As Apple continues its struggle to establish a broader retail presence in India, the company may soon establish several large “flagship outlets” to supplement slowing sales, according to a new report from The Economic Times. India has long been an important and untapped growth market for Apple even as sales continue to fall. Last month, it was suggested that Apple controlled just 1 percent of smartphone marketshare in the country. Sluggish sales have been partially blamed on unaffordable and fluctuating iPhone prices, often set arbitrarily by Indian wholesalers....

Following the official announcement of Apple’s Q1 2021 earnings results on Wednesday, Canalys shared today a new research that reveals the company has registered the best performance in iPad sales since the fourth quarter of 2014. Moreover, Apple was the second-largest seller of PCs and tablets during Q4 2020. According to the research, Apple shipped 26.4 million Macs and iPads during the fourth quarter of 2020 and a total of 81....

Update: Apple issued a press release on the matter, below the fold. Apple released version 3.1 of iBooks today on the App Store and with it comes hundreds of thousands of Japanese books to the iBookstore in Japan. Among the local content on the iBookstore in Japan is light novels and manga, while Apple also noted that it has made “a number of improvements for reading Asian language books.” AllThingsD reported in January that Apple was in talks with Japanese publishers to work out deals for the iBookstore, which had lacked local Japanese content since it first launched in 2010....

Apple has removed three dating apps from the App Store after they were found to allow kids under the age of 13 to sign up. All three of the apps were operated by a Ukraine-based company called Wildec. According to a report from CNBC, the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to Wildec, explaining that the apps appeared to violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Referred to as COPPA, this requires companies to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from kids under the age of 13....

Alongside the newly-announced 12″ MacBook, Apple today announced its first collection of USB-C accessories designed to expand the abilities of the ultra-thin laptop’s single data and power port. The smallest is a USB-C to USB Adapter ($19), which converts the MacBook’s USB-C port to standard USB “to connect devices such as your flash drive or camera” or “a “USB cable for syncing and charging your iPhone, iPad, or iPod.” It supports USB 3....

Update: If you order an iPad Pro right now, Apple is quoting Friday delivery. The Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard accessories are already backordered at least 5-7 business days. Some customers are seeing same-day in-store pick up options for iPad Pro. In September Apple unveiled the long awaited larger iPad Pro to the public, and today customers can finally start placing orders for the 12.9-inch tablet before models hit stores later this week....

Today Apple made the rack-mountable Mac Pro available for purchase, starting at $6499. The unit, which features the same build to order components as the regular Mac Pro, features rack mounting rails that ship in a separate box. The base model rack mount Mac Pro comes with an 8-core Intel Xeon W CPU, 32GB of memory, a Radeon Pro 580X GPU, and 256GB of flash storage. A fully fleshed out Mac Pro with all of the fixings will set you back a cool $54,048....

Apple has informed its official retail stores, AppleCare employees, and authorized resellers that a small number of third-generation Apple TV units have WiFi issues. These issues surround not being able to locate a WiFi network, unable to join a network, and dropped or intermittent connections. If an Apple technician determines that an applicable Apple TV has these issues, the unit can be replaced as part of a replacement program that Apple has begun because of these WiFi issues....

As it normally does before earnings calls, Apple noted on its investor news webpage this evening that it will hold its fourth quarter earnings call on October 27th. The call will be held at the standard time of 2PM PT/5PM ET, with the earnings release itself being sent out roughly thirty minutes before then. This earnings call will be an important one for Apple and investors alike as it will provide the first look yet at early sales of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus....

From Electrek: Apple signed a deal this week to power to its Sparks, Nevada data center with possibly the cheapest contracted starting price for solar power in the US. The deal was signed with NV Energy, owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. The deal’s start price is 3.099¢/kWh with a 2% a year escalator making it very inexpensive energy. The size of the solar project is 50MW. Concurrently, NV Energy also signed two other solar power PPAs that might be the lowest overall price for solar power in the USA – 3....

Apple today has released an update to the Apple Store app for iOS. The update brings the app to version 5.2 and includes new Siri Shortcuts, delivery options, and more. Apple Store for iOS originally added Siri Shortcuts integration back in November. At the time, the feature was limited to pre-ordering the iPhone XR. Headlining today’s update, however, is a new array of Siri Shortcuts functionality. Apple says that you can now create custom voice commands with Siri Shorts to check product availability and check order status....

Apple keynote day is officially here. As is tradition, the company has taken its online store offline and is now displaying the message “We’ll be back.” The store won’t come back online until after its keynote is wrapped later this afternoon… Apple teases its new products with the message “We’re busy updating the Apple Store for you,” and encourages users to come back later to see everything that’s new. Apple today is expected to unveil a trio of new iPhones, including the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X....

Apple is now sending a new survey to Apple Watch users, this time to learn more about how its consumers use it to monitor health data. Interestingly enough, the company asks if the user has any apps installed to monitor eating habits, medications, and blood glucose levels. The survey has a section dedicated to health features, which have become a major selling point of the Apple Watch since its introduction. Apple first asks about the features built into watchOS, such as step counting, flights climbed, activity rings, stand up reminders, and the Workout app — the company wants to know which of these features consumers use the most....

France has begun asking US tech giants for what has been labelled an ‘Apple tax’ – a specific tax on tech giants which the country considers tax avoiders. It has been hoped the country would agree to wait for a global agreement on the tax treatment of large tech companies, but France has now decided to proceed unilaterally. The move promoted a threat of retaliation from Washington, leading to fears that it could provoke a trade war between the two countries …...

It’s taken just two months from launch to the first Apple TV+ award nomination. The Critics Choice Association made the announcement, but Apple may not shout about it too loudly… The nomination is for Billy Crudrup as Best Supporting Actor. Crudrup plays recently appointed news head Cory Ellison. The reaction of critics to the show as a whole has been rather more mixed, leading producers to go on the offensive....

Apple today published a report on its website detailing the “Economic and Fiscal Impacts Generated by Apple in Cupertino – Current Facilities and Apple Campus 2.” Apple notes that the report, which details a number of topics from job creation to construction of its new spaceship campus, was put together by Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. (KMA) for the City of Cupertino under contract with Apple Inc. Much of the report focuses on the economic impacts and future contributions of Apple’s currently under construction Apple Campus 2....

In a recent change to its iCloud syncing service, Apple has raised the total number of contacts it will store and sync across your devices before hitting the maximum allowed. Previously iCloud enforced a hard limit of syncing 25,000 contacts, but an updated support document (via iFun.de) highlights that limit doubling now to a total of 50,000 contacts… Apple states that exceeding the limit may cause iCloud to experience “issues keeping changes up to date across your devices,” advising that users stay within the doubled contacts limit as well as other limits for calendars, reminders, and Safari bookmarks....

Apple has released the first iOS 12 public beta for iPhone and iPad — which means more Memoji for the iPhone X users! This allows users who are not registered developers to test pre-release versions of iOS with new features for free (and a few bugs). Prior to the public beta availability, iOS 12 has only been available to test with a $99/year developer account. In terms of stability, the same warnings apply to any pre-release software so you should proceed with caution....

Earlier today, Apple released the fourth betas of macOS 10.12.5 and iOS 10.3.2 to developers. Now, the company has released the betas to public beta testers too, as it usually does following the initial release to developers… macOS 10.12.5 is a minor update and focuses on bug fixes and security improvements. The update comes following the more significant update of macOS 10.12.4, which brought Apple’s color shifting Night Shift feature to the Mac for the first time....

Apple has just seeded the first iOS 10.1 beta for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This follows the public release of iOS 10 from just last week. It has also seeded the first update to watchOS 3; watchOS 3.1. There is also a bug fix for tvOS being seeded; tvOS 10.0.1. iOS 10.1 includes the bokeh depth-of-field Portrait feature for the iPhone 7 Plus, which allows users to take pictures of people and have the phone synthetically blur the background....