Apple this weekend has continued its popular Shot on iPhone “Experiments” series. This is the third video in the series, entitled “Cascade.” Apple has also shared a video offering a behind the scenes look at the creation of the Experiments video. The “Cascade” video was shot on iPhone XS by Donghoon Jun and James Thornton of Incite in collaboration with WET, and was commissioned by Apple. The video offers incredibly close-up looks at water in a variety of different environments, showcasing the potential of the iPhone XS camera....

Following the kickoff of preorders yesterday, Apple today has shared four brand new HomePod ads on YouTube. The ads are each 15 seconds long, focusing primarily on the speaker quality… Each ad is set to its own song, including DNA by Kendrick Lamar, Holy Water by Hembree, All Night by Big Boi, and Ain’t I by Lizzo. Unfortunately, the ads don’t show us anything we didn’t already know about HomePod and only show the device itself for a couple of seconds....

We frequently caution that Apple patents and trademarks all kinds of things it will never do, but one trademark application filed this week seems more likely than not to make it into real products. The company has applied to register its Apple Music logo trademark for use on clothing, wristbands and more … Apple’s application is for an additional category of use for its existing Apple Music logo trademark, comprised of the Apple logo with the word ‘MUSIC’ alongside it....

Apple TV users should notice several new App Store categories when browsing for new content on tvOS. After initially launching without a dedicated categories section live in late October, Apple pushed the new section to new Apple TVs without a software update earlier this month. The latest expansion brings the total number of tvOS app categories to seven, up from five initially, which should further improve new app discovery. Apple first added two categories in early November: Games and Entertainment....

While China is expected to get Apple Pay anytime now, dozens of additional banks and credit unions across the United States have joined in supporting Apple’s mobile payment service. More than 40 new banks have joined the list of Apple Pay partners, which already totals to over 1,000 across the US and 15 across the UK. These are the latest additions: You can find Apple’s full list of bank partners here....

Update: Apple Pay is also now live in Greece and Romania. As well as: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovenia. As expected, Apple Pay is now rolling out to users in Slovakia and Portugal. This was first reported over the weekend, and the wait has been a long time coming for many users. Apple Pay is also expected to roll out to users in Greece over the coming hours....

Out of everything revealed in yesterday’s white iPhone 4 prototype leak, a small settings pane titled ‘Facebook’ stuck to us the most. The first thing that came to mind was that iOS 4 was supposed to include some Facebook integration. It’s known that Apple and Facebook were working together on Ping throughout 2009 and 2010 – when Apple was also developing what was then called iPhone OS 4 – and now we have heard that Facebook integration really was in the cards for iOS 4....

While not a major update in any way, Apple is today releasing iOS 11.4.1, watchOS 4.3.2, and tvOS 11.4.1 to the public. iOS 11.4.1 is mainly a bug fix release, with improved reliability of Find My AirPods, and syncing with mail, contacts, and notes with Exchange accounts. As for watchOS, Apple’s release notes are vague, noting that “this update includes improvements and bug fixes.” Apple today also released 11.4.1 for the HomePod as well....

As planned, Apple today announced its financial results for Q4 2013. This is a quarter highlighted by iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales and is the quarter preceding the launches of several new Macs and the new iPads: Apple reported revenues of $37.5 billion, which is slightly better than Apple’s estimates of between $34 billion and $37 billion. This number compares to $36 billion in revenue in the year-ago, Q4 2012 quarter....

Apple this evening has updated its System Status webpage to reflect that a small number of people are unable to use iCloud Backup. According to Apple, the feature has been inaccessible since early yesterday morning, though it affects a small percentage of users… Apple says that the outage affects “less than 1 percent of users,” while it doesn’t offer any information about when the issues will be resolved. The outage means that affected users are unable to restore from an iCloud backup when setting up a new iOS device and thus must restore from a local backup or set up as a new device....

If you jumped into Ping as soon as it was available, like we did, you were able to connect to your friends with Facebook. That capability soon disappeared, making everyone wonder what happened. AllthingsD got the story: So did Zuck rain a world of hurt down on Jobs? Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission. That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot....

When Apple announced plans for a new ‘global flagship’ store in Melbourne, Australia, it was welcomed by both government ministers and the square’s original architect. Tourism minister John Eren said that the store would ‘breathe new life into Federation Square,’ while architect Donald Bates said that the development ‘respects and expands on the original vision for the site.’ It will also involve the demolition of an existing building many view as an eyesore....

Ahead of WWDC, it was rumored that the iPad would gain support for mouse input as an Accessibility feature. This was confirmed with the release of the first beta of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, and now Steven Aquino has received more detail from Apple on the feature. Aquino spoke to Apple about the decision to bring mouse support to iPadOS and iOS after so many years, and the company reiterated that it’s meant as an Accessibility feature first and foremost....

Continuing its Earth Day efforts, Apple today has shared a collection of new playlists on Apple Music that the company says provides the “perfect soundtrack for Earth day – and beyond.” The collection consists of five different playlists containing a wide array of artists. Artists included in the various playlists are Coldplay, James Bay, Alex Ferreira, The Beatles, Adele, Bob Marley, and many more. The five playlists can be seen below:...

As predicted, the Apple Store went down this morning. We’ve just heard that these are the new Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt-equipped iMacs: Update: The Apple Store is back up with SKUs to match: As always, thanks Mr. X! Best Buy has huge Mac sale, not just clearing for iMac refresh (9to5mac.com) iWork trial goes MIA, update coming? (9to5mac.com) iMac supply constraints hit Apple’s online store ahead of imminent refresh (9to5mac.com) Apple delays iMac orders ahead of next week’s refresh with Thunderbolt I/O and Sandy Bridge processors (9to5mac....

A weekend report published in British newspaper The Independent put a renewed spotlight on the treatment of ethnic Uyghurs in China. Focusing on labor conditions at Chinese factories, the report says that the Chinese regime has relocated thousands of the Muslim Uyghurs from the west Xinjiang region, to be forced into work at these factories. In addition to Nike, Dell, Volkswagen, and other big US brands, Apple is also linked to the story — specifically two Apple suppliers, BOE and O-Film....

Reuters reports that Apple is to build its first research and development center in China, citing a statement by the official Chinese state broadcaster. Tim Cook reportedly made the commitment to Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, stating that the center will be built by the end of the year. Apple likely has two reasons for investing in R&D within China … The pledge comes after the head of China’s industry and technology regulator in May told Cook he hoped Apple could deepen its cooperation with the country in research and development and stressed information security....

Apple’s Lisa Jackson today announced that it is investing in a project to restore and protect mangroves across a 27,000-acre forest in Colombia. Fast Company reports that Jackson, who serves as Apple’s VP of environment, policy, and social initiatives, made the announcement at the Global Climate Action Summit today in San Francisco. The project will see Apple work to protect and restore mangroves in a 27,000-acre forest along the coastline of Colombia....

According to paidContent, Apple is planning on exhibiting at the upcoming BookExpo America trade show, a first for the company. Apple will be sending an iBookstore employee Scott Simpson and their show presence is said to be significant based on a large booth in a prime location, next to publishers Random House, Disney Book Group and Macmillan. Apple won’t be selling anything, but their presence is meant to boost their position in the e-reading space and raise visibility of the iBookstore and iPad as an e-reading device....

With the upcoming Servant, M. Night Shyamalan is conscripted into the ranks of filmmakers turning to streaming services like Apple TV+ to bring their next projects to life. For anyone who tuned in to the 71st Annual Primetime Emmy awards or watched NFL football week 3, it was quite evident that Apple TV+ is coming, and it has a handful of slick new shows ready for launch. And while it might not have the glitter of pre-existing IP attached to its pending launch, the new streaming service does have stars like Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Momoa, Joel Kinnaman, Hailee Steinfeld, and Steve Carell to help kick off a new era of streaming television....