Apple Maps started listing electric vehicle charge points as points-of-interest late last year, and now Apple is expanding that functionality to Europe. The new feature rollout will include listings for bike rental hubs in three cities around the world as well. Apple tells Bloomberg that the new features for Apple Maps in Europe come as part of a partnership with Munich-based Cirrantic’s Moovility service. Bike rental hubs will appear in Apple Maps for users in London, New York, and Paris as well:...

Up until now, Apple has limited promo codes on the App Store to app downloads and hasn’t allowed developers to offer codes for in-app purchases and Newsstand issues. However, as noted by 148apps, EA is currently offering promo codes that allow users of its Real Racing 3 iOS app to get an in-app purchase normally valued at $1.99. While users aren’t forced to enter a promo code manually in the App Store, visiting an EA website sends users to the App Store and automatically redeems the code for the in-app content....

Apple Music is falling behind Spotify in the music streaming wars. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been using Apple Music since the day it was released in 2015, but after almost six years of its launch, I don’t think I can defend Apple for not correcting some flaws or adding features users really want. Before 2015, I used to rip my CDs to my iPhone or buy them on the iTunes Store....

Apple has now named new Marketing and Medical VPs for its Apple Watch team following the product’s official unveiling earlier this month. The company has also today posted its first job listing seeking software engineers for the Apple Watch team on its website. Longtime Apple marketing executive Stan Ng gets a promotion from his previous role as Senior iPhone Product Marketing to VP of Product Marketing for Apple Watch. Ng has held various executive roles since 1999 and previously served as Sr....

Yesterday afternoon, Apple released watchOS 3.1.1 to Apple Watch users, offering support for Unicode 9.0 emoji, bug fixes and performance improvements, and more. Shortly after the update was released, however, early adopters started reporting that the update process had effectively bricked their device. Now, following those reports, Apple has pulled the update… As noted by MacRumors, Apple has temporarily pulled the watchOS 3.1.1 update, with the accompanying iOS Watch app now reporting that watchOS 3....

Apple is set to make its return to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in less than a month. CES 2020 officially begins on January 7, and Apple will make a formal appearance at the conference for the first time since 1992 — this time to talk about privacy. As first spotted by Bloomberg, Apple’s senior director of privacy Jane Horvath will speak at CES during a “Chief Privacy Officer Roundtable.” The CES schedule indicates that this discussion will focus on things like regulation, consumer privacy at scale, and more....

Apple Music has a strong foundation of handpicked playlists and curated music collections, and changes to the music service’s ‘For You’ section is dramatically improving Apple Music’s recommendation features. Apple Music’s upgraded ‘For You section is now organized around music themes that are more personalized for each member, and updates to ‘For You’ are now much more frequent. The changes to Apple Music and ‘For You’ are already starting to appear today on select platforms including iOS 12....

Last weekend, Apple sent a wave of Apple Music notifications to previous subscribers offering them an additional 3-month free trial. Now, Apple is continuing its Apple Music focus with push notifications allowing current subscribers to gift a friend a free month of the streaming music service. The notification is actionable, allowing you to tap it and be taken to a page where they can send a referral to non-Apple Music subscribers....

Apple has today announced that its music streaming service will be sponsoring a free Anderson .Paak concert on March 13 in London. The one-night only concert is being presented by Dr. Dre and seems to be the first major public concert put on by Apple since the company shut down its Apple Music Festival. Apple shared the news via its Apple Music Twitter account today. “Just announced! @DrDre presents: @AndersonPaak One Night Only in London....

Mind the Store, a coalition which focuses on tracking toxic chemicals in consumer products, is out today with its third annual ranking of North American retailers. This year, Apple locked in the top position on the list with an A+ grade, an improvement from the A it received last year. This year, Apple scored 106.25 points of 135 possible points, which equates to an A+ on the Mind the Store grading scale....

In a new class action lawsuit, Apple is being accused of deceptive trade practices and false advertising due to its claims of iOS 9 being compatible with older iOS devices, primarily the iPhone 4s. The lawsuit claims that iOS “significantly interferes” with the performance of the iPhone 4s and that Apple is in the wrong for not allow users to downgrade to older versions of the operating system. The lawsuit, which has more than 100 backers, goes as far to say that the iPhone 4s was rendered essentially unusable by the iOS 9 update (via AI)....

As Apple Pay continues to expand, Apple is holding a special shopping event in San Francisco to promote the mobile payment service. The “Lose Your Wallet” event will highlight stores that support Apple Pay while offering exclusive discounts… The shopping event will consist of 20 merchants in Hayes Valley and 16 in the Marina, running from Friday, June 23rd through Sunday, June 25th. Headlining the “Lose Your Wallet” event, however, is the steep discounts that merchants will be applying to Apple Pay purchases....

Alongside the introduction of the iPhone 12, Apple has added a new 20W USB-C power adapter to its lineup of accessories. The new 20W USB-C power adapter replaces the 18W USB-C adapter that Apple used to sell for $29. The new 20W USB-C power adapter retails for $19 when buying direct from Apple. The adapter comes as Apple has stopped including a wall charger and EarPods in the box with the entire iPhone 12 lineup, and has also retroactively removed them from the box of the iPhone SE, iPhone XR, and iPhone 11 that it continues to sell today....

Apple just landed the No. 2 spot on LinkedIn’s fresh list of most “inDemand” employers from around the world. The occupation-aimed social network pinpointed the most attractive companies for job seekers, and it subsequently broadcasted the list, along with its new Most InDemand Employers website, at the Talent Connect event in Las Vegas this afternoon. LinkedIn further detailed a few insights regarding the results, including: tech/software as the most represented on the list, consumer brands ranked highly, and 50-percent of the top 100 companies had under 7,000 employees....

Even after Monday’s “show time” event, Apple Music is still the company’s only service available on Android. The client does feature tablet and Chromebook compatibility, with Chromecast support for playback on Google Home speakers now possibly in development. About APK Insight: In this ‘APK Insight’ post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features....

As we noted earlier this month, the first 2016 MacBook Pro to become available on Apple’s refurbished website was the 13-inch model without Touch Bar. Apple’s website now offers refurbished models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar with savings ranging from $360-650, depending on the configuration. While we’ve seen pricing this low for an entry-level model in new condition with 256 GB of storage via 9to5Toys, Apple’s refurbished store has many models available, including custom build configurations with high storage capacities....

Apple has been no stranger to patenting innovative methods and implementations of ID verification and recognition technologies, most recently highlighting a system for advanced 3D object recognition. Perhaps the most interesting patent to emerge is one for digital handshakes using advanced camera systems and invisible ink published by the US Patent & Trademark Office earlier today (via PatentlyApple). The patent essentially details a system in which advanced, next-generation cameras could read invisible inks and optical coatings, which contain unique identifiers, integrated into another device or object....

Apple was today granted a patent for what it describes as a ‘consumer electronic product [which] includes at least a transparent housing and a flexible display.’ The accompanying drawings show a device which has a display which completely wraps around the device – covering front, rear and sides – with only tiny bezels at the top and bottom. While Apple uses generic language throughout most of the patent text, it does use the example of a smartphone in places, and the main drawing clearly shows an iOS device with a phone icon present, indicating that the company has an iPhone in mind....

Comscore today released its usual quarterly report on U.S. smartphone market share for May with Apple holding its spot as top smartphone manufacturer ahead of Samsung. While the numbers haven’t changed much since its report for the three month period ending in February, Apple is up slightly to 42% and ahead of Samsung which grew from 27% to almost 28%. Following behind is LG with 6.5%, Motorola with 6.3%, and HTC with 5....

Last week, repair guide website iFixit published a detailed blog post discussing an issue plaguing a growing number of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users. Referred to as “Touch Disease,” a hardware problem causes iPhone displays to become unresponsive and feature a thin gray flickering line along the top. Now, a trio of iPhone users have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple over the issue, claiming that Apple has refused to repair devices that are affected for free…...