A report that Apple would pay music labels a reduced royalty rate during the three-month free trial of Apple Music has been confirmed by labels who spoke to the NY Times. Apple had originally planned to pay them nothing before an open letter from Taylor Swift and complaints from others led to a swift change of plan. Spotify bases its royalty payment for free users on a 35% share, half of the 70% it pays for tracks streamed by paid subscribers … For each song that is streamed free, Apple will pay 0....

Looking for alternatives? Buy Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Cable for your Apple devices. Apple is finally offering its own brand of Thunderbolt 3 cables. More than a year after the Thunderbolt 3-equipped MacBook Pro debuted, you can now get a 0.8m Apple Thunderbolt Cable for $40 from the Apple Store. Prior to today, Apple stocked a third party Thunderbolt 3 cable from Belkin as it didn’t have one of its own....

Apple shared a series of lighthearted animated videos for Earth Day back in April and today the company has released another new video in the same style. This one highlights the company’s efforts with sustainable packaging… Curious enough, the video published today to Apple’s YouTube channel is titled “Earth Day 2017 – Can an apple grow a forest?” even though we’re months past Earth Day. Like the previous videos, this new one is narrated by Apple executive Lisa Jackson (along with others) and gives more insight into the lengths Apple goes to protect the environment....

Apple has made yet another key hire from the fashion industry: Chester Chipperfield, the Vice President of Digital and Interactive Design at Burberry. Chipperfield was “responsible for User Experience and Digital Design for all channels” and was “highly involved in digital retail initiatives” at Burberry, according to his LinkedIn profile. He confirmed the move to Apple on his profile as well as on Twitter… With experience in digital initiatives for a fashion powerhouse, Chipperfield will likely be critical in the rollout of the Apple Watch over the next few months....

iPhone SE 2 is one of the biggest smartphone launches of the year 2020. Many fans and customers have been waiting for a budget-friendly iPhone with the latest features and specs. The great thing about the new iPhone SE 2 is that it comes with three colors and have the latest A13 Bionic chip inside it. Ad with the price segment, it is going to last more than 5 years. This becomes the primary reason why a lot of people are rushing to buy the latest iPhone SE 2 device....

Update: Apple hasn’t lost its star witness after all, now plans to testify next week. In its latest battle with Qualcomm that headed to court earlier this week, Apple planned on using a former engineer as its star witness. Today we’ve learned that the company has lost that witness and Apple’s counsel has accused Qualcomm’s defense of witness tampering. Update 3/8: In a fresh plot twist, Apple has confirmed today that its key witness will indeed testify and is expected to do so on Monday, March 11th....

As the first orders arrive to customers, early reviews of the M1 Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air have officially been published. As expected, the reviews praise the M1 chip’s performance and battery life, and they note that Apple Silicon will only get better from here. The Wall Street Journal leads things off with a detailed look at the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro performance using Chrome: The WSJ also got a quote from Intel on how its chips compare to the new M1 processors:...

I addressed one big issue with Apple Music last week – and was very surprised to see from the poll results just how widespread the issue was. But while discussing that issue, we happened across a Reddit thread that I thought contained a really great idea: give the iOS app Smart Playlist functionality via Siri. I may complain a lot about the bloated nature of iTunes, a single app that tries to do way too many different things, but I do really like it as a pure music player....

Apple has made another notable hire for its Apple Music team. According to a report from Music Business Worldwide, Apple has hired BBC hip-hop & grime editor Ryan Newman… The report explains that during his time at 1Xtra – BBC’s flagship hip-hop and grime station – Newman “devised and implemented music strategy at the network, shaping its musical direction. This isn’t the first time Apple has poached Apple Music & Beats 1 employees from BBC Radio....

An M1 Mac user says he saw his Apple ID held hostage when a sequence of events meant that the Cupertino company was unable to collect the balance owing from his Apple Card. He says access to his Apple accounts progressively ceased, beginning with the App Store… Apple Music followed, then iCloud. Designer and investor Dustin Curtis initially didn’t have any idea what was going on, as he had missed an email, but he subsequently worked out the sequence of events, as he explained in a lengthy blog post:...

[UPDATE 6/7: OS X 10.11.6 is now available for public beta testers as well.] Apple has released the second OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 preview through the Mac App Store for developer testing. The software update to the Mac likely includes further bug fixes and performance improvements following similar releases throughout the year. User facing features at this point are likely being saved for OS X 10.12, which Apple is set to introduce next month at WWDC and likely launch later in the fall....

Privacy has long been a value for Apple, hammered by Steve Jobs a decade ago and built-in to Apple’s software, something that can’t be said for many other tech companies. But marketing privacy as a product feature can be tricky. How do you show it? Apple’s latest iPhone ad tackles that challenge head-on, connecting privacy to iPhone in the most relatable ways yet — like public bathroom etiquette. The new video carries the same lighthearted tone as Apple’s other recent iPhone spots....

Now that Apple’s AirPort line is dead, Apple has now published a new support document detailing what customers should be looking for when upgrading from their existing AirPort devices. While Apple’s AirPort devices never support mesh networking, Apple recommends using such a setup if you have a larger home. Apple also recommends getting a router that supports 802.11ac, simultaneous dual-band networks (2.4GHz and 5GHz), WPA2 Personal (AES) encryption, and MIMO or MU-MIMO which allows the router to send and receive multiple streams which improves performance....

Apple Music Connect appears to slowly be going the way of iTunes Ping. Apple has started notifying Apple Music artists that it is removing the ability for artists to post content to Apple Music Connect, and previously posted Apple Music Connect content is being removed from the For You section and Artist Pages in Apple Music. Connect content will still be viewable through search results on Apple Music, but Apple is removing artist-submitted Connect posts from search in May…...

Apple just unveiled its much rumored wearable product live on stage during its press event this morning giving us a first look at its entrance into the smartwatch market. The device is officially called Apple Watch, pairs with iPhone, and sports an all-new user interface that is quite a departure from anything we’ve seen on other iOS devices. Perhaps the biggest surprise on the Apple Watch is that Apple is using a traditional watch dial on the side of the device as an input mechanism for navigating the device....

First and foremast, Dediu says that the iPhone will have sold at least 1.2 billion units in its first 10 years, making it the “most successful product of all-time” and spawning other categories like iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. Dediu explains that, if current predictions hold true, revenue from iOS product sales will hit $980 billion around the middle of this year. Hardware, however, isn’t the only revenue stream to hit Apple’s bank account from iOS....

We always caution that you can never tell which Apple patents will actually make it into products, but a patent for an Apple headphone intercom feature has to be a good bet. Apple first debuted an intercom feature — albeit branded as walkie-talkie — on the Apple Watch. A couple of years later, it brought a more advanced version of the same idea to HomePod. And now an Apple patent application describes how the company might bring another more advanced form of intercom functionality to headphones…...

Apple has added a clause in its App Store guidelines for developers noting that apps doing health-related human subject research are required to obtain approvals from an independent ethics review board. Apple previously recommended that developers utilizing its new open-source ResearchKit framework for medical research in apps consult with an “institutional review board or ethics committee” to ensure safety requirements are met, but the new guidelines make approvals from a review board and proof of the approval a requirement for all apps conducting human subject medical research....

After a premature appearance last month, Apple’s new “Spoken Editions” section in iTunes is now live. Spoken Editions, for those unfamiliar, are narrated pieces of content from a variety of online publishers. Spoken Editions are available in iTunes on the Mac and PC as well as Apple’s first-party Podcasting app for iOS. As noted by TechCrunch, Apple is launching Spoken Edition in partnership with a variety of publications, including Huffington Post, Reuters, Slate....

A series of apparent iPhone 8 leaks still haven’t answered one of the biggest questions about this year’s flagship iPhone: will the fingerprint sensor be embedded into the display? We know that Apple has numerous patents for this type of embedded fingerprint technology, and it also appears clear that the display will occupy almost the entire front face of the device, but some claimed leaks do show a fingerprint sensor on the back of the case....