The morning of Apple’s iPad mini event earlier this week, we told you there was a handful of new accessories coming including four new Lightning adapters and a 12W USB power adapter. We didn’t hear much about them during the event, but the new cables and adapters have hit Apple’s online store now, including a Lightning Digital AV adapter and Lightning to VGA adapter, with most shipping in “2-3 weeks”....

In an extensive profile of Parse co-founder and Facebook executive Ilya Sukhar, The Information reveals that Apple considered purchasing the cloud services startup before Facebook: Apple’s interest in Parse is interesting because of the recently announced CloudKit feature for iOS 8. CloudKit, just like Parse, allows developers to leverage pre-designed and implemented servers to control the backend of applications. This makes the development team and process quicker and simpler for building iOS applications....

Apple today uploaded a pair of new ads to YouTube. The first ad, entitled “Hardware & Software,” showcases the fact that Apple is responsible for both major aspects of the iPhone, making for a more seamless and stable experience. The obvious goal here is to advertise the fact that with an Android device, you get hardware made by a manufacturer and software made by Google. The second ad is entitled “Loved” and seemingly showcases how happy iPhone users are....

Apple has mailers going out today telling us to get ready to interrupt our Friday in order to line up like little actors all over the place in their iPad 2 Friday marketing campaign blitz. Ugh. I’m kinda down on the whole “spend Friday in line without a reservation” thing if you hadn’t noticed. It is also interesting that Apple seems to default to the White iPad more often than not in its marketing – which was only a rumor a week ago....

Apple launched its Shot on iPhone 6 ad campaign earlier this year and has since expanded the campaign to buildings and skyscrapers around the world. The purpose of the campaign is to showcase the photography capabilities of the iPhone 6, notably excluding video content. Apple this evening, however, has further expanded its Shot on iPhone 6 campaign and launched a new microsite titled “World Gallery films” with 7 short videos shot with the iPhone 6....

Although tech companies are joining Apple’s camp en masse for the Apple/FBI court battle due to commence on March 22nd, there are many amicus briefs being posted in favour of the FBI’s argument. One of these was filed last Thursday night by the San Bernardino District Attorney, Michael Ramos. In the document, he claims that the shooter’s iPhone (which the FBI wants Apple to make a backdoor unlock for) could contain evidence that it is a digital weapon — containing a ‘cyber pathogen’ that would exploit San Bernardino infrastructure....

watchOS 7 brings a variety of new features to the fitness tracking capabilities of Apple Watch, including a new Dance workout type. In a new interview, Julz Arney from Apple’s Fitness Technologies as elaborated on what it took to develop the Dance workout type with accurate calorie tracking and more. In the Workouts app on Apple Watch, each of the 20 top-level workout types “uses a smartly-tuned algorithm that understands the workout you are doing to give you the most accurate metrics for each one,” Arney explained to HT Tech....

With this year’s holiday season looming, the online Apple Store is ready with the new Holiday Gift Guide section. Holiday gift ideas include Apple’s most popular mobile devices and computers as well as a hand-picked selection of third-party products, add-ons, device accessories and even fashion cases to carry your products around in style. The gadget maker teases: All products on offer in the Holiday Gift Guide come with free shipping, Apple notes....

Apple has announced a new enterprise partnership with professional services firm Deloitte focused on integrating iPhones and iPads in the workplace. The latest enterprise partnership follows similar arrangements with IBM and SAP. The arrangement with Apple will help Deloitte with “creating a first-of-its-kind Apple practice with over 5,000 strategic advisors” according to the press release. For some background on Deloitte per Wikipedia: IBM offered this statement on Apple’s latest enterprise effort:...

Some Apple users have been plagued with iCloud calendar invite spam in recent weeks, with calendar periods being blocked up with unsolicited events from anonymous senders (usually with Chinese names). It is thought that the spammers are mass targeting any iCloud email account it can find on the web, rather than targeting specific users. Apple has now acknowledged the issue in a statement to iMore, starting with an apology to anyone who has received iCloud calendar spam....

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone and Apple is getting a head start on the celebrations. A decade ago tomorrow, Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first ever iPhone and Apple today has shared a look back at just how revolutionary the device has been. In a press release, Apple relives the iconic phrase Jobs used when he took the stage at Macworld 2007 in San Francisco, touting the iPhone as “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device....

MacRumors points us to correspondence between Apple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following Apple entering an undisclosed license agreement with Nokia in June stemming from patent litigation. At the time, we knew the deal would include Apple paying a one-time sum to Nokia, followed by an on-going royalty, presumably based on devices infringing on Nokia patents. Below are letters between the SEC and Apple, in which the SEC urges Apple to disclose the terms of the settlement agreement....

Apple this evening announced that it is expanding App Analytics in iTunes Connect to display new information related to how customers are discovering applications. The company made the announcement on its official developer blog… The new features will allow developers to have a better look at how customers are discovering their apps. This consists information such as where a user initially found an application, including within other apps, on the web, or via App Store browsing and search....

Law360 (via BI) reports that Apple is facing a second class action lawsuit filed on behalf of hourly-paid Apple Store employees who have to spend 10-15 minutes daily in unpaid time waiting in line to clock-in and for security checks when leaving the store. Two other Apple Store employees had previously filed a similar action, later expanded to a class action, though it doesn’t appear to have gathered much support. A class action is a lawsuit which anyone in the same position can join, and which could potentially leave Apple with a compensation bill for all hourly-paid store employees....

It appears some local businesses and residents around the neighborhood of the New York SoHo Apple Store are annoyed at the ever-increasing crowds the store attracts – and the recent live performance by the Jonas Brothers was the final straw, angry neighbours moan (where we were unfortunately live on the scene). It gets worse: A lower Manhattan residents’ group has lodged a lengthy complaint against the store, moaning about loud parties, loitering crowds and “late-night disturbances”....

The iPad 2’s A5 processor not only is a speedy, dual-core chip, but also works to provide nine times the gaming performance of its predecessor, A4. So, what’s Apple to do for their best-selling gaming phone? Give it the A5 chip with remarkably better gaming performance. We have already discovered, in the iOS 4 SDK, that Apple is bringing the A5 chip to the next iPhone, and now we have heard Apple is going to push this gaming performance and speed as one of the next-generation iPhone’s major marketing points....

In addition to sending out invitations to its upcoming March 9th event, Apple has announced on its website that it will provide a live stream for what is anticipated to be an event focused largely on the Apple Watch. On the event page, Apple also invites you to “follow every moment” on its live event webpage. This presumably means that Apple will return to providing quotes, photos, and videos from the event in real time as it first did at the Apple Watch’s first unveiling last September....

[tweet https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/381131235247923201] Other Apple executives have been on Twitter for a while, and today CEO Tim Cook sent out his first tweet mentioning that he visited retail stores in Palo Alto for the retail launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c. Cook has been a member of Twitter since July, but his account is not yet verified by Twitter. Apple marketing chief Philip Schiller retweeted Cook’s tweet earlier today proving that the account is indeed run by the Apple CEO....

Apple has added Israel to its list of upcoming iPhone 7 launch countries today as it officially launches the device in India. The device will become available in the country on Oct. 20, as will the new Apple Watch Series 2 lineup. Apple also confirmed upcoming iPhone 7 launches for a handful of African and Middle Eastern countries today, including: Jordan and Oman on October 15, and Maurice, Madagascar, Maroc, and Uganda on October 21st....

One of the more interesting news items of 2018 was Apple discontinuing the AirPort lineup. From the first Airport product to the last final AirPort Extreme, Apple was selling premium Wi-Fi hardware devices at a time when most people I knew were content with a $30 router from Walmart. Since they released their final AirPort product, the market has finally shifted up. As end-users are starting to load their home networks with more than a single laptop and a few smartphones, people have realized that having a high-quality router (with whole house coverage) is not a luxury....