United States customs delayed the import of the HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE due to patent issues with Apple, according to The Verge. This is the first type of delay of this nature that we have seen, and it is definitely very interesting. Customs is holding back the handsets while the agency investigates outstanding patent issues currently raised with Apple. During December of last year, the International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Apple and ordered a ban on a number of HTC products....

All of the details from Apple’s Support Doc: As a thank you to our former MobileMe members, we will continue to provide you with this complimentary storage upgrade at no charge, for an additional year, until September 30, 2013. No action is required on your part. For complete details, please read this article. iCloud Team As a thank you to our former MobileMe members who moved to iCloud, we have extended the complimentary storage upgrade they received until September 30, 2013....

Radio Shack, a US retailler with over 4,700 US locations, has expanded its lineup of Apple products online and in stores. While Radio Shack has long carried iOS devices and accessories including Apple’s Wireless Keyboard, the retail chain is now offering Mac specific accessories including Wired keyboards, Mice/Trackpads, Magsafe power adapters, video adapter/cables and more. The additions were first noticed by MacRumors. The move follows Apple’s addition of Staples to it’s stable earlier this year and the combined total of new places to find these items near 6,500 locations in the US....

As it continues to deepen its augmented and virtual reality ambitions, Apple has hired the developer of a popular painting app for VR headsets. According to a new report from Variety, the company has hired Sterling Crispin, the developer behind ‘Cyber Paint.’ The Cyber Paint application allows virtual reality users to create 2D and 360-degree pictures using a virtual reality headset. Currently, the application is available for the HTC Vive Focus, Oculus Go, and Google Day Dream....

Today during Apple’s Q1 earnings call with investors, CEO Tim Cook announced that the company sold its billionth iOS device back in November. Cook noted that the billionth device was a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus and that the company is keeping it at its headquarters in honor of the milestone. The news comes as Apple beats expectations and reports record smartphone sales today with 74.4 million iPhone units sold during the holiday quarter....

Apple has announced a new MacBook Air with a Magic Keyboard and a new $999 price point for all customers, and a discounted $899 price for the education market. The MacBook Air now replaces the butterfly keyboard with a Magic Keyboard similar to what Apple debuted in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The internal specs have also been given a boost. Apple has also doubled the base storage, so the MacBook Air now starts at 256 GB....

Apple today is launching an expansive new ad campaign that will run on television during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, as well as online. The company is calling the new campaign “Behind the Mac” and it highlights 12 real stories of people using the Mac to solve problems, create music, and more. The goal of the Behind the Mac campaign, the company says, is to highlight how users continue to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation with the Mac platform....

Apple is updating the built-in Health app on the iPhone with new features in iOS 15. The Health app uses a new metric called Walking Steadiness to give users a risk of falling assessment before a fall actually happens. Apple is also adding a better way of understanding lab results in the Health app. The Health app will present trends for health data in iOS 15 as well. This is similar to Activity trends that started on Apple Watch, but these will include even more health metrics....

Apple has finally updated one of the last of its apps holding out for iOS 7: Find My Friends. The social app stood out the most on iOS 7 with its leather stitching and real life paper map theme, but rest assured Apple has redesigned it with iOS 7 in mind. The new update features transparency, lots of white space, and feels much lighter (which is refreshing if that’s your style)....

Japan has been treated to six new and remodeled stores since April 2018 as part of Apple’s significant investment in the country. The latest is Apple Fukuoka, which moved from its original classic location in the Tenjin district to a completely unique new space just 150 meters away. The old store was the last in the world with a vintage feature Apple called The Studio. Drawing design inspiration from stores like Apple Garosugil, the company’s first in South Korea, Apple Fukuoka’s facade has a dynamic stance with two stepped stone walls bridged by an angled canopy....

It can’t. Sony is worth over $45 billion – about the same as Yahoo! which also isn’t possible for Apple to purchase (and might make more sense). A merger? Yeah, I can see Steve Jobs ceding some control of Apple to outside forces. It really makes you wonder why Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs doesn’t just buy Sony. Plus, what would Apple get? Vaios that run Windows Vista? A semi successful TV hardware business?...

The new version comes with quite a few important upgrades, and the moment couldn’t be better for Apple. Yosemite is said to have reached the fastest adoption rate of any desktop OS ever, with 55 percent of active Mac users using it. And the new OS X El Capitan could maintain that trend with a bunch of new useful features. With this new OS version, Apple says it has focused on improving the experience and performance for Mac users....

The Supreme Court this week ruled in the Apple App Store antitrust case, and Apple lost. The court ruled that the lawsuit could proceed in a lower court. The decision, however, was just a technical one. It didn’t address the merits of the antitrust lawsuit itself, but merely rejected Apple’s argument that the issue had nothing to do with consumers. The real battle comes when the lawsuit itself goes to court …...

If you needed any further evidence that it’s no longer possible to distinguish satire from real-life, you can now buy Apple Card cases in wood or metal – including gold, of course – for anything from $39 to $900… Apple kind of made this inevitable when it issued a support document for how to protect and clean your Apple Card. Kerf offers a case in a choice of four different woods, with prices ranging from $39 to $139....

Bad news for Apple customers hoping to purchase a HomePod before the end of the year. Apple has released a statement saying it has pushed the HomePod’s release target into early 2018. HomePod was originally unveiled back at WWDC in June as a preview ahead of a promised December release. “We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers....

A planning application to refresh the design of Apple’s Regent Street store in London describes the current look as “tired and outdated” as it joins the queue to see a major redesign. This is expected to be broadly in line with the new look first seen in Brussels when it opened two weeks ago, overseen by Jony Ive in his new role as Apple’s Chief Design Officer. The status of the building as ‘listed’ (historically protected) will limit the exterior changes the company is allowed to make, but the four Apple logos in the windows will be removed to allow in more light, reports the Evening Standard....

Apple is rolling out an update to the Apple Developer app for iPhone and iPad that brings a few notable features. This update comes ahead of the forthcoming all online WWDC that Apple has announced for June. The latest version of the Apple Developer application allows you to watch videos at multiple different playback speeds. For example, you could watch a WWDC session video at 2x speed if you’re trying to find a specific bit of information....

Apple and IBM are continuing to develop their partnership first established just over a year ago as IBM announced today a new program to help large enterprises use Macs within their IT infrastructures. IBM’s MobileFirst Managed Mobility Services will allow its commercial clients to integrate Macs in their workplace with IBM supporting the deployment. Interestingly, IBM says it’s able to roll out the new program to commercial clients thanks to its own internal trial that we previously reported....

Popular Apple Authorized Reseller and Service Provider Simply Mac is closing a handful of stores around the country. The store, owned by GameStop, operates a variety of locations in areas primarily where Apple Stores aren’t prevalent. The news of the closures has been reported by local stations around the country. The Billings Gazette, for instance, reports that the Simply Mac store in Billings shut down yesterday following a less-than-stellar holiday quarter....

It didn’t take long for the first Android clone of the iPhone X to appear, in the form of the Leagoo S9. The phone copied both the rounded corners and notch on the front of the device, along with the vertical camera bump on the rear. And today a more familiar brand has done the same with Xiaomi’s Mi 8 … TNW put the phones side-by-side (above) to show just how familiar they look....