Apple today has quietly released a new collection of colors for its iPhone XS silicone cases and Apple Watch sport bands. The new colors include Hibiscus, Mellow Yellow, and Pacific Green. Further, Apple has also started selling the new Nike Sport Loop colors that originally launched through Nike earlier this month. For the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, Apple has introduced three new silicone case colors. The new colors, Hibiscus, Mellow Yellow, and Pacific Green, cost the same as other Apple cases at $39 for both iPhone XS models....

Following Apple CEO Tim Cook’s announcement last month that the company would soon begin providing diversity data, today the company is releasing its first report. While disclosing numbers on the gender and ethnicity of its employees, CEO Tim Cook has also published a letter alongside the report on the company’s website (full version below). In the letter, Cook highlights some of the progress the company has made in recent years, but also notes that he’s “not satisfied with the numbers” and that Apple plans to do more to improve them....

[Update: Bloomberg adds additional details including iOS & macOS cross platform apps still on track, new parental features are coming, tvOS and watchOS won’t be affected, and more.] Axios is reporting that Craig Federighi instructed the software division to put aside some major iOS projects in order to focus on performance and reliability issues for iOS 12. The publication says a refresh of the Home screen and other features have been shelved to dedicate more resources to bug fixing, smaller tweaks and platform finesse....

Apple has this morning announced that glass manufacturer Corning will be the first beneficiary of the Advanced Manufacturing Fund announced earlier this month. The $1B fund was established to ‘foster innovation among American manufacturers.’ Corning makes the Gorilla Glass used on every iPhone and iPad since the original iPhone. Apple said that the investment will assist in three ways … Apple COO Jeff Williams said that the company was proud of its long-standing relationship with Corning....

Although were not exactly sure when it went live, Apple seems to be rolling out a “Mastered for iTunes” section on iTunes worldwide that is populated with albums “specially tuned for higher fidelity sound.” Yesterday Universal Music Group announced several new additions to the section. New albums from UMG added to Mastered for iTunes include Madonna’s “MDNA,” U2’s “Achtung Baby,” Paul McCartney’s “Kisses On The Bottom,” and other albums from Bon Jovi, John Coltrane, and classical guitarist Kaori Muraji....

A detailed analysis by AnandTech says that Apple’s M1 chip can indeed credibly claim to be the fastest laptop CPU in the world. Apple made the claim during yesterday’s Mac event. While the piece does level a couple of criticisms at Apple’s presentation, it says that a comparison of A-series and Intel chip trajectories tell a very clear story: Apple has long been on-track to overtake the PC chipmaker, and has now done so …...

IHS Markit released its latest data today comparing shipments of 350 smartphones by model last year, and within finds that iPhone 6s topped the list as the most popular, beating out newer iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models and all the Android devices on the market. While iPhone 6s comes in on top according to the data followed by iPhone 7, 7 Plus, and 6s Plus, IHS notes that iPhone 7 was the top-selling device in the last quarter of the year....

The latest version of Workflow for iOS brings iPhone X optimization, several new iOS 11 features, a new drag and drop feature, and loads of bug fixes. Apple acquired the Workflow app and made it free on the App Store earlier this year. Shortly after the acquisition, it was reported that Workflow had no new features planned based on an email from someone on the Workflow team. Workflow has since released a few versions that keep the app up-to-date on new devices and iOS versions....

Apple is today touting a lot of new stats regarding Apple’s contribution to European economies. The company has done similar things for the United States, in the past. For Europe, Apple claims to have created or supported 629,000 jobs across Europe, with over 500,000 of those representing the ‘app economy’. Apple says this number is made up of employees whose jobs can be directly attributed to the App Store. Out of $20 billion in worldwide developer earnings, $6....

All Apple Stores in France are closing from tomorrow as the country returns to a stricter lockdown. Previously, some flagship stores in the center of the city had remained open, while those in shopping centers have remained closed since the end of January. Although France tomorrow enters its third national lockdown, the move by Apple is actually a voluntary one … The French government announced the new lockdown after COVID-19 cases doubled between February and March, and the number of patients in intensive care units exceeded the peak seen during the second lockdown....

Apple is expanding its Apple TV+ leadership with the addition of Warner Bros executive JP Richards, according to a new report from Deadline. Richards will serve as the head of film marketing strategy for Apple TV+, the report says. Richards spent six years at Warner Bros, starting as the executive vice president of worldwide digital marketing before elevating to broader EVP of worldwide marketing and chief digital strategists roles, then co-head of worldwide marketing....

This tidbit from New York Post: So money after all was that major roadblock Eric Schmidt hinted at during his D9 chat with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher… Asked to explain what happened with the Google Music service which does not scan-and-match users music library and prevents people from downloading files once they’re up in the cloud, Schmidt wouldn’t elaborate beyond saying that Google and labels “couldn’t come to terms”. All is not lost for the search firm, however....

The Economic Times reports that Apple executives in India recently hosted executives from top retailers in the country and laid out plans to open store-in-store locations and 100 standalone stores in smaller Indian markets: The new marketing vision for India was unveiled on Monday evening at a meeting with 20 CEOs and senior executives of the country’s top multi-brand telecom and electronic retail chains. Apple India’s senior executives spelt out plans to enter the top 50 tier II and III markets in India by selling its phones, tablets and portable music players at their outlets in an exclusive corner or a shop-in-shop, said three people who attended the meeting....

Apple today released its Environmental Progress Report for 2021 with a central focus on its previously-announced goals to reach net carbon neutrality for all of its supply chain and products by 2030. Apple’s own operations have been carbon neutral since April 2020 (h/t setteBIT). The 2021 report reviews the significant steps towards lowering environmental impacts of its products over the last year, and projects Apple’s progress towards net zero emissions from now until 2030....

Apple has updated its Apple Seed website to include many references to iOS device management. It has also updated the name of its program to ‘Apple Beta Software Program’, dropping the specificity of it being for OS X only. Apple is now offering iOS 8.3 as a public beta. Interested customers can sign up to be part of the program on this website. After signing up, you can enroll into the iOS public beta program....

Now it’s Apple’s turn. A zero-day flaw has been discovered in older Apple devices that would allow malicious websites to perform nefarious tasks in the background. The good news is there is now a fix for the issue. Read on for details about this scary bug and how to get the fix. Here’s the backstory Zero-day flaws come to a developer’s attention after hackers have discovered them. Translation: These vulnerabilities are a big deal, and once there’s a fix, installing it as soon as possible is vital....

Apple today released iTunes 12.4.2 with a fix for an Apple Music playback bug related to short songs and the app’s “Up Next” feature. Apple described the issue in its release notes: The new iTunes version lands today alongside OS X El Capital 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.3, tvOS 9.2.2 for Apple TV, and watchOS 2.2.2 for Apple Watch. This update resolves a playback issue with short Apple Music songs in your Up Next queue...

Apple has just posted their FYQ4 earnings prior to their call at 5 PM. Apple is reporting a quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion — both records for the company. Apparently, investors don’t like records. The stock is down over 5% or 22 points in after hours trading. Apple also announced that they sold in Q4: 4.89 million Macs 17.07 million iPhones 11.12 million iPads (only) 6....

Today’s best deals include Apple’s newest 10.2-inch iPad, eufy HomeKit cameras, and the Satechi Trio Wireless charger. Head below for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Apple’s latest 10.2-inch iPad Apple’s latest iPad sports a 10.2-inch Retina display with up to 128GB of storage. iPadOS delivers added functionality alongside support for Apple Pencil and more. You’ll find an 8MP camera on the back, a 1.2MP lens on the front, plus a 10-hour battery on the inside....

Apple yesterday released a preview of its upcoming all-new Photos app for Mac, which replaces iPhoto and Aperture with a simpler all-in-one photo editor and library manager. Most of the discussion of Photos focused on the huge number of changes from iPhoto and Aperture, burying one very important detail: Apple is changing the way it handles cloud-based photo storage. Before Photos, Apple offered free storage of photos with limitations in a feature called Photo Stream, which didn’t count against iCloud storage....