Apple today announced a replacement program for the 3TB hard drive included in some 27-inch iMac models due to a concern that some of the components “may fail under certain conditions.” Apple doesn’t mention a specific product number, but notes that affected machines would have been sold between December 2012 and September 2013, which would apply to Apple’s late 2012 iMac model. Apple notes that it is contacting iMac owners that may be affected, but users can also manually submit a claim through the company’s webpage announcing the replacement program....

Apple today has joined the chorus of companies taking a firmer stand against white nationalists and hate groups. According to a new report from BuzzFeed, Apple has disabled Apple Pay support on a handful of websites selling goods pertaining to such groups… The report explains that Apple has dropped Apple Pay from websites selling items such as sweaters with Nazi logos, t-shirts emblazoned with “White Pride,” and a bumper sticker depicting a car crashing into a crowd of protestors....

Update: Business Insider reports that the decision has been further delayed. The planning body An Bord Pleanála has said that it won’t be able to reach a decision now until 11th August as it needs more time to consider the impact of the infrastructure needed to support the data center. Apple has responded to environmental objections to its planned $950M data center, arguing that the proposed development is necessary, would meet projected demand for the next 10-15 years, and would pose no risk to the local environment....

Last week, Apple officially scheduled its latest special event for October 30th. The event will be live streamed as usual, and today Apple has updated its official Apple Events app in preparation for that stream. With the app, you’ll be able to tune in live directly from your Apple TV. With today’s update, the Apple Events app for Apple TV features interface tweaks that highlight the colorful theme of next week’s event....

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNPOMRgcnHY&feature=player_embedded] As noted by MacRumors, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed today that Liquidmetal Technologies will continue to license its technology to Apple through Feb. 5, 2014. The previous deal from 2010 gave Apple rights to the patented amorphous metal alloys through Feb. 5 2012. As of yet, we only know Apple has tested Liquidmetal in its iPhone SIM card ejector tools, but we recently heard CEO Thomas Steipp (above) hinting that Apple plans to commercialize the technology....

After noting my past three reports regarding Apple’s work on a sensor-packed iWatch, along with reports noting Apple hires from both the fitness and medical industries, MobiHealthNews reported that it received a tip that Apple has also hired Dr. Michael O’Reilly. According to his LinkedIn profile, O’Reilly served as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer for nearly five years at a company called Masimo. A video of a product that company created is below:...

Apple is promoting the iPhone X’s Portrait Lighting photography features in its latest 30+ second ad spot released today. The clip includes examples of each Portrait Mode lighting effect in action with tons of examples of Portrait Mode shots from the iPhone X. Portrait Mode uses depth to create a blurred background effect on shots without requiring big lenses, and the newly added Portrait Mode lighting effects are exclusive to the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X....

Apple released the beta of iOS 5.0.1 to developers. It fixes the battery drain iOS users have reported. The response from developers using it has been largely positive too, with reports claiming it does have noticeably better battery life. On Wednesday Apple said that “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks....

Four members of Congress have accused Apple of being “a pawn in China’s malfeasance” in putting the privacy of customer data at risk in the country. They have urged Apple to reassess its business practices in the country, and its relationship with the Chinese government … An open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook (shown in full below) was signed by Republican House Representatives Ken Buck, Scott Fitzgerald, Burgess Owens, and Dan Bishop....

Apple today updated its website listing supported CarPlay vehicles to note that the feature is now available in over 200 models, up from the 150 vehicles the site previously listed. While noting the 200 vehicle milestone, Apple has added 50 new models to its list of supported vehicles, including a number of upcoming 2017 models… Among the 50 new models added to the list of supported vehicles today are new and upcoming offerings from Audi, Honda, Maserati, Kia, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Volkswagen....

Customers receiving their Apple Watches today are being offered online personal setup appointments in emails being sent out by Apple. We first reported last month that these at-home personal setup experiences would be offered. Apple was not initially expected to offer personal setup for the Sport model, but now appears to be offering the experience for all models … My email arrived in the early hours. Appointments were available beginning this morning, with further slots available up to May 7th....

Apple has quietly opened a new repair program for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus devices that experience problems powering on. Affected devices that are eligible for the program will be repaired free of charge. First reported by Bloomberg, Apple opened the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus repair program today and said that the inability to power on the affected iPhones is due to a “component that may fail.” The repair program “covers affected iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus devices for 2 years after the first retail sale of the unit” which means owners will be covered until August of 2021, depending on their purchase date....

Earlier this month, we reported on what fans of The Office had originally believed to be a spin-off revival, noting that it actually looked like something involving Apple. Today, that project has officially been released in the form of an ad for Apple subsidiary FileMaker… The ad stars actors Kate Flannery, Leslie David Baker and Paul Lieberstein who all had key roles in The Office. It somewhat follows the format of the failed spin-off of The Office, called The Farm....

SystemKernelDebuggerInformation The SystemKernelDebuggerInformation function can be used to determine if a kernel debugger is currently being attached to the system. We can retrieve specified system information with functions like NtQuerySystemInformation or ZwQuerySystemInformation. Let’s take a look at the NtQuerySystemInformation function first; the syntax of which is as follows: [plain] NTSTATUS WINAPI NtQuerySystemInformation( In SYSTEM_INFORMATION_CLASS SystemInformationClass, Inout PVOID SystemInformation, In ULONG SystemInformationLength, Out_opt PULONG ReturnLength ); [/plain] We need to pass four parameters to the function:...

AP had announced the Mobile News Network at its annual meeting April 14 in Washington. AP’s president and chief executive, Tom Curley, said then that six newspaper companies were working to help develop the new service. Paul Caluori, director of client content services for AP, said the service now has 107 newspapers participating, up from 18 at the time of the announcement. The papers include The Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and the St....

One of the free-to-play first-person shooter BR games is Apex Legends. The game has been developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts in 2019. It’s available for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and has been rated so good in terms of the innovative characters with powerful abilities. Meanwhile, some of the Apex Legends players are experiencing the Can’t Ready Up issue which is so irritating and here we have got a couple of fixes as well....

Apple has added the iOS Human Interface Guidelines for App Store app designers to the iBookstore. Previously, the guidelines were solely available from the online Apple developer portal, and the addition to the iBookstore makes the guidelines for designing iOS 7 apps more easily accessible. Federico Viticci notes at MacStories that the book is properly optimized for viewing on the iPad: The book can be downloaded for free on iOS or OS X....

In an operational sense, today won’t be any different than yesterday at Apple. The people who help curate the sjobs@apple.com email address will probably be putting in some extra hours, the work changing around the placards is probably almost done, and it appears Apple isn’t going to be doing any sort of media tours to ‘help allay investor fears’. And they don’t need to. Nothing has really changed. I imagine bigger changes were slowly happening behind the scenes a few months ago when Operations VP (incidentally, Tim Cook’s original title) Jeff Williams was promoted to the Executive Bios page....

Coming with the highly anticipated new iMac announced today, Apple has launched a redesigned Magic Keyboard with Touch ID as well as a new Magic Mouse and Trackpad. Although we’ve gotten a few new color variants alongside the iMac Pro and Mac Pro, the Magic Keyboard has remained mostly untouched for years with a slim wedge design, Lightning port, and scissor switch keys. Along with Apple officially announcing the all-new iMac at its Spring Loaded event today, the company unveiled an all-new Magic Keyboard with new colors, Touch ID, and even new keys for emoji, Spotlight, Do Not Disturb, and locking your Mac....

In the middle of March, a slew of lawsuits were filed against Apple claiming the Cupertino, Calif.-based Company misadvertised Siri, which is the company’s intelligent personal assistant software announced on the iPhone 4S in October of last year. The lawsuits said Apple used its commercials to convey a “misleading and deceptive message” about Siri. However, in typical fashion, Apple firmly disagreed. Apple is working to get the class-action lawsuit dismissed from a California court by claiming customers could return the iPhone within 30 days of purchase if they are unhappy with Siri....