Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of human interface design, has once again sat down with the Hodinkee Radio podcast to discuss the continued evolution of the Apple Watch. This year, Dye offers an in-depth look at the Apple Watch Series 6, watchOS 7, and details on how Apple’s design team has adapted to COVID-19. Here is the description of the episode courtesy of Hodinkee: One of the topics discussed during the show is the new hand washing feature in watchOS 7....

The Apple Glasses displays are expected to be micro OLED ones, says a new report today. Not to be confused with microLED, micro OLED is an advanced form of display tech that is built directly onto chip wafers, and is ideal for the very small displays likely to be used in Apple’s augmented reality glasses. The Cupertino company has reportedly been working on the project with A-series chipmaker TSMC under secrecy conditions that are extreme even by Apple standards …...

Apple is reportedly in “advanced talks” to acquire Intel’s smartphone modem business. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple would pay at least $1 billion for Intel’s patents and staff. The deal could be reached within the next week, according according to the report. It’s possible, however, that talks could still fall apart. The report details that Apple and Intel were in talks prior to Apple’s settlement with Qualcomm, but that negotiations broke down following that deal....

After Apple’s confirmation that all Mac and iOS devices are affected by the Spectre & Meltdown vulnerabilities, it was only a matter of time before the company was hit by a class action lawsuit … Apple was quick to respond by issuing patches for Macs, iPhones and Safari, but that hasn’t stopped a firm of lawyers in Israel seeking permission to include the company in a lawsuit. The full basis of the action isn’t revealed in the brief report in Hamodia, but appears to focus on the risk to privacy raised by the bugs....

Did you just purchase the new iPhone 11 pro max? Or have you been using your iPhone 11 for a while and you are looking for a way to safely store your files? Well, you’ve come to the right place. First, let’s take a moment to understand what backup and restore is all about. When we damage or lose our phones, almost everyone is more hurt by the loss of their personal data stored in their phones than the loss of the mobile phone itself....

As it has done in other instances in the past, Apple today announced that it is updating App Store prices in South Africa and New Zealand. It’s good news for users in Africa, however, as prices will go down, while prices will increase in New Zealand. In South Africa, Apple explains that prices will go down in order to account for foreign exchange rates. This change will occur over the next 72 hours, Apple says....

Digitimes cites Chinese publication Liberty Times in reporting that Apple manufacturing partners Foxconn and TSMC are planning to bid for shares of Toshiba’s flash storage business. The move could bolster Toshiba against Samsung which leads in the memory space. Foxconn company chairman Terry Guo points to the adoption of 8K resolution technology as reason for demand for more storage in the future. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) have reportedly joined forces in a bid for Toshiba Memory’s shares, according to a Chinese-language Liberty Times report....

Update: The document originally recommended disabling Bluetooth, but it appears updating to the latest version of OS X is Apple’s recommended fix. Much better. In a support document issued today, Apple addressed a known issue with AirPlay Mirroring performance freezing or dropping out. MacBook Pro and Mac Pro users with last year’s models may see the issue when using an 802.11 b/g network… Apple’s solution? Disable Bluetooth. For Mac Pro users, that means breaking out the wired mouse and keyboard as it has no integrated input and turning off Bluetooth means disconnecting the signal from a Magic Mouse and Apple Wireless Keyboard....

Today we get one of the best looks yet at Apple’s under construction “Campus 2” in Cupertino with a drone flyover video courtesy of Emory Peterson and aerial photography company Above Reno. The video, shot in 4K over Labor Day weekend earlier this month, gets us up close with Apple’s rapidly progressing Campus 2 project scheduled for completion in late 2016. Above Reno notes the video was “filmed at or below 400 feet above ground level with clearance from the local FAA office....

Apple could potentially be facing a fine upwards of one million rubles in Russia (which is only about $15,000 USD) over its inclusion of same-sex couple emoji characters on the built-in iOS keyboard. The Independent reports that police in Russia have began an investigation into Apple to determine whether the company has violated a highly controversial national ban on activity its government considers homosexual propaganda. While Apple does include the emoji keyboard as a built-in alternative keyboard on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches and has a say in what characters it presents, which emoji that become candidates for inclusion starts with the Unicode Consortium....

Apple is changing the way it hires much of its security staff, San Jose Mercury News reports. Apple will begin to directly employe most of its security offers rather than contracting staff out. The change is especially notable as it means Apple will be providing benefits including health insurance and retirement options to its security staff. An Apple spokesperson told the newspaper that it will be working with the existing contractor that handles security staffing for the company to transition employees to officially work for Apple....

Apple announced today that it’s rolling out a new feature for its TestFlight beta distribution service called TestFlight Groups to improve the experience of managing builds with multiple testers. Apple noted the Groups feature will allow developers to “organize your testers into groups to quickly send specific builds”, provide separate instructions on where to focus, and apply an action to several testers at once in TestFlight.” The new feature is available to those using Apple’s in beta TestFlight service through iTunes Connect....

Apple today has announced a voluntary recall and exchange program for a select number of AC wall plug adapters used in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Continental Europe, New Zealand and South Korea. America is not included in the recall. Apple says that in “very rare cases” the two-pronged Apple wall adapters could break and create a risk of electrical shock if touched. Apple said that the affected wall adapters shipped between 2003 and 2015 with Mac and certain iOS devices....

The Chinese Apple Online Store went down for maintenance yesterday as the company rolled out the price changes across its product lines. For example, the Apple Store price for the iPhone XR has fallen from 6499 RMB to 6199 RMB, or about 4.5%. This is slightly more than the 3% drop in the sales tax, but it is not unusual for Apple to round to a more aesthetically pleasing price, like ending in ’99’....

Apple is putting a big focus on exclusive content with its new Apple Music streaming service. In addition to the debut of exclusive music, interviews, and content uploaded directly by artists on the fly, it appears the service’s 24/7 live radio station, Beats 1, will also be the source of exclusive industry news and events. The proof of that comes in the form of an announcement today that the station will exclusively reveal nominees for the upcoming Video Music Awards....

Update 2: Shipping times in at least Hong Kong started at 1-2 weeks then quickly to changed to “currently unavailable”. Update: The Australian Apple Online store and others are back up and listing all iPad Air models as shipping in 24 hours. Lines have started to form at Apple stores around the world. Send pics of your Apple Store line to tips@9to5mac.com. Images below. With Apple’s iPad Air launch about to kick off on the morning of Nov....

A new discovery by iOS forensics company Elcomsoft has revealed that encrypted iOS backups via iTunes are much easier to crack with iOS 10 than in past years. The change in security is apparently due to a new password verification method in iOS 10. The discovery centers around the idea that the backup method used in iOS “skips certain security checks” that were present in past versions of iOS, thus allowing passwords to be attempted signficnatly faster than before....

Update 2/11: After passing $700 billion in market capitalization yesterday, Apple has been trading up as high as $124.43 a share raising market cap over $720 billion. Apple’s stock price closed up 2.3 points today to close at 122.02 giving the Cupertino company that was on the verge of bankruptcy less than 2 decades ago, the highest market cap of all time. The closing market cap of $710B reflects significant growth since it hit a recent low of a split-adjusted 56 in mid-2013....

Apple today has confirmed that it will acquire Intel’s smartphone modem business in a transaction valued at $1 billion. The deal is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2019 and is subject to regulatory approval. Through this acquisition, Apple will beef up its wireless technology patent portfolio to over 17,000 patents. Apple also says that approximately 2,200 Intel employees will join Apple, as will Intel’s equipment and leases that pertain to the smartphone modem business....

Yesterday, a report detailed how certain apps used session replay frameworks to monitor user interactions. Now, Apple is cracking down on that practice, saying apps must remove such code or face being kicked out of the App Store. According to TechCrunch, Apple is notifying developers that are using session replay frameworks that they must remove the code due to privacy concerns. In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said that protecting privacy is “paramount in the Apple ecosystem....