Even as it prerpares for an imminent introduction of the iPad 2.0, Apple has begun sourcing components for iPhone 5, choosing Qualcomm for the baseband chip and a faster ARM chip for the processor. Kinsus Interconnect Technology seems set to enter Apple’s supply chain for iPhone 5, as the new smartphone will adopt Qualcomm’s baseband chipsets, which use Kinsus IC substrates, according to a Chinese language Apple Daily report. The report also claims Apple intends adopting a variant of ARM’s A8 processor, suggesting the company may continues using a version of its existing chip, rather than migrating to the A9 processor....

Apple opened its first retail store in Hangzhou, China back in January, and now the company has announced plans for a second. Apple says the store will be located at 701 Fuchun Road in the Jianggan District. The store will open at 9:00AM local time on April 24th, which also happens to be launch day for the Apple Watch. Apple has promised to expand its retail presence in China to at least 40 locations....

Apple is currently in the middle of building its latest campus in Austin, Texas. The facility will initially be home to 5,000 Apple employees but expand over time to house 15,000. Now Apple has just had a revised plan for the campus approved that sees a 192-room hotel added to the project. Reported by culturemap, Apple’s original plans for its new $1 billion Austin campus didn’t include an on-site hotel. But now, news has surfaced that a revised plan was approved by the City of Austin at the end of April and it includes a new 192-room hotel with a six-story design and 75,500 total square feet....

Update: iOS 14.5 beta 8 is also now rolling out to public beta testers. Apple has released iOS 14.5 beta 8 to developers, coming one week after the release of beta 7. iOS 14.5 packs a variety of new features, including the ability to unlock your iPhone using Apple Watch and new Siri voices. This comes after Apple officially announced its April 20 event, where we expect Apple to formally announce the release of iOS 14....

Running alongside the iOS 15 beta and more, Apple has seeded developers with the latest beta of iOS 14.7, watchOS 7.6, and macOS 11.5 today. Update 6/15: Public beta 3 for all of the releases are now available. Following WWDC and the release of the first iOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8 betas, Apple has continued on with the launch of the most recent iOS 14, watchOS 7, and macOS 11 betas....

Apple reported this week that it sold 8.92 million iPads in the most recent quarter which is down from 10.2 million iPads sold in the same quarter a year ago. New data from TrendForce shows that Apple is still number one among the top five tablet brands, however, as global tablet sales dropped 9.3% year-over-year. The report also believes Apple could have a positive quarter now with the newly released $329 9....

As pointed out by MacStories, Apple recently removed trials for the iWork suite and Aperture 3 from Apple.com. The webpage formerly home to the iWork trial now includes a message informing users that iWork apps, such as Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, are available through the Mac App Store. Apple removed the trial for a short while last year before returning it; however, the company also informed users last month that the iWork....

Update: Apple Store down in many countries. Black Friday sales are now available at United Kingdom, Finland, France, Poland, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands’ Apple Stores. -iPad with Retina display | From A$ 498.00 (Save A$ 41.00) -iPad 2 | From A$ 398.00 (Save A4 31.00) -iPod touch | From $A 298.00 (Save A$ 31.00) -iPod touch 4th generation | From A$ 194.00 (Save A$ 25.00) -iPod nano | From A$ 158....

Yesterday, Apple updated its iWork apps for iOS and OS X with added features including Split View for iPad, 3D Touch for iPhone 6s, and bonuses for El Capitan. Missed at the time was the fact that Apple also deemed the web-based version of iWork worthy of full consumption by the public, too. Apple removed the ‘beta’ label from iWork for iCloud, while also adding a number of new features. The browser-dependent iWork suite now supports commenting on documents, and has support for ten new languages....

According to a report from TechCrunch, Apple plans to shut down the Beats Music streaming service it recently acquired through its acquisition of Beats. The report cites several sources close to the situation including “several prominent employees at Apple and Beats”: Many engineers from Beats Music have already been moved off the product and onto other projects at Apple, including iTunes. It’s not clear when exactly Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre’s music service will be shut down or what Apple will do with streaming, but every source with knowledge of the situation that we talked to agreed Apple plans to sunset the Beats Music brand....

Earlier today, we noted that Apple had told support staff that the iPad mini with Retina display would be launching in several countries on November 12th. Because Apple typically does not inform this particular staff group of product launch information before they’d put it in a press release, we were initially skeptical. Perhaps backing up an imminent Retina iPad mini launch, the Apple Store has gone offline for maintenance worldwide. The store is even down in countries not listed as iPad mini Retina launch countries in our earlier report....

According to Giz-China, Apple has reached a landmark agreement with China’s and world’s biggest and most valuable wireless operator, China Mobile, that will see the two companies join forces on bringing a next-generation iPhone to China Mobile’s fourth-generation TD-LTE network: A report from Sohu.com via AllthingsD goes further saying a two tiered model could have a $70B-$200B upside: When asked during the last earnings call by a Wall Street analyst about the prospect of the long-awaited China Mobile deal and pre-paid iPhones, Apple’s op-chief Tim Cook provided this telling expose:

Apple has today notified developers about some upcoming rules regarding App Store submission, via its developer news portal. From 1st February 2015, newly-submitted apps and updates must be built against Apple’s iOS 8 SDK. This is not particularly surprising: Apple required similar adoption of the iOS 7 SDK last year. In addition however, Apple will also require that all apps and updates include 64-bit support from that date too. Currently, developers can choose whether to submit only 32-bit apps or universal binaries....

Apple is continuing to push its slo-mo selfie feature on the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Apple this weekend has shared four new videos touting the “Slofie” feature in different use cases. Each of the new videos showcases the “Slofie” feature in different environments, including a group slofie, in the rain, and more. Apple touts that taking a “Slofie” allows you to “turn any selfie into an epic dance video with slo-mo on iPhone 11’s front facing camera....

Today we’re taking the first really deep look at Apple’s fourth-generation Apple TV, which will hit stores next month. In our exclusive video, we explore the upgraded hardware, the Siri Remote, and dig down into tvOS, the new UI that brings the entire experience to life. Are there surprises? Oh yes. The new Apple TV actually supports Bluetooth headphones and Bluetooth speakers, a special Night Mode, and radically improved accessibility options inspired by iOS....

In a new interview with Variety, Apple’s head of worldwide video programming Zac van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht discuss the Apple TV+ streaming service ahead of its November 1 launch. The execs say that Apple TV+’s first year of programming is bigger than they thought it would be, with at least one new TV show or movie every month. They tease that the investment is only ramping up, with even higher total number of originals in the second year....

Apple UK sales were almost £1.4B ($1.7B) for its most recent financial year, but the company says that it owes just £6.2M ($7.4M) in tax – and won’t even have to pay that much. The company is claiming £1.35B in expenses from its nearly £1.4B in revenue, leaving it with a taxable profit of only £337M … iNews reports on the Apple’s tax filing, which covers the 12-month period from October 2018 to September 2019....

Just as it looked like the iPod-related class action suit against Apple was getting interesting, Eddy Cue arguing that competing music stores had effectively hacked the iPod, it now seems the case is in danger of collapsing. Apple’s lawyers have written to the judge to say there is no evidence that either of the two plaintiffs owned iPods during the time affected by Apple’s action to remove non-iTunes songs from iPods … The NYT reports that Apple had checked the serial numbers of the iPods owned by the plaintiffs and determined that both were purchased after the period affected by the class action....

Apple is reportedly ramping up its efforts to design its own radio chip, which would free it from the need to buy these from either Qualcomm or Intel. The latest report builds on two earlier ones, and suggests that the project now has a much higher profile within the company … It was first suggested in November that Apple was working in an in-house design for radio chips after the company was found to be hiring chip designers in Qualcomm’s home base of San Diego....

Developers, get downloading! Apple has just begun seeding iTunes 10.5 beta 6.1 to developers, which features iTunes Match. This is the first time developers will be able to get their hands on the new cloud platform, announced by Apple at WWDC in June. The beta is available in the United States, and still has the $24.99 subscription cost with it. Apple sent the following email to developers seen after the break....