Apple’s second wave of iPhone 6 sales has just kicked off with customers in New Zealand getting access to the device through retail stores and online as we roll into the morning of September 26 in the country. We’re also approaching the launch in a total of 20 countries today as the device goes on sale the morning of September 26 local time in the following locations: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates....

I wrote back in 2015 on the bloated mess that was iTunes, and suggested that Apple needed to take the same approach on Mac as it has on iOS: separate apps for each content category. The company took a big step in this direction with the release of iTunes 12.7 in 2017, removing apps and ringtones from iTunes, turning iTunes U into a subsection of podcasts, and tidying up Internet Radio …...

Apple’s never-ending battle with notorious patent troll VirnetX continues today. According to a new report from Bloomberg, an Eastern Texas court has ruled that Apple infringes on four VirnetX patents and must pay $502.6 million in damages… The report says that the patents in question relate to Apple’s FaceTime, VPN, and iMessage services. VirnetX, of course, thinks the damages are fair and based on the sales of over 400 million infringing Apple devices:...

As its legal battle with Apple drags on, Qualcomm is also in the middle of battling the Federal Trade Commission in a separate case. Making things all the more complicated, a judge on Friday ordered sanctions against Apple in the FTC’s case against Qualcomm… As reported by Bloomberg, Apple is being punished in the Qualcomm vs FTC case for being slow to turn over documents. U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins in San Jose, California is fining Apple $25,000 for every day that it fails to produce the necessary paperwork....

On Tuesday, Apple announced seven new products: the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, ninth-generation iPad, iPad mini 6, and Apple Watch Series 7. Here’s an early take on each of these. iPad mini 6 A few years ago, it looked like the iPad mini would soon become history. Then the iPad mini 5 launched, and the smallest of Apple’s tablets lived to fight another day....

Apple Music is now “well past 20 million” subscribers, according to Eddy Cue. Speaking at the Recode Media Conference this evening, Cue explained that Apple Music is still growing, but that Apple is not satisfied with where numbers are now and will continue pushing. Cue couldn’t offer a specific number for Apple Music subscribers, but stated that the number is now “well past 20 million.” Apple announced the 20 million number back in December, so the fact that the service is now “well past” that milestone in just two months is notable....

Apple is apparently ramping up its efforts to clean up the App Store. According to a report from VentureBeat, Apple has started rejecting applications which tout their price in the name, icons, screenshots, or previews… Apple has reportedly gradually started this practice over the last month. In the past, Apple has discouraged developers from highlighting an app’s price in titles, but it has not gone as far as to reject apps that do so....

Last week, it was discovered that setting your iOS device system date and time back to January 1st 1970 would crash your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch effectively bricking it. Setting the date back this far would prevent the iPhone or other iOS device from booting up until the battery died. AppleCare has been flooded with people bringing in their devices after trying out this bug … Now, Apple has officially acknowledged the problem on its Apple Support website....

Answering probably the biggest question regarding the Macintosh Operating System, Apple revealed today that the tenth iteration of its OS X system will be dubbed Mavericks. OS X 10.9 delivers a collection of new features including: -Tagging -Tabs in the Finder -Better multiple display support -Apple TV can now work as a full powered display -iBooks and Maps apps -Compressed memory -Better battery life -Redesigned Safari -iCloud keychain -Quick reply for messages...

Patently Apple points to a new patent application from Apple which surfaced this morning in the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) database pertaining to a “database message builder” which might be Apple’s take on unified, platform-agnostic social sharing. “The user can publish the message to a target application or network resource (e.g., a social networking site)”, Apple writes in a summary of the patent application. The document describes tokens which are replaced with the structured data prior to publishing the message....

Earlier this year, Apple purchased popular digital magazine distributor Texture. Now, the company is reportedly in talks with major newspaper publishers. Re/code reports that Apple is looking at the big newspaper publishers in the U.S., attempting to persuade them to add their stories to Texture. With Eddy Cue leading the negotiations, Apple has reached out to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post regarding adding their content to the app....

Update: Apple has now responded to developers complaints regarding the issue in its Developer Forums and according to TechCrunch told one developer a dedicated team is working on a fix. The following statement is from Apple’s forums: As highlighted by Instapaper developer Marco Arment, Apple appears to be pushing out corrupted updates that cause a number of apps to crash immediately after launching. The issue was first noticed by Arment following an update to version 4....

In line with our report from earlier this month, Apple today launched its first trade-in program for non-iPhones in its Apple Retail Stores. The program allows users of select Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry phones to bring in their devices and receive credit toward the immediate purchase of a new iPhone 5c, iPhone 6, or iPhone 6 Plus (but not an Apple Watch). Apple first launched its standard iPhone Reuse and Recycle trade-in program in 2013, and the company expanded the feature to the iPad last year....

Apple is now under a third privacy investigation in Ireland, this time looking at whether the company fully meets GDPR requirements in regard to a data access request from a customer. Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law imposes a wide range of strict privacy rules on companies, one of which is that a customer has a right to see a copy of all the data held on them …...

Apple today has begun issuing another round of bonds shortly after announcing strong Q4 earnings while it moves closer to completing its $300 billion capital return program for shareholders. Bloomberg notes that Apple is more than 75% through its current capital return program scheduled to end by March 2019. Those close to the matter say that Apple will likely offer this new round of fixed-rate bonds in up to six parts....

By now, most people that are interested in Apple and/or video editing have heard about the ongoing criticism towards Apple’s latest professional movie making software, Final Cut Pro X. Many are calling this total revamp of the Final Cut product an application that is not suited for professionals. Some have even dubbed it as a slightly jazzed up version of iMovie – “iMovie Pro.” Now, Apple has officially responded to this criticism with a new “answers to the most common questions we’ve heard” web page....

Update: A few hours after these listings appeared on the store, Apple has reversed course and no longer lists either case as discontinued. However, both cases are now only available in gray rather than the full range of colors that were previously available. Despite keeping the iPad 2 around for yet another year, Apple has discontinued the cases that it designed alongside the second-generation tablet. Both accessories are still available for sale for the time being, although some colors are now listed as “unavailable to ship” and will probably be removed in the coming days....

There have been no shortage of fingerprint sensor rumors surfacing since Apple acquired Authentec last year. According to several reports from analysts, including the often reliable Ming-Chi Kuo and the not as reliable Topeka Capital analyst Brian White, Apple’s next-generation iPhone is likely to include a fingerprint sensor. We’ve discussed how it could certainly make a stand out hardware feature for Apple’s expected “S” upgrade, and today the US Patent and Trademark Office published patent applications that show Apple could be experimenting with exactly that (via PatentlyApple)....

Nobody is quite sure why or how Stongehenge was constructed, but the stone circle constructed sometime between four and five thousand years ago has long fascinated visitors. As a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the closest most visitors can get to it these days is a pathway around the outside. (I probably shouldn’t admit this, but as a young child who lived nearby before all the restrictions were put in place, I used to climb on the stones …)...

Following our reports earlier this year that exclusively revealed details and screenshots of Apple’s Healthbook app, Apple today just officially announced the app confirming the details of our reports. Apple’s new platform, codenamed Healthbook, will be officially known as ‘HealthKit’ on the developer side of things, and will come with an accompanying app for iOS 8 called ‘Health’. We believe Apple’s HealthKit will revolutionize how the health industry interacts with people....