Over the last few days, Apple has started to heavily tout its contributions to the United States economy. During the company’s earnings call yesterday and again during an interview today, Tim Cook talked up Apple’s influence, and now Apple has launched a new website that breaks down its United States economic outreach… On the website, Apple describes its contributions to the United States economy. For instance, the company touts that it has created some 2 million jobs, 450,000 of which are through its United States-based suppliers....

In a recent update to its supplier responsibility pages, Apple has listed Quanta Computer USA as a final assembler of its Macs. One of the locations of Quanta’s final assembly is 44350 Nobel Drive Fremont, Calif., indicating that some Macs are or will be built in the facility. These are facilities where Apple products are assembled and packaged for distribution. . Apple CEO Tim Cook noted in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams late last year that Apple would invest $100 million to move at least one of its product lines to the United States....

Alongside its announcement of Apple’s quarterly earnings, its first revenue decline since 2003, Apple has also announced latest numbers for Apple Music, its $9.99 per month streaming music service. The company says it now has 13 million paying subscribers, up from 11 million in February. This compares to about 30 million subscribers to leading competitor Spotify, although the service obviously had a multi-year headstart over Apple’s streaming service, which launched last June....

Apple has named the top 25 apps infected by the XcodeGhost malware, stating that “the number of impacted users drops significantly” for other compromised apps. Most security researchers now agree that the total number of infected apps is in or around four figures, with many of them still present in China’s App Store … Apple states that it is working with developers to get clean versions of the apps back into the App Store, with eight of the most popular apps not yet restored, including Angry Birds 2 and China Unicom’s Customer Service app....

Apple has posted a series of support documents for the swathe of products it introduced yesterday, confirming, among other things, some compatibility problems with the new Magic Mouse when used with Windows via Boot Camp. The company yesterday introduced: New iMac models (already breaking hearts everywhere) New MacBook models New model Mac minis (including a media server) MultiTouch Mighty Mouse All-new Apple Remote Confirmed ‘imminent’ Snow Leopard 10.6.2 release New AirPort and Time Capsule iterations....

The Loop’s Dave Mark yesterday spotted a video that has so far flown under the radar: an Apple Park Spaceship campus video tour that takes us into the non-public areas… You can visit the on-campus Apple Store, and some people get invited to events in the Steve Jobs Theater, but the spaceship ring itself is normally strictly off-limits to visitors. However, travel videographer Yongsung Kim somehow managed it, filming everything from his drive into the underground parking lot to a walk, a tour of the Theater, then through a section of the main ring and inner grounds....

iPhone Xs, XS Max and XR are the attractive phones on stores today. These phones are also the best when it comes to its features, clarity and many other new options. The slim sized phone having the next-generation technology attracts a lot of buyers in abundance. Any phone needs a mobile phone internet so as to browse social media websites, receiving emails, installing apps or any other information. You will be able to access the internet as soon as you have inserted your SIM to your mobile phone....

Except none of this is true, at least not in the sincerest of terms. For Windows users, iTunes isn’t going anywhere– at least not anytime soon. For Mac users, the story is a little bit more confusing, but I’ll do my best to explain. If you’re in the latter category and don’t have the time to read further, be comfortable in knowing that the bottom line changes that are coming later this year aren’t nearly as substantial as some others might have lead you to believe....

Pre-order sales for Apple’s newly announced iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus kicked off last night at 3:01 AM EST with the larger 5.5-inch model quickly seeing ship dates slip, but some customers were unable to complete the pre-order process on Apple’s online store due to issues reaching carrier systems. Rather than receiving a purchase confirmation, these customers were issued reservation numbers for the iPhone model attempting to be pre-ordered with the promise that the order can be finalized with carrier systems were able to be accessed again....

Apple has unveiled a new tool for users to help determine whether an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is configured to use Activation Lock. The page works much like the tools used by carriers such as AT&T to determine whether a potential trade-in device was protected with the feature. You enter the IMEI or serial number of the device, fill in a CAPTCHA, and press “Continue” to get your results (via iDownloadblog)....

The city of Cupertino has reportedly now given Apple the permits needed to move employees into five of the 12 sections of the spaceship ring at Apple Park … Permits for the remaining seven sections are due to be granted sometime between now and March, reports VentureBeat. Occupancy permits are needed when a company wants to move people in before construction is complete. The requirement is for safety reasons, city officials needing to satisfy themselves that employees would not be put at risk, explains Cupertino building official Albert Salvador....

Today, Apple has finally launched a version of its official online store for customers in Russia. The online store is similar in style to Apple’s online stores in other countries. Customers in Russia are now able to order iPhones, iPads, iPods, Macs, accessories, and more directly from Apple to their homes. Apple is celebrating the launch by taking up Apple Russia’s homepage to announce the new store (image above)… This online store is Apple’s first official sales presence in the country....

Apple today announced in a post on its Swift blog that it is open sourcing the Swift benchmark suite. This announcement comes two months after the company made the Swift programming language open source, allowing the developer community to have direct access to the platform. Much like the rest of Swift, the benchmarking suite is available now on GitHub with an open source Apache license. Specifically, the suite contains source code for benchmarks, libraries, and utilities....

As it turns out, the Apple TV 4K includes a hidden Lightning port. This discovery was first made on Twitter by Kevin Bradley, better known as nitoTV on Twitter. This could lead to access to the Apple TV 4K’s firmware. While earlier Apple TV models had Micro USB and USB-C, the Apple TV 4K dropped all outwardly-facing ports other than Ethernet and HDMI. Under the hood, however, there’s a hidden Lightning port, as Bradley discovered....

Apple has released a neat new rich resource today to help writers publish their content on its Apple Books platform. The new website walks through writing, publishing, marketing, and looking at analytics with Apple Books and since it’s web-based works with both Mac and Windows. The new Apple Books for Authors website is live now. Here’s how Apple describes it: The comprehensive guide walks authors through using Pages and iBooks Author apps as well as other popular options like Microsoft Word and Scrivener for the writing process....

Apple has launched a version of the Mac App Store localized in Czech. Like previous changes to the Mac App Store, upport for the new language is rolling out to users and will only show up for a few people at first. Some users have also spotted a Slovak version of the store, which may be rolling out now as well. If you’re not seeing the language change yet, you may be able to enable it by switching your region using the flag button at the bottom of the home page, then changing back....

Apple topped the chart last year in MBLM’s annual Brand Intimacy survey, but this year there’s a new number one company — at least among millennials. YouTube has climbed from number three to number one this year, moving Apple down a slot according to a preview of the study. MBLM who conducts the study in the United States says YouTube only just made the top ten list among millennials a couple of years ago, but entertainment options targeted at the generation have contributed to their brand’s success:...

Apple today has officially announced that its rollout of the redesigned Apple Maps is experience is now complete in the United States. Apple touts that the new Apple Maps design gives users faster and more accurate navigation, improved detail, better road coverage, and more. The release of the rebuilt Apple Maps design was essentially complete last month, but today marks the first time Apple has officially confirmed the completion. Eddy Cue had this to say about the new version of Apple Maps, teasing that Apple plans to bring the new design to Europe starting later this year:...

Blame the iPhone? Hit up Apple’s website for the details. http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html Apple today updated its MacBook consumer notebooks with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in every model. The new line of MacBooks remain just one-inch thin and feature built-in 802.11n wireless networking for up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g. Every MacBook also includes a built-in iSight video camera for on-the-go video conferencing, Apple’s MagSafe Power Adapter that safely disconnects when under strain, and iLife ’06, Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications....

Apple also announced that an enhanced App Store for China is also now available. This App Store has localized featured apps, sections, and top charts. The updated App Store is also now available in Simplified Chinese for the first time. Full press release after the break: CUPERTINO, California—October 26, 2010—Apple® today introduced the Apple Store® in China (apple.com.cn), the easiest way to shop online for Apple products including the revolutionary iPhone® 4 and the magical iPad™....