The original iteration of Apple Maps relied mostly on data from partners. Over time, Apple has worked to bring more of the mapping experience directly under its own control, such as with the new ground truth map initiative that it rolled out in the US last year and is expanding to several more countries before the end of 2021. As of the latest iOS 14 beta, it appears that Apple is looking to remove dependencies on Foursquare and Yelp as sources of reviews and user photos of restaurants, bars, shops, parks, and other points of interest....

Apple has updated its Investor Relations website with a modern design. The site features the clean lines and thin fonts now standard with Apple’s new design direction. The homepage of the portal currently features the Istanbul Apple Store, but otherwise the site seems the same in terms of content. The visual redesign is a massive shift for the investor site, which felt largely abandoned until today. The site now shows off Apple’s stock price with a large chart, in the iOS 7 ‘flat’ style....

Update 7/21: The auction closed just over its estimated value price at $10,500. Plenty of Apple execs have auctioned meet ups and keynote tickets for charity over the years, and now Apple Music’s Bozoma Saint John is joining the club. Saint John, who joined Apple through the Beats Music acquisition, made her on-stage debut last month during the Apple Music demo at WWDC 2016. The auction is specifically for a ‘power lunch’ in LA with Boz, who is the Head of Global Consumer Marketing for Apple Music and iTunes, with the estimated value for the meet up set at $10,000....

We want a lot out of iOS 13, but there’s one issue that’s becoming increasingly problematic on iPhones for a lot of customers: spam calls. This is something any future version of the iPhone software should tackle — iOS 13 or a point update like iOS 12.1.3 — if only by giving customers more control over how phone calls are treated. There are subscription-based apps on the App Store that try to limit known spam callers from reaching you, but that’s a bit like paying a ransom to solve the problem....

As it did for the iPhone 5, Apple has begun its Personal Pickup program for the iPad mini. Personal Pickup allows customers to buy a device on Apple’s website or mobile app between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. and pick it up in store the next day (or whenever inventory is available). There are a number of stores across the country sold out of the iPad mini, so Personal Pickup may be your best bet at getting the 7....

Apple’s three main British subsidiaries – Apple (UK), Apple Europe and Apple Retail UK – paid no corporation tax in 2012 despite reporting profits of £68m ($103m), reports the Financial Times. While share awards to employees are a legitimate tax-deductible expense, questions are likely to be asked about whether the employees were genuinely based in the UK following previous allegations of creative tax-avoidance moves by Apple. Apple had previously been accused of agreeing a special 2 percent corporation tax arrangement in Ireland, an accusation the company denied....

Alongside the release of iOS 9.2 today, Apple is making some improvements to its recently launched News app that it hopes will improve the service for both readers and publishers. One of the changes is listed in Apple’s release notes for the iOS update: “A new Top Stores section in News so you can stay up to date with the most important news of the day.” The new Top Stories section will be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia (everywhere News is), but will presumably include a different selection of stories for users in each country....

Today during Apple’s Q1 earnings call with investors, CEO Tim Cook announced that the company sold its billionth iOS device back in November. Cook noted that the billionth device was a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus and that the company is keeping it at its headquarters in honor of the milestone. The news comes as Apple beats expectations and reports record smartphone sales today with 74.4 million iPhone units sold during the holiday quarter....

Apple has announced a new MacBook Air with a Magic Keyboard and a new $999 price point for all customers, and a discounted $899 price for the education market. The MacBook Air now replaces the butterfly keyboard with a Magic Keyboard similar to what Apple debuted in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The internal specs have also been given a boost. Apple has also doubled the base storage, so the MacBook Air now starts at 256 GB....

Apple today is launching an expansive new ad campaign that will run on television during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, as well as online. The company is calling the new campaign “Behind the Mac” and it highlights 12 real stories of people using the Mac to solve problems, create music, and more. The goal of the Behind the Mac campaign, the company says, is to highlight how users continue to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation with the Mac platform....

Apple is updating the built-in Health app on the iPhone with new features in iOS 15. The Health app uses a new metric called Walking Steadiness to give users a risk of falling assessment before a fall actually happens. Apple is also adding a better way of understanding lab results in the Health app. The Health app will present trends for health data in iOS 15 as well. This is similar to Activity trends that started on Apple Watch, but these will include even more health metrics....

Apple has finally updated one of the last of its apps holding out for iOS 7: Find My Friends. The social app stood out the most on iOS 7 with its leather stitching and real life paper map theme, but rest assured Apple has redesigned it with iOS 7 in mind. The new update features transparency, lots of white space, and feels much lighter (which is refreshing if that’s your style)....

Japan has been treated to six new and remodeled stores since April 2018 as part of Apple’s significant investment in the country. The latest is Apple Fukuoka, which moved from its original classic location in the Tenjin district to a completely unique new space just 150 meters away. The old store was the last in the world with a vintage feature Apple called The Studio. Drawing design inspiration from stores like Apple Garosugil, the company’s first in South Korea, Apple Fukuoka’s facade has a dynamic stance with two stepped stone walls bridged by an angled canopy....

Apple’s rather whimsical iPad ad campaign continues with two new clips today. Both highlight the new iPad Pro models introduced this week including the new 10.5-inch ProMotion display with a higher refresh rate for Apple Pencil. The first ad highlighting the new A10X Fusion chip in the new iPads is a rather over-the-top, high-octane departure from most polished Apple commercials we’re used to seeing. The ad answers a tweet asking for a more powerful computer while showing the iPad editing video in iMovie, gaming, and editing images… and there’s a fiery explosion too....

Apple today has launched a limited-time discount on select Beats products, offering slightly lower prices on the Beats EP headphones, the Beats Pill + speaker, and the urBeats earbuds. While Apple’s discounts are better than nothing, we regularly see even lower prices from other retailers over on 9to5Toys. Next, Apple offers the Beats EP On-Ear Headphones for $99, down from the sticker price of $129.95. In the past, we’ve seen Beats EP for as low as $65, making Apple’s deal considerably less impressive....

From 9to5Toys.com: Unlike most App Store promos, Apple has now quietly kicked off one the largest iOS game/app sales we have seen this year. The news comes courtesy of participating app developer Readdle. The sale includes 100 apps and games at “new low prices”, most of which are $0.99. While we have posted some of these titles over the past week in our daily/game app roundups, this is the first time they’ve all appeared together in one giant sale....

Apple today launched a new program that will allow iPhone 5 owners to have devices with fautly sleep buttons repaired at no cost. Apple says it has identified an issue with some devices that can cause the button to fail on a “small percentage” of these devices. iPhone owners can use a new page on Apple’s support site to determine if their phone is eligible for repair. Unfortunately for these users, the phones won’t be replaced or repaired in-store....

Apple may be left needing to find a new supplier of WiFi chips if a Digitimes report is accurate. The report claims that Broadcom is scaling back its WiFi chip production in favor of more profitable products. As is often the case with Digitimes reports, the report is unclear, the opening stating that Broadcom is ‘looking to phase out its WiFi chip business’ while a quote ascribed to unnamed sources says instead that it plans to ‘significantly reduce resources allocated to its Wi-Fi chip business....

Information from Wikipedia is used in a variety of places throughout the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and it powers a lot of the data that is fed through the Siri virtual assistant. Currently, there is no financial relationship in place between Wikipedia and Apple for this information, but that could soon change. A new report from Wired today explains that the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia and related projects, has introduced a new commercial project, Wikimedia Enterprise....

I’ve been paying for Apple Music since the day it launched in 2015. We’ve had a family plan from almost day one as well. Music streaming services are among the best values for what they offer. Despite being an Apple Music customer, there have long been aspects of Spotify that I preferred over Apple Music. Apple Music on iOS 14 brings over the best of what Spotify offers my opinion, making it the ultimate music streaming service....