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Apple has invited its employees through an internal memo to participate and represent the company together next month at San Francisco’s annual LGBT pride parade. Apple will host a base camp for registered attendees made up of Apple employees and their families and will supply entertainment and breakfast as well as T-shirts for participants. This year’s Pride Celebration and Parade marks the 44th annual gathering and has been host to the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook (including CEO Mark Zuckerberg) in recent years....

Apple today has joined the smart home-dedicated group The Thread Group. While Apple’s extent of involvement in the group is unclear at this point, the company is now listed as a “member” on The Thread Group website… Thread is described as a new mesh network standard that aims to make it easier for varying smart home technologies to work together. Thread is designed to support devices ranging from appliances, climate control, and lighting to security, access control, and more....

Apple today has sent out an email update to members of its affiliate program about launching improvements to the iTunes Affiliate Resource pages and also a change to the commission rates. Apple is lowering affiliate payouts from apps and their in-app purchases to less than half of the original commission rate. For many, this means a negative impact to yet another revenue stream. Today’s change sees the 7% commission rate, drop down to 2....

Apple Music has received an update on Android bringing all of the latest enhancements that came with the app’s iOS 14 update, including a redesign and autoplay. While Apple is not typically known for making their apps and services available on multiple platforms, Apple Music is one of the key exceptions, offering an Android app to anyone willing to pay for the $9.99 per month subscription — or have it bundled with a carrier plan....

While mixes and DJ mixes can be popular, getting the streaming rights to them can be a complex business – especially when a single mix can contain elements owned by up to 600 different rights holders. But an agreement between Apple and digital distributor Dubset means that Apple Music now has the right to stream many thousands of mix tracks, reports Billboard. Dubset CEO Stephen White says the company had to overcome tough challenges on both technological and legal fronts …...

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Apple is objecting to a discovery request in a class action case against Universal Music Group that seeks the release of trial exhibits, expert reports, and depositions from former CEO Steve Jobs and Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue. The depositions were originally given in a case between F.B.T. Productions, producers of Eminem records, and Universal Music group division Aftermath Records....

Just in time for the public release of iOS 11 and the launch of the new iPhone 8, the latest update of AnyTrans for Mac (and Windows) is adding the ability for Android users to easily switch to the new phones and OS. And it’s completely FREE to use. The new iOS Mover feature allows AnyTrans users to transfer more data than Apple’s own Move to iOS app in an easier and more flexible way…...

The App Review guidelines were updated this week to accommodate App Store policy changes and new rules for usage of frameworks introduced in iOS 11, like MusicKit. One change is the addition of section 1.1.7. This new paragraph requires developers to use the official in-app rating UI added in iOS 10.3 and states that they ‘will disallow custom review prompts’ going forward … When the new App Store rating API was introduced in the iOS 10....

Apple continues to gain new content partners to support new entertainment features like Single Sign-on, universal Search, and the TV app. Earlier this month SSO gained 10 more TV providers, and today both Search and the TV app have added new channel partners. Search works on Apple TV through Siri or the tvOS Search app for finding movies and TV shows across a variety of channels in a single interface....

Nikkei Asian Review is today out with a new note corroborating much of what we already know about this year’s iPhone refresh. The report reiterates the fact that Apple will introduce a new 5.8-inch OLED iPhone, as well as two new smaller devices with LCD panels. The report is more notable, however, considering Nikkei had previously resisted rumors that Apple was planning a larger-screened iPhone and reported that Apple would instead introduce new 4....

Apple just announced that longtime board member and former VP of Marketing Bill Campbell is leaving the company as founding partner and director of BlackRoc Susan L. Wagner joins the company’s board of directors. Apple CEO Tim Cook noted in the company’s press release today that he thinks Apple will benefit from Wagner’s experience with “M&A and building a global business across both developed and emerging markets.” “Sue is a pioneer in the financial industry and we are excited to welcome her to Apple’s board of directors,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO....

We previously reported that Apple had new retail stores planned for the Chongqing region as well as upcoming locations for Shenyang and Central Hangzhou coming later this year. Today three more stores in China get added to the mix with a job listing on the company’s website hiring for positions in Tianjin, Wuxi, and Zhengzhou in addition to the three stores mentioned above that we already knew about (via Bloomberg). In our previous report we noted that Apple’s new retail boss Angela Ahrendts will oversee the opening of 20 more Apple Stores in China through 2016 including four new stores within the next several months....

Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his trip to Japan this week as chronicled by the leader’s Facebook page (via Macotakara). In the meeting, the Japanese PM noted that without Japanese innovation, the iPhone couldn’t have been developed. Speaking of development… Cook also unveiled that a new development center in Yokohama (Tsunashima Technical Development Center) will be launched in December 2016.Also, the PM highlighted the importance of iOS software development for Japan’s economy, noting the country’s youngest developer is just 8 years old....

Apple has pledged to donate $1 million to the wildfire relief effort in California, San Francisco Chronicle reports. The company has also encouraged employees to help individually by promising to match employee donations two-to-one. Firefighters have been battling the wildfires in Wine Country, California, since Sunday with the death toll reaching 24 people today with 436 people missing and as many as 3500 homes and businesses destroyed. The wildfires are north of San Francisco and Cupertino where Apple is headquartered, but smoke from the wildfires has also affected air quality south of Napa and the surrounding area resulting in some businesses being shut down and air masks being recommended....

Apple is opening its first office in Cambridge, England, close to the city’s world-famous university, according to a report in Business Weekly. The offices overlook the Cambridge University botanical gardens … The Californian-based business is believed to have identified 90 Hills Road for its Cambridge city centre offices and R & D function. With Grade A office space at a premium in Cambridge, the US giant would probably start with around 20 staff but have capacity to gear up to as many as 40 in that space....

The Apple Music service has always provided an online tool to generate widgets, that can be used by artists to promote their music on their own websites and blogs. An eagle-eyed Reddit user has spotted that this widget has recently received an interface upgrade … and the ability to log in to your Apple Music account. Once signed in, you can play full songs, albums and playlists from within the web browser, no longer limited to just 30-90 second previews …...

A new Apple patent application filed last year and published by the United States Patent & Trademark Office today adds more proof that Apple is preparing to use sapphire displays in upcoming devices (via AI). There has been no shortage of proof that Apple is preparing to do something— most likely next-generation iPhone screens— with the large Sapphire plant it recently picked up in Arizona. We already know that the sapphire material could make iPhone displays, for example, stronger and more scratch resistant, but today’s patent details a method Apple will use to also make sure the sapphire repels fingerprints as well or better than the glass used on previous generation iPhones....

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9pt9QG4gA] I’ve covered App.io a few times in the past. The service, which allows app devs to deploy fully useable HTML5 demo versions of their native iOS apps on the web, first launched under the name “Kickfolio” back in 2012. The goal for the company was originally to let devs bring demos of their apps to promotional webpages and it eventually expanded the platform to include Facebook and other channels. Today, and around 2 million interactive app demos later, the company is announcing that it’s bringing those same app demos directly to mobile devices as interactive ads....

An interesting story coming from Cult of Mac today. Leander Kahny talks about his shared plane ride with PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha in 2008. You see, even though Microosft spends oodles of money in-house, it actually bought the Kinect technology from an Israeli company made of of former army engineers. This was in 2008 and Beracha was shopping the tech to everyone in the Valley. Apple being one of many who were interested....

Today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break includes a new all-time low on Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro, plus five Apple Watch Sport Bands for $10, and LG’s UltraFine 5K is $800 in this limited-time deal. Head below for all that and more. 13-inch MacBook Pro hits all-time low Today only, Woot offers Apple’s latest 13-inch MacBook Pro from $900 in certified refurbished condition. That’s down from the original $1,299 price tag and the best we’ve tracked all-time....