[Update: Apple has confirmed plant evacuation of Cork facilities following ‘threatening emails’ the company received. The situation has now been dealt with and employees are returning to work.] According to local news, Apple’s plants in Cork, Ireland have been evacuated following a potential security threat in the area. Around 4000 workers have been told to leave premises at Apple’s facilities in Lavitts Quay, Hollyhill and Model Farm Road. Although details are scarce, Defence Forces told The Independent that explosive ordnance disposal teams are on standby in case they are needed....

Apple and Yahoo are in active discussions regarding increasing their partnership, according to The Wall Street Journal. While the report does not provide any true specifics regarding what an increased partnership could entail, the report notes that discussions have surrounded increased Yahoo integration into Siri. Additionally, Yahoo is reportedly exploring ways to reduce Apple’s reliance on Google for web search functions. Apple and Yahoo have had a lengthy history in terms of iPhone/iOS-related partnerships....

Apple today announced a major new investment project, revealing its plans to establish a European Center for Chip Design in Munich, Germany. The financial commitment will exceed 1 billion euros over the next three years. The facility will hire hundreds of employees and focus on advancing mobile and wireless technologies, including 5G. The research and development will ultimately inform future Apple silicon chip designs. Currently, Apple relies on Qualcomm to supply separate cellular modem chips for the iPhone, which works in tandem with the Apple A14 SoC....

New iMac (2021) The first iMac to feature a 24-inch display since the polycarbonate iMac in 2006, the new iMac (2021) becomes the fourth Apple computer to include an Apple M1 system on chip (SoC) architecture. Unlike the Mac mini (2020), MacBook Air (M1, 2020), and 13-inch MacBook Pro (M1, 2020), this new model offers an all-new design. Available in green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver, the iMac (2021) is thinner and more compact than previous versions....

Apple’s education event is underway at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum where the company announced the “iBooks 2″ app, a major new version designed to help integrate the iPad into school curriculum. That was Apple’s first highlight of the event — reinventing textbooks. We have been given some interesting metrics, and now Schiller unveiled “iBooks Author.” It is a new (and free!) Mac app for authoring e-books. “Authors are going to love to use iBooks Create to create not only textbooks, but any kind of book,” said Schiller....

Apple announced iOS 8 today during its Worldwide Developer Conference, including several new features for its default Mail client. Among those new features were new gestures for quickly handling messages by swiping. Swiping from left to right allows you to mark a message as unread, while swiping right-to-left presents options for deleting or archive messages and more. The app also now intelligently detects invitations and other potential calendar events and presents a banner at the top of the message that offers to create that event auotmatically....

Apple today has scheduled its Q4 2017 earnings call as noted on its Investor Relations webpage. Apple will release its Q4 earnings on November 2nd with a call following shortly thereafter at 2PM PT/5PM ET. Apple reported revenue of $45.5 billion last quarter on sales of 41 million iPhones, 11.4 million iPads, and 4.29 million Macs. The Q4 2017 earnings release will offer a first look at iPhone 8 sales and will see Apple share guidance for the holiday season....

Apple has confirmed that it will be offering Black Friday deals in the online store as well as in retail stores. For the online store, the special pricing will be available from midnight to midnight. Apple hasn’t revealed what the savings will be, but last year offered $100 off MacBooks as well as smaller discounts on iPads, iPods and a range of other products. The promo also says that shipping is free without the usual minimum spend caveat (usually $50 in the US)....

Apple today emailed several Brazilian outlets to confirm the news that it would open an Apple retail store in the city. Translated: The news comes after it was recently discovered that Apple was hiring retail employees for both Rio and Istanbul, Turkey. . Per Apple’s financials, the company plans to open 30 to 35 new stores in the coming year with 75 percent of those being outside of the United States....

Apple is continuing to expand its testing of autonomous vehicles. According to new details from macReports, the company now has upwards of 65 autonomous vehicles on the road in California, continuing the gradual increase that has been taking place over recent months… This information comes from records filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Apple is still not the most prolific tester of autonomous vehicles in the state, with GM Cruise leading the way at 117 cars with 333 drivers....

Apple CEO Tim Cook is speaking live at the Goldman Sachs Technology conference, where he just called Greenlight Capital’s suit a “silly sideshow.” Cook started his comments by announcing Apple looked last year at things it could do to improve governance, and, in the review, thought it should eliminate a blank check from the charter. “So, it doesn’t mean Apple won’t release preferred share. It means we need to go to common shareholders to get their approval,” he explained....

Update: Apple crosses $700B market cap… Apple’s stock today closed at a record high of $118.62 per share (post 7-1 split) with a market cap of nearly $700 billion at $695.7 billion. Earlier this month, Apple reached its highest market capitalization in history reaching two-thirds of $1 trillion; the company’s stock has continued to climb as it prepares to debut the Apple Watch next spring and enters the holiday quarter....

Apple and government officials have been publicly sparring over how to handle privacy and encryption for months, and new rules expected to be proposed in the UK on Wednesday might make Apple’s position much harder to maintain. The issue boils down to Apple allowing iPhone users to encrypt data behind a password — encryption that Apple can’t break through — and government officials wanting access in instances where de-encrypting smartphones could help law enforcement and security efforts....

During its Spring Forward event in San Francisco today, Apple officially took the wraps off the ultra-thin 12″ MacBook we exclusively profiled in January. With an all-new 2304×1440 resolution 12″ screen, and reengineered keyboard that runs nearly the entire width of the machine, the new MacBook has a tiny footprint, yet the thinnest screen housing ever on a Mac. A 1.1GHz version with 256GB will sell for $1,299 starting on April 10, with a $1,599 model bumping the processor to 1....

Apple today has debuted two new TV ads for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. These ads come just a week after the company unveiled its new holiday ad featuring Stevie Wonder and Andra Day. The two new iPhone ads are entitled “Hey Siri” and “Ridiculously Powerful,” and focus on exactly what you would expect them to. “Hey Siri” centers around the iPhone’s support for always-listening support for Siri. The ad shows a variety of different use cases for the feature, including asking Siri for restaurant recommendations, trivia questions, to play a song, and much more....

Apple has announced today that it is teaming up with (RED) to donate to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS. For select Apple Pay purchases made over the next week, Apple will donate $1 to the fund. Apple says that from November 25 through December 2, it will make that $1 donation for every purchase made with Apple Pay by customers at Apple Stores, on Apple․com, and in the Apple Store application on iOS....

Following Apple’s win of an injunction on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, the court has granted Apple with a preliminary injunction on Google and Samsung’s high-profile Galaxy Nexus smartphone. This is according to a tweet from inside the courtroom by Reuters reporter Dan Levine. Additionally, the court says that Apple must pay a $96 million bond to secure this preliminary injunction. As Google and Samsung’s flagship smartphone, expect this injunction to be fought heavily....

CEOs and political leaders in Davos are talking a lot about companies focusing on more than just profits by being responsible for their employees, their suppliers, and their communities. One company that has come under some particularly harsh criticism for failing to live up to this ideal is Apple. Famed US economist Joseph Stiglitz said Apple has failed to do the most basic job of a responsible company, which is to pay its fair share in tax by leaving much of its profits in Ireland....

Earlier this week, during a trip to Silicon Valley, Ferrari CEO Luca di Montezemolo gave a speech at Stanford University and met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and “heads of Google” for sit down meetings. The report comes from Ferrari’s website, which claimed Cook and Montezemolo had a “two-hour face-to-face meeting.” There is not much information about what the two chiefs talked about, but Montezemolo said the two companies share a similar passion for design and that he was impressed with Cook’s “availability and openness”:...

Update: In a statement, TSMC said the virus incident would reduce estimated third quarter revenues by 3%, as well as shipment delays that would be caught up by the fourth quarter. According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple supplier TSMC was forced to shut down several of its factories late last night due to a “computer virus.” While details are unclear at this point, the shutdown comes as TSMC is ramping up chip production for the new iPhone models coming this year…...