Along with the new iPhone 4S this afternoon, Apple has announced a new program called AppleCare+ that covers the iPhone for up-to two accidents. The new program costs $99, and on top of accident coverage you get the AppleCare usuals, like phone support and Genius Bar appointments. Don’t think you’ll be getting off that easy, as each accident will be an additional $49. AppleCare+ is available October 14th, the same day as the iPhone 4S....

According to a new report from The New York Times, Apple has hired Google’s chief of search and artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea. Tim Cook made the announcement in an email to employees, noting that Giannandrea will officially be the head of “machine learning and A.I. strategy.” Giannandrea will report directly to Tim Cook. He originally joined Google after the company acquired a startup called Metaweb, where he served as chief technology officer....

With the introduction of Apple’s new lower-cost iPhone 5c starting at $99 and its new iPhone 5s, Apple announced today that it would continue selling the iPhone 4S for $0 on contract. While the iPhone 5c is expected to be a big hit in emerging markets, it appears that Apple will also continue to sell the iPhone 4 in China. As of right now the company is continuing to offer the device on its Chinese website, although Apple has not made an official announcement regarding continued availability of the iPhone 4....

Apple is creating in Chongqing, China, what appears to be a smaller version of its iconic glass cylinder Apple Store in Shanghai. ifo Apple Store shared a series of photos as the wraps came off what is set to be Apple’s third retail store in the Chongqing region, which has a total population of more than 28 million people. The first Apple Store in Chongqing opened in July of last year, and a second one is under construction....

After first launching its new Machine Learning Journal for Apple engineers to share with the community, today the Siri team has shared three new blog posts based on research being presented at Interspeech 2017 in Stockholm this week. One blog post titled “Deep Learning for Siri’s Voice: On-device Deep Mixture Density Networks for Hybrid Unit Selection Synthesis” details the evolution of Siri’s voice right up to iOS 11 and the process Apple uses for speech synthesis....

Tim Cook and other Apple executives have been chatty about the company’s interest in virtual and augmented reality in past months. There have been several reports that Apple is exploring an AR smart glasses product internally. To add some fuel to the fire, Apple has recently hired prominent Final Cut Pro plugin developer Tim Dashwood, most well known for making 360VR Toolbox, which helped creatives make virtual reality videos …...

Apple has hired former Google distinguished scientist Samy Bengio, according to a new report from Reuters. Bengio led Google’s artificial intelligence ethics group up until last month, when he departed amid a broader shakeup on the team. Today’s report says Bengio will lead a new AI research unit at Apple under John Giannandrea: The backstory to Bengio’s departure from Google was detailed in a report from Bloomberg last month. Bengio managed “hundreds of researchers” in the Google Brain team, but his role was reduced following a reorganization of the research unit....

First mentioned last February, Apple is finally opening their largest Florida-based retail store in the growing Downtown Miami area. Alongside its March 25th unveiling, Apple is also inviting customers to their Nanjing Jinmao and Schildergasse location openings. All three of the new store pages include invitations for their respective grand openings at 10 AM on March 25th. While not yet listed on the Brickell City Centre’s shop directory, the new Miami store’s page is on Apple’s website and is set to be the largest in the state....

Simple. Apple is releasing its own music streaming service. The company announced today Apple Music, which as it smirked, is three things: a streaming music service, a worldwide live radio station, and a new way for music fans to connect with their favorite artists Beats 1 is Apple’s first 24 x 7 global radio station. It plays music “not based on research, not based on genre, not based on drumbeats, just music that is great and feels great....

I argued yesterday that Apple’s antitrust battles aren’t going to go away and that the company needs to be willing to take positive steps to make things fairer. A report today says that the company is progressing plans to do exactly that, in South Korea. It will, though, need to satisfy the competition watchdog there that its proposed remedies go far enough … Background The origins of the case date all the way back to 2016 when Apple was accused of using its dominant position to force local carriers to agree to unfair terms, in exchange for being allowed to sell iPhones....

The above chart, so-called “tree view”, renders the primary mobile phone brands in terms of operating profits, excluding loss-making vendors. Yeah, the large orange rectangle is Apple. You can also see that Apple, Research In Motion and HTC combined generated three quarters of total profits during the first quarter of 2011. Yup, just three vendors controlling 75 percent of handset profits. Even more astounding, the achievement is based on just 16 percent of the volumes for the smartphone vendors....

Apple has just announced its Back to School deals for 2017. This year, students at the Apple Store can get a pair of Beats Solo3 headphones, Powerbeats3 or BeatsX bundled with Macs and iPad Pro purchases. This is in addition to the usual Apple Store education discount. The company will bundle Beats Solo3 headphones when buying a MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac or Mac Pro. A free pair of BeatsX comes with a purchase of a 10....

Apple still relies on third-party retailers to sell its products in India, and the company is adding a second online retail partner to help ahead of India’s iPhone 7 launch next month. While the iPhone 7 goes on sale in 30 additional countries around the world today, India is set to kick off iPhone 7 sales on October 7. BGR India reports that Flipkart is Apple’s second online retail partner in the country, joining Infibeam:...

As noted by The 8-Bit, WebM video compatibility has been added to Safari with macOS Big Sur 11.3 beta 2. For those unfamiliar with the format, WebM is a royalty-free video codec created by Google in 2010 — similar to the WebP image format, also developed by Google. Although nearly all current web browsers support WebP video, Apple has never added WebP support to Safari. Back in 2010, Steve Jobs argued that the WebM format was “a mess” and that Apple had no plans to adopt the codec....

Apple has announced that is leading a $50 million investment round in company UnitedMasters, a firm that aims to help independent artists establish careers in the music business. This includes keeping rights to their actual recording masters, as well as enable individuals to easily sell tickets, merchandise and similar efforts. Presumably, the ‘strategic partnership’ will lead to new integrations with Apple Music eventually, although UnitedMasters supports publishing to many platforms including Spotify, TikTok and such....

Apple issued a press release on Wednesday to announce the iTunes Store hit a new record with 25 billion songs sold. Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue noted Apple averaged 15,000 songs downloaded per minute, while the iTunes Store is now home to 26 million songs in 119 countries. Apple also gave away a €10,000 iTunes Gift Card to iTunes user Phillip Lüpke from Germany for downloading the 25 billionth song, “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch....

A report today claims that the Apple AR headset launch won’t be taking place until 2022 — some two years later than has previously been suggested. The information was reportedly announced to team members at an internal presentation in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. The report suggests the Cupertino company plans a two-stage launch for the product that has been colloquially referenced as Apple Glasses. Updated with more details below …...

Apple Card approvals levels are unusually high, according to a new report today, with some sub-prime borrowers having their applications accepted. The report also says that Apple first considered launching its own credit card in the 1990s, but Steve Jobs was concerned about rejecting Apple customers… CNBC cites both unnamed sources involved in the project, as well as customer reports. The piece says that while there is no official definition of sub-prime, a credit score of less than 670 would typically be one indication....

During WWDC last year, Apple introduced a brand new set of configurable symbols and a companion macOS app called SF Symbols. Following that introduction, Apple has released SF Symbols 2 in conjunction with WWDC 2020 with over 750 new symbols and more. The configurable symbols included in the SF Symbols app are designed to integrate with Apple’s system font, San Francisco. The symbols can be used across iOS 14, watchOS 7, macOS Big Sur, and tvOS 14....

Apple today has announced a new benefit that is meant to help new parents transition back to work after their time off. As reported by Fast Company, Apple is giving new parents a “four-week grace period” when they return from leave. Under the policy and during the four-week grace period, the new parents will be paid like full-time employees, but will have the flexibility to work part-time and set their own hours....