Apple has made several improvements to its Podcasts app and service over the last year, and while features may still lack in comparison to popular third-party apps like Overcast, it’s hard to deny the sheer size of Apple’s podcast platform. Now, Fast Company reports that Apple Podcasts has passed a notable milestone in downloads and streams… The report says that in March of 2018, Apple Podcasts hit 50 billion all-time episode downloads and streams....

Apple last night added a new webpage focusing on the enterprise features offered in iOS 7, covering everything from configuration to data security. Apple dominates the enterprise market according to a report last year revealing that iOS last year accounted for 74 percent of business smartphone activations and a staggering 97 percent of business tablet activations. In total, iOS devices took six of the ten top slots in the enterprise league tables....

With litigation between the two companies in California still underway and a trial date set for July 30, FOSS Patents today reported Apple and Samsung filed a joint statement with Judge Lucy Koh outlining the “evidence-related issues” they hope to discuss in the months leading up to trial. Perhaps the most interesting piece of information in the filing is a request from Apple to obscure Samsung’s logo on televisions and video displays being used in the U....

TomTom has announced that Apple will continue sourcing data from the company as one data provider for its Maps app on iOS devices and Mac: Amsterdam, 19 May 2015 – TomTom (AEX: TOM2) has renewed and extended its global agreement with Apple for maps and related information. Reuters notes that TomTom shares jumped 7 percent to an almost six-year high following the announcement. Apple has been sourcing data from TomTom for its in-house Maps application since first ditching Google Maps back in 2012....

Bloomberg has a lengthy piece illustrating just how great a challenge it is for Apple and other multinational companies to ensure the fair treatment of workers in complex supply chains. When one of Apple’s suppliers like Flextronics wins a new contract, it needs to take on additional workers – lots of them, and fast. Those workers are recruited through employment brokers, which are required to adhere to Apple’s rules. But many of them are brought in from other countries, like Malaysia and Nepal....

Apple has updated its System Status webpage today to note that a variety of different iCloud services are suffering from downtime. According to Apple, services including Game Center, iCloud Account & Sign in, and iCloud Keychain are experiencing issues currently. Apple doesn’t go into detail about what issues users are facing when trying to access these services. Reports on Twitter indicate that many users are totally unable to access these services....

As speculated, it seems that the “popping” speakers problem that some 16-inch MacBook Pro users are experiencing is a software-related rather than hardware. Apple has reportedly confirmed in an internal document that it is working on a fix for the issue, which will be available via a future software update. As reported earlier this week, a growing number of 16-inch MacBook Pro users are complaining about a “popping” sound that comes from their speakers during certain audio playback....

Following its latest seed of OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 beta (build 13D17) to developers, Apple has just pushed out a newer pre-release version of the 10.9.3 beta to employees alongside a pre-release version of iTunes 11.1.6 beta. The new pre-release of OS X 10.9.3 (build 13D19) is available to employees and doesn’t introduce any major changes since the latest beta build seeded to developers. The last beta release asked developers to focus on testing graphics and audio drivers....

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNxDd3l0lEU] Apple senior VP of marketing Phil Schiller was so concerned about Samsung’s Next Big Thing ad campaign, in which the company poked fun at Apple customers, that he emailed Tim Cook to suggest a change of ad agency to fight back – according to a claim by Samsung lawyer Jon Quinn. The Verge reports that Quinn made the claim in his opening arguments in the patent trial in which Apple is accusing Samsung of violating five of its iOS-related patents....

Angela Ahrendts, soon to be ex-CEO of Burberry, is to become a dame today according to the Daily Mail. The retail magnate will become a Dame of the British Empire in a ‘low key’ ceremony according to the British paper, for her contributions to business. The Queen will not be in attendance, apparently. The government’s business secretary Vince Cable will instead lead proceedings. According to the Daily Mail, Cable will congratulate Ahrendts for her restoration of the Burberry brand....

Ahead of tomorrow’s launch of iOS 7, Apple has taken the wraps off of a brand-new iCloud website. The new website went into beta earlier this year, and it is completely redesigned to match the simpler and more animated aesthetic found in the new iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system. The new site is includes all-new applications, including redesigned versions of Mail, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, and Find my iPhone. The new website also includes iWork for iCloud, Apple’s new free suite of online productivity apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote)....

As OS X Mountain Lion’s launch nears, Apple has informed developers to start submitting their optimized Mac App Store software for review. OS X Mountain Lion launches later this month with 200 new features. A complete, “Golden Master” version of OS X Mountain Lion was released to developers earlier today, and this is the build that we expect Apple to provide customers with this month. The update will cost $19.99 for Snow Leopard and Lion users, and it will be available via the Mac App Store....

Apple TV+ is posting more viewership stats, with the company announcing that the just-gone weekend saw viewership on the platform rise by 33% to set a new record (via Deadline). The record numbers for the service come as the company launched its latest original film, “Palmer” starring Justin Timberlake, on Friday. In addition to Palmer, Apple is currently airing new episodes of Dickinson and Servant; two of its high-profile launch shows....

Updated with Widiba, below Customers of the Spanish bank CaixaBank can now use Apple Pay, the bank confirming in a blog post that the service is already live. As you’d expect, this includes its mobile banking brand, ImaginBank … CaixaBank is one of Spain’s largest banks, with more than 6,000 branches serving 13.2 million customers. It’s the third company to offer Apple Pay support for its payment cards, after Santander and American Express....

Following Apple’s announcement of a new podcast subscription offering yesterday, the Apple Podcasts directory appears to be having some issues. In other cases, the shows are still being listed in the directory but their feed URL is missing in the catalog. This means the API isn’t reporting where to find the actual podcast episodes. This is important as the large ecosystem of third-party podcast clients relies on the iTunes Store API for their data....

Apple is pushing yet another silent update to macOS to resolve the Mac webcam hijack vulnerability in RingCentral and Zhumu. These two apps are powered by Zoom, and it was discovered this week that they are also susceptible to the same web server vulnerability as Zoom. When the Zoom vulnerability was first discovered last week, Apple pushed a silent macOS update to remove the web server. Now, The Verge reports that Apple has deployed another silent security update to remove web servers installed by RingCentral and Zhumu....

Apple has released the fifth watchOS 3.1.1 beta for developers testing the pre-release software update for Apple Watch. watchOS 3.1.1 includes support for new Unicode 9.0 emoji as well as the ability to change skin tones when picking certain emoji characters. watchOS 3.1.1 is a minor release that follows the major release of watchOS 3.0 in September. watchOS 3 is a major speed boost to Apple Watch with a simplified navigation structure and new, faster apps....

With wireless charging rumored to be included in the new iPhone 8 later this year, Reuters has reported new details about the scope of Apple’s focus on wireless charging at the company. Apple already uses inductive wireless charging on the Apple Watch, but Reuters says there are multiple teams at Apple working on the technology. We first learned that Apple had joined the Wireless Power Consortium earlier this month, which Apple later confirmed in a boilerplate statement:...

Apple quietly released an updated version of its sleep tracking hardware last month with Beddit 3.5. While it looked to offer a very slightly updated design alongside a new app, we noticed it also dropped Android support. However, that’s not the only feature the latest Beddit product has dropped. After going hands-on with the new sleep tracker, DC Rainmaker found it has cut at least eight features that came with Beddit 3....

Earlier this week, we reported that Apple was planning changes to its One to One program, which offers setup and training assistance to iOS and Mac users. The majority of the changes we reported included in-store changes like new, shorter half-hour sessions, and the renaming of “workshops” to “group sessions.” However, we also told you that the One to One members website would get a redesign scheduled to roll out as early as May 15....