In an email blast sent out this evening, Apple has began notifying early Apple Watch pre-order customers of their order progress with a vague message that reads “we’re working on your order.” The email appears to only be sent to pre-order customers with first wave April 24th to May 8th delivery dates that have not yet been charged and have orders still processing, suggesting recipients should not expect launch day deliveries....

Apple is taking “a massive bite” out of US retail sales, USA Today reports, citing findings by retail sales expert David Berman. Snowballing sales of iOS gadgets and Mac sales that continue to outpace other computer makers coupled with Apple’s margins that are the envy of the industry didn’t go unnoticed. The publication noted: It certainly helps that Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores are attracting the ever-growing number of visitors who purchase products directly from Apple, putting more money into the company’s pockets because the company doesn’t have to share a mark up with third-parties....

Apple is making its new Shortcuts app in iOS 12 available for developer testing ahead of release through TestFlight. Shortcuts is based on Apple’s acquisition of Workflow and be available in the App Store when iOS 12 is released later this fall. Siri Shortcuts and the new Shortcuts app were announced as part of iOS 12 last month at WWDC, but the Shortcuts app hasn’t been available to test before today....

EA unveiled how the company plans to keep Apex Legends’ growth strong, announcing that the game will be coming to mobile devices during its latest quarterly earnings call. Apex Legends is developed by Respawn Entertainment, the developer most famous for the Titanfall series, and has quickly become one of the hottest properties in gaming on the back of one of the most successful launch periods ever experienced by a video game....

Update: Bloomberg has updated its story to say that Disney and Apple are actually NOT in talks to bring the WatchESPN service to the Apple TV. According to a report from Bloomberg, which cites ESPN executive Sean Bratches, Apple is currently in talks with Walt Disney’s ESPN network to bring the WatchESPN app, currently available for iPhone and iPad and recently opened up to Comcast customers, to Apple TV: “We’re not having conversations with Apple about authenticating WatchESPN,” Phillips said....

Apple has just announced iCloud Drive, a central location for all iCloud documents, whether attached to an app sandbox or not. This is very similar to Dropbox. Files can be viewed and sync between Mac, iOS and even Windows. An iOS document picker will enable you to access these files from within iOS apps, seamlessly. This should allow much better project management, which spans multiple filetypes and applications. Documents appear in the Finder, with folders representing app sandbox’s as well as a freeform area to drop any other documents that users want to sync between their devices....

Following the Department of Justice’s proposed settlements for the iBooks court case, Apple has submitted a response to the court that clearly shows the company is in no way interested in the suggested changes. The 31 page document is summarized quite well by the initial introduction: Here is the response in its entirety (via TNW): Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction is a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business, wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm....

Apple and the City of Chicago came together to celebrate the “Everyone Can Code” program at Apple’s Michigan Avenue location this week. As highlighted in tweets by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Tim Cook, a special “Today at Apple” session where students of the program showcased their app creations… The Today at Apple session was entitled “One Summer Chicago Student App Showcase.” During the session, students who participated in the One Summer Chicago program were given the opportunity to present their Swift app creations on Apple’s in-store display to a crowd of viewers....

Apple has announced in an email to podcasters today that it is delaying the launch of Apple Podcasts Subscriptions. The company had originally said this new platform for paid podcasts would launch in May, but it’s now delaying the rollout to allow it to make further tweaks to the Apple Podcasts application. Apple also acknowledges problems that creators have faced using Apple Podcasts Connect. As we first reported last month, the Apple Podcasts Directory has faced a variety of issues since April....

As part of its ever-expanding original video efforts, Apple has hired a former Broadway Video executive. As reported by Variety, Kelly Costello is joining Apple as a business affairs executive, reporting to the company’s head of business affairs for worldwide video, Philip Matthys… Prior to joining Apple, Costello was executive vice president of business and legal affairs for Broadway Video, the company founded by Lorne Michaels. In that role, she helped ink deals and agreements for content such as Portlandia and Documentary Now....

On the heels of reports highlighting specific content efforts, Apple has hired four more veteran television executives to join its video teams. According to Variety, Apple has snatched up a trio of Sony veterans, as well as a former WGN executive… From Sony Pictures Television, Apple has hired Kim Rozenfield, the former head of current programming at the company. At Apple, he will be the lead executive on “documentary series development....

We told you yesterday that Apple is planning to bring Siri integration to early builds of OS X 10.9, but today a-n-v.be points us to a recent Apple job listing that indicated Apple is working to bring Siri to a handful of new languages. The job listing, originally posted to Apple’s website on Nov. 13, offers a 6-month internship to candidates native or fluent in several languages, some of which Apple does not currently offer support for in Siri....

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has begun its search for executive Ron Johnson’s replacement by looking internationally. Johnson, who is currently Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail, will be leaving the company on November 1st after his announcement in mid-June that he will become the CEO of JC Penney. Although Apple has retail talent within the company, namely VP of Retail Jerry McDougal, the company is looking abroad for Johnson’s replacement....

If you’ve been wondering just how important Apple is within the consumer electronics industry, then you don’t need to look too much further than this latest Digitimes report, where I’d urge you to read between the lines. The report tells us that revenues among Apple’s touch panel suppliers are expected to continue to grow in Q4. This may be childishly self-evident to most of us, but you need to consider a second strand of data in the report....

Apple has sent out emails today to Apple News Publishers letting them know that they can now use HTML text formatting to more easily translate their web content into the Apple News Format. Instead of having to rely on Markdown formatting or other formatting types, the HTML support should make it easier for plugin developers and publishers to get their content onto Apple News even faster. Apple provided a list of newly supported HTML markup and tags in the email, and can be seen after the jump....

In this episode of the Apple @ Work podcast, Bradley is joined by Scott Reed and Greg Keller from JumpCloud to discuss why they chose to launch an MDM in 2020, and how device management intersects with identity management. Sponsored by iMazing: The popular iOS device manager which gives you unparalleled control over iOS and iPadOS data. Request your free trial now. https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/07/JumpCloud-MDM.mp3 Links mentioned in this episode Cloud-Based System Management JumpCloud Office Hours Connect with Bradley Twitter LinkedIn Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Pocket Casts Castro RSS

The 8-minute video, highlighted by Apple Spotlight and embedded below, shows the latest progress on Apple’s Campus 2. Although the spaceship site is cordoned off by high walls to prevent pictures at street level, a GoPro-equipped drone has no trouble getting the aerial shots seen in the video. Images of the campus were last seen in July… In that time, the video shows that the project has made significant progress, with it looking less like dirt and more like the foundation of buildings....

An upcoming change introduced in the latest Mavericks and Yosemite developers previews will require some developers to re-sign their applications and submit updates to the Mac App Store in order to get around Gatekeeper’s watchful eye. According to a technical note from Apple, any apps built and signed on a version of OS X older than 10.9 will now be flagged by Gatekeeper has not having a valid signature. For users, this will add an extra layer of annoyance when dealing with certain third-party apps, especially those downloaded from the web rather than through the Mac App Store....

While Apple may have waited for the iPhone 5s before it introduced Touch ID, it’s been working on the technology since shortly after the launch of the original iPhone. A patent first filed in 2007 was finally granted today, and includes the use of a fingerprint sensor in laptops – though the drawing Apple used to illustrate the concept seemingly dates back even further than 2007! The patent also covers use in desktop computers, aka the iMac today, embedding the sensor into the keyboard … A finger sensing apparatus may include a finger sensor including an integrated circuit (IC) substrate, an array of finger sensing elements on the IC substrate, and match circuitry on the IC substrate for performing final finger matching....

Apple has been ordered to pay a $2 million penalty after four retail employees from a San Diego Apple Store filed a lawsuit over meal and rest break policy. The complaint dates back to 2011 and became a class action lawsuit in 2013, although the retail policies were changed following the complaint in 2012. CNN notes that the complaint started around working conditions that may not have been compliant with California law before retail policy changed:...