A significant number of Apple Stores in the United States will likely begin offering iPhone sales via the latest carrier financing programs later this month, according to several sources. We previously detailed that Apple Stores will soon offer iPhones on AT&T Next, Verizon Edge, and the T-Mobile Jump plans, and now we’ve learned some new information on the matter. We’re told that Apple is tentatively planning to begin rolling out the programs on Wednesday, August 20th as a pilot....

Apple’s Your Verse advertising and marketing campaign for the iPad, depicting some of the inspiring ways in which people are using iPads to help with everything from ice hockey coaching to concussion treatment, has been expanded to include mountaineering. Elevating the expedition is a new addition to the Your Verse microsite illustrating the ways in which mountaineers Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington use iPads to assist them with preparing for a climb, navigating the route and live-blogging their experiences and photographs … While an iPad might be seen as something of a luxury on a mountaineering trip, the two describe it as a key part of their kit....

A country-wide import and export ban on Apple’s iPad that ProView is pushing for over an ongoing litigation with the iPad moniker will not be easy to implement, or at least that is what Chinese customs officials told Reuters this morning. Chinese company ProView owns the “iPad” trademark and is petitioning Chinese customs to stop shipments of iPads in and out of the country. The plan reportedly is not working as expected, because local customs think implementing a country-wide ban on such a successful and globally popular product would be impractical, to say the least....

Earlier this morning, we found out that Apple TV users would have access to a live stream of Apple’s special media event today where the company is expected to unveil the 7-inch iPad mini, 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, new Mac minis, and much more. For those without access to an Apple TV, the company just confirmed you can also get a live stream of today’s event on its website here....

After expanding several Siri features to 9 new countries earlier today, Apple this evening has unveiled a redesigned Siri website. The site gives a specific breakdown of what Apple’s voice assistant is capable of, as well as specific examples of questions it can answer. Along the middle of the site are categories of Siri’s capabilities, including: At A Glance, Staying in Touch, Getting Organized, Sports, Entertainment, Out and About, Getting Answers, and Tips and Tricks....

The spectacular glass cylinder store in Shanghai’s Pudong district is now their most profitable store. Apple’s retail boss Ron Johnson may be leaving for greener pastures (Apple doesn’t share his enthusiasm), but that won’t affect the company’s aggressive retailing strategy aimed at putting their iconic stores in more countries around the world. Sweden could be next, according to Market.se which quotes local landlords claiming that Apple is planing to open a brand new brick-and-mortar store in Stockholm, Sweden....

Apple has released a new video today to help the millions of new iPhone X users become acquainted with the new features, gestures, and changes on the first Home button-less iPhone. The new guided tour video comes in at a bit over four minutes long and is split into four sections: New gestures, Face ID, Animoji, and Portrait Lighting. Apple stresses in the beginning of the video that these features and changes are “really easy to use....

customers and employees waiting for the Fifth Avenue Store to re-open You might have heard there was a little trembler on the east coast earlier today. Perhaps due to the renovation of the glass cube overhead, we’re hearing that the whole 5th Avenue Store was evacuated and both customers and employees were relocated to Central Park while the structure was checked for damages (above). Better safe than sorry. iOS 5 includes early earthquake warning notifications for Japanese iPhone users (9to5mac....

Larry Page gets to wake up on his second day as Google’s CEO to the news that federal regulators are pondering their next move regarding his company’s search dominance. Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg Businessweek that the US Federal Trade Commission is awaiting a Justice Department ruling over Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software before proceeding with a long overdue probe. If the ruling, to be made public soon, will be that the ITA acquisition would reduce competition in the travel-information search business, “a broad antitrust investigation” is likely to be launched and it “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft ten years ago....

DigiTimes has the story, reporting, “Notebook research and development personnel working at Dell and HP are assigned mainly to test the performance and reliability of new parts and components. This work overlaps that performed by R&D staff at ODM makers and so is an area vendors can afford to cut back on without impacting new product development, the sources noted,” Wu and Shen report. This news also means both Dell and HP (in common with most in the industry, bar Apple) are happy to pass on much of the development of new product across to their OEM manufacturers....

To help aspiring and experienced podcasters grow their audiences and create more engaging shows, Apple has developed a toolkit of Marketing Best Practices for Apple Podcasts. The guidelines arrive alongside the release of watchOS 5, which includes an all-new Podcasts app. In June, Apple announced that Podcasts was now offering over 555,000 active programs in over 100 languages. At the time, the show Stuff You Should Know became the first show on the platform to cross 500 million streams/downloads....

Apple has just started seeding out the sixth beta for tvOS 10 today to all current testers and developers. To update, check through the Software Update section on the Apple TV, or grab the Configuration Profile from Apple’s Developer center if you’d like to install it for the first time. Apple’s newest tvOS software introduces Dark Mode, Single Sign-on, HomeKit, and YouTube search to the latest Apple TV. tvOS 10 beta 3 brought in more language support with Siri, and some improved functionality within the Music app....

Last month, Apple partnered with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for an extended advertisement highlighting Siri. The ad was called “Dominate the Day” and showcased using Siri at various points to speed up basic tasks. Today, Apple has uploaded a series of shorter advertisements from its partnership with The Rock… The new ads are essentially smaller, chopped up video from the larger ad. These new ads, however, will likely be deployed across social media networks and aired on television where time is more constrained....

Oops. Apple’s done a boo-boo in Taiwan last week, when the company’s online store accidentally listed the all-new Mac mini at a price one-third the usual. Naturally, the deep discount (from NT$47,000 to an astonishingly good value NT$19,900) attracted plenty of attention, with numerous customers making orders (well, at that price?). But Apple — or so it seems — is welshing on the deal, and is said to have, “unilaterally changed their orders back to the original price of NT$47,000....

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Apple today has shared a closer look at its upcoming For All Mankind Apple TV+ original series. The new video offers a look at the series itself, and includes interviews with creator Ron Moore and others. The video was posted to the Apple TV YouTube channel, which was created earlier this year. In the video, For All Mankind creators Ron Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi talk about the Apollo 11 mission and the goal of their new series....

Apple has created a dedicated channel for The Beatles in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. appearance of the 60s pop group on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show footage is available “for a limited time,” and you can listen to the U.S. albums which are also available on iTunes for the first time … While Apple was able to secure iTunes deals with five major music labels when it launched in 2003, it was not able to reach agreement with The Beatles’ record company, Apple Records, because the two had been involved in a long-running dispute over ownership of the Apple brand....

Apple today has officially unveiled the new in-ear AirPods Pro. They will begin shipping on October 30th for $249. Apple says the AirPods Pro feature “Active Noise Cancellation and superior, immersive sound in an all-new lightweight, in-ear design.” To achieve Active Noise Cancellation on the new AirPods Pro, Apple is using two microphones combined with “advanced software” to continuously adapt to background noise. There’s also Transparency mode, which allows users to “simultaneously listen to music while still hearing the environment around them....

Apple Pay continues to grow as support at retailers and inside applications expands. A new research note from Bernstein this week highlights that growth, and notes that Apple Pay is one of the biggest long-term competitive threats to PayPal. As detailed by Quartz, Bernstein researchers estimate that Apple Pay currently accounts for around 5% of global card transactions. At its current growth rate, however, Apple Pay is on track to lock-in 10% of global card payments as soon as 2025....

While Apple Pay is the gold standard for safe card transactions, some partner banks are leaving customers vulnerable to fraud via identity theft thanks to weak checks when cards are added to Apple Pay, according to mobile commerce consultants Drop Labs. Some partner banks are consequently seeing fraud rates six times higher than with physical cards. For consumers, Apple Pay is extremely safe, thanks to the use of Touch ID fingerprint verification and single-use code transmission rather than sharing full card details....

Alongside the heap of new software updates today, Apple is now pushing out a minor update to iTunes for both Mac and Windows, likely to support the new software. Apple’s release notes state simply “app and performance improvements”, with no mention of any user facing changes. Today’s update brings the app to version 12.7.5. Nonetheless, it’s an update and is recommended. Aside from iTunes, Apple released iOS 11.4, tvOS 11.4, watchOS 4....