samsung didn’t infringe one of the three patents, and declared the other two invalid....

Apple is moving to expand its personnel working on wearable computers and medical-sensor-laden devices by hiring more scientists and specialists in the medical sensor field. Apple began work in earnest on a watch-like device late last decade, and it has worked with increasing efficiency and more dedicated resources on the project over the past couple of years. Last year, we published an extensive profile that indicated Apple has hired several scientists, engineers, and managers in the field of biomedical technologies, glucose sensors, and general fitness devices…...

A report this morning claims Taiwan’s flash memory makers – including Samsung, Micron, Toshiba and Hynix – are prioritising orders for Apple and warning of shortages across the rest of the market. These moves emerge scant days since Apple introduced its new range of iPods, including the new high-capacity 64GB iPod touch (currently lacking a camera), new iPod nanos and more. The action also occurs as industry rumours speculate Apple may proffer a new bunch of product upgrades in the month ahead, with many still anticipating release of a media-focused Apple tablet....

One of the most useful new features to come to iOS over the last several years has been Security Code AutoFill. Added in iOS 12, this feature autofills the security code authentication text messages you receive from banks, websites, and more. On Twitter this weekend, an Apple software engineer has offered a fun look at how the feature was developed. Ricky Mondello explains that the idea for Security Code AutoFill actually came about while software engineers were working “what we thought was a much more ambitious project....

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....

In addition to the release of new iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS betas, Apple this evening also announced that the Volume Purchase Program is expanding to a handful of new countries. Starting today, the Volume Purchase Program is now available in Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Poland, Portugal, and South Africa, for a total of 8 new countries. The Volume Purchase Program, for those unfamiliar, allows for large parties like corporations and schools to more easily purchase and deploy mass numbers of applications....