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Update: Patently Apple notes that this patent has now been granted (19th April 2016). Apple patent application published today shows that the Force Touch trackpad used in the 12-inch MacBook and latest 13-inch MacBook Pro could get more sophisticated in future versions. The patent describes how a mix of vibration and temperature could fool your finger into ‘feeling’ different surfaces, such as metal and wood. The patent describes how vibrations could be used to simulate a textured surface, such as the grain of a wooden surface … For example, a glass surface may be controlled to have the temperature of a relatively cooler metal material and/or a relatively warmer wood material […]...

Using an iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock (or even summon) a car is no big deal these days, but an Apple patent granted today describes an extremely powerful and flexible approach that includes the ability to create limited, temporary ‘keys’ for others. The patent describes a primary device presumably held by the owner of the car, allowing full control of the vehicle. This would include unlocking it, starting the engine and activating personalized settings such as seat adjustments....

Back in January this year, United Airlines accidentally revealed that Apple was its number one customer with an annual spend of $150 million. Now, it appears the airline and Apple are in early talks about upgrading its terminal at SFO. Reported by Bloomberg, details aren’t clear on how Apple would specifically help United Airlines with an upgrade for its SFO terminal, but a comment from the airline’s VP alludes to the partnership on a refresh....

iPhone XS, XR, and XS Max are one of the best and attractive phones for a great camera, plenty of storage, big OLED displays and many more. This phone is packed with numerous expensive technologies too. There is also a need to know about the restore factory setting when it comes to any phone so as to make your phone feel new. Most of the issues that occur in our smartphone can be fixed easily by resetting the smartphone to its factory defaults....

If you haven’t heard by now, plans for construction of Apple’s 175-acre “Spaceship” campus are well under way. A meeting hosted by Cupertino mayor Gilbert Wong to address any community member’s concerns is scheduled for tonight. However, it now looks like Apple may have plans to build another campus, as Wong told Mercury News that Apple execs have already approached him with plans for a third campus: An Apple spokesperson declined to comment....

Did you know Apple has its own official Giphy account? It does and its page is filled with custom GIFs from Apple ads, exclusive content, and music documentaries. The only question remaining is…why? The earliest uploaded GIF on the account is from April 13th of this year. With the social media push Apple has gone on since its Apple Music inception, creating shareable GIFs seems like an understandable debut. By focusing on exclusives and releasing high quality GIFs from that content, Apple Music is creating more opportunities for discovery....

While Apple Music might not be the most popular music streaming service on Android, the latest beta update adds Chromecast support for streaming your playlists, radio stations, and more. Apple appears to be playing nicely with Android in this update, having just added a dedicated dark mode for the Android version of the music-streaming app in the previous beta release. While having a dedicated dark mode is nice, being able to stream your collections to your Google Home, Nest Hub, and Chromecast devices is arguably a much more notable inclusion (via Android Police)....

Speaking to Cult of Mac (CoM), Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster explained that should Apple fail to reveal health Mac sales, “then the importance of the new Mac increases substantially”. Of course, like everyone else, Munster expects Apple to step up to the plate and offer newly designed MacBooks, “including a sub-$1,000 Mac,” CoM informs. The analyst also made the kind of comment that would lead anyone watching the Apple ecosystem to believe the launch of new Macs may have seen a little delay, explaining, ““The product changes we have seen thus far do not warrant such a dramatic decrease in margins....

Apple released the first iOS 12.2 developer beta today, and in tow is support for Apple News in Canada, finally branching out from the initial launch countries: US, UK and Australia. The update supports both English and French, and Apple notes that “readers can experience a bilingual experience when they follow a channel in a second language.” Previously, tinkering with your regional settings on iOS or Mac would be required to access Apple News outside of the three supported areas....

Apple today announced a new recall and replacement program for the third-generation iPad Air, launched in 2019. The company says that a limited number of units manufactured between March 2019 and October 2019 have a problem that causes the display to turn white permanently. According to Apple, the screen of affected models may flicker a few times unexpectedly before it becomes irreversible. Affected customers can have their display replaced by Apple free of charge....

Apple’s position as the world’s leading computing device company has driven manufacturing partner, Foxconn, to seize an astonishing 50 per cent of the world’s electronic manufacturing services market, said iSuppli today. Half of the world’s production of consumer electronics devices come from a Foxconn factory, with Apple’s production demand driving this record, iSuppli explains. This is now an Apple world. “Foxconn’s customers are some of the hottest companies in the electronics business today, most notably Apple,” said Thomas Dinges, iSuppli associate....

According to the Financial Times, Apple is in late-stage talks with Beats to acquire the music streaming and headphone maker for a deal worth $3.2 billion. The deal could be announced as soon as next week, according to the report. The report adds the senior management from Beats will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. The Beats headphone brand has been marketed by artist Dr. Dre for several years, and the company most recently launched a cross-platform streaming music service that has seen some success....

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has joined Microsoft, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and other giants in the tech industry in calling for a reform of the NSA’s surveillance tactics. Earlier this year it was revealed that the National Security Agency was using information from these companies and more to monitor citizens across the nation without warrants. The companies allegedly involved in the “PRISM” program denied turning over any user data to the government, but a leaked NSA slidedeck (seen above) seemed to imply the opposite....

Let the deluge begin… Not long after the Super Mario Run iMessage sticker pack was made available to iOS 10 users, Apple has unleashed the entire iMessage App Store. The iMessage App Store, which is available for iOS 10 users, features sticker packs from companies like Disney, Bandai Namco, Sanrio, and others. In addition to the sticker packs, the iMessage App Store features full-fledged iMessage apps and games. Several of the apps that were demonstrated during the WWDC 2016 keynote are here, such as Square Cash, OpenTable, and JibJab....

Developer James Thomson of popular calculator app PCalc announced today via his Twitter account that Apple is forcing him to remove the app’s Today Widget due to a restriction that iOS widgets “cannot perform any calculations.” Apple’s new Today Widgets feature in iOS 8, which allows developers to build functions into the system-wide Notification Center, does have some limitations that Apple outlines in developer documentation. For example, Apple encourages developers not to use Today Widgets for multistep tasks: “If you want to create an app extension that enables a multistep task or helps users perform a lengthy task, such as uploading or downloading content, the Today extension point is not the right choice....

Apple has been awarded the Green Supply Chain CITI Outstanding Brand title in China, the company announced today. As part of receiving this award, Apple will work to help further “promote environmental management.” Apple made the announcement in a post on its China Newsroom today. The award comes after Apple consistently ranked first in the Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI) over the last five years. The award is meant to recognize Apple’s “environmental leadership across the entire supply chain....

Mountain Lion will cater to Chinese users more than any other OS X version. CEO Tim Cook once more underscored the importance of China by highlighting Mac sales in today’s interview with the Wall Street Journal. Sales doubled in the 1.33 billion-people market during 2011 to the tune of $13 billion in revenue. “They know about Apple and what Apple stands for. Then they search out and look for the Mac”, he told the paper....

Apple’s industrial design team is undergoing a series of changes, a new report from The Wall Street Journal claims. According to the report, several Apple veterans are departing the team, which consists of roughly two-dozen people led by Jony Ive. Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis have been at Apple for a combined total of 35 years, but have recently decided to leave the company and the iconic industrial design team....

Apple Music Web Player If you are a subscriber to Apple Music, launch your favorite browser and head to beta.music.apple.com. Then sign in with your Apple account credentials. The site offers the entire Apple Music catalog as well as tracks you’ve synced to your libraries. The site looks much like the standalone music app that Apple is launching with macOS Catalina in the coming months. It includes all the basic features....

Apple is looking to spur the growth of its subscription news service Apple News+. The company has announced a new affiliate program for Apple News+, which pays out a bounty of 400% per conversion. The Apple Affiliate program has a complicated history. In 2018, Apple removed App Store purchases and in-app purchases from the program completely. Since then, it has focused on Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Books. The new Apple News+ affiliate program is another step in this direction....