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After announcing significantly more generous pricing for iCloud storage last week, but showing only U.S. costs, Apple today confirmed international pricing for the simplified three-tier structure. U.K. pricing starts at 79p/month for 50GB, rises to £2.49/mo for 200GB, and tops out at 1TB for £6.99/mo. Euro pricing is €0.99/€2.99/€9.99 respectively. Unusually for Apple, these prices are pretty much on par with U.S. pricing after allowing for VAT (European sales tax)....

Apple this evening has shared three new videos in its ongoing iPad Pro ad series. The new videos highlight user complaints about PCs and offer up a solution to the problems: the iPad Pro. The three new ads highlight the design of the iPad Pro, its battery, its versatility. The first new advertisement focuses on the iPad Pro’s size and highlights a user tweet complaining about how her laptop “weighs five million tons....

Apple today released a new environmental impact report on its Apple and the Environment webpage detailing improvements in the newly launched Mac Pro’s environmental performance. In the report, Apple notes the new Mac Pro meets ENERGY STAR® Version 6.0 standards and gets a Gold rating from EPEAT, but it also provides estimates for the Mac Pro’s lifetime greenhouse gas emissions (around 940 kg CO2e), power consumption, and material efficiency. In a section outlining the power efficiency of the new Mac Pro with the chart above, Apple claims the new machine “consumes 68 percent less power in idle mode than the previous-generation Mac Pro....

Apple has responded to the recent major earthquake and subsequent tsunami that has devastated the Indonesian island of Sulawesi with a donation of $1 million. In a tweet from Tim Cook, the Apple CEO noted the company’s sympathy for the all of the people affected and shared that it would be donating $1 million to help with relief efforts. Sulawesi experienced a 7.5 magnitude earthquake last Friday. Along with the following tsunami, over 1,200 people have been reported dead so far with thousands of buildings and bridges being ruined....

After a long stretch without any changes, Apple’s Music Memos iOS app has received an update today bringing support for the latest iPhone screens. Meanwhile, Apple Events for Apple TV has received an updated icon ahead of WWDC next week. The last update for Music Memos was back in September last year, but it notably didn’t bring support for the modern notched iPhone displays. Today’s update brings display support for iPhone X/XS, XS Max, and XR along with some minor performance improvements and bug fixes....

Apple and Zendesk are announcing that Apple Business Chat is being made generally available today. Previously available as a beta service, only select customers had the option to use Apple’s chat platform and integrate it with Zendesk Support. Apple Business Chat was introduced in 2018 and it allows companies to offer chat support through iMessage. iPhone, iPad, and Mac users can interact with customer service. The feature also offers native integration with other Apple services such as Apple Maps and Apple Pay, so users can find useful information and pay for products and services directly in the Messages app while chatting with a support agent....

The first iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro pre-orders have started shipping out to early buyers. As usual, this doesn’t mean you should expect your iPhone 12 order to arrive any earlier than the October 23 release date. If you check your order status via Apple’s website, you’ll likely see that your iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro is still “preparing to ship.” However, if you head to the UPS website, you can track the progress of your order with a few simple steps....

This morning, Apple revealed the schedule for next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference. To start things off, an Apple keynote will be held from 10AM to 12PM on Monday, June 2nd at Moscone West. Apple typically holds keynote addresses to kick off WWDC, but this schedule serves as the first direct confirmation from Apple. The event will likely be led by Apple CEO Tim Cook with assistance from Senior VPs Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue, who have some new software and services announcements, respectively…...

At its earnings call, Apple said the Apple Watch grew 50% year-over-year in sales but continued its silence on revealing exact numbers for its wearables. Estimates from Canalys suggest that unit sales almost hit 4 million for Apple Watch in the third quarter. The analyst says the cellular LTE Apple Watch Series 3 has proved popular, with demand outstripping supply and carriers surprised by the demand for the cellular Watch …...

A month after Australian banks demanded the right to have their own apps access the NFC chip used for Apple Pay, Apple has issued a formal response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The company argues that giving Australian banks what they want would be doubly harmful to consumers. A fortnight ago, the ACCC denied the banks an interim ruling, but said that it would be considering the matter more fully....

Apple officially announced its next event “Spring Loaded” for April 20 today. Along with the colorful invitation artwork, another AR Easter egg has been included on Apple’s Events webpage. Starting last year, Apple began including fun little AR Easter eggs for each event announcement. We got one for the Apple Watch and iPad event, iPhone 12 launch, and also the M1 Mac event. Now Apple has included another fun Easter egg for the Spring Loaded event....

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer has joined the Board of Directors of investment banking firm Goldman Sachs. Oppenheimer is an independent director for the company, and this has no effect on his current leadership position at Apple (update he just retired, oh well). As an experienced CFO, Oppenheimer’s financial aptitude will likely be beneficial for the investment behemoth. “Oppenheimer will be a member of each of the firm’s Audit, Risk, Compensation and Corporate Governance, Nominating and Public Responsibilities committees,” according to Goldman Sachs…...

During the WWDC21 keynote, Apple confirmed that Apple Music Lossless and Spatial Audio would launch that day for all users. For some reason, these new functions didn’t land in India, but that will be changing soon. According to the Apple Support Twitter page, after being asked by a few users about these functions in the South Asian country, it confirmed Apple Music Lossless and Spatial Audio support would be coming soon to India....

From 9to5Google: Analytics platform Distimo “2013 Year in Review” concluded that the vast majority of gaming revenue still comes from iPhones and iPads. However, they also discovered that Google Play is now the leading source of gaming revenue in South Korea and Japan, two out of the three fastest-growing mobile markets worldwide. The study reports that the top 200 iOS apps grew from $15 million in November 2012 to $18 million November 2013....

While Apple TV+ is slowly expanding its catalog with original movies and TV shows, Apple might face some new challenges outside the US. European lawmakers are proposing a new legislation requiring Apple TV+ and other streaming services to offer at least 30% local content to their subscribers. The General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill published by Catherine Martin, an Irish politician who works as a Minister of Culture, Media, and related areas, was updated today with mentions to the minimum of 30% content considered “European Work” for streaming platforms....

Apple has reportedly started cracking down on apps offering the ability to download music from third-party services like YouTube that normally don’t allow users to do so. In addition, a separate report claims that Apple has also started going after apps that incentivize users to either watch ads or share content through social media networks. The first report comes from MacRumors, which notes the App Store has replaced results for the search query “music download” with an advertisement for iTunes Radio followed by other music services like Spotify (pictured right)....

CIRP today has released its latest report covering the smartphone industry during Q2 of 2018. The data highlights Apple’s growing share of smartphone activations, though it still trails far behind Android… According to CIRP, Android accounted for 63 percent of mobile phone activations in the United States during the June 2018 quarter. Meanwhile, iOS accounted for 36 percent of activations. Compared to the last quarter and the year ago quarter, Apple managed to improve its share of activations....

Apple has approved an update to the Hey email app, following a week of controversy over Apple’s decision to reject the app because it did not adopt in-app purchases. In a letter last week, Apple SVP Phil Schiller suggested Hey could offer In-App Purchases as an option or add some basic functionality accessible to all users, with the login paywall unlocking the full app. In response, Hey has now added a free tier and submitted that version to Apple....

Rumors that Apple is working on augmented reality glasses have been growing for some time, and a patent application published today shows how the same approach might be adapted to both a smartphone screen and smart glasses. It also describes how the two devices might be used in tandem. We first heard back in March that Apple was aiming to debut AR features on the iPhone before later launching smart glasses, with a leaked document later suggesting that the company has gotten as far as testing prototypes....

Yesterday BGR reported that Apple would be bringing their popular Photo Booth Mac app to iOS devices, and today we have discovered confirmation of this claim. The discovery comes in two new iOS 4.3 frameworks: “PhotoBooth” and “PhotoBoothEffects.” There aren’t actually any images of the Photo Booth user interface but some hints at the functionality are present. Photo Booth for iOS looks like it will be a simple application. You will get to pick from a list of effects and switch between the front and back cameras....