Apple already promotes movies that are in theaters with trailers and the ability to pre-order months ahead of time on iTunes. Now the company may be pushing movie studios on letting customers rent movies at home for a premium shortly after they hit theaters. Bloomberg reports that Apple wants to offer home rentals for new movies two weeks after they’re released in theaters. Currently, most new movies are available for renting on iTunes after a short period of only being available for purchase....

Not long after opening its first Mexico City retail location, Apple is planning a new flagship retail store in the city. Apple currently intends on the store being “flagship” in nature, with a design akin to that of Apple’s World Trade Center location in New York City… The new details come via a report from AppleInsider, which cites a “person familiar with the matter.” Apple is said to be taking over large retail space in Antara Fashion Hall, which was most recently occupied by Crate & Barrel....

Apple is reportedly planning to include NFC in the iPhone 6 for secure wireless payments using chips sourced from a Dutch company called XNP, the Financial Times reported today. It’s not the first time this rumor has cropped up before an iPhone launch, but other recent reports seem to indicate that this year it might just be happening. In fact, earlier this year Apple was said to have reached a deal with China UnionPay, the nation’s only domestic mobile payment processor, to include NFC support at countless retailers in the next iPhone....

Apple VP Guy ‘Bud’ Tribble is to testify at a Senate hearing into potential federal privacy legislation, set to take place on September 26. Discussion about a possible federal privacy law was prompted by Europe adopting the strongest protections ever seen for customer and user data, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). With even Apple forced to increase its privacy protections for European Union citizens in order to comply with GDPR requirements, questions have been asked about why US citizens shouldn’t receive the same guarantees....

Apple’s system status webpage indicates that the company has resolved an outage affecting “iCloud Account and Sign In” services. Apple doesn’t indicate how widespread this outage was, but it does say that the issue was affecting users for 36 hours. A variety of reports on Twitter indicated that some Apple users were unable to activate new devices, with the majority of complaints seemingly centering on the Apple Watch. The issue notably came as users everywhere began unwrapping new Apple products on Christmas morning....

For you server types: Apple just seeded OS X Mountain Lion Server Developer Preview 4 to developers apart of Apple’s Mac developer program. The update is available on the Developer Center and can be downloaded by grabbing the redemption code available. Today’s server release (build 12S219n) comes after yesterday’s release of OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 (build 12A206j). Go ahead and grab it on the Developer Center if you are a registered member....

Regional carriers are starting to announce availability for cellular models of Apple’s new Retina iPad mini just as the company today started offering the device to walk-in customers. Bluegrass Cellular announced today that it is now offering the iPad mini Wi-Fi Cellular models in-store and online. Available on the carrier’s website now starting at the usual $530 for the 16GB model, the carrier is also offering all three models (16GB, 32GB, and 64GB) on its no-contract “Freedom, Expanded” plan....

Update: Macworld and The Verge report that Apple will actually not begin rejecting apps that utilize hotkeys. According to a report from TUAW, Apple will soon begin rejecting OS X apps submitted to the Mac App Store that utilize hotkey functionality. The report does not cite a specific source, and app developers we have talked to seem to be unaware of the change. TUAW claimed Apple will only allow existing “hotkey apps”, and those released before June 1, to issue future bug fixes....

At the April Apple event, Apple released a teaser for the highly-anticipated second season of Apple TV+ hit comedy Ted Lasso. Today, the company is releasing the official trailer ahead of season two’s debut on July 23rd. Watch the new trailer after the break … As its content library of originals grows, Ted Lasso has been Apple TV+’s biggest breakout hit in its first eighteen months as a streaming service. The show has received strong audience uptake and critical acclaim, with many predicting Ted Lasso will take home several Emmy’s this year....

At its September event today, Apple has officially unveiled the successor to the iPhone XR. The new iPhone 11 packs a dual camera and more. Read on for all of the details. The iPhone 11 camera setup includes wide and ultra-wide lenses, rather than wide and telephoto like many people had assumed. This gives users the ability to adjust cropping and zooming in post production. There’s also a new night mode that comes on automatically, brightens photos, and reduces noice in low-light situations, as well as a next-generation Smart HDR....

Former Apple iPhone marketing executive Bob Borchers One of the most critical aspects of Apple is its public relations team— the team that puts out press releases, deals with the press, runs keynote presentations, Apple events, and more. Adam Lashinsky’s upcoming book “Inside Apple” provides detail on Apple’s public relations team by noting its secrecy, thoroughness, and tactics with the upper echelon of the technology-reporting world. According to the book, Apple’s public relations department is divided up into product categories, with certain staff assigned to specific Apple products and services....

After taking a beating by Motorola over FRAND patents this month, Apple issued a letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute asking the body to establish consistent royalty fees for patents deemed essential to wireless standards, reported the Wall Street Journal. The body has a role in setting the standards related to GSM, 3G UMTS, and 4G LTE radio technologies. Apple is involved in nasty patent disputes with Motorola, HTC and Samsung in courtrooms around the world, and it previously asserted in court documents that handset maker Motorola refused to license its essential patents on “Fair, Reasonable, and Nondiscriminatory” (FRAND) nature at rates offered to Nokia, Samsung and other vendors....

Update: Fresh Apple statement added The immunity of iMessages from government surveillance has been cast into doubt by QuarksLab security researchers presenting at the Hack in the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur. A leaked DEA document had pointed to the impossibility of intercepting iMessages even with a court order, a point that was confirmed by an apparently categorical Apple statement: The researchers reverse-engineered the iMessage protocol and confirmed that the claim was true....

Apple has seeded the second beta of iOS 9.2.1 for developers and pre-release testers, a minor enhancement and bug fix release for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The new seed has a build number of 13D14, a small bump over the previous seed. iOS 9.2.1 was released to developers on December 16th. The same build is also available to Apple Beta Program members. As always, we’ll update this post if we spot anything new and notable …...

Apple developers have been receiving emails today inviting them to try out Apple’s new Bug Reporter beta. Bug Reporter, also known as Radar, is a bug filing tool used by developers to share feedback with Apple on the latest software. Spotted by Steven Stroughton-Smith, the invitation also includes notes that feedback about the beta version of Bug Reporter should be shared within Bug Reporter. The Bug Reporter beta announced today comes with an overall visual change bringing a focus to filing bugs quicker....

Apple has released an official company statement in response to the recent controversy surrounding Apple’s decision to remove apps that relied on MDM systems to provide features similar to those introduced by Apple in iOS 12 as Screen Time. Echoing comments made in an email from Phil Schiller, the statement directly refutes the claims made by The New York Times this week: ‘Contrary to what The New York Times reported over the weekend, this isn’t a matter of competition....

Apple announced Apple Arcade back in March when it held its special event dedicated to Services. Apple Arcade will allow iOS, Mac, and Apple TV users to pay a flat monthly fee and access a bundle of otherwise paid apps through the App Store. Apple is currently running an internal early access program for its employees, charging a small subscription of $0.49/mo, with one month free trial. It says the testing program ends with the launch of iOS 13....

Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund has provided a further $410M to optical tech company II-VI (formerly known as Finisar), following an initial advance of $390M back in 2017. The company makes the vertical cavity lasers used in the TrueDepth camera system for Face ID. Apple says that the payment will help to support more than 700 jobs across four US states … Background The Advanced Manufacturing Fund was first announced back in 2017....

As first promised back in August, Apple’s bug bounty program is now open to all. It was previously an invitation-only initiative, which attracted criticism as it incentivized non-invitees to sell vulnerability details to companies and governments who would exploit them to gain unauthorized access to Apple devices… Apple had previously increased the maximum payouts after complaints about low rewards making it more likely that even invitees would be tempted to sell security vulnerabilities on the black market for much higher sums....

The iCloud outage, which began Tuesday and affected roughly 2 percent of Apple’s 200 Million iCloud users, now appears to be over. However, some iCloud users wrote to tell us that Apple just dumped all of their email into the Inbox with 12/31/69 dates and jumbled Subject lines. One reader’s email now looks like this: . An excerpt from his frustrated email is below. I hate to say this about a company that makes the best hardware and OS software in the world, but it would be hard to trust my junkmail to iCloud at this point....