TechCrunch reports today that the CEO and founder of Wifarer, a company working on innovative indoor positioning technology, has has left for a leadership role at Apple. While Philip Stanger confirmed on his LinkedIn that he’s been at Apple since February, the report notes that the company claims it is still in business and has not been acquired by Apple: If a CEO and co-founder quits his indoor positioning startup to work for Apple, should his staff and customers be concerned?...

Apple has today begun rolling out a battery replacement program for the non Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company says there is an issue with a small number of MacBook Pros manufactured between October 2016 and October 2017. Affected users can mail in their MacBook Pro, find an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or visit an Apple Retail Store. To check if your MacBook Pro is affected, head over to this link and type in your serial number....

Apple has officially named long time director of public relations Steve Dowling as its new Vice President of Communications, as noted on the company’s executive bios webpage. Dowling succeeds former Apple Communications head Katie Cotton, who left Apple in 2014 following Apple CEO Tim Cook choosing to take Apple in a new direction PR-wise. Dowling has led Apple’s Communications division for several months following Cotton’s departure, and he was internally named interim head of PR last October....

Apple has officially expanded its Mac trade-in program to retail stores in the United States and Canada. This was first reported last week, and now Apple has made the expansion official. Apple has long allowed users to trade in other products like iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch at its retail stores, but the Mac trade-in program had been limited to online-only. This meant that you had to mail in your old Mac to Apple and wait for a gift card or credit....

Which brings us to iOS 11.2.6. iOS 11.2.6 hit the streets without even going to beta to patch a vulnerability where receiving a certain Telugu character via Messages could crash your entire device. Nice. So, should you upgrade to iOS 11.2.6? If you’re currently on iOS 11.2.5, absolutely yes. However, note that the Telegu character vulnerability doesn’t affect iOS releases before iOS 11.2.5. Here are some more details. iOS 11....

Apple has invited its employees through an internal memo to participate and represent the company together next month at San Francisco’s annual LGBT pride parade. Apple will host a base camp for registered attendees made up of Apple employees and their families and will supply entertainment and breakfast as well as T-shirts for participants. This year’s Pride Celebration and Parade marks the 44th annual gathering and has been host to the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook (including CEO Mark Zuckerberg) in recent years....

Apple today has joined the smart home-dedicated group The Thread Group. While Apple’s extent of involvement in the group is unclear at this point, the company is now listed as a “member” on The Thread Group website… Thread is described as a new mesh network standard that aims to make it easier for varying smart home technologies to work together. Thread is designed to support devices ranging from appliances, climate control, and lighting to security, access control, and more....

Apple today has sent out an email update to members of its affiliate program about launching improvements to the iTunes Affiliate Resource pages and also a change to the commission rates. Apple is lowering affiliate payouts from apps and their in-app purchases to less than half of the original commission rate. For many, this means a negative impact to yet another revenue stream. Today’s change sees the 7% commission rate, drop down to 2....

Apple Music has received an update on Android bringing all of the latest enhancements that came with the app’s iOS 14 update, including a redesign and autoplay. While Apple is not typically known for making their apps and services available on multiple platforms, Apple Music is one of the key exceptions, offering an Android app to anyone willing to pay for the $9.99 per month subscription — or have it bundled with a carrier plan....

While mixes and DJ mixes can be popular, getting the streaming rights to them can be a complex business – especially when a single mix can contain elements owned by up to 600 different rights holders. But an agreement between Apple and digital distributor Dubset means that Apple Music now has the right to stream many thousands of mix tracks, reports Billboard. Dubset CEO Stephen White says the company had to overcome tough challenges on both technological and legal fronts …...

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Apple is objecting to a discovery request in a class action case against Universal Music Group that seeks the release of trial exhibits, expert reports, and depositions from former CEO Steve Jobs and Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue. The depositions were originally given in a case between F.B.T. Productions, producers of Eminem records, and Universal Music group division Aftermath Records....

Apple is opening its first office in Cambridge, England, close to the city’s world-famous university, according to a report in Business Weekly. The offices overlook the Cambridge University botanical gardens … The Californian-based business is believed to have identified 90 Hills Road for its Cambridge city centre offices and R & D function. With Grade A office space at a premium in Cambridge, the US giant would probably start with around 20 staff but have capacity to gear up to as many as 40 in that space....

The Apple Music service has always provided an online tool to generate widgets, that can be used by artists to promote their music on their own websites and blogs. An eagle-eyed Reddit user has spotted that this widget has recently received an interface upgrade … and the ability to log in to your Apple Music account. Once signed in, you can play full songs, albums and playlists from within the web browser, no longer limited to just 30-90 second previews …...

A new Apple patent application filed last year and published by the United States Patent & Trademark Office today adds more proof that Apple is preparing to use sapphire displays in upcoming devices (via AI). There has been no shortage of proof that Apple is preparing to do something— most likely next-generation iPhone screens— with the large Sapphire plant it recently picked up in Arizona. We already know that the sapphire material could make iPhone displays, for example, stronger and more scratch resistant, but today’s patent details a method Apple will use to also make sure the sapphire repels fingerprints as well or better than the glass used on previous generation iPhones....

iMessage has come a long way since its introduction in 2011, but Apple’s messaging service is still behind competitors like WhatsApp and Telegram in some aspects. But now the company might be working on exciting new features for iMessage, as a new patent from Apple reveals an option to edit messages after they’ve been sent. The patent was filed by Apple in December 2019 and published today by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which suggests that Apple may be planning to introduce some of these changes with iOS 14....

Over the past few weeks we’ve been getting multiple tips from developers saying that their apps are being tested with iOS 5. The new OS is being tested on all manner of iOS devices including iPods, iPads and iPhones. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any unreleased devices likely because Apple is aware that usage logs go out to developers and wants to keep those devices under wraps. This is interesting because widespread testing of apps usually precedes the developer release of a major iOS release by a few months....

Apple regularly hosts Activity Challenges for Apple Watch customers as a way to promote fitness and healthy living, and a new Activity Challenge honoring International Women’s Day next week will be the next to take place. Like February’s healthy heart challenge, March’s Women’s Day achievements include animated stickers that can be sent and received over iMessage. So if your daily calorie goal is 350 for example, you’ll need to burn 700 calories that day to unlock the achievement....

Believe it or not, there’s an iPhone 6 in that pile of smartphones shown in the image above and we’re going to compare it to Samsung’s newly announced Galaxy S6. Which one would you prefer? More importantly, what are the major differences between these two devices? Well, let’s go ahead and find out… Today we’re comparing Samsung’s Galaxy S6 to Apple’s iPhone 6. These two devices are from completely different areas in the mobile space, but there are still some striking similarities between the two....

Flume, an electronic music producer from Australia, recently took to social media to announce two new documentaries coming to Apple Music. The Australian electronic music producer has been making waves over the past few years for his unique genre-bending sounds. The first documentary, Flume: When Everything Was New, will probably focus on the artist’s meteoric rise into his music space. The second documentary, Sleepless: The Story of Future Classic, could have a mix of both Flume’s career and his involvement with the independent record label Future Classic....

Apple is continuing to build its arsenal of original content. Deadline reports this evening that Apple has won world rights to a new documentary called “Songwriter” that highlights the life and career of singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran… The report says that Apple paid somewhere in the “low to mid-seven figures” for world rights to the documentary. The company is said to be planing a release that includes both a theatrical component as well as a release on “Apple’s multiple platforms....