Apple today announced that it has finally filled the role of Senior Vice President of Retail: the Cupertino tech giant has hired Angela Ahrendts. Ahrendts is leaving her role as CEO of fashion retailer Burberry to take the top Apple retail job. Ahrendts will also lead Apple’s online stores. She will officially begin her role in Spring 2014. You may recall Apple replaced its original Head of Retail Ron Johnson, who left for JCPenney but has since been removed from that role, with John Browett, but Browett proved not to be a good fit and was removed almost a year ago to date....

Here are some of the other essential features of the new Apple tablet. The iPad 3 is running on an A5X chip, with quad-core graphics, allowing a much better gaming experience.5 megapixel iSight camera with the optics of the iPhone 4S. And what’s even nicer is that it can capture 1080p video.Voice dictation, which means it will translate what you tell it to text. And no, this is not an upgrade version of Siri....

Along with their major update to Apple TV, Apple announced today that it has been granted approval from the Los Angeles School Board of Education to begin a massive iPad program starting this fall. The news was earlier reported by the LA Times. The program will equip students across the nation’s second biggest school district with iPads that include the Pearson Common Core System of Courses delivered via a new app as part of the integrated solution....

Apple is continuing to increase the prominence of its limited time iPhone sales offer, which enables customers to buy iPhone XS and iPhone XR for cheaper when trading in an existing iPhone model … Amidst rumors of weaker-than-expected sales of the 2018 lineup, Apple has been aggressively advertising its boosted trade-in scheme with Apple Store retail visibility, App Store editorial, increasingly large homepage features and even Twitter ads. The latest extension to this promotion is a new web page that allows prospective buyers to select their current device, and then see how much an iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max or iPhone XR would cost them if they swapped out their good condition device today....

Apple has added a handful of new stars to its upcoming thriller drama seres ‘Are You Sleeping?’ based on the book of the same name. According to Deadline, Moon Bloodgood of ‘Code Black’ will star as a series regular, with several others have come aboard with recurring roles… Today’s report says that Moon Bloodgood, star of the ‘Code Black’ TV drama which was cancelled this year, will be a series regular on ‘Are You Sleeping?...

Ahead of its launch next week, Apple today has launched a new ad for Beats 1 in Times Square in New York City. Zane Lowe, who will be one of three hosts on Apple’s 24/7 streaming station Beats 1, tweeted the above image of the advertisement. The promotional image touts that Beats 1 is worldwide and always on, two of the qualities Apple discussed heavily when it unveiled Apple Music at WWDC....

Alongside the iPhone 12 mini and Pro Max orders opening this week and the devices arriving to the first customers on November 13, Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack and product line manager Francesca Sweet have shared a behind the scenes look at the company’s philosophy for iPhone camera design, it’s goals for everyday users to pros, and more. McCormack and Sweet talked with PetaPixel for a new interview diving into Apple’s thinking behind designing its iPhone cameras....

Apple CEO Tim Cook led a virtual company-wide meeting today, addressing the ongoing COVID-19 situation and associated plans to return to work. In a new report this afternoon, Bloomberg has the details of the meeting. During the meeting, Cook promised that Apple will keep investing in research and development in a “really significant way,” despite the current “uncertain and stressful” environment of COVID-19. The Apple CEO said: Cook was asked during the meeting about potential job cuts, and he reiterated that Apple is focused on the long-term future, not making short-term adjustments....

Apple today announced the HomePod mini, its latest smart speaker product following the launch of the original HomePod in 2017. The speaker features a new circular ‘bowl’ design, available in white or black, wrapped in mesh fabric. HomePod mini will be released on November 16 for $99. Orders start November 6. Apple said the new HomePod mini combines amazing sound with the smarts of a voice assistant. The speaker emits sound in a 360-degree array....

US senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has said that the Apple Card‘s “sexist” algorithm should be withdrawn if the claimed bias cannot be explained… Background The controversy began when Ruby on Rails creator David Hansson tweeted that Goldman Sachs gave him an Apple Card credit limit 20 times higher than his wife, despite the fact that their assets are shared, and she actually has a better credit score than he does....

Apple has posted the dates of the usual holiday shutdown of iTunes Connect, running for eight days from 22 to 29 December inclusive. During this time, developers will not be able to submit either new apps or updates to existing ones. Developers can still schedule apps for release during these dates, but they will need to be submitted and approved beforehand. Other iTunes Connect functionality, such as access to analytics data, will remain available....

Earlier this week, Apple sent an email to Apple Podcast Providers informing them of upcoming changes to how metadata is handled in Apple Podcasts. This evening, Apple has clarified those changes in a new email to podcasters. Apple’s original email, sent to podcasters yesterday, explained a few things that publishers should avoid: including placeholder text from your hosting provider, verbatim repetition of the title or author name in the description, incorporating irrelevant content or spam, and adding episode numbers in titles....

Apple is planning to update the system it uses to handle law enforcement requests for user data. While the company had previously relied on a dated email system, it is now upgrading to a new online portal. In a letter written to the U.S. Senate, Apple’s highest-ranking lawyer details the company’s plans on allowing access to user data (via Business Insider). Just last year Apple responded to roughly 14,000 legal requests from law enforcement asking for user data....

Research firm Deepfield reports that Apple has for the first time relied on its own content delivery network for the distribution of iOS 8 to users (via WSJ): “Until today, Apple used Akamai and other CDNs to deliver a large portion of their network traffic to consumers. Akamai is a content delivery network or CDN, so when your iOS device asked the network to download a new version, Akamai is the company that has the tens of thousands of servers around the world that would send you that update....

The HomePod was launched in the United States back in 2017 and since then its expansion around the world has been quite slow. And after being launched in Japan last year, the company confirmed today that the HomePod will also be available shortly in India. The news comes as no surprise, as iOS 13.3.1 was released yesterday with support for Indian English Siri voices for HomePod, and that usually only happens when Apple is ready to launch the product in the country....

The latest antitrust hearing looking into concerns about Apple and Google’s market power is underway. Along with the companies getting a grilling from the Congressional subcommittee on antitrust, representatives from Spotify, Tile, and more are testifying about how they see the two tech giants as stifling competition. The Apple and Google hearing today entitled Antitrust Applied: Examining Competition in App Stores is another instance of monopoly concerns growing about the tech titans....

Apple has made quite a lot of progress on its under construction “Campus 2” set to become the company’s new headquarters when complete around the end of the year. Since last checking in a month ago, a video update published today by Matthew Roberts for June shows continued progress on the roof of the main circular spaceship building, including a look at the heating and cooling systems installed throughout, and what looks to be some new outdoor areas surrounding the entrance of the underground theatre....

Just a week after Apple Card added a new web portal for managing your bill and statements from the browser, another major feature gap has been partially filled. As first spotted on Reddit, you can now link your Apple Card account to the budgeting service Mint. For those unfamiliar, Mint is a popular budgeting service that ties together banks, bills, credit cards, and more from various different places. For Apple Card users, one of the glaring omissions (other than a web portal) was integration with budgeting platforms like Mint....

Readers and Tweeters are reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook is at the Palo Alto University Apple Store greeting new iPhone 5S and 5C buyers. Cook spoke highly of the nearby new design Stanford Shopping Center at the iPhone 5s/c announcement. Update: We’re now hearing that Eddie Cue and Phil Schiller are at the new Stanford Store doing the same thing. Some Tim Cook Tweets/images below: @9to5mac Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller are here at the Stanford Apple Store!...

Apple has effectively confirmed yesterday’s Bloomberg report that both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched investigations into whether Apple may have broken the law by throttling iPhone performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns. The company has also given a statement in response … Apple did not specify the names of the agencies, but did confirm to Axios that it has been contacted by more than one....