Update (July 2nd): Yep. Runs until September 6th. $100 card with Macs, $50 with iPad/iPhone. Apple will likely begin its annual Back to School promotion this week (perhaps as soon as tomorrow), according to Apple retail sources. The promotion will give eligible students an iTunes/App Store gift card with the purchase of a Mac, iPad, and for the first time, an iPhone. The gift cards that come with Mac purchases will be worth 100$ while the cards accompanying the iOS Devices will be worth $50…...

As the fight for the right to repair your own devices continues, Apple is having some trouble cracking down on third-party repair shops that are using counterfeit parts. According to Motherboard, Apple last year sent lawyers after Henrik Huseby, the owner of an electronics repair shop in Norway, demanding the shop stop using aftermarket iPhone screens to repair iPhones. At the time, Apple was simply asking for a settlement. Norway customs officials stopped 64 iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s display replacement shipments from delivering to Henrik’s shop from Asia, noting that these screens were counterfeit....

I’m not expecting here to replicate my rather extensive Apple Watch diary series – I doubt this one will run to four pieces. I’m also not starting out here as an Apple Music skeptic. I’ve been using Spotify for years, and – from a brief trial of Beats Music – started out pretty confident I would be jumping ship once Apple Music launched. But I do think Apple Music has one thing in common with the Watch: I don’t think it’s possible to judge it without a reasonable amount of usage....

Apple has been betting big on exclusive content when it comes to growing Apple Music and a new report from Rolling Stone details just how far the company is willing to go in partnering with labels and artists. In the report, Apple’s head of original music content Larry Jackson expressed the reasoning behind Apple’s motivation and how it goes about working with labels. Jackson explained that much of his inspiration comes from his previous gig working with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope Records....

Since first launching its new Apple Music subscription streaming service for users last June, and bringing it to China in September, Apple has been slowly bringing it to more countries behind the scenes. Today, Turkey is the latest to get access as the service quietly launches for users in the country. Local blog macReports got word from Apple about the official launch and the company’s local website in the country is also now advertising the service....

Apple appears to be aiming to tempt Android and Windows users to try out its iWork apps, making Pages, Numbers and Keynote for iCloud available to anyone, with no requirement to own an Apple device. A new banner promoting the offer was last night added to the iCloud beta site, beta.icloud.com … The ability to use iWork for iCloud apps is of course of no use without storage space, so accounts created in this way get 1GB of free iCloud storage....

A new study from UK consumer advocacy group “Which?” this weekend claims that Apple overstates the battery life of several iPhone models. According to the report, the iPhone XR’s real-world performance offers the biggest discrepancy compared to Apple’s claims in relation to talk time. The group says that it tested nine different iPhone models and found that all of them fell short of Apple’s claims by between 18 percent and 51 percent....

Last year was infamously rough for Warner Bros’ burgeoning DC Comics Extended Universe. Both Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were the subject of heavily mixed reviews, earning 27 percent and 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. And while they seemed to have come out ahead in the box office, many audience members left theaters disappointed. With a heavy lineup for 2017 and 2018, fans are still hanging on to hope that Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Aquaman will redeem the franchise....

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqTwYa46OKE] Tonight, Apple has aired two new television commercials for both the full-sized iPad and iPad mini. The new ad showcases reading with iBooks, collaborative gaming, and several apps from the App Store. Above is the “Alive” ad and after the break is “Together:” [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRaNXmsqcM] https://twitter.com/iHKDesign/status/303361408849039360 The ads appear to be of a much different style compared to Apple’s previous iPad and iPad mini commercials. Thanks, Matt, Tyler, and Doug!...

During the highs of BatteryGate, Apple reduced official battery repairs to $29 each through 2018, down from $79. Apple has now updated the page with details of what will happen from January 1st, 2019. The prices are going back up, but not quite to the level that they were. Battery repairs for iPhone X, iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs will cost $69. Repairs for all older iPhones will cost $49....

After being unveiled in late-October, Apple has officially announced that the 21.5-inch iMac will become available this Friday, Nov. 30. The latest iMac is the eighth generation and “is the most beautiful iMac we have ever made,” according to Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller. It features a 5mm edge, edge-to-edge glass, LED-backlit display with IPS technology, a FaceTime HD camera, dual mics, four USB 3 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, OS X Mountain Lion, Bluetooth 4....

Apple has asked the US Supreme Court to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit which accuses Apple of monopolizing the app market so that it can charge excessive commissions … The lawsuit dates back to 2011, where it was first filed in a California federal court by Robert Pepper and other iPhone buyers. It alleges that because iOS apps can only be sold through the App Store, Apple has created a monopoly and is able to use that power to charge excessive commissions....

Update: The acquisition by Softbank was completed on 5th September, for £24M ($32M). TechCrunch notes that ARM is being delisted from the London Stock Exchange today, and will be run as a standalone business within Softbank. The sale is not expected to have any impact on Apple, which licences ARM technology for the A-series chips it uses in iOS devices. ARM, the British chip designer responsible behind the A-series processors used in Apple’s iOS devices, looks set to be bought by Japanese telecoms company Softbank....

Update: Apple’s iCloud status page said all services were back online as of 11:32 a.m. PST. As noted by several 9to5mac readers and users on Twitter, iCloud users have experienced varying outages since early yesterday. As of 11:17 a.m. PST today, Apple’s iCloud support system status page confirmed: “Users may be unable to use iCloud Documents, Photo Stream or Backup & Restore. Users may also be unable to send or download attachments in iMessage....

Last year, Apple customers were the number one target for phishing attempts, scammers sending emails with links to fake Apple websites in an attempt to get their hands on Apple ID credentials. Security company Check Point said that’s changed this year, and Apple is now only 7th on the list … ‘Brand phishing’ involves the attacker imitating an official website of a known brand by using a similar domain or URL, and usually a web page similar to the original website....

Another Apple event day has come to a close. This time, Apple took over Brooklyn in New York to unveil a brand new MacBook Air, an updated Mac mini, and new iPad Pros. Read on for our full Apple event recap. MacBook Air Apple kicked things off by unveiling its new Retina MacBook Air. This new machine features a Retina display, which Apple says packs 4 million pixels. The bezels have also been redesigned, with Apple removing the classic silver matte bezels of the MacBook Air and replacing them with glossy black bezels....

December has been a big month for Apple’s health efforts as its long-awaited ECG (electrocardiogram) app for Apple Watch Series 4 recently landed. Now a new CNBC report looks at how serious Apple is taking its health focus moving forward. It now has as many as 50 doctors on staff across a variety of teams and projects to help users do more than just track exercise and fitness. Apple has been ramping up its staff with medical professionals since before the original Apple Watch launched in 2015....

One of the most common complaints about Apple’s recent MacBook Pro lineup has been the lack of MagSafe. Apple’s magnetic charging solution was a staple of MacBooks for many years, but the company did away with it with the switch to USB-C. Now, however, a patent hints that Apple is working on a way to integrate MagSafe with USB-C. First noted by Mashable, Apple has been submitted a patent application for a mechanism that would act as a MagSafe-to-USB-C adapter of sorts....

Apple Fitness+ will officially debut later today after being announced back in September. Ahead of the launch, a handful of early reviews are now available, and they widely praise the integration with Apple Watch, the variety of the workouts, and more. Plus, some details on just how well Apple Fitness+ is able to compete with Peloton. CNET says that the motivating factor is how the Apple Watch metrics appear on your screen during workouts:...

In a memo to staff first seen by Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the latest deferral was due to “rising cases in many parts of the world and the emergence of a new strain of the virus,” and urged employees to get vaccinations and booster shots. The date that staff will be required to return to physical workspaces is “yet to be determined,” Cook added. According to the letter seen by The Verge, Apple is also giving all employees a bonus of $1,000, which they have been encouraged to put towards home-working equipment....