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Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and one way Apple is celebrating and encouraging people to get involved is with several helpful featured stories on the App Store including “Lend a Hand from Home,” “Reconnect with Nature,” “Explore the Deep Blue Sea”, and more. Update: As we previously noted, Apple’s VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, Lisa Jackson contributed to the Earth Day Live stream that is going on today....

Apple is today commemorating the life of boxer Muhammad Ali with a fullscreen homepage tribute, who died in hospital on Friday at the age of 74. The quote reads: ‘The man who has no imagination has no wings’. Apple executives Tim Cook and Phil Schiller have also shown their respects on Twitter. Ali directly represented Apple’s brand in the Think Different campaign. When Steve Jobs announced the video, it was as a metaphor for Apple fighting against Michael Dell, who famously stated that Apple was dead and the company should just return the remaining money to its shareholders....

In a report issued this morning, KGI’s Mingchi Kuo has listed predictions for the October 22nd event to be held at the Yerba Beuna center for the Arts. Clearly, iPads will be front and center, with the thinner, lighter iPad 5 headlining the event. Kuo predicts a slimmer iPad 5 with 20% lighter weight down to 7.5mm and 500g respectively. He also expects an 8 megapixel camera with a larger aperture on the order of the iPhone 5 and a new 64-bit A7X processor....

Apple’s tax struggles in Europe have been well documented in the past, and now an extensive audit has forced the company to pay an additional tax bill. As reported by The Financial Times, Apple is being forced to pay an extra £136 million tax bill in the U.K… The added tax comes following “an extensive audit” by HM Revenue and Customs, which is the department of the UK government responsible for the collection of taxes....

As it normally does in the lead up to earnings season, Apple today announced that it will hold its Q2 2017 earnings call on Tuesday, May 2nd. The call will be held at the standard time of 2PM PT/5PM ET, with the earnings release itself being sent out roughly thirty minutes before then. Apple announced the date on its Investor News Webpage. Apple’s Q2 earnings will follow a strong holiday quarter for the company that saw profits of $17....

Apple has announced on its website that its first retail store in Queens will open on Saturday 11th July at 1oam. We exclusively revealed that the store was on the way back in February, with the first construction shots seen later the same month and signage appearing in May. The new store is located on the second floor of the Queens Center mall in Elmhurst and will be one of the largest of the eight Apple Stores in New York … Apple Retail marketing director Jason Barlia told the NY Daily News that the location made a lot of sense, and that although the store won’t share the unique architecture for which many Apple Stores are known, it will be unique in the way it reflects the ethnic diversity of the neighbourhood....

The report follows a fiscal Q4 report in October when the company lost $6 billion worth of sales to supply chain disruption, and warned at the time that Q1 would be worse. The report sent Apple shares almost 3% in late trading. CEO Tim Cook remarked that the “quarter’s record results were made possible by our most innovative lineup of products and services ever.” Added Cook, “We are gratified to see the response from customers around the world at a time when staying connected has never been more important....

Apple has extended its service coverage for Apple Watch (1st gen) models experiencing expanded/swollen battery problems to three years, covering customers for service for an additional two years beyond the complimentary 1-year Limited Warranty that it provides with the device. The issue with swollen and expanded batteries on first-gen Apple Watch models has been documented online by users experiencing the problem— here on Apple support forums, for example, and here on Reddit— but appears to not be widespread or something that has made mainstream media headlines....

After originally aiming to debut the new series in April, Apple quietly delayed its Carpool Karaoke show until “later this year” without reason. Now, Apple exec Eddy Cue has taken to Twitter to confirm that the show will launch on Apple Music on August 8th, while Apple has also issued a press release… “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” is a spin-off of James Corden’s popular segment on ‘The Late Late Show’ on CBS....

First held in 2007, Apple just announced this year’s iTunes Festival lineup and information. The event has been moved from this July to September at London’s Roundhouse music venue. It will offer 30 nights of free music for live attendees and users of iOS devices through the recently updated iTunes Festival app. Apple snagged some of this summer’s hottest acts including Jack White (previously of the White Stripes), One Direction, and R&B superstar Usher....

Apple today announced its Q3 2014 earnings results, revealing that the company pulled in $37.4 billion in revenue and $7.7 billion in profit during the quarter. Apple, as always, has also disclosed sales numbers for its main revenue generators. The company sold: 35.2 million iPhones 13.2 million iPads 4.4 million Macs 2.9 million iPods Apple’s guidance for the quarter indicated revenue results between $36 and $38 billion, which Apple met....

As the new redesigned iMac is now shipping to the consumers, we will soon be able to get a closer look at this machine with new design, multiple colors, and the M1 chip inside. This week, two managers from Apple’s marketing team discussed how the new iMac is changing the computer market and praised how the M1 chip enables the same great performance on different types of devices. Stephen Tonna, of Platform Product Marketing, and Laura Metz, from Mac Product Marketing, talked to CNN about the redesigned iMac and the M1 chip....

Apple introduced a privacy feature for iPad Pro last year that physically disconnects the microphone when compatible cases are closed. Apple will soon expand this privacy feature to work through software more iPad models that don’t support mic hardware disconnection. Here’s how the already supported privacy feature works on 2020 iPad Pros: Starting with iOS 14.5 beta 2, Apple supports a wider set of iPads for muting the built-in mics when used with Smart Folio cases through software:...

Apple expanded its recycling program in the United States in August to give customers an opportunity to —well— recycle their used iPhones and iPads for Apple gift cards, and now the technology giant is extending the program even further by launching a similar initiative in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. According to its German website (Google translation), Apple will not offer payment in the form of an Apple gift card, but rather as cash deposited into customers bank accounts in exchange for returned devices....

Apple’s VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey today announced a new NFC feature for iPhone: special tags that trigger Apple Pay purchases when tapped, without the need to download a special app first. The company is partnering with Bird scooters, Bonobos clothing store, and PayByPhone parking meters for the initial rollout. Apple also announced that inside the Wallet app, users will soon be able to sign up for loyalty cards in one tap, presumably presented to users as recommendations when they make eligible purchases....

(Credit Quartz) Tim Cook has once again defended the iPad in the face of continued falling sales, arguing that the “underlying data” paints a more positive picture than the pure sales numbers, and predicting that there will be future iPad growth. As Quartz noted, the 23% year-on-year fall in iPad shipments to 12.6M means that iPad revenue actually dropped below Mac revenue for the second time since 2011. Cook again acknowledged that other Apple products cannibalize iPad sales, the iPhone 6 Plus a strong competitor on one side and the MacBook Air and new 12-inch MacBook on the other, but said that there were a number of reasons to be positive about the future of the iPad … First, he said, the partnership with IBM is still in its early stages, but is already showing great promise....

Some users may be experiencing difficulty making purchases on the iTunes Store, according to Apple’s system status page. We’ve heard mentions of issues beginning this morning, and Apple reports trouble starting around 1:30 PM EST. Game Center and FaceTime also experienced issues this afternoon, though the former may be somewhat difficult to notice. Apple’s iMessage service has been suffering turbulence for days now, which is not reflected on the system status page as it may be limited to iOS 7 users....

Prior to WWDC, a report emerged claiming that Apple would at long last unveil iMessage for Android. Seeing how Apple had made its streaming music service available on Android, many found this report to be somewhat plausible. As you’re probably aware of by now, however, iMessage for Android was nowhere to be found at WWDC this week. Now, we’ve gotten a little bit of insight into Apple’s reasoning for not bringing its messaging service to Google’s smartphone platform…...

Update: On Twitter, Tim Cook has tweeted, for the second time, to thank customers for the “amazing” sales. [tweet https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/382172377569689600] Apple has just announced first-weekend sales figures for the iPhone 5s and 5c. Sales for both phones total 9 million. In comparison, the iPhone 5 shipments topped 5 million in the same period. These numbers come in at the higher end of analyst estimates, with many predicting bearish sales similar to the iPhone 5 launch last year....

Apple has today announced ResearchKit, a system that lets iPhone users contribute to the world’s scientific research about health and medicine. For instance, as an opt-in procedure, users can now sign up to take part in Parkinson’s tests. A tapping test evaluates hand tremors, for example. You can also see graphs directly on the iPhone to track activity and such. Most notably, Apple has announced that ResearchKit is open source. This means anyone can contribute, regardless of their platform....