Apple has announced to developers that it is switching up its pricing strategy in eight countries over the next few weeks. Today, Apple sells apps in many regions with the prices shown as US Dollars irrespective of the local domestic currency. Later this month, the following App Store countries will now price apps in their local native currency; Egypt (Egyptian Pound), Kazakhstan (Kazakhstani Tenge), Malaysia (Malaysian Ringgit), Nigeria (Nigerian Naira), Pakistan (Pakistani Rupee), Philippines (Philippine Peso), Qatar (Qatari Riyal), Tanzania (Tanzanian Shilling) and Vietnam (Vietnamese Dong)....

There’s an oft-told story about Steve Jobs insisting the wiring inside the Macintosh be made to look neat even though few owners would ever see it. Apple’s human-interface chief Alan Dye, interviewed in Wired, says the same attention to detail lives on in Apple today, and is reflected in the care that went into the Apple Watch. Dye illustrated the point by referring to the animated faces of the Apple Watch … We have a group of people who are really, really super-talented, but they really care....

Apple released iOS 13.7 for everyone last week, which includes a major expansion of the COVID-19 Exposure Notification platform. Following this release, Apple has today stopped signing iOS 13.6.1. That means users can no longer downgrade from iOS 13.7 to iOS 13.6.1. iOS 13.7 lets users enable COVID-19 Exposure Notifications directly in the Settings app on their iPhone. Once you enable exposure notifications in the Settings app, your iPhone will begin monitoring with Bluetooth to log possible exposures so you can be notified of a potential COVID-19 exposure based on the guidelines set by your local public health authority....

Starting February 1, select Apple Stores across the US will celebrate Black History Month with a special lineup of more than 40 Today at Apple sessions. This year’s lineup highlights creators shaping new cultural narratives through visual arts, photography, poetry, dance, film, and other mediums. Today at Apple gives rising artists a platform for their creativity all year long, but Black History Month offers even more opportunities for inspiration. Seven flagship stores in major cities will offer events through February 29....

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has today issued a new note in which it revealed that Apple has no further plans to provide security updates for QuickTime for Windows. The note follows an earlier report from Trend Micro and comes as two new vulnerabilities have been discovered that could affect QuickTime for Windows users. The two new vulnerabilities are heap-corruption-based remote code execution vulnerabilities, which essentially means that an attacker could gain access to a user’s computer by tricking them in to downloading a file from the web....

While Apple Pay has grabbed all the attention in the mobile payment field, with the Google Wallet service launched back in 2011 having failed to make the same kind of splash, it appears that Google may be benefiting from the publicity generated by Apple. Sources cited by arsTechnica report that Google Wallet service has seen the number of users almost double, with a 50% increase in weekly transactions during the past couple of months … Google Wallet works in a similar fashion to Apple Pay at the till, providing a virtual payment card on a smartphone, though without fingerprint authorization for transactions....

According to a new note from reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo at KGI Securities and corroborated by our sources, Apple plans to introduce a dramatically overhauled MacBook Pro later this year. Kuo says the device will have a new “thinner and lighter” design with design cues taken from the 12-inch MacBook, as well as Touch ID support and a new OLED display touch bar above the keyboard. Kuo’s report explains that the MacBook Pro updates are the “brightest spot for Apple’s 2016 rollouts” and will come to both the 13-inch and 15-inch models sometime during the fourth quarter of this year....

Apple is rolling out the fifth iOS 10.3 beta for developer testing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The upcoming software update includes Find My AirPods support, CarPlay improvements, Apple’s new filesystem, and more. We’ll update and highlight any additional changes discovered below. iOS 10.3 is currently only available in beta for registered developers and public beta testers. The public beta version of each update usually follows a few days after the developer version if not the same day....

Apple released a supplemental update for OS X 10.8.2, just two weeks after releasing 10.8.2 to the masses. The update is very minor, offering a fix for three issues: The update is now available through Software Update on the Mac App Store. Resolves an issue that may cause certain Japanese characters to appear incorrectly in Mail Allows Safari to access secure sites when parental controls are enabled Addresses an issue that may prevent systems with more than 64 GB of RAM from starting up Thanks, Andrew!...

Apple has begun seeding the third update to its Safari Technology Preview, iOS 9.3.2 public beta 3, and OS X 10.11.5 developer beta 3. Safari’s update today includes changes in the way it works with JavaScript, CSS, web APIs, Web Inspector, rendering, security, networking and accessibility. iOS 9.3.2’s latest developer and public betas haven’t seen any major changes as it appears that this release is turning out to be more of a small bug fix release....

Apple today has released the second developer beta of iOS 13.3 today, following last week’s release of the first beta. tvOS 13.3 beta 2 is also now available, alongside watchOS 6.1.1. Update: iOS 13.3 public beta 2 is also being released today. iOS 13.3 includes a new option in Settings to disable the Memoji keyboard from always appearing alongside the emoji keyboard. Communication Limits are also now available through Screen Time, allowing you to set limits based on your contacts....

Update: iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 developer beta 2 now available, as well as tvOS 13 beta 9. Apple is also releasing iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 public beta 2 today. Apple will release the second developer beta of iOS 13.1 today. This comes after Apple kicked off the iOS 13.1 beta testing process last week. Apple’s public beta builds should follow at a later date after the latest developer beta has been tested in the wild....

Less than a month after relocating an aging store in Seattle’s University Village to a dramatically larger and more modern space nearby, Apple will do the same in Walnut Creek’s Broadway Plaza. According to a banner posted on the company’s retail website, the grand opening of the new Apple Broadway Plaza is set for July 28th at 10:00 A.M. The planned move will come shortly after Apple Piazza Liberty opens in Milan, Italy on July 26th....

Apple School Manager is the cornerstone of Apple’s K–12 strategy. When Apple began to push the iPad in K–12, their tools were a little disjointed. They had the Volume Purchase Program, Device Enrollment Program, and Profile Manager built into macOS Server. About Making The Grade: Every Saturday, Bradley Chambers publishes a new article about Apple in education. He has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students....

Apple today released the first public version of iPadOS 13.1 to users. In conjunction with that, Apple has shared a new update on its developer website detailing that starting in April of 2020, developers must build their iPad applications with the iOS 13 SDK. Apple says that iPadOS allows developers to tap into new multitasking features, Dark Mode, Sign in with Apple, and more. Starting April 2020, Apple says all iPad apps must be built with the iOS 13 SDK and support the all-screen design of the 12....

Apple has announced a new Apple Pay initiative to raise funds for the National Parks Foundation, running for the first half of July. Tim Cook explained why the company is doing it … Apple said that the money raised would be primarily used to support conservation projects and enrich youth programs designed to inspire the next generation of park enthusiasts. On July 15 (only), Apple Watch owners will also get the chance to earn a special activity badge and sticker set for use in the iPhone Messages app....

Following on the heels of a record-breaking quarter for Apple, Strategy Analytics has crunched the numbers and crowned Apple the king of the smartphone vendors for Q4 2014—or rather, one of the kings. It seems the Cupertino company managed to tie rival Samsung for the title. Both companies shipped 74.5 million handsets during the quarter, though Samsung still outsold Apple in terms of the annual total by a hefty margin. Those quarterly sales gave both companies an equal marketshare of 19....

We knew in July that Apple had passed the imploding Nokia for the global smartphone unit lead by manufacturer. However, today Digitimes forecasts that by year end Apple will have sold 86.4 million iPhones by year which will easily best Nokia’s once insurmountable lead (Nokia had over double Apple’s share just last year). Just because it almost doubled its unit shipment, doesn’t mean it is game over for Apple, however. Android makers Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei and ZTE all showed better percentage gains though they shipped relatively few smartphones in 2010....

Ahead of Apple’s ‘Spring forward’ event on Monday where we expect to hear much more about the Apple Watch, more than a dozen new banks and credit unions have added support for Apple Pay. The Apple Watch will support the mobile payment service and extend Apple Pay support in stores beyond the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s when paired. Following the addition of 18 new banks including credit unions for American Airlines and IBM today, Apple Pay is now supported by nearly 100 institutions....

After Japan, Beijing, Shanghai and – this week – New York City, Apple Pay Express Transit in London is up next. When iOS developer Aled Samuel tweeted Transport for London to ask, the organization confirmed that it will be introduced ‘in the coming months’ … Apple Pay can already be used on London’s tubes, trains, and buses. However, you need to authenticate the transactions just as you would for any other purchase....