Apple today announced updates to its iPad line. There’s a new iPad mini and a new iPad Air, with a 10.5-inch screen. The iPad Air features a thinner design with a 10.5-inch display and the Apple A12 Bionic chip. The iPad mini keeps the same 7.9-inch screen, but gets the same A12 spec bump. Both the Air and the Mini are compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil. The iPad mini starts at $399 for the 64 GB model, and the Air starts at $499....

New iPad Pro The all-new iPad Pro has a thinner design with a new touch display the company calls “Liquid Retina” and includes support for Apple Pencil and Face ID. The smaller model comes with a larger display at 11” – the previous one was 10.5-inches. You can also go larger with a 12.9” display. Each iPad Pro contains a new A12X Bionic processor and 7-Core GPU and up to 1TB of storage space....

During Apple’s September event, the Tim Cook announced that all new iOS devices purchased after September 1st would be given the option to get iWork and most iLife apps for free. Some users who had purchased iOS devices after the first of the month, however, had already paid for those apps prior to the announcement, or paid for them after the announcement due to confusion about how to claim the free versions....

A couple weeks following the closing of Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics and the Beats Music streaming service, Apple has cut the price of all Beats by Dr. Dre products by 10% in both its physical retail stores and official online store… The 10% off discount will last through August 23rd, according to a source. Beats products, including over-ear headphones, in-ear headphones, and speakers are all covered by the deal, but those seeking those “Beats Pill Dude” speaker covers will still (fortunately) have to pay the full price of $49....

Earlier today, we reported that Apple was looking at a spot in North Carolina to expand its operations on the East Coast. However, now The Washington Post is reporting that Apple is also considering a spot in Northern Virginia. The company is reportedly looking for 4 million square feet of office space, and will be accommodating roughly 20,000 jobs. To put this into perspective, the space Apple is requesting is roughly two-thirds the size of the Pentagon....

Apple’s polarizing butterfly keyboard design is now causing the company some legal issues. A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple, alleging that the company knew about the reliability issues of the design before launch, yet released it anyway… As outlined by AppleInsider, the lawsuit was filed in the Northern District Court of California and includes both the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Pro. The lawsuit alleges that “thousands” of users have suffered from problems with the butterfly keyboard device that render it ultimately useless....

Apple’s music publishing head Elena Segal has confirmed what had already seemed very likely: that there will never be an Apple Music free tier. Segal made the statement at a British government hearing into the economics of music streaming, investigating whether artists are paid enough. Segal said there were two reasons that it wouldn’t be the right approach for Apple… Musically reports that Segal said it wouldn’t make sense economically, and Apple is fundamentally opposed to ad-supported services....

Apple News has started accepting questions for the upcoming Democratic debate in New Hampshire this week. As previously reported, Apple News is teaming up with ABC and WMUR-TV, a local ABC affiliate, for the debate — and part of that arrangement includes deep integration with Apple News. From the Apple News app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can submit a question you’d like to ask the candidates. The submission is done via email, with emails being sent to the ABC News Political Unit....

PatentlyApple spotted an interesting-looking patent that could have both editorial and advertising applications in podcasts and iTunes Radio broadcasts. It’s of course written in the usual dense patent language: Or, in plain English, a simple audio signal can be included in a podcast that can do various funky stuff. It could, for example, allow a spoken-word podcast to display photos to illustrate points being made, or include a link to an optional video which the user could activate with a spoken command....

Apple @ Work Podcast is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac. In the first episode of the Apple @ Work podcast, Bradley talks with Gregory Keller, Chief Strategy Officer at JumpCloud. They look at the history of how enterprise IT departments have managed identity through the various eras of enterprise IT, why BYOD was a bad idea, and what the future holds for identity management in a world where employees might bring in four devices each day....

Apple has officially announced plans to open its new Wuxi, China retail store on August 2nd, according to a listing on the company’s website. The new establishment, which will be the 12th official Apple retail store in the country, will be located in the Center 66 Mall (pictured above). However, there don’t seem to be any photos of Apple’s new space available just yet, as the company still undoubtedly has some work to do before it’s ready for the public eye....

If the probe does go ahead, Apple and Google are likely to be investigated by the Justice Department rather than the FTC … Reuters reports. Tech giants may even face two parallel investigations. The potential scope of any investigations is as yet unknown, but Apple has come under fire for alleged anticompetitive practices in respect of the App Store. It currently faces a formal antitrust investigation in Europe in connection with a complaint by Spotify, and a lawsuit in the US after a recent Supreme Court ruling....

Apple today announced that its retail store at the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall in Paris, France will close permanently on October 27th. The store’s imminent replacement was announced in September, but no definitive date was given at the time. In November, Apple will open a new global flagship store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, a historic hub for tourists and retail activity. Last month, Apple confirmed to French publication La Chaîne Info that alongside the store’s opening, some employees from Apple Carrousel du Louvre will be transitioned to the new store at a later date....

After opening the platform to a few thousand artists earlier this year, Apple is further expanding beta testing of its ‘Apple Music for Artists’ dashboard, the company announced via a tweet. Apple describe it as “everything you need to understand your music’s impact across Apple Music and iTunes.” While not particularly interesting for the end-user, it gives artists a way to view listening data, trends, hot tracks, and much more....

Apple has continued its focus on augmented reality this year, adding LiDAR scanners to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro lineups. In a new interview with CNET, Mike Rockwell, Apple’s head of AR, and Allessandra McGinnis, senior product manager for AR, reiterated Apple’s bullish opinion on AR. Rockwell emphasized that one of the ways Apple can help ensure the success of augmented reality is to make sure it’s available in the Apple device ecosystem....

Apple has filed a trademark for “iWatch” in Japan, according to a filing with the Japan Patent Office from early June. The filing, which was reportedly made publicly available last week, is in reference to an Apple “handheld computer” or “watch device.” Earlier this month, reports had claimed that Apple filed for an “iWatch” trademark in Russia, but the claims at the time seemed uncorroborated. Now, with Apple having filed the same trademark in Japan, perhaps the claims from Russia are accurate…...

Apple’s Campus iBike photo credited to Everaldo Coelho “Computers are like a bicycle for our minds”, Steve Jobs said in the early days (see the below clip). Believe it or not, the Cupertino company has literally come full circle since this famous quote. Apple took a page from Google’s environment-friendly book by offering its employees bicycles to commute across their vast Cupertino campus. MacMagazine.br writes: It’s a clever – and green – move on Apple’s part....

At WWDC this year, Apple announced a variety of new ways for developers to test StoreKit functionality in Xcode and iOS 14. In a new post on the Apple Developer website, Apple informs developers that the enhancements to sandbox testing are widely available. Apple explains that developers can test in-app purchases on devices using product details set up in App Store Connect. For instance, this includes things like upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations for subscriptions....

Good news, bad news in Japan, where Apple climbed from seventh to fifth place in Japan’s cellphone market for the first time, boosted by its well-received iPhone 4 in the July-September period, local reports claim. Apple took 12.2 percent of Japan’s cellphone sales, with Sharp leading the pack at just 18.8 percent, according to IDC. Apple achieved 1.06 million iPhone shipments in the quarter, a quarter during which Japan’s cellphone biz saw 8....

Apple may shift a larger portion of iPhone production to Pegatron, in order to comply with the iPhone sales ban injunction announced by a Chinese court on Monday. According to a report from Nikkei, iPhones assembled by Foxconn and Wistron are in infringement of Qualcomm patents … but Pegatron-produced iPhones are not (Qualcomm confirmed Pegatron is exempt). Pegatron has a patent licensing agreement in place with Qualcomm that covers the two patents at the center of the ban....