The North Carolina Utilities Commission approved (PDF) Apple’s proposal to build a 20-megawatt solar farm today. Early filings suggested Apple aimed to position the farm by Nov. 1 across the street from its Maiden, N.C., date center, with operations starting Dec. 21. According to MacRumors, the official proposal filed on Feb. 15, and then it underwent to staff review, a public notice/comment session, and feedback from the State Clearinghouse. The NCUC officially approved the proposal on Monday and completed the certificate issuance Thursday:...

Apple has just announced its fiscal Q1 2015 earnings call will take place on January 27 to report earnings for the three months ending in December of last year. As always, Apple will be hosting a conference call with investors and press and will also live stream audio from the call on its website. Last quarter, at its Q4 2014 earnings call, Apple announced revenue of $42.1b with sales of 39m iPhones, 12....

. Update: AAPL has briefly dipped below 400 and continues to trade around that mark. This morning, Apple’s stock has reached its lowest levels per share since late 2011. Since the beginning of 2012, Apple’s stock has rallied all the way up to over $700 per share, but since the end of the 2012, the stock has gone through a downward spiral. Today, the stock is trading at a little over $400 per share, with a daily low of $400....

Apple today has rolled out updates to a pair of its iOS applications. The Apple Store app has been updated to version 5.1 with some notable improvements to search, while the WWDC has received a post-event update with bug fixes… Firs and foremost, the Apple Store app now features a completely new search interface. Similar to the App Store and iTunes Store apps, the search interface now highlights trending searches in case you need some inspiration....

So the Apple Store went down again briefly last night. It goes down all of the time. Probably about once or twice a week. Sometimes for as much as a few hours. Much more than the Dell site or HP’s site. Or at least it certainly seems that way because just about every Mac and gadget blog announces each outage. When Dell’s online store goes down even for ten minutes, the losses to the company are counted in the millions of dollars....

Apple has today proposed a new set of emoji to the Unicode Consortium that focuses on accessibility. The new set includes at least nine new emoji. As reported by Emojipedia in a blog post: Emojipedia notes the opening remarks of Apple’s submission: Furthermore, Apple says this is just “an initial starting point,” as the company is partnering with the American Council of the Blind, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, and the National Association of the Deaf....

First, make sure you’ve updated your Apple TV to the latest version – 5.0 (4099). After you’ve updated, go to the main screen and you’ll see the changes that are included. The most obvious change is the layout for its apps — no more menu bar. This makes navigation much easier. Here’s a look at each of the apps available to choose from. It looks more like an iDevice now....

Apple this evening appears to have updated the way in which Apple Watch screenshots are presented in the App Store on iOS. Prior to this recent update, Apple Watch screenshots were shown as normal, rectangular screenshots, which looked unappealing and out of place. Now, Apple has added a black border to the screenshots and has given them rounded corners. These changes make the apps look more realistic and similar to how they actually appear when running on Apple Watch....

While ‘Apple Car‘ is still a highly rumored project that really gained momentum last year, Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged its electric vehicle project publicly yet. Instead, Apple executives have cleverly referenced the rumors during media events while Tim Cook has resisted denying the project. The biggest tease to date comes in the form of new car-related domain names registered to the company that are likely related to the so-called Project Titan....

Multiple users of the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard have noted that a software update has begun rolling out to fix connectivity issues. As noted by iMore, Apple has posted a support document on its website detailing the update’s intended purpose: The now solved issue revolves around the iPad Pro waking from sleep randomly when connected to a Smart Keyboard, but Apple does not say that it has addressed other Smart Keyboard issues such as an issue where the Command-Tab shortcut does not always navigate to the app-switcher....

Apple today issued a press release reminding users that the next version of the Mac operating system, OS X El Capitan, will become available tomorrow (September 30th) on the Mac App Store as a free update. Of course, this has been known since Apple’s September 9th event, which included the Wednesday release date as an easter egg during the new iPhone’s 3D Touch demo. In its announcement today, Apple provides a quote from Craig Federighi that notes the success of the software’s public beta program:...

Tomorrow is officially Earth Day and while it has already revealed some of its efforts, Apple this evening has uploaded a new video to its YouTube channel highlighting its green initiatives. The ad, entitled “iMessage – Renewable Energy,” highlights the company’s renewable energy efforts and encourages every one to “show some love for the earth.” In the ad, Apple uses iMessage to explain how everyday users of services like iMessage are taking advantage of its green initiatives....

Apple introduced its own translator this year, which comes as a standalone app on the iPhone and also as a built-in feature in Safari for iOS 14 macOS Big Sur users. Although the Translate app works with 11 languages, the built-in Safari translator was restricted to some regions — which is changing now as Apple is now rolling out this option to more countries. For some unknown reason, the Safari translator wasn’t available in all countries supported by the Translate app....

Following on from HealthKit and ResearchKit, Apple has today launched its third medical framework, CareKit. First announced last month, CareKit allows users to collect medical data that can be shared with physicians and other carers to provide an accurate log of symptoms and signs to assist with diagnosis and treatment. Four CareKit apps are available as of today … The more you know about your health, the better you can look after it....

According to a new sign placed on the covered store’s entry, Apple’s first retail location in South Korea will open on January 27th. The grand opening comes later than expected, with initial reports expecting the store to open before the end of 2017. This photo posted on a South Korean forum shows text added below the colorful banners we first reported last week, seemingly solidifying January 27th as the store’s official opening date....

An incredible new Apple store inside New York City’s landmark Grand Central Terminal – one of Apple’s largest stores in the world – is set to open this morning at 10am and already hundreds have queued up. The Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt snapped up the above shot showing staffers on the balconies above Grand Central Terminal and hundreds of fans stretching all the way down one track and part-way back. The company will treat avid fans to cool perks, such as 4,000 black shirts with “Apple Store, Grand Central” spelled out in lettering, resembling a train arrival board....

Apple is about to roll out its Volume Purchase Program, which allows business and education customers to purchase and distribute iOS apps in bulk for deployed devices, into 16 new countries. Apple’s website for both the Volume Purchase Program for Business and for Education have been updated to announce the expansion and now list the following countries as coming soon to the program: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan,Turkey, and United Arab Emirates....

Apple responded to the latest EU efforts to enforce a standardized single connector for smartphones like the iPhone, saying that “regulation that forces conformity across the type of connector …. stifles innovation” (via the Financial Times). Apple said that the proposed EU rules would force it to abandon the Lightning port and inconvenience consumers, as well as cause vast amounts of electronic waste from people needing to ditch all of their existing Lightning accessories, like docking stations and car adapters....

Apple this evening is out with its latest Apple Pay-focused advertisement. This video focuses on Apple Pay Cash and how it can be used between roommates to easily handle things such as rent payments. The video comes in at 15 seconds long and is entitled ‘Apple Pay – Just text them the money.’ In the video, a renter is reminded that rent is due soon, so they use Apple Pay Cash in the Messages application to pay the $700....

We learned earlier this morning via an email to Apple employees affected by the store and office closures due to coronavirus that the re-opening date of February 10 would likely be pushed back. Now Apple has shared more details that the new plan is to open most stores and offices late next week (via Bloomberg). A comment from Apple to Bloomberg echoes what the company’s SVP of people and retail previously told employees in a letter....