[UPDATE: Full collection of all 27 ‘Apps for Earth’ here.] Earth Day is just over a week away and it appears Apple plans to highlight it this year with a campaign to raise money for the World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF and Apple teamed up this time last year on an environmental initiative in China, and this year it’s an App Store campaign that brings to two groups and developers together....

Apple has today launched its new Data and Privacy website, allowing Apple users to download everything that Apple personally associates with your account, from Apple ID info, App Store activity, AppleCare history to data stored in iCloud like photos and documents. This is currently only available for European Union accounts, to comply with GDPR, and will roll out worldwide in the coming months. There are also simple shortcuts to updating your info, temporarily deactivating your account and options to permanently delete it....

Along with today’s OS X Yosemite launch, Apple has published a new mini-site on Apple.com highlighting some of the uses for its new Swift programming language. The page shows off a few apps built using Swift and highlights the decision by some colleges to start adding the language to their curriculums. The bottom of the page includes information on how to get started with Swift, including links to download the free guide on iBooks and Xcode development software, as well as a link to the Swift developer site, which includes even more resources for developers getting started with the language....

Apple today said that it is launching a voluntary recall and replacement program for the 15-inch MacBook Pro. The company says that select 15-inch MacBook Pro units sold between September 2015 and February 2017 contain a battery that may overheat and pose safety risks. In some instances, the battery used in these MacBook Pro units may overheat and pose a safety risk, Apple says. Affected customers can have their battery replaced by Apple free of charge....

Smarthouse has a particularly bad reputation when it comes to Apple rumors, especially when they involve OLEDs. But we’ll bite on their latest because it is so tantalizing. There are no shortage of people advocating for an integrated Apple television, but certainly the leader is Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster who expects one next year. On Friday LG said that they will launch a limited production OLED TV late in 2012....

Apple Music has added CBS Sports Radio to its growing collection of streaming radio stations available to paid subscribers. CBS Sports Radio joins CBS Radio News, NBC Sports Radio, and a handful of other news and sports channels available for streaming. CBS Sports Radio streams 24/7 sports news and commentary including interviews with athletes and sports figures. The newly added channel can be found under Radio → Radio Stations → News and Sports or through search on Apple Music....

Apple today has started selling the LaCie 2TB DJI Copilot BOSS Hard Drive. Apple is selling the accessory via both its online store as well as its retail stores. The hard drive costs $349.95 from Apple and serves as an accessory designed for cameras, DJI drones, and more. Lacie’s BOSS Hard Drive is designed as a “Backup On Set Solution,” meaning you can transfer your files directly from other device’s via the drive’s SD card slot and USB port, no Mac required....

Confirming a claim from earlier today, Bloomberg‘s Adam Satariano reports that Apple has confirmed the hire of former Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve. According to Apple, Deneve will report as a Vice President to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Yves Saint Laurent is a high-profile global fashion brand and retailer. Contrary to earlier speculation, Apple says that Deneve will work on “special projects,” not in retail. Apple has been without a de-facto Head of Retail since John Browett’s departure last fall....

After searching long and hard for what I thought you can do, I came to the realization that you can’t. Not in OS X Lion, and from the looks of it, not in Mountain Lion either. So far iCloud has been tailored for use with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. But it hasn’t been completely integrated into OS X. Apple’s Mountain Lion — due out this summer — takes a number of steps to make it more iCloud compatible....

Will the iPhone be the first MID device? We’ve learned that the iPhone platform will be of the same ilk as the Macintosh and AppleTV platforms and indeed most of the computer world – the venerable Intel x86 platform. Sources confirmed today that the iPhone paperwork contains references to the Intel McCaslin processor running at 667mhz. It went on to confirm that later versions of the phone will use a faster/more efficient version of the chip dubbed “Menlow” in time for its European and subsequent 3G incarnation....

Apple has today made transcripts of its WWDC 2019 videos available. This makes it easy for developers to search through videos and sessions for specific information without having to watch the entire session. Apple makes transcripts of its WWDC 2019 sessions available every year as an added resource for developers. Apple’s transcripts are linked directly to each video, which allows developers to search in the transcript and then immediately jump to that part of the video through a timestamped link....

Apple is sending out invites to random registered developers, giving them the chance to buy an Apple Watch with guaranteed delivery by the end of the month. Developer get the opportunity to buy a 42 mm Apple Watch Sport with shipment by the 28th of April. Apple is emailing selected developers, who are offered to apply here. The process is by application only. Developers find out whether they are eligible to actually go through with the purchase on the 23rd of April, this Thursday....

Through a press release and a post on Medium by Apple VP Lisa Jackson, Apple and The Conservation Fund have today announced a ‘breakthrough’ arrangement for sustainability. The deal involves Apple purchasing 36,000 acres of forest land in the eastern United States. Apple will use the paper from the forests for sustainable product packaging with guarantees to ensure that “forests stay forests” and harvested timber is done so in a sustainable way....

A patent application filing by Apple demonstrates a system where a vehicle can be unlocked via mobile biometric authentication, perhaps opening the door (literally) for Face ID to one day secure our cars. Entitled “System and Method for Vehicle Authorization”, the patent was only published last Friday, however, it was filed over two years ago in February 2017. The patent offers up a background, explaining: By the car specifically knowing who is unlocking it, a shared family vehicle in theory could tailor specific music and driver settings automatically based on the person actively approaching the car — similar to separate user profile settings on a computer....

Accessories made by Apple aren’t exactly cheap, but there are several third-party makers that offer great products for more affordable prices. However, there’s also a whole market of counterfeit accessories — and Apple is now doing everything it can to take these products down. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple is aware that there are several vendors using platforms like Facebook and Instagram to sell counterfeit Apple-branded accessories. The most popular are Chinese copies of products like AirPods, Lightning cables, iPhone batteries, and power adapters....

“We continue to see Apple as the best play on digital media in the home and a large beneficiary of the shift to mobile computing,” Wu wrote. Wu also thinks the recession’s bite will be felt first among value-conscious consumers, rather than the slightly higher income customers who form Apple’s base. “In two of its three big franchises, Mac and iPhone, penetration is very low and starting in the higher-income demographics....

Apple has given a straight-to-series order to a drama based Stephen King’s 2006 book “Lisey’s Story.” The series will star Julianne Moore in the leading role, according to a new report. Variety reports this evening that Apple has ordered eight episodes of the series, which will carry the same name as the book on which it is based. Stephen King will write all eight episodes of the show, while J.J. Abrams and Ben Stephenson will serve as executive producers....

Today, Apple announced that the App Store Subscriptions, originally found on The Daily, are now available for all developers. The subscription service is available for all content based apps such as magazines, newspapers, video, music, and basically anything else a developer could want their users to subscribe to. The revenue system for developers is the same as normal in-app-purchases or app sales: 30% to Apple and 70% to the application’s developer....

We’ve already detailed a handful of new features coming to Apple Maps in iOS 14.5, including Waze-style reporting and hazard features. Now, it also appears that Apple is working on a new feature to show users how busy a particular point of interest is before they visit. As first spotted by a user on Reddit, Apple has updated its Privacy menu in the Location Services part of the Settings app to describe a new feature that would use location data to aggregate details about how busy a point of interest is....

The Apple Maps app didn’t get any major changes in iOS 12, but the MapKit team announced at WWDC that they are officially launching MapKit as a web framework for others to use. Google Maps is incredibly popular as an embedded map for other web services, and now Apple is trying to take a slice of that pie. MapKit JS is the same map component that Apple uses in many of its web properties, including Find My iPhone on iCloud....