Apple and Google are both cracking down on applications that integrate the X-Mode Social tracking software. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Apple has informed developers that they have two weeks to remove X-Mode’s trackers from their applications. The decision from Apple and Google comes after investigative reporting revealed that X-Mode collects data directly from applications and eventually passes it along to US defense contractors. X-Mode would pay to embed its SDK into other developers’ applications in exchange for the location data it collects....

Apple TV+ continues to set release dates for upcoming shows and movies. Apple has now announced a January 17 release date for the ‘Little America’ show from Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V Gordon, and renewed the show for a second season. Apple will release the entirety of ‘Little America’ on January 17, rather than releasing new episodes weekly like it has done for most of its other shows. ‘Little America’ is an anthology that “goes beyond the headlines to bring to life the funny, romantic, heartfelt and surprising stories of immigrants in America,” Apple says....

Apple has published a new press release this morning detailing the multiple ways it will be celebrating Black History Month in February. The company is launching new editorial collections, Apple Maps Guides, limited-edition Apple Watch hardware, and more. First and foremost, Apple is introducing the Black Unity Collection for the Apple Watch. This collection includes a limited-edition Apple Watch Series 6 as well as a Black Unity Sport Band. Through this collection, Apple is supporting global organizations to help advance their missions in promoting and achieving equality and civil rights in the US and around the world....

A variety of threads focused on this bug have surfaced on Apple’s Support forums as well as Reddit. When you try to manually edit an image via Apple Photos and set the location as a specific latitude and longitude, the location will automatically jump to the reverse-geocoded location. Here’s a quick explanation courtesy of Wikipedia on reverse geocoding: What this means is that when you enter the latitude and longitude into the Photos app, the Photos app will attempt to convert this into a suggested location that could in practice be far away from the actual latitude and longitude....

Apple began renovations on its iconic Fifth Avenue retail store earlier this year, but little was known about the company’s plans. A new report from Bloomberg, however, offers up more details on the overhaul and Apple’s plans “more than double the size” of the location. During its earnings call earlier today, Boston Properties president Douglas Linde explained that Apple will increase the size of its Fifth Avenue location from around 32,000 to 77,000 square feet....

As usual, Apple today relaunched its annual “Back to University” campaign in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and South Korea. The promotion offers free AirPods to students and teachers who buy a new eligible Mac or iPad in its official store. This is a similar campaign to the “Back to School” promo in the United States. While the Apple Education Store regularly offers special discounts for students and teachers, customers in these countries can also get free AirPods and 20% discount on AppleCare plans with the purchase of a Mac or iPad....

Earlier today we learned that Tim Cook will likely be visiting India following his current trip to China, and a new report has since followed shedding new details on Apple’s retail entrance into India. We’ve also been tracking progress on Apple’s brand new San Francisco location, which is finally set to open on Saturday, May 21st, just in time for WWDC next month. According to anonymous sources speaking to FactorDaily, Apple is planning to bring not one but three new Apple Stores to India over the next 18 months....

Apple has begun rolling out macOS 10.12.3 beta 2 to developers. Sierra 10.12.2 brought in new emoji, wallpapers, graphics & System Integrity Protection fixes, and the removal of the system battery’s estimated ‘time remaining’ feature. This second seed of macOS Sierra 10.2.3 beta is available on the developer center and rolling out to the Mac App Store now with a size of 1.04GB. Developer’s looking to join the beta can find the access they need from the official developer page....

UPDATE: Apple has removed all mentions of this feature from its Australian website. Possibly hinting that the feature was accidentally published. In addition to the slew of new education features highlighted this morning, Apple seems to be preparing a new simplified login experience for education users, as first noted by David Colville. According to Apple’s Australian education page, the company is planning to build a “simplified login experience” which will let both teachers and students “log in to iPad, Mac, iCloud, iTunes U and Classbook” with their existing Google or Microsoft accounts, bypassing a need for an Apple ID altogether....

Apple announced that its MagSafe tech is back with the iPhone 12 lineup but there have been some lingering questions about some of the planned accessories. Let’s take a look at the new iPhone 12 leather cases and tidbits about the new MagSafe products. The return of MagSafe looks like a valuable and exciting system for iPhone with the benefits ranging from 2x wireless charging speeds to a variety of great accessories from Apple and third-parties....

UPDATE (5/29): Other publications are now independently reporting the same UPDATE (5/26): As we speculated, there are different possibilities for this device. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports it is a low-cost iPhone that looks like an iPhone X: What’s a computer? I’m told this “N84” device is actually the low-cost LCD iPhone that looks like an iPhone X. https://t.co/KU0xhfkkHe https://t.co/YqiGMLHacb — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) May 26, 2018 In 1981, Xerox released a workstation called “Xerox Star....

Making a music video could require a much smaller budget in future: all you need is an iPhone with support for the Memoji feature … Apple has put online three short videos using Memoji to represent the artists. They feature: Florida Georgia Line, singing Simple Khalid, singing Talk Ariana Grande, singing 7 Rings The fun videos, each just over a minute long, follow Apple Music billboards in LA featuring Memoji versions of Grammy nominees....

Apple has temporarily ceased filling ad slots in iPad apps for children with adverts from advertisers that participate in Apple’s advertising network dubbed iAd. MacStories pointed at an email message developer Mike Zornek received from the iAds team. Zornek, who is behind Dex, a free Pokèmon browser app for iPhone, published contents of the message on his blog. Emailing Apple over iAd fill rates in his app which dropped to a single-digit territory, he got this response:...

Apple has officially announced that its new retail store in Marseille, France will open May 14 with the usual announcement on its website (via MacGeneration). The new retail store, located at the Les Terrasses du Port shopping mall, is Apple’s 20th location in France. That’s if including the shop within Galeries Lafayette that it opened last year as one of several boutique locations for sales of the Apple Watch. Apple is also planning other retail stores for the country including a high-profile flagship location on Champs-Élysées in Paris....

GigaOm found yesterday that the new fifth-generation iPod touch is without a light sensor, prohibiting the device from auto-setting the brightness. Raghid Harake, a curious customer turned concerned, emailed Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller (via iDownloadBlog) to find out why. Schiller, known for responding to emails, allegedly said the device is “too thin” at .24-inches. Just how thin: The thickest point on the fifth-generation iPod touch is 6....

Things are moving fast in the Epic Games vs Apple battle. After Fortnite was pulled from the App Store for breaking Apple’s rules — sneaking in a direct payment method to get around the in-app purchase system — Epic almost immediately filed a lawsuit against Apple. Now the game developer says that Apple is terminating its account. Update: Reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has officially responded stating that they “very much want” Epic to remain an Apple developer but won’t make an exception for the company....

We continue to learn more about Apple TV+ ahead of its debut on November 1st. A support document on Apple’s website details that all Apple TV+ content will be available in Dolby Vision, while most content will also support Dolby Atmos sound. As you might expect, that varies by which device you’re using. Here’s what Apple says about the quality of Apple TV+ content: What devices support Dolby Vision? That includes the following devices, according to Apple’s website:...

While the MCX consortium’s CurrentC mobile payment service isn’t due to launch until next year, it has been carrying out limited trials, facilitated by placing the app in the iTunes store. iPhone owners have been expressing their displeasure at the blocking of Apple Pay by MCX members by rating and reviewing the app. At the time of writing, the app had accumulated 2,856 1-star reviews against a total of just 30 reviews giving it 2 stars or more … The movement to boycott merchants who are members of the MCX consortium also seems to be growing in popularity, gaining a Boycott MCX website with a full list of members....

Apple has started promoting iOS 11 to its iPhone, iPad and iPod touch user base ahead of the new OS’ launch later this month. The Tips app is sending out notifications like ‘Learn about the new Control Center coming in iOS 11’ as of this morning. Users can tap through to the Tips app to preview some of the new features; Apple is advertising the new Control Center, Do Not Disturb While Driving, the new Files app, and more....

The beta testing process for macOS 11 Big Sur continues today with the release of the fourth developer beta. Today’s update to macOS Big Sur beta 4 brings additional tweaks and improvements to the new features coming to all Mac users this fall. Developers can update to the fourth beta of macOS Big Sur by heading to the System Preferences application, then looking for the Software Update option. If you don’t immediately see macOS Big Sur beta 4 available for download, keep checking as the update is still rolling out and could take a while to hit your Mac....