Following in the tradition of previous years, Apple is preparing customers for it’s annual sale in Japan starting January 2. In the past Apple used to hand out ‘lucky bags‘ to customers containing a multitude of different products, though that promotion appears to have ended back in 2015. This year’s sale isn’t quite clear as to what it entails. Roughly translated, Apple Japan’s site reads “Apple’s first sale is on January 2nd....

Apple is attempting to open its own stores in India, as reported by the Business Standard. However, India has regulations that require companies to source 30% of its components from Indian companies. Apple is requesting that this restriction be relaxed so that it can set up stores legally… According to the report, members of Apple management met with country officials to discuss the problem. A DIPP (the department which controls Indian foreign investment policy) representatives said:...

Apple today has enhanced its iWork suite of iCloud apps to include much improved collaboration, new document options, and more file storage. iWork includes the Pages word processor, Keynote presentation maker, and Numbers spreadsheet manager, and it is likely that supporting apps for iOS and OS X will become available in the near future… The new collaboration features allow for over 100 people to collaborate on a single file in either Pages, Keynote, or Numbers....

Apple chipmaker TSMC said that the earthquake that hit southern Taiwan earlier this month caused damage that will impact production, but has not yet given a clear indication of the scale of the problem. The company is one of two chip fabricators for the iPhone 6s, and is expected to be the sole manufacturer of the A10 chip for the iPhone 7. The 6.4-magnitude earthquake on February 6 killed 116 people and injured many more, with significant damage also caused to manufacturing facilities …...

Apple is breathing new life into its award-winning Shot on iPhone ad campaign. According to TechCrunch, the company is launching a new series of images in the campaign that focus on color. The campaign is called Colors and will put images shot with an iPhone on billboards across many countries. Apple says that all images in the new campaign will focus on showcasing bright and vibrant colors users see around them on a daily basis....

As Apple TV+ and the company’s other Services continue to grow with more content, Apple is investing in the backend with a big hire for its technical team. Reported by the Wall Street Journal, Apple has poached one of Netflix’s top engineers, Ruslan Meshenberg. The WSJ highlights that Apple has faced challenges with rolling out a variety of its Services over the years like Apple Maps, iCloud, and Apple Music. Looking to head off issues as Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and more expand the company has made a big hire for its internet-services team this week....

Sure but it is only a question of time. Preliminary PC numbers in the U.S. showed Apple (AAPL) jumped from 7.4% of total shipments a year earlier to 9.7% in Q4, a 24% rise, the largest unit shipment increase of any vendor. HP lost 6%, Dell lost 6.1%, Acer lost 30% in the U.S. market, and Toshiba gained 14.4%. At 10.3%, Toshiba is just slightly ahead of Apple in fourth place....

Update: As usual, the event will be livestreamed online. Grab the calendar event here. Mark your calendars, folks, it’s official. Apple has issued press invites to its next media event on September 7 at Bill Graham Civic Center in San Francisco at 10 am PT. The company is widely expected to unveil new iPhones and could unveil new MacBook Pros and the Apple Watch 2 at the same event. The new iPhones are generally expected to feature a very similar design to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which suggests Apple could save the ‘iPhone 7’ name for 2017 models and use a version of the iPhone 6 name (like iPhone 6 SE) this year....

Apple has today announced several new software features for educators and students. The company is introducing a new Schoolwork app and bringing its Classroom app to the Mac, as well as a new ClassKit API. Apple says the ClassKit framework will be available in iOS 11.4. Leading Apple’s announcements today is a new Schoolwork application that lets teachers distribute handouts and create assignments. Schoolwork is cloud-based and integrates with ClassKit. The app will be available this June, in time for the 2018-2019 school year....

Earlier this week, Apple announced that it was handing over operations of iCloud data services for customers in China to GCBD, who will manage the data in mainland China. The change is in an effort to comply with local laws. While the change was only meant to affect customers in mainland China, select users outside of China also received an email telling them their data was affected and being given to GCBD....

Apple stock ($AAPL) crossed yet another momentous milestone for its financials, hitting $700 billion market capitalization as the stock ticked over $119.65. At a pre-split price, this tallies $837.13. The stock last peaked in late 2012, when it topped out in the mid $650’s. That’s a $50 billion increase from two weeks ago. Through 2013, the price tumbled over investor doubts about new product categories and Cook’s leadership. In recent months, though, $AAPL stock has returned and surpassed its 2012 highs....

The last we heard in the case of Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission taking Apple to court over the “4G” branding of the new iPad was a meeting earlier this week that ended without resolution. Apple offered users a refund for the third-gen 4G iPad and changed some of its “4G LTE” advertising on its Australian website following complaints the device did not operate on frequencies used by 4G networks in the country....

Via the Wall Street Journal, an Apple spokesperson fleshes out some of the finer details surrounding the fingerprint sensor and Touch ID. To use Touch ID, it is mandatory to also set up a passcode. This acts as a fallback in case the fingerprint sensor fails temporarily or experiences a permanent hardware fault. iOS may necessitate a passcode under some other conditions, as well. By having the sensitive data expire fairly quickly, Apple is hoping that hackers will not have enough time to decrypt the data and have it still be useful....

Deploying and managing iPads and iPhones today is drastically different than how it was a few years ago. Today, it’s a known process. You enroll the devices into Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, get them enrolled into your mobile device management system, and then you can go from ordering the device directly from Apple straight to handing them out still shrink wrapped. Jamf calls this a zero touch deployment....

Apple today has expanded its popular Apple Maps Flyover feature to a pair of new cities, while it has also rolled out Spotlight Suggestions to new countries and its traffic data to a single new location. Last month, the company expanded Maps Nearby, Flyover, and traffic data to a handful of new locations, following a more significant Flyover expansion that occurred in February of this year. For Flyover, the iOS 9 feature is now available in Akron, Ohio and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico....

It’s official: Apple will hold its next big event on September 12 at Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. Apple issued media invites with the tagline ‘Gather round’ as a teaser today. While three new flagship iPhones and a redesigned Apple Watch are expected to be the star of the show, there are a lot of other products in the pipeline that could make an appearance at the big event. iPhone X(s) Apple is expected to unveil three new iPhones — each with the iPhone X design including Face ID and no bezels....

During a special event earlier today, Apple announced Apple Arcade, a new premium subscription game service for iOS devices that will bring gamers a curated lineup of the premium app store titles for a monthly fee. The service will include games from developers like Konami, Mistwalker, and Sega. Apple Arcade is the latest initiative from a major tech company that hinges on the idea of games as a service. Google recently announced Stadia, a game streaming platform, that would do away with traditional console setups in favor of a setup run directly out of Google’s servers and playable on anything that can use Chrome....

Apple recently has filed a new document with the Federal Communications Commission in which it argues that Made for iPhone, or MFi, accessories should be acknowledged by the organization as alternatives for hearing aid compatibility compliance. Recently, the FCC has proposed that all phones and consumer wireless devices must be compatible with hearing aids. In response to the new proposal from the FCC, Apple says that all products that fall under its MFi hearing aid standards already comply with the FCC’s hearing aid compliance regulations....

For the first time ever, Apple partnered with The Ellen Show to give the whole audience an iPhone, the iPhone XR. In a rather cringey skit with Julia Roberts, Ellen DeGeneres announces to the crowd that they are all getting the brand new iPhone. The Ellen Show always does 12 days of giveaways for the holiday season but never before has Apple participated in what are essentially paid promotional segments. You can watch the 3-minute sequence below....

Following preliminary approval it received in August, Apple has been granted the final court approval it needed in its $450 million ebook settlement, according to a Reuters report. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote previously expressed concern over the proposed settlement citing a clause in the agreement that she called “most troubling”, but today called the settlement agreement “within the range of those that may be approved as fair and reasonable.”...