Apple finally commented late this evening on the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against the company. What did Apple think up with those extra 48 hours? Peter Kafka got the scoop from Apple’s Tom Neumayr: The civil antitrust suit alleged that Apple’s move to let publishers set their own prices—and it is a requirement that publishers do not sell their digital books for cheaper elsewhere—forced consumers to pay millions more for books than they should have....

The company’s reported after-tax profit came in at AU$319.5 million, above the AU$288 million recorded in the previous financial year. Total revenue increased by double digits with AU$11 billion reported following last year’s AU$9.79 billion. This was mostly achieved through the sales of its products, which contributed a whopping AU$9.5 billion to total revenue, leaving services accounting for the remaining AU$1.65 million. “During 2021, aspects of the group’s business continued to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with many of the group’s retail stores, as well as channel partner points of sale, temporarily closed at various times, and a significant number of the group’s employees working remotely,” Apple stated....

Apple this evening has quietly stopped signing iOS 13.2.3 and iPadOS 13.2.3 following the release of iOS 13.3 last week. What this means is that it’s no longer possible to downgrade from iOS 13.3. Now that Apple has stopped signing iOS 13.2.3, it means that no one can downgrade from iOS 13.3 to that version via iTunes/Finder. Reverting to older iOS builds is common for those in the jailbreak community and can sometimes also be useful for users who experience significant bugs after updating to the latest version of iOS....

Apple has confirmed via iMore that a fix for the Telugu message bug is coming soon on all of its major platforms. The bug has already been fixed on the current beta versions of iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS, and that the company plans on pushing out an update sooner (in an iOS 11.2.x update, for example) to the public. As for a current temporary fix, simply have someone else send a message to the app that is crashing, jump into the notification and delete the thread with the offending message....

Apple is continuing its push to expand its retail arm under the guidance of new Retail VP Angela Ahrendts, with new stores popping up around the world. Today another of those new stores has been revealed as green and white signs promoting the upcoming Apple Store, Omotestando in Tokyo, Japan. The store is said to be opening in June. According to Macotakara [translation], the new store will use a “curtain of green” to control the interior climate and cut energy usage....

Apple’s R&D team has been on a roll lately. The latest patent application describes an interesting privacy mode on displays for mobile gadgets that can steer display light beams in various directions, allowing only the person directly in front of the display to see its content. Patenty Apple explains: The invention called “Systems and Methods for Electronically Controlling the Viewing Angle of a Display” is credited to an Apple engineer David Gere....

There seems to be no limits to what artists are able to create with Apple’s products. From Disney animators sketching classic characters, to an illustrator using an iPad Pro to design the New Yorker’s latest cover. In today’s latest artistic drive, Apple has partnered with five young Chinese artists to reinvent classic Nianhua folk art. On Apple’s new Made in CNY page, artists share the tools of their trade along with their art....

A sketchy report today says that the rumored Apple headset with combined AR-VR capabilities has fallen behind schedule. The report says supply-chain partners expected the device to move into a second phase of prototype testing last quarter, but this didn’t happen. However, it’s unclear that much weight should be given to the claim … The paywalled Digitimes report refers to the device as “AR glasses.” This is somewhat ambiguous, as Apple is believed to be working on two separate – and very different – products in this field....

After announcing WWDC 2018 earlier this month, Apple has officially started confirming lottery winners for WWDC 2018. Registration for this year’s developer conference closed yesterday at 10am PT. For those selected, Apple will begin charging your credit or debit cards for the amount of $1,599, unchanged from last year. WWDC 2018 lottery winners are now sharing via Twitter and elsewhere the results. WWDC 2018 will be held at the McEnery Convention Center, like last year....

In a radio interview on the syndicated show Conversations on Health Care, Apple COO Jeff Williams said that the reason Apple has come under attack for the use of child labor in its supply chain is that the company actively goes out looking for it. Other companies, he said, simply keep their heads down. Apple has come under fire over the years when underage workers were found in the company’s supply chain, and Williams has spoken before about Apple’s unusual stance on these issues …...

Update: Rollout has responded with a statement. Apple today has started informing developers that use “hot code push” SDKs that it will soon start rejecting their applications. In a thread on the Apple Developer Forums, developers are reporting that they have started receiving messages from the company explaining that the code must be removed before any further updates will be approved. While Apple has yet to publicly comment on the change, the email sent to affected developers seems to imply that services like Rollout....

To Our Developers We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software. We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others....

Following WWDC 2021 wrapping up last week, Apple executives are continuing to appear in podcasts and YouTube videos to discuss the company’s latest announcements. In a new video posted today, YouTuber Rene Ritchie sits down with Apple’s Kevin Lynch and Deidre Caldbeck to talk Apple Watch, Health, and more. Ritchie says: During the interview, Lynch spoke in-depth on the new Trends feature in Apple Health, explaining how the company tried to balance showing users useful data without overwhelming them:...

Apple hasn’t been given an easy ride with its plans for a major new European data center in Ireland, but final approval has now been granted by the local planning body, subject to a number of extra conditions. Apple first announced plans for the $950M data center some 18 months ago, aiming to deliver better connectivity to European customers for all its online services. All looked on track as the company was quickly granted planning permission for the facility, but despite the fact that the center will be entirely powered by renewable energy, an appeal was lodged on environmental grounds …...

Apple today announced that it is launching a scheme worth $2.5 billion to address the housing crisis in California. Apple wants to tackle the issue of skyrocketing house prices in its home state. Apple’s commitment includes $1 billion in affordable housing investments, $1 billion in mortgage assistance for first-time buyers, and $300 million worth of Apple land opened up to affordable housing projects. In a statement, Apple said it is partnering with Governor Gavin Newsom, the state of California, and community organizations....

Apple has announced that Super Mario is coming to the iPhone, as part of its iPhone 7 event. The company brought Shigeru Minamoto on stage to announce Apple bringing Nintendo’s top franchise to the iPhone. Get the new Mario game app later this year in December, but you can go to the App Store today and get it to “Notify” you when the app launches. The game will have some free trial content and one in-app purchase to unlock everything....

Apple today announced its selection of best apps and games for 2019 after inviting developers and members of the press to a related special event in New York. The company follows the tradition of choosing apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV that stood out this year. Apps of the year This year, Spectre Camera from Lux Optics was named the best iPhone app. Spectre Camera was developed by the creators of the popular Halide camera app....

Apple has rebranded iOS for the iPad as iPadOS. The homescreen is denser with more icons per page, and you can slide out a permanent widgets column on the left of the screen. You can now have multiple windows per open application, in split views. There’s also new link previews when long-pressing. The iPad now supports external disk drives and SD cards natively; just plug in and access from the Files app....

Internal documents released as part of the Epic Games lawsuit reveal an Apple anti-fraud engineer suggesting that App Store checks were grossly inadequate. Epic cited two particularly damning quotes from Eric Friedman, head of the company’s Fraud Engineering Algorithms and Risk unit, in internal documents … The Financial Times reports. The quotes were cited by Epic as more evidence that Apple was using app vetting as a pretext for taking its cut of app sales....

Apple and Google are back at it again and attempting to bring a safe and friendly mobile experience to your car. Android Auto and CarPlay are the two company’s re-imagining of mobile user interfaces for the car and both are gearing up for a major rollout over the next year. Each system is designed to work with its respective native mobile platform, but there are differences between the two that may appeal to different people....