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According to TrendForce, Apple managed to secure the fourth spot in global shipments of laptops in the third quarter. Apple notebook sales beat the market in quarterly growth; MacBook sales increased 11% whilst the market rose 7% overall. The analysts believe Apple shipped 4.43 million Mac laptops in total across July, August, and September. Apple benefited from the launch of the 2017 MacBook Pro refresh ahead of the busy back-to-school season....

Apple has today updated the homepage of its website to promote Apple TV+ and the accolades the service has earned in the first year with its original content. The feature also touts “And we’re just getting started.” Apple.com was updated today with a full homepage refresh focused solely on Apple TV+. The top of Apple’s landing page now features the Apple TV+ logo with “18 Emmy Nominations” below it, followed by “And we’re just getting started....

Apple TV+ Launch Date and Price The new streaming service will officially launch on November 1st and cost just $4.99 per month and that includes the family plan.  Apple TV+ Lineup of Programs There isn’t a whole lot of content that will be rolling out on launch day as it doesn’t have a back catalog. However, it is all original programming and that will increase over time. Most series will premiere with three episodes at a time followed by a new one each week....

While Apple Pay works with nearly all of the major banks across the United States, there are still regional banks and credit unions with customers waiting for Apple Pay to work with their institution. The latest expansion includes several of those banks across the US. Advancial Federal Credit Union Anahuac National Bank ASI Federal Credit Union Auburn State Bank BankSouth Burbank City Federal Credit Union CentralAlliance Credit Union Columbine Federal Credit Union Connections Bank DCH Credit Union Hastings Federal Credit Union Iowa-Nebraska State Bank Lea County State Bank LegacyTexas McCook National Bank Minnesota Valley Federal Credit Union Peoples Bank (Oklahoma added) St....

While it was announced briefly during the President’s State of the Union address last week, Associated Press reports today that Apple along with other tech companies are pledging around $750 million in an initiative to bring high-speed internet to schools. Called ConnectED, the program was officially announced by the White House today with the goal of connecting “99 percent of America’s students to the internet through high-speed broadband and high-speed wireless within 5 years....

As the new seventh-generation iPod nano lands on the shelves of Apple stores this week, the folks in Cupertino have released an update for the personal music player this afternoon. Version 1.0.1 is a minor update, as first noted by iLounge, only adding “support for iPod nano (7th generation).” As always, you can grab the update by plugging your device into iTunes. Apple’s new iPods: Various new iPod touches, new iPod nano, tweaked iPod shuffle (9to5mac....

Apple today silently removed its “Apple TV Remote” app from the App Store, which lets users control the Apple TV from an iPhone or iPad simulating a real Remote. The app is no longer available for download from the App Store and Apple has likely discontinued it, which means that it will no longer get any updates. That doesn’t come as a surprise since Apple has added the Remote feature built into the Control Center in iOS 12, so Apple TV users can have access to all the controls on Siri Remote without having to download any app....

Earlier this month, four US senators formally questioned Apple in a letter over its COVID-19 screening app and website even though the company has been transparent about how it works and the privacy and security it’s built on. Now Apple has officially responded to the government request. After the US senators asked more questions about the COVID-19 app and website we tested out Apple’s privacy claims and found them to be true....

As part of its Martin Luther King Day celebrations, Apple has shared a newsroom article highlighting the charitable giving and volunteering efforts of its employees. The company announced that Apple’s Giving program has raised more than $365 million for nonprofits around the world since it began eight years ago. It also shines light on some of its volunteering initiatives, including a coding class in Ireland run by volunteers from Apple’s Cork campus....

Apple announced Snow Leopard at WWDC last week, equipped with the technology – Open Computing Language (OpenCL) – that will allow the OS to use the processing power of graphics processors for non-graphics apps. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. As part of the standard-setting process, Apple has joined a consortium of companies (the Khronos Group) to develop OpenCL as a standard....

Apple’s beta testing app TestFlight has today been updated with support for Dark Mode. The update comes following last week’s release of iOS 13, which includes support for a system-wide Dark Mode. Dark Mode in iOS 13 can be manually enabled via Settings or Control Center, or automatically turned on based on a schedule or time of day. TestFlight taps into that by automatically adjusting its theme based on your system-wide theme....

Apple appears to be testing a notable change to the App Store as part of its efforts to improve the Search experience. While not fully rolled out yet, some iPhone users are now seeing tags in the App Store when searching for popular terms. Update 4/29: Apple is officially rolling out the feature starting today. Apple shared on Twitter that the new “search suggestions” are now starting to roll out to users in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia....

Apple is continuing its trend of offering holding Apple Watch Activity Challenges in celebration of major events and holidays. This time around, Apple is holding an Activity Challenge exclusive to China in celebration of the country’s “National Fitness Day.” This is seemingly the first time Apple has held region-exclusive Activity Challenge in China. The company has, however, held a slew of Activity Challenges over the last couple of years in an effort to encourage fitness and activity with Apple Watch....

Apple has updated its dedicated Privacy website today, something it typically does each year following the release of new iPhones and a new version of iOS. The new Apple Privacy website offers a detailed look at the steps the company takes to protect user privacy and data through its latest hardware and software updates. Apple first launched its Privacy tool to users back in May, but limited the primary download functionality to the European Union in order to comply with GDPR....

At some point today, Apple quietly introduced a new app on the tvOS App Store that brings iBooks to the platform, but in a form appropriate for children. Dubbed iBooks StoryTime, the app is designed to aid children in improving their reading skills through feature like interactive audio, a feature called Read-Aloud, and more. Read-Aloud is a feature that displays on-screen subtitles of sort synced to narration audio. The feature is similar to that of karaoke, teaching the children how to decipher the word and correctly read it....

Apple has released a new software update for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. iOS 11.3.1 is likely a bug fix update to the iOS 11.3 software update released last month. Apple has also released a security update to the recent macOS 10.13.4 update to macOS High Sierra. Apple currently shows the iOS 11.3.1 release on its developer portal with build version 15E302, and the release will likely be released over-the-air shortly for all customers....

Apple has just released the second Release Candidate of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 to developers following today’s special event. This comes ahead of the macOS Big Sur official release on November 12. macOS Big Sur brings a redesigned user interface to the Mac, as well as a new Messages app with screen effects, Control Center, new widgets, and much more. Developers can update to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 RC 2 by heading to the System Preferences application, then looking for the Software Update option....

Apple today has pushed the golden master build of Xcode 7.3.1 to developers. The update carries the build number 7D1012 and focuses primarily on bug fixes ahead of its upcoming release to the general public. Last month, Apple released Xcode 7.3 following a lengthy beta period. Xcode 7.3 included the latest SDKs for iOS 9.3, watchOS 2.2, OS X 10.11.4 and also bundled the latest release of Swift version 2.2. It included more intelligent code completion so developers can more quickly write their programs....

Apple is reportedly conducting internal testing on a service that allows Siri to transcribe your voicemail messages into text, so that you can read them rather than having to listen to them. Business Insider reports that the service is expected to be launched next year. The piece says that a number of Apple employees are currently trialling the service to determine its reliability … When someone using iCloud Voicemail is unable to take a call, Siri will answer instead of letting the call go to a standard digital audio recorder....

Apple’s famed obsession with secrecy in its product development process is hampering its work in the field of artificial intelligence, say academics working in the field. Bloomberg reports that AI experts believe that lack of two-way sharing of information slows development. Apple Maps was cited as an example of what can go wrong when AI teams within Apple are cut off from other work being done in the field – and even from researchers in other teams within Apple....