Australia’s Attorney-General has said he will be meeting with Apple as the country becomes the latest to demand that the company cease offering end-to-end encryption, reports Sky News. Australia is apparently determined to join the US and UK in the hall of fame of governments who don’t understand how encryption works. Brandis said that the new laws would be directly modelled on the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, introduced last year....

Apple is making its App Store a bit more social. The company today opened up a new Twitter account dedicated to the App Store’s gaming section. The account, @AppStoreGames, is yet to be officially verified by Twitter, but it was retweeted this morning by the official and verified @AppStore account, which launched a few years ago. The description for the new gaming-focused account indicates that posts will be curated, as the description reads: “Embrace the future of gaming....

It’s no secret that Apple’s App Store makes more than Google’s Play Store when it comes to revenue. However, the latest data recorded by Sensor Tower (via TechCrunch), shows that in Q3 of 2018, Apple widened the gap by a huge amount. According to the data, the App Store earned nearly 93% more in revenue than Google Play, making it the largest revenue gap recorded by Sensor Tower (since at least 2014)....

Update: Trump has called Apple’s announcements today a “huge win for American workers and the USA.” Apple today has announced a new commitment to contribute $350 billion to the US economy over the next five years. The news also includes the company’s expectations to create thousands of new jobs and how its US operations will grow with a new campus. I promised that my policies would allow companies like Apple to bring massive amounts of money back to the United States....

Apple beat Samsung in Q4 2019 smartphone shipments, but dropped from second to third place behind Huawei when looking at the year as a whole. That’s the picture painted by Strategy Analytics, which estimated that Apple shipped 70.7M iPhones in Q4 2019 against 68.8M Samsung smartphones in the same quarter. It’s a reversal of the same quarter last year when the Korean company was comfortably ahead… The market intelligence firm said that global smartphone shipments for the quarter were flat, so it was all about which company grabbed the biggest slice of the pie....

Ahead of WWDC officially kicking off next week, Apple has started decorating the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. The company has begun hanging banners on the outside of the building touting the developer conference, though we’ve not yet gotten a peak inside… The signage hung on the outside resembles the initial WWDC announcement, depicting an overhead shot if people in colorful outfits. Apple has also hung various smaller banners around the outside of the venue on lamp posts....

We’ve already seen a number of renders showing Apple’s ambitious Campus 2 project as well as the progress in Cupertino, California at the site of the future spaceship-like building. Now photos shared today by German site ifun.de depict an early shot of architectural samples with the design slated for Apple Campus 2. According to the site, the structure was spotted on the premise of Josef Gartner GmbH in Gundelfingen, Germany. The sample structure of this segment of Apple Campus 2 presumably exists to test the materials being used for the building as the site has previously mentioned Gartner’s believed role in the project....

Interestingly, Cue is now responsible for Apple’s iAd division which has been struggling since its promising launch in the summer of 2010, culminating with the resignation of Apple’s former vice president of mobile advertising Andy Miller earlier this month. In fact, Eddy Cue is now in control of Apple’s entire cloud-based operation that encompass the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore and iCloud services, the CEO wrote in his email message. Here’s Cook’s email to troops:...

With iOS 12, Apple launched a new Screen Time functionality for monitoring device and app usage. As part of that, TechCrunch reports today that Apple is cracking down on third-party screen time trackers in the App Store with stricter reviews and in several cases, removal from the App Store. What’s important to note is that these applications had not been using any official, Apple-approved frameworks or methods for tracking screen time....

Apple has filed its latest M1 Macs in the Bluetooth SIG database this week. This includes the MacBook Air, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro — but a mysterious “B2002” device remains in the database, and it’s unclear what it could be. Apple first filed this mysterious “B2002” device, which is labeled in the “Personal Computer” category, back in October. At the time, it was speculated that it could be a new M1 Mac or Apple Silicon Mac of some sort....

Super Bowl 50 may not be until 2016, but preparations are already underway for the landmark game, which will be held in the brand new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. To help pay for the costs of holding this massive event, several Silicon Valley companies, including Apple, Google, and Intel, have each pledged $2 million. This money will go toward funding the public costs associated with bringing a throng of excited sports fans from across the nation into the same city, such as police overtime....

Following our report from this morning, Apple made the much-awaited unlocked iPhone 5 available in the United States on its online store this evening. The unlocked device’s price range is set at $649, $749, and $849 for 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage, respectively. Apple has offered an unlocked version of the iPhone 5 in several countries around the world since the device first launched in late September —including Canada and in Europe....

Janelle Monáe stars in the trailer for the mysterious upcoming horror movie, Antebellum. The film is being released by Lionsgate and marks the feature debut for writer-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, following their previous efforts on such video shorts as Kill Jay-Z and 17 Seventeen. Story-wise, Antebellum revolves around Veronica Henley (Monáe), a popular author who finds herself trapped in a “horrifying reality” and is forced to unravel the truth behind this “mind-bending mystery”....

According to a new report from TechCrunch, Apple recently acquired a virtual/augmented reality startup out of Montreal, Canada called Vrvana. The deal was worth radon $30 million, the report says. A “number” of Vrvana’s employees have reportedly joined Apple’s team in Cupertino. While the startup’s website is still live, it has been silent on social media since August. Vrvana is the startup behind the Totem virtual reality headset, which never actually shipped to consumers but had excellent reviews from those who got an early hands-on....

Apple has officially announced (at least) two new iPhones: iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Both the front and back are now glass, and the band is still aluminum. Silver, space gray, and a “beautiful new gold finish” are available color options. RIP matte black, jet black, and rose gold. Both iPhones have a new Retina HD display and improved water resistance. Both new iPhones feature True Tone display like the iPad Pro lineup for white image balancing....

Apple today has announced a variety of new environmental initiatives for its China operations. Through a press release, the company announced a new multi-year partnership with World Wildlife Fund to increase responsibly managed forests throughout China. Apple also announced that it intends to expand its renewable energy projects to manufacturing facilities in China. Apple, which launched its first major solar project in China three weeks ago, will parter with Leshan Electric Power Co....

A report earlier this month from Bloomberg claimed that Apple could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes if the European Commission rules that its Ireland setup is illegal. Speaking to the Financial Times today, Apple CFO Luca Maestri commented on the ongoing European investigation and said that he estimates Apple will have to pay $0 in back taxes, assuming the investigation outcome is “fair.” Maestri had the following to say regarding the European Commission’s investigation into Apple’s tax practices:...

It’s well known that Apple is working hard to bring innovation to augmented reality and self-driving cars (in some capacity). However, new hires recently made by the company are making a satellite project seem likely. A new Bloomberg report details that Apple has hired two former Google satellite executives as it starts a new hardware team. Satellite design and operation are highly expensive and the report notes that most projects in this field are focused on collecting images or for communications....

Apple today has announced that it is expanding the tester limits in its TestFlight program. Whereas developers were previously limited to inviting 2,000 users to beta test an application, they can now invite up to 10,000 external testers. Apple says this expansion will allow for developers to receive even more valuable feedback from users before making an app or app update public on the App Store. For those unfamiliar, TestFlight is Apple’s way of managing application betas....

Apple has updated its Developer’s page to again waive the App Store requirement for paid online group services to use App Store in-app purchases for payments. This comes as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause businesses to pivot to digital services rather than in-person. Until December 31, 2021, digital services in place of an in-person group will continue to be exempted on in-app purchases. “Last year, to support apps that adapted services from in-person to digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we temporarily deferred the requirement to offer paid online group event services (one-to-few and one-to-many real-time services) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review Guideline 3....