Yesterday we revealed that Apple was revamping the third-party accessory selection in its retail locations with new boxes designed by Apple itself. Apple has recently launched a new webpage that showcases the testing that all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch cases are required to go through before they are sold in an Apple Store. Apple first notes that it analyzes the design of the case to ensure that all ports and buttons are still easily accessible and that the case design is strong enough for day-to-day use....

Apple has updated its HomeKit accessory list with the latest information on which smart home devices will support the latest HomeKit features introduced alongside iOS 13.2, namely HomeKit Secure Video and HomeKit routers. The changes were first spotted by HomeKit Hero. Apple first announced its new HomeKit partnerships at WWDC, showing logos for Eufy, Logitech, and Netatmo camera manufacturers and router brands like Linksys, Eero, and Charter Spectrum. The exact models to be supported were not confirmed at the time....

Apple is holding a media event at 10 a.m. PST today to unveil the new iPad mini, iTunes 11, and new Macs. For those looking to tune in to the event (we are sure that’s all of you), Apple just confirmed that it would live stream today’s happenings to the Apple TV. 9to5mac readers have noticed a new “Apple Event” icon on the home screen of their Apple TVs that launches a player for when things go down in a few hours....

When Apple released the iPhone 12 line last September, the company was able to take some of Samsung’s market share in South Korea. Now, a report says the Android maker was able to take back some of its market share in its home country. According to a Counterpoint Research report [via ZDNet], Samsung controlled 67% of South Korea’s smartphone market in Q1 2021. This is a “3% increase from the 64% of the same time period of 2020 and a 9% jump from the previous quarter’s 58%....

Well, that’s the latest claim to emerge from TechCrunch, which reports that MobileMe user’s public iDisk file sharing pages can easily be used to determine a member’s email address…“There is no way as a user to hide or delete your public folder. If you are a MobileMe customer, you have one.” “Gathering the entire MobileMe username list, and therefore email list, via a simple dictionary attack is trivial,” the report explains....

Since March, the old Mac Pro has not been available to buy in Europe as changes in regulations meant that the old Mac Pro no longer complied with EU law. In particular, the large exposed fans of the Mac Pro were the main reason behind the ban — the amendment required fan guards and minor changes to electrical ports. With the design of the new Mac Pro, Apple once again complies with regulatory requirements....

Apple today updated its App Store Review Guidelines with some changes that will impact app developers. The company has clarified more details about the game streaming platforms, besides the use of the “Rosetta” brand in the description of the apps and the prohibition of apps that promote illicit substances. The updated App Store Review Guidelines were shared today by Apple on the Apple Developer portal. Apple reinforces that apps that promote the consumption of tobacco, vape, illegal drugs, or excessive alcohol are not allowed on the App Store, as well as apps that encourage minors to use these substances....

App Store Search Ads will start showing up on more iPhones and iPads from today as the inventory expands to Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. Search Ads allow developers to pay to promote their app above the organic results in the App Store. Each search can display only one sponsored result, which looks like a normal listing with the addition of a blue background and ‘Ad’ badge. Developers bid for search queries and Apple collects money from sponsored ads each time a user taps on one....

Apple has recently added the 27-inch iMac with Retina display, originally released in October 2014, to the refurbished section of its online store. Currently, the baseline 5K iMac with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Core i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, a 1 TB Fusion Drive, and an AMD Radeon R9 graphics processor will cost you $2,119 refurbished from Apple. That’s $380 – or 15%- off the price of a new model....

Apple is taking new measures within iOS to prevent aftermarket battery swaps for the iPhone. As detailed by iFixit, Apple has activated a “dormant software lock” in iOS that blocks features like Battery Health in Settings when an iPhone uses a battery that was not installed by Apple itself. Essentially, if your iPhone needs a new battery and you take it upon yourself to replace the battery, the Settings app will display a “Service” message that reads as follows:...

Following the announcement of the first M1-powered Macs earlier this week, a trio of Apple executives spoke with The Independent to talk about Apple Silicon. In the interview, marketing chief Greg Joswiak, software VP Craig Federighi, and hardware engineering VP John Ternus went in-depth on the new M1 chip, the future of the Mac, and more. Regarding the new M1 processor in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, Joswiak said that he “couldn’t believe it” when he saw its performance capabilities....

Apple’s Fortune 500 ranking is back at number three this year, after it overtook Warren Buffet’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. Apple does take the number one slot in two categories … Apple is the most profitable company in the listing, well ahead of second-ranked JPMorgan Chase and third-placed Google parent Alphabet. Similarly, in the tech sector Apple is almost twice the size of second-placed Alphabet, with Microsoft, Dell and IBM completing the top five tech giants....

As we reported would occur, Apple has just launched its annual Back to School promotion for students. The program launched in January for students in Australia, and today, the new program was opened up for students in the United States and several other nations across the world. Like we reported, the program offers students a $100 Mac App Store/iTunes Store/iBookstore gift card with purchase of a new Mac computer. $50 gift cards of the same kind are offered for iPad and iPhone (for the first time) purchases…...

Apple is hiring a video producer to work on original content for its new Apple Music streaming service. The position will see an experienced producer oversee the creation of all original video content for both iTunes and Apple Music and hints that Apple will be collaborating with artists on branded music videos. The job listing seems to confirm a recent report from Pitchfork that Apple is making original music videos in-house for select high-profile artists....

Apple Music has seen its first major internal change after Oliver Schusser was named the new head of the service last month with the creation of a new music publishing division. As reported by Music Business Worldwide, Apple has promoted Elena Segal from her role as Legal Director of iTunes International to be Apple Music’s Global Director of Music Publishing. It is believed that Segal will split her time between LA and London as she oversees four new sub-divisions of Apple Music’s music publishing: operations, commercial, publisher relations, and A&R....

Apple has named live video sharing app Periscope its App of the Year 2015, and Tomb Raider’s puzzle spin-off Lara Croft GO as its Game of the Year. iPhone automation app Workflow won Most Innovative app, while Instagram took home the prize for Best App on the iPhone 6s. In all, Apple picked 25 iPhone apps each for both general and games categories. It also shared the top 10 best-selling paid apps, most-downloaded free apps and top-grossing apps …...

Earlier in the year, a small-but-not-insignificant number of Apple customers complained about screen issues with their new Retina MacBooks and Retina MacBook Pros, specifically cases where the anti-reflective display coating leaves marks and stains on the screen, ranging from small corner blobs to large patches. Several months later, Apple seems to have acknowledged the issue and launched a Quality Program to replace affected users’ hardware. The Staingate Facebook page now includes many reports of people successfully sending their MacBooks in for repair at Apple Stores....

According to people familiar with its development and confirmed in screenshots shared by MacRumors, there will be a new “Items” tab in the Find My app which shows a user’s items, just like there are tabs for people and devices. Users can put their tags in lost mode. When a tag is in lost mode and the system detects it being carried by another person who owns an Apple product, their device will alert the person about the item, optionally showing a message from the owner and directing the person to contact them....

We’ve already described most of JMeter in part 1 and part 2, but let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far. We’ve seen that JMeter consists of the following elements: – Thread Group: A mandatory element that specifies the number of concurrent users that will use the target application. – Sampler: Sends requests to the server and waits for a response. – Logical Controller: Specifies when to send requests from samplers....

Apple has released an update to its professional photo-editing and management software, Aperture, that includes both bug fixes and some minor enhancements. These bug fixes cover stability and performance while the minor enhancements include a new gestures toggle, improved image cropping, photo uploading, and loading slideshows in the background. The full change log is pasted after the break. Improves reliability and performance when syncing web-published albums Slideshow exports are now handled as a background operation Crop tool now correctly supports use of gestures to define crop size Gesture support can now be enabled or disabled in Preferences Fixes an issue that could cause a blank sheet to display when placing a book or print order Published MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr albums now appear in a Web section in the Projects Inspector Shift-clicking snapshots on the Faces corkboard now allows you to make contiguous selections Metadata presets are now correctly applied to imported audio files Fixes an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly when trimming audio in full screen mode Resolves various issues when adding names to Faces using accented, Japanese, Korean or Simplified Chinese characters Improves stability when browsing video clips Addresses reliability of library repair and rebuild Update: Aperture goes full screen now with the native Lion full screen button....