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It’s Black Friday and we’ve got the best deals from around the web on Apple products and accessories. Although most of the Apple Store prices (which we stumbled upon a few days ago) are moderate discounts, some are actually the lowest we could find, especially in iPads and accessories. We’re updating all day long so come back early and often…and don’t forget to check 9to5toys.com. Apple Store Refurbished items come with Apple’s one year warranty and are as good as new....

Apple continues to move away from the iTunes brand this week. Now, when you view an iOS or Mac app listing on the web, the URL is based on apps.apple.com, whereas it was previously itunes.apple.com. This isn’t the first URL structure that Apple has updated as part of its move away from iTunes. Earlier this year, the Podcasts web interface got a major overhaul, which included moving to podcasts.apple.com, as opposed to itunes....

When Apple introduced the Apple TV 4K in 2017, the Siri Remote had a small change with a white ring around the Menu button, which made it be identified as a new model. However, as the new Remote has an internal model number way above the current version, we believe the changes will be more significant. Siri Remote has always been a controversial accessory among Apple TV users. While some people love it, there are a significant number of users who hate it for not having physical navigation buttons or for having a glass surface, which makes it extremely fragile....

At its special event today, Apple has surprisingly announced a new iPhone 12 color. Purple will join the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 lineup on Friday, with the first orders shipping on April 30. Apple says: More images of the purple iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini: Apple today unveiled an all-new stunning purple finish for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini. This new color beautifully accentuates the flat aluminum edges of iPhone 12, which are perfectly color-matched to the precision-milled back glass....

Apple has contacted some local Apple users in Spain to announce that its new Barcelona location will open on Saturday, July 28th at 10 AM. This new store is located on Passeig de Gràcia, a famous street and district in Barcelona. Image via iPordelante This new store opening is notable for a few reasons. One for its high-profile and aforementioned location. Second for its unique Apple logo and banner, which was heavily noted last week by the media, and, third, because it is predicted to be one of Apple’s largest Europe-based retail locations....

Apple surprisingly began to show a repair index for devices like the iPhone and Mac in the Apple Store app and the Apple Online Store in France this week. Users can now get a better idea of how easy it is to repair that device before buying it. As reported by MacGeneration, the index is related to local regulations set by the Minister of Ecological Transition. There are five different criteria used to determine the index for each device, which include ease of disassembly and availability of parts needed for repair....

March is Women’s History Month along with International Women’s Day landing on the 8th. And Apple has announced its wide-ranging plans to celebrate the day and month across the App Store, Apple TV app, Apple Music, Apple News, Podcasts, Fitness+, Today at Apple sessions, and more. We previously learned about the new Apple Watch Challenge that will happen this year in honor of International Women’s Day on March 8. Now Apple has detailed all the ways it will celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day 2021 in a Newsroom post....

Apple has published a fascinating new entry in its Machine Learning Journal this month that explains how the voice-activated ‘Hey Siri’ detector works in detail. While many of these entries tend to be too in depth for the average reader (i.e. me), October’s entry from the Siri team includes several interesting (and understandable!) tidbits about what happens behind-the-scenes when you use ‘Hey Siri’ on your iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple explains that the iPhone and Apple Watch microphone “turns your voice into a stream of instantaneous waveform samples, at a rate of 16000 per second” before the detector on device decides if you intended to invoke Siri with your voice:...

Apple is once again expanding its iAd efforts today with the announcement of an exclusive reseller of ads in Latin America following an expansion late last year into new countries while opening up the platform to a number of third-party resellers. Like the handful of mostly US-based ad companies selling iAds that were announced in November, Internet Media Services (IMS) will act as Apple’s exclusive partner selling ad inventory across iOS apps to customers in Latin America....

Apple has refreshed its App Store marketing tools for developers today with the ability to create custom assets and links including new QR codes and short links. Apple detailed the news on its developer website: You can get started with the new custom assets and links on Apple’s landing page here. For a unique touch, the QR code generator gives customization options like choosing a color or adding an icon....

The WSJ reports that Apple has been quietly making major new investments in Internet infrastructure in a move which may simply be designed to boost the performance of its existing online services, but which could also be in readiness for its upcoming television product. Apple also made a couple of senior infrastructure hires in September: Lauren Provo from Comcast and Jean-François Mulé, a former technology VP at a TV R&D company....

While Apple’s ongoing development of its Campus 2 headquarters has been relatively secretive, Silicon Valley Business Journals today revealed a previously unknown detail about the headquarters. According to documents filed with the city of Cupertino, Apple’s new headquarters will feature a visitor’s center with an observation deck. It was already known that Apple’s Campus 2 would not be visible from bordering streets, which seemed to contradict the amount of money and effort Apple was putting into the design of the building....

Asymco’s Horace Dediu has a great slant on news that Apple recently sold its billionth iPhone. He points out that not only does this make it the best-selling phone of all time, it actually long ago became the best-selling product ever … Nothing else he checked even comes close. Second position was taken by the Harry Potter series of books, whose 450M sales are mind-blowingly huge but still less than half those achieved by the iPhone in its nine-year history....

Apple has filed its 2010 annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing higher employee numbers, higher advertising spend and a slight decline in profit margins as it kept iPad prices as low as it could. The company has raised its employee numbers by over a third from last year, it had 46,600 full-time employees as of September 25, up from 34,300 a year ago and 28,000 in 2008....

As the pandemic is still a problem in many parts of the world, Apple is extending its partnership with (RED) and it will continue to redirect 100% of eligible proceeds of its PRODUCT(RED) devices and accessories to the Global Fund’s COVID-19 relief efforts from now until December 30. Last year, Apple extended this COVID-19 relief effort until June 30, 2021. As vaccines are slowly rolling out across the globe and new variants of the disease have been discovered, this fund is more important than ever....

What if Apple used its iPod touch and iPhone as heart monitors? Pehaps a device that plugs into the iPod that sells with the software system? You could map your heart rate as part of the fitness regimine. The GPS system could be used to gage your running and speed. IF Apple adds GPS in June like Kevin Rose thinks, this would be cool both for running and biking Bike users could also use the iPod/iPhone as a bike computer....

Last month, Qualcomm won a victory in Germany with a suit that claimed Apple infringed on its modem patents. The ruling was set to affect iPhone 7 and 8, with Apple appealing the decision. In the meantime, Apple said it would stop selling the iPhone 7 and 8 in the country, but it interpreted the ruling so that third-parties could continue selling the devices. However, Apple has been issuing a press release in Germany that says it would be able to sell all iPhones in the country (via Bloomberg) and has now been ordered to stop using that part of the statement....

February is Heart Month and Apple is taking the opportunity to offer customers better trade-in deals for Apple Watch Series 2 and 3 when upgrading to Series 5. The promotion sees the older Apple Watch models valued at the same $100 that Apple is giving for Series 4. Last week we learned about the Apple Watch Heart Month Challenge that begins February 8th and today, Apple boosted the trade-in values of Apple Watch Series 2 and 3 to incentivize any current customers wanting to upgrade to a Series 5 watch (via MacRumors)....

In addition to several new software betas and new Tech Talks today, Apple has more developer news to share today. Starting today, TestFlight will now support up to 2,000 external testers for iOS and tvOS. TestFlight allows developers to easily share pre-release versions of their apps with a large group of external testers outside of their own development team. TestFlight was previously limited to 1,000 external testers on iOS and tvOS....

Fortune reported that Apple is likely to achieve record revenues in Q2—but the first fall in its earnings in a decade. Apple’s revenues are expected to grow from $41 billion to $43 billion, another record for Q2, but margins are expected to have fallen substantially from a peak of just over 47 percent last year to ‘between 37.5 and 38.5 percent’ this year. Margins tend to fall with new products, due to high initial investments and reduced yields when pushing the limits of what can be achieved (as with the new iMacs), and it’s this falling margin that has impacted Apple’s earnings per share…...