Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson has tweeted congratulations to chip supplier TSMC on doubling its use of renewable energy this year. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company posted the numbers in a brief press release. TSMC said that it was committed to ‘green buildings, green fabs, green manufacturing, green supply chain, and more.’ The company will purchase 200 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power in 2016 compared to the previous year’s purchase of 100 million kWh, further supporting Taiwan’s renewable energy development and environmentally friendly low-carbon measures....

After hoping yesterday that after the release of iOS 15.3 as a security-focused update, we’d hopefully see some new features come in iOS 15.4 and the respectable updates for the rest of Apple’s hardware, my wishes have come true. Specifically, Apple has given developers the first public taste of Universal Control. The feature was first announced last June at WWDC 2021 and promised to give you complete control over your Mac and iPad using a single keyboard and mouse....

Little more has been heard since then, but a new Bloomberg report says that the product now exists in prototype form and has begun testing outside the lab … Bloomberg says that work on the product began more than two years ago. The report also corroborates the rumored facial-recognition camera, but says that it may go even further than previous reported. It had been reported at one point that Apple was considering building the functionality into the Apple TV, but Bloomberg says that the company decided against this....

Apple’s wearables category is set for strong growth over the next four years, according to the latest predictions from IDC. It says that the ‘earwear’ market – comprising headphones with smart features like Siri – is set to hit 139M shipments this year, rising to 273M shipments by the end of 2023. That would represent a cumulative annual growth rate of more than 40%… IDC said that ‘earwear’ dominates the wearables market....

It’s happening. If you were early enough to get in on day-one delivery for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE, and the Apple TV 4K, then you’ve probably begun receiving shipment notifications from Apple. Due to the anticipation of the reportedly production-strapped iPhone X, it was much easier to score the direct successor to the current model this time around, even days after the product became available to pre-order....

Apple has announced on its developer site that apps submitted to the Mac App Store starting on May 1st will no longer be allowed to incorporate garbage collection, which was deprecated in OS X 10.8. Instead, developers will be required to switch to ARC, Automatic Reference Counting, which was introduced in 10.7. This change affects both new apps and updates to existing ones. Developers who need to make the switch to ARC can do so using the migration utility in Xcode....

The news follows hot on the heels of the recently leaked image of the new Apple notebook, and the information is decribed as coming from a reliable source, says Inquisitr.com. “According to the source, Apple retail stores have been given price sheets that list 12 price points for the new range, with prices between $800-$3100.” This indicates some diversification of the existing range: MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, with 12 standard configurations rather than 8 claimed by the source, presumably an Apple retailer....

Apple is searching for European TV shows and movies to bulk out its Apple TV+ streaming service, as new rules to be introduced by the European Commission will force all streaming services to up the proportion of EU-made content. As reported by Variety, the EU wants to introduce legislation by the end of 2020 that at least 30% of streaming service catalogs must be composed of European-produced content. If Netflix, Disney+, or Apple do not comply, it could become illegal for them to offer their video service in the region....

The Apple Pay Belarus rollout began today with the announcement of support by BPS-Sberbank. The bank says that both Visa and Mastercard are supported. BPS-Sberbank is the Belarusian arm of PJSC Sberbank, a majority state-owned Russian bank based in Moscow. With a presence in 22 countries, including Sberbank CIB in the US, it is one of the largest banks in Europe and in the top 50 globally. The group has around 137M individual clients and over a million business ones....

Apple unveiled its newest A14 processor with the new iPad Air last month, and early benchmarks have already hinted at its performance. In a new interview with German news outlet Stern, Apple’s vice president of platform architecture Tim Millet offered additional details on the A14 and more. Millet explained in the interview that part of the potential of the A14 process is due to the growing capabilities of machine learning, which is “enabling a whole new class” of applications....

Despite analyst fears that Apple couldn’t match last year’s record holiday quarter sales of $74.6B, the guidance issued by the company indicates that it expects to do so. Analysts had been concerned that last year’s record sales had been driven by pent-up demand for larger-screened iPhones, demand that has now been satisfied. Apple, however, disagrees. The company yesterday issued guidance of $75.5B to $77.5B revenue, which would be a new record....

Alongside updates to iOS and OS X, Apple has released watchOS 2.0.1 with a whole host of changes and bug fixes. As well as including the new emoji character set like Apple’s other operating systems, watchOS 2.0.1 includes bug fixes for poor battery life, stalling software updates, Calendar event syncing and much more. It has also seeded developers with the Gold Master release of tvOS for Apple TV. We’ll update with any changes …...

A new report on Wistron’s plans to expand its manufacturing operations in India says that the company will make iPhone 6s models. Only the iPhone SE is currently made in India. While the report is based on two unconfirmed sources, only one of which is specific, there are two reasons such a move would make sense … The most obvious one is the popularity of the iPhone 6s among those who want a relatively modern iPhone at an affordable price....

If you have become an Apple fan in the past decade or so, you are used to yearly operating system updates for free. If you have been a Mac user longer than that, you remember actually paying for OS updates every 18 months or so. I know Halloween is coming up, so I’ll inform you of something even scarier: we had to wait in a line to buy a new version of OS X on a CD....

Apple has released a new support document explaining some of the issues that iOS 6 users have experienced lately when trying to make FaceTime calls. Along with an explanation, there’s finally a fix in sight that’s also detailed on the support page. What’s the fix? Update to iOS 7. First spotted by MacRumors, the support document informs users of a pretty obvious solution to the problem. If you’re using a device that supports iOS 7, you’ll need to update to the latest version of iOS 7....

Apple has officially announced that it will open its new retail store in Cologne, Germany on March 25th. The store marks Apple’s second in Cologne and has been under construction for over a year now. The store is located in the high-traffic shopping district of Schildergasse. According to local blog Apfelpage, Apple has started assembling the teams for its new retail store in Cologne. The company has reportedly pulled some employees from the city’s other store at the Rhein Center....

Following this week’s release of iTunes 11.1.6 and OS X 10.9.3 betas to AppleCare employees, Apple has pushed the updates live to developers as well. The iTunes update restores the ability to sync contacts and calendars to an iOS device, which had been removed in favor of iCloud in previous versions of iTunes. The OS X update (with the build number 13D21) includes the ability to output at 4k resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate on the latest MacBook Pro models....

[Update: Party’s over! Older OS versions are no longer being signed once more. As suspected, it was an accidental change and has been reverted. Original story below …] Apple is currently signing iOS 10 version updates for many devices including iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 models as shown by IPSW.me. Whilst the upgrade servers remain in this state, users are able to downgrade from iOS 11 by restoring their firmware to iOS 10....

Update 3/12: Apple has shared new iPhone how-to videos on YouTube today. Apple today has continued its release of iPhone how-to videos on YouTube. The company this afternoon uploaded five new videos covering camera features, Wallet, Face ID, and more. Update 3/12: Apple today has shared four new iPhone tutorial how-to videos on YouTube. These videos cover dual-SIM, Find My iPhone, the A12 Bionic processor, and Apple Pay Cash. Watch them all below....

As it has done for the past several years, Apple is celebrating Chinese New Year with a short film as part of its “Shot on iPhone” series. The short film comes in at 8-minutes long and is entitled “Daughter.” “Daughter” stars the popular actress Zhou Xun and was directed by Theodore Melfi. It was shot entirely on iPhone 11 Pro. Here’s Apple’s description for the video: Apple has also shared a behind the scenes video showcasing how Melfi and used iPhone 11 Pro to “bring the touching story ‘Daughter’ to life....