Apple just posted a slew of new SEC filings to their Investor Relations site. Back in 2011, the company’s Board of Directors approved an amendment that requires all restricted stock unit (compensation not actually issued until vested a certain time later) to be performance-based, rather than stock price-based. In an effort to “lead by example”, Tim Cook worked with the Board to change his large 1-million RSU 2011 award into performance-based compensation....

Ahead of the Apple Watch making its way onto the wrists of consumers, Apple has published a new support page detailing the device’s heart rate monitor. As we know, the Apple Watch includes a heart rate reader to measure a person’s intensity during workouts. With knowledge of this intensity data, the Watch is able to more accurately measure the amount of calories a person burns per day. Additionally, a user can check their heart rate at any time using a feature known as the Heart Rate Glance....

Apple has released a statement today sharing that it will be donating $1 million towards relief efforts for ongoing Southern California wildfires. This adds to the millions the company has donated this year for disaster relief. KTLA’s Rich DeMuro shared a statement from Apple this morning in a tweet. Apple has consistently donated to to recovery efforts with the slew of natural disasters we’ve seen this year. In October Apple donated $1 million for the Northern California fires and also matched employees’ donations....

Update, Nov. 8: After complying with court orders and posting a new, revised apology to Samsung on its website, many were calling out Apple for the way the new apology was displayed. As noted by users on Reddit, Apple updated its website to ensure users would never see the message unless scrolling all the way to the bottom of the homepage. Following the complaints, as noticed by CNET, Apple has apparently pulled the code from its UK site that forced users to scroll in order to see the apology....

Following an announcement last week from Apple that it was delaying support for iOS 9’s App Thinning feature due to a bug with iCloud backups, Apple today released Xcode version 7.0.1 to developers to fix related bugs. The feature was implemented in iOS 9 to allowing developers to trim down the size of large applications by marking assets for each specific type of device. At the time of Apple’s announcement, it said the feature would be delayed “due to an issue affecting iCloud backups created from iOS 9 where some apps from the App Store would only restore to the same model of iOS device....

Apple today announced in a press release that it is bringing Apple Pay to China. The company revealed that it is partnering with UnionPay in the country to bring support for its mobile payment solution to iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad users in the country. In China, Apple Pay will support 15 of the country’s leading banks. At this point, however, it’s unclear what banks will be supported. In China, Apple Pay will work with the UnionPay Quickpass, which is an existing contactless payment method in the country....

As drones continue to rise in popularity, the ultra-portable Hover Camera Passport today became available from Apple.com and in Apple retail stores. Created by Zero Zero Robotics, the Hover Passport is a lightweight drone made from a carbon fiber material, so it’s portable and easy to take with you everywhere you go. In addition to being for sale on Apple.com and in retail stores, Apple is taking its partnership with Zero Zero Robotics a step further and offering in-store demos of the product....

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVwHCGAr_OE] Google has put together its annual inspirational Year in Search video, and shared some of the trending searches across the year – with Apple making the charts for both the right and wrong reasons. On the plus side, Apple took the #1 slot in consumer electronics searches, with the iPhone 6 ahead of rival smartphones from Samsung, Google, Motorola, LG and Nokia. Apple was also the only company to make three of the top-ten searches, with the Apple Watch at #8 and iPad Air at #10 … The news was rather less encouraging in the top YouTube video searches, with #bendgate making ‘iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test’ the fifth most popular search....

Dobberpuhl isn’t alone. Other key PA Semi team members have left Apple, including one of PA Semi’s leading members, Mark Hayter…[Dobberpuhl] was the CEO at PA Semi and leader of the team, and one of the guys that was driving the whole thing…those guys are start-up kind of people, and within the structure of Apple, they may [have been] chafing.” Chafing. Ouch. On the hiring side, Apple picked up former Google product Manager RJ Pittman according to TechCrunch....

Apple is taking a page out of Spotify’s book and adding a new year-in-review feature to Apple Music. Starting today, you can access your Apple Music “Replay” playlist through Apple Music on the web and in the Music apps on iOS, iPadOS, and Mac. As first reported by TechCrunch, the new Replay feature provides users a playlist of their most listened to songs from 2019, as well as prior years dating all the way back to 2015....

Apple this weekend has shared a new video as part of its Shot on iPhone “Experiments” series. This video, called “Fire & Ice,” was shot entirely with iPhone 11 Pro, and Apple has shared a short behind the scenes video to go along with it. The “Fire & Ice” video was shot on iPhone 11 Pro by Donghoon Jun and James Thornton of Incite and was commissioned by Apple. The video offers incredibly close-up looks at fire and ice in different forms and environments....

Mark Papermaster, who was released from Apple following the ‘Antennagate’ non-issue, has scooped up one of Apple’s chief CPU architects, Jim Keller. Keller is a pretty big deal at Apple, where his job is listed as the A4/A5 Designer & K8 Lead Architect. Keller, picture right in 2005 at PA Semi, came to Apple as part of the PA Semi acquisition in 2008, and he would have worked under Mark Papermaster during his tenure at Apple until Papermaster’s release in 2010....

Apple informed customers in Germany that push email on both MobileMe and iCloud services were disabled due to the company’s patent fight with handset maker Motorola Mobility. According to a support document Apple quietly published today, “Due to recent patent litigation by Motorola Mobility, iCloud and MobileMe users are currently unable to have iCloud and MobileMe email pushed to their iOS devices while located within the borders of Germany.” Push still works for Contacts, Calendars and other items and it is unaffected on OS X....

The new iPhone SE is available in a special PRODUCT(RED) variant, in addition to black and white. In conjunction with that, Apple says it will donate a portion of proceeds for iPhone SE (PRODUCT)RED purchases to the Global Fund’s COVID-19 response fund. Typically Apple donates a portion of PRODUCT(RED) proceeds to Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants. Tim Cook said last December that Apple has donated more than $220 million to the initiative since the inception of (RED) in 2006....

Apple announced on Thursday that it will broadcast this year’s iPhone event live for Safari and Apple TV users, and today Apple TV has revived the dedicated Apple Events channel for viewing the announcement live during the event. The channel usually remains for a short time after the event for on-demand viewing. As always, we’ll be sharing major announcements from Apple’s event for those who cannot view the live stream throughout the event....

Apple today has officially stopped signing iOS 13.4 following the release of iOS 13.4.1 last week. What this means is that users can no longer downgrade from iOS 13.4.1 to iOS 13.4. 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. Other than the effects on jailbreak hopefuls, Apple generally wants as many users as possible on the latest version of iOS for security reasons....

With new Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts in charge of operations, Apple is further blurring the lines between its online and physical retail store services. We reported earlier this year on Ahrendts’s plans to more seamlessly integrate both paths of Apple retail, and now the Cupertino-based company is rolling out a revamped Genius Bar and product support reservation system. The new system eliminates the pre-existing separation between getting support for Apple products online and in-store....

Update, 4:00 PM: Apple updated its system status page to reflect the ongoing iCloud outages as pictured above. After receiving several reports from readers experiencing issues with accessing the App Store, iCloud, and other online Apple services, Apple has finally updated its system status page and confirmed outages for the iTunes Store, Mac App Store, and App Store. It also confirmed some users were experiencing issues with iCloud calendars. While Apple’s status page shows outages between 9:40 a....

Apple has disabled the Walkie-Talkie service on Apple Watch this morning, due to an unknown exploit that could have allowed a stranger to eavesdrop the Apple Watch microphone without consent. Apple told TechCrunch it just became aware of the issue. The company says they do not believe any unscrupulous actor took advantage of the vulnerability. The exact nature of the bug has not been disclosed. Apple said it would require a specific sequence of events to take place so it sounds like the bug was intricate and not something that would be stumbled on by accident....

One of the key privacy features in iOS 14 is a new option that allows users to disable tracking between different applications. During its quarterly earnings call last month, Facebook pointed out that the new tracking setting could impact its advertising revenue, and a new report from The Information today goes into more detail. The report explains that Facebook representatives have been meeting with mobile game companies to discuss the iOS 14 privacy change....