Apple stock ($AAPL) crossed yet another momentous milestone for its financials, hitting $700 billion market capitalization as the stock ticked over $119.65. At a pre-split price, this tallies $837.13. The stock last peaked in late 2012, when it topped out in the mid $650’s. That’s a $50 billion increase from two weeks ago. Through 2013, the price tumbled over investor doubts about new product categories and Cook’s leadership. In recent months, though, $AAPL stock has returned and surpassed its 2012 highs....

The last we heard in the case of Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission taking Apple to court over the “4G” branding of the new iPad was a meeting earlier this week that ended without resolution. Apple offered users a refund for the third-gen 4G iPad and changed some of its “4G LTE” advertising on its Australian website following complaints the device did not operate on frequencies used by 4G networks in the country....

Via the Wall Street Journal, an Apple spokesperson fleshes out some of the finer details surrounding the fingerprint sensor and Touch ID. To use Touch ID, it is mandatory to also set up a passcode. This acts as a fallback in case the fingerprint sensor fails temporarily or experiences a permanent hardware fault. iOS may necessitate a passcode under some other conditions, as well. By having the sensitive data expire fairly quickly, Apple is hoping that hackers will not have enough time to decrypt the data and have it still be useful....

Along with the launch of the new iPad Air and iPad mini today, Apple has updated a few of its accessories including the Smart Cover and iPad Pro Smart Folio. The Smart Cover for the 10.5-inch iPad Air (3rd-generation) is available in four colors including charcoal gray, white, pink sand, and a new option: papaya. It runs $49. The Leather Smart Cover for iPad Air is back at $69 in four colors: midnight blue, saddle brown, black, and red....

Update: The Apple News service appears to be fully operational once again. Original story below unchanged. Many users are unable to use the Apple News app this morning. Rather than seeing a feed of today’s stories, upon opening the app, users are presented with an error message stating that the feed is unavailable. If you dismiss the dialog, other areas of the News app appear still to be up. So you can browse the News+ catalog or find individual channels, but the main Today news feed is not loading....

Apple announced on Mac OS Forge today that they have open sourced their Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). ALAC was introduced in 2004 as OS X’s core audio codec to compress audio files 40-60 percent without losing any quality. The codec is currently supported by Macs and the latest iOS devices. ALAC was reversed engineered in 2005, but more and more applications could begin to adapt the codec now that it’s open sourced....

The Apex Legends cheating issues that have been plaguing the game since launch are finally beginning to dissipate, according to a report from developer Respawn Entertainment. Previously, Apex Legends had been struggling to preserve the integrity of its competitive matches, with blatant cheating occurring on a frequent basis and causing legitimate players to become increasingly frustrated by its presence. Apex Legends has been quietly slinking back from the spotlight ever since its torrid release saw it on pace to outgrow Fortnite by virtually every metric, with many players departing after the cheating issues or an otherwise stagnant meta....

Apple has made yet another acquisition in the artificial intelligence industry. Bloomberg reports that Apple has acquired the Barcelona-based startup Vilynx Inc in a deal completed for around $50 million. Apple confirmed the acquisition with its standard statement when it makes such deals. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” it said in a statement to Bloomberg. The deal is said to have been made earlier this year....

Apple closed its acquisition of Shazam towards the end of 2018, but it was still early to have an impact on Shazam’s financials. As detailed by Billboard, Shazam increase its user base and became profitable during 2018. In financial results submitted to the U.K. Companies House this week, Shazam revealed that its user base reached 478 million users in 2018, up from 400 million users during 2017. Revenue for Shazam was down from $44....

Deploying and managing iPads and iPhones today is drastically different than how it was a few years ago. Today, it’s a known process. You enroll the devices into Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, get them enrolled into your mobile device management system, and then you can go from ordering the device directly from Apple straight to handing them out still shrink wrapped. Jamf calls this a zero touch deployment....

Apple today has expanded its popular Apple Maps Flyover feature to a pair of new cities, while it has also rolled out Spotlight Suggestions to new countries and its traffic data to a single new location. Last month, the company expanded Maps Nearby, Flyover, and traffic data to a handful of new locations, following a more significant Flyover expansion that occurred in February of this year. For Flyover, the iOS 9 feature is now available in Akron, Ohio and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico....

Just as one judge dismissed a class action case again Apple yesterday, today Siliconbeat reports that Apple will face a new class action case claiming iOS 8 takes up too much of the iPhone’s overall storage capacity. The case was filed in a Bay Area federal court this week and claims that iOS 8 can take up as much as 23.1 percent of an iOS device’s storage depending on the model:...

Apple has announced a special December 2nd event in NYC to highlight its favorite apps and games of 2019. Interesting enough, this is a live event and it’s unclear if Apple has anything to announce besides app and game awards for developers. Invites went out this afternoon for the surprise event that will be held in just two weeks in NYC. Curiously, it appears the event will just be to highlight Apple’s top app and game picks from 2019....

Apple Music notifications have never necessarily been a reliable source for new music releases. But Apple is now rolling out a new change that aims to bring notifications in-app. Read on as we explain what that means and how to enable it. As you can see in the above image, the new releases notification will appear at the top of the “Library” tab in the Music app. So when an artist you have in your Apple Music Library releases a new song or album, you’ll see a notification banner at the top of the Library interface....

Apple today released watchOS 7.3.1 for the Apple Watch Series 5 and Apple Watch SE. The release notes indicated that the update includes a fix to prevent a bug that caused those Apple Watch models to get stuck in Power Reserve Mode. Apple has published a new support document to complement watchOS 7.3.1 with additional details on this bug. For those unfamiliar, Power Reserve lets you see the time on your Apple Watch while preserving your battery life....

Beginning later this week, Verizon and Apple are partnering on a new promotion for Apple News+. Any iPad activated through Verizon will qualify for a free six-month subscription to Apple News+. The deal arrives as Apple is trying to juice interest in the News+ service, which includes access to a handful of newspapers and ~300 magazines for $9.99 per month. The six-month free period will be available for any Apple ID that has not used News+ before....

The case against Apple and CBS was filed by a firm called Man and Machine. It alleges Apple began selling its Mighty Mouse over one year after Man and Machine began selling waterproof and chemical resistant mice under the same name to labs and hospitals in 2004. The company claims its earlier use trumps Apple’s. Apple licensed use of the Mighty Mouse brand from CBS, the network which owns the animated television show featuring a superhero mouse of the same name....

Without giving away official download numbers or stats (or ever featuring the app), Apple has officially shared that Pokémon Go has broken the record for the highest number of downloads during launch week on the App Store. The popular iOS app has ranked #1 on both the Free and Top Grossing Top Charts in the App Store since its launch earlier this month. The Loop shared this: Pokémon Go’s phenomenal debut and App Store accomplishment occurs despite only being available in select countries (which has helped with both scaling server load and adding novelty)...

It’s official: Apple will hold its next big event on September 12 at Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. Apple issued media invites with the tagline ‘Gather round’ as a teaser today. While three new flagship iPhones and a redesigned Apple Watch are expected to be the star of the show, there are a lot of other products in the pipeline that could make an appearance at the big event. iPhone X(s) Apple is expected to unveil three new iPhones — each with the iPhone X design including Face ID and no bezels....

During a special event earlier today, Apple announced Apple Arcade, a new premium subscription game service for iOS devices that will bring gamers a curated lineup of the premium app store titles for a monthly fee. The service will include games from developers like Konami, Mistwalker, and Sega. Apple Arcade is the latest initiative from a major tech company that hinges on the idea of games as a service. Google recently announced Stadia, a game streaming platform, that would do away with traditional console setups in favor of a setup run directly out of Google’s servers and playable on anything that can use Chrome....