Apple has extended its limited time discount on certain USB-C accessories from the end of December through March. The timing follows the official availability of the LG 5K UltraFine display which works with Apple’s new MacBook Pro. This is the new footnote on discounted accessories: The rare discount on certain accessories was announced back in November after significant pushback from new MacBook Pro customers who were complaining about replacing USB-A, Thunderbolt, and other older I/O because of the USB-C-only MacBook Pro....

. Update: It appears that the ban has been lifted already Apple lost its first significant patent battle today as it was forced to take 3G iPads and iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4’s off its virtual Apple Store shelves in Germany today. The licenses at issue are supposedly “Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory” (FRAND) patents that are considered industry standards. This follows a previous ruling in Motorola’s favor at the end of last year....

Some put the blame on Apple for that and accuse Cupertino of threatening lost wages from iTunes if the labels sign up for the streaming service. Apple approved Spotify for use on the iPhone in Europe in April of last year so Apple probably has some definitive proof of lost revenue, if that is the case. A $1 billion Spotify deal with Google was apparently close to completion last year but the deal fell through because Google was “demanding that all label deals be grandfathered in....

Apple has today informed developers that it has changed the pricing of apps and In-App Purchases in the Russian App Store, following changes to exchange rates. The recent ruble-dollar rates have fluctuated so widely in recent weeks that Apple has been forced to take the Russian Apple Online Store down completely, as it reviews pricing for its products. Obviously, it is easier to adjust prices in the App Store so a complete takedown was unnecessary....

Apple will double its current built-to-order RAM configurations for the upcoming Mac minis, and perhaps the new iMacs according to sources familiar with the upcoming product releases. The current version of the iMac includes four RAM slots, and Apple’s top RAM configuration is four 4GB chips for a total of 16GB of RAM. The new iMac, however, will be sold with an options for 16GB of RAM across two chips (2 X 8GB) of RAM....

Apple will today defend itself in a Manhattan court against a Department of Justice case accusing it of leading a cartel designed to force up prices of ebooks, Tim Cook having recently told the AllThingsD D11 conference that the case against it was “bizarre.” We tend to agree with AllThingsD that it’s tough to see how Apple can win the case when all five of its alleged ‘fellow cartel members’ have already held up their hands and settled with the DOJ, and where there is a clear paper-trail showing that Steve Jobs was instrumental in leading the changes that led to the price-fixing allegations … It’s alleged that Jobs wrote to five major publishers – HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan – and invited them to switch to the new model, and the DOJ seems to have some pretty compelling evidence of this, including an email from Steve Jobs to James Murdoch, a senior exec at the parent company of HarperCollins:...

During the WWDC keynote today Apple officially announced watchOS 6. The next operating system for Apple Watch will come with new features including new apps, watch faces and complications, a dedicated App Store, and more. A range of new watch faces are arriving with watchOS 6. These include a new Solar Dial, California,Modular Compact, Gradient, and Numerals watch faces. New Complications are also arriving including noise and wind. Apple is bringing an Audiobook app to Apple Watch, along with Calculator, and Voice Memos....

If you keep your iPhone in a case, as most people do, you’ll know that volume and power buttons can lose their nice definitive clicking sensation, and instead feel rather squishy. That’s a problem Apple thinks it can solve … The patent (spotted by Patently Apple) is for a pretty simple magnet-based solution. The background section describes the problem. Apple’s proposed solution is, of course, written in patent-eze. This paper describes various embodiments related to devices, systems and methods that retain the original tactile feeling of a button after an electronic device is coupled to an accessory that might change the tactile feeling of the button....

I’ve been interested in what Apple is doing in the health industry for a while now. I love reading stories about people using Apple Watch to get healthy, prevent accidents, and more. While I was at JNUC this past week, I got to spend some time with Lindsey Koshansky from Locus Health to hear how they are using the iPad in the healthcare field. They are heavily invested in the Apple and Jamf ecosystem, so I was eager to hear more about what they’re doing....

The sometimes stormy relationship between Apple and Google appears to be growing friendlier, with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt telling Reuters at the annual Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley that the two companies were having “lots and lots” of meetings. The two companies started out close. Schmidt joined Apple’s board in 2006, and the iPhone launched with both Googlemaps and YouTube on board. That was to change after Google’s Android platform began growing in popularity....

On Monday (April 21), P.A. Semi informed its customers it was being acquired and it could no longer guarantee supplies of its chips. The startup did not identify the acquiring company but said that company may be willing to supply the chip on an end-of-life basis, if it could successfully transfer a third-party license to the technology. That license in question is probably a PowerPC architectural license that P.A. Semi has with IBM Corp....

Apple is offering a promotion for new Apple Card users throughout the month of March. The company says that new cardholders can score 6% Daily Cash on purchases from Apple, which is double the 3% Daily Cash offered traditionally for Apple Card users. The company explains that new Apple Card users can save 6% on Apple products when they pay in full with a new Apple Card through March 31. The promotion is only open to Apple Card users who open an account between March 1, 2021 and March 31, 2021....

Apple has recently hired a lead engineer from Microsoft’s HoloLens team, leading to more speculation that it could be working on its own augmented reality project behind the scenes. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster first spotted the change of positions for Nick Thompson, who was reportedly previously leading audio hardware engineering efforts for Microsoft’s Hololens augmented reality project: “Based on recent acquisitions of augmented reality companies, hiring of a key Microsoft Hololens employee, and conversations with industry contacts within the virtual and augmented reality spaces, we believe Apple has a team exploring the AR space,” Munster said in a note to clients today....

Ahead of the public launch of Apple TV+ later this year, Apple has hired a former Walt Disney executive to join its video team. According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple has hired Disney’s Chiara Cipriani as it ramps up its video efforts. Cipriani joined Apple earlier this month, serving as the company’s director of video services out of its London offices. Prior to joining Apple this month, Cipriani spent over 10 years at Disney....

Update: So far, we’re aware of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Taiwan. iOS 14 saw the introduction of Apple Maps speed camera alerts, but this was initially limited to the US, UK, and Ireland. We’re now seeing it rolling out to a number of additional countries. Apple bills the feature as a warning to anticipate slowing traffic … Dutch site iCulture reported the feature appearing in the Netherlands and Belgium....

However, the company recently added the “Free on iTunes” iTunes Section iOS and the desktop versions of iTunes. This new section offers free music singles as well as HD episodes of TV shows. Free on iTunes This new curated section, won’t just force content on you, but rather let you choose what you want yourself. It only contains a handful of songs (16 at the time of this writing), but provides more than the “Free Single of the Week” section it previously offered....

Earlier this week, our sister site 9to5Google found references to Apple One – Apple’s upcoming subscription bundle – in the Apple Music app for Android. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple One encompasses several tiers offering combinations of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and iCloud storage for a single discounted price. The strings include mentions like “Cancel Apple One,” “Keep Apple One,” and “You can unsubscribe from Apple One and keep only what you want....

Apple Arcade has added three notable titles over the last several weeks: “Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows” from Devolver Digital, “Next Stop Nowhere” from Night School Studio, and “The Last Campfire” from Hello Games. A new deep dive from TechRadar today offers a closer look at the development of the games, and how Apple Arcade was involved. Night School Studio co-founder Sean Frank explained that while he was skeptical of the role of premium games in today’s world, but Apple Arcade was an enticing choice for “Next Stop Nowhere” for several reasons....

We had a feeling it would not be long before Apple stepped in and shut down Chinese manufacturer In Icon’s plans to create an extremely realistic Steve Jobs figurine, and today The Telegraph reports the 12-inch doll originally slated for release in February is now facing legal threats from Apple if the company doesn’t cease production plans. According to the report, Apple claimed it owns the rights to Steve Jobs’ likeness and in a letter to the company claims toys using the Apple logo, a person’s name, or likeness of Jobs is considered a criminal offense....

Apple has always provided 70% of application download revenues to developers, but has only provided 60% of the revenue for iAd clicks. Now, Apple has boosted the iAd revenue share to 70%. In this long run, this may mean a major boost in income for developers who rely on the iAd platform for their income. (While today is April 1/Fools day, this comes direct from Apple’s developer iTunes Connect website.) Apple notes the change in an updated developer agreement:...