Following earlier confusion about whether Apple or Foxconn was bidding for a stake in Toshiba’s chip-making division, it appears that the answer could be ‘both.’ Reuters cites a report by public broadcaster NHK that Apple would be making its own bid alongside the existing Foxconn one. If the deal went through, it could be bad news for Samsung – but there are a couple of hurdles to be overcome before agreement could be reached …...

Apple today shared a trio of new TV ads, all advertising its Apple TV+ service. Apple TV+ debuted in November with 8 original shows, and the company has steadily grown the library ever since. Uptake of the $4.99/month service remains unclear, with analyst consensus pitting TV+ as taking about 3-5% of the US streaming market. Depending on your perspective, that’s either a flop or a good start, considering TV+ is a new service that relies solely on brand new originals rather than established franchises and a back catalog....

As we get close to the Lion launch, several tipsters have provided more information regarding the Apple retail overnight and days after. Tonight, Apple retail will hold an overnight from approximately 11pm – 7 am to give the retail staff enough time to update the stores visual elements with new marketing materials and re-image all display Macs with Lion. As previously reported, our tipsters say most stores have recently received an external LaCie hard drive containing Lion installs, but we have received new information that the drives contain 3 different install images for Lion; Normal, Pro, and Joint Venture....

Update: Apple has confirmed that this year’s Back to School deal will again be a free pair of Beats headphones. This year it’s the Beats Solo3. Apple’s higher education website is currently down, with a ‘back soon’ message. The message says ‘We’ll be back. We’re busy updating the Apple Store for you. Please check back soon.’ … This is in readiness for a Back to School deal. Last year’s deal launched on the same day last year....

A Bloomberg report based on a Bernstein analysis suggests that Apple’s newest services have yet to make any ‘meaningful revenue,’ and investors will expect to hear about the company’s plans to address this. It says that although Apple’s overall Services business is going well, the bulk of this is generated by the App Store and the Google search deal – with Apple TV+, Arcade, News+, and the Apple Card not playing much of a role …...

Rumors and speculation about Apple’s video streaming service have been floating around for a number of years now, and it seems like the company may finally be ready to launch its new service. According to a report from CNBC, Apple is preparing to launch its video streaming service in April, corroborating a report from The Information back in January. CNBC says that Apple is in “the final stages of preparing its new streaming video service”, and that similar to how the company handles Carpool Karaoke: The Series, it will offer some free original content for device owners and a subscription service for everyone else....

Workflow, the automation app recently acquired by Apple, has just released a new update with bug fixes and the return of Google Chrome and Pocket functionality. The actions which were originally pulled after the Apple acquisition, were added alongside the introduction of two new Apple Music features. Following the acquisition, Apple made Workflow free and began refunding recent purchases of the app. Soon after, the team behind Workflow made it clear that no further updates would be seen in the foreseeable future....

When the 2018 iPad Pro models were first released last month, consumers took to social media to complain that their devices were slightly bent out of the box or became bent during use. Now, Apple has confirmed to The Verge that some units are shipping with a “very slight bend in the aluminum chassis,” but the company does not consider this to be a defect. Apple says that in some cases, an iPad Pro might have a bent chassis out of the box....

Apple has just announced that its fiscal third quarter earnings call will take place on Tuesday, July 21st at 2PM PT/5MP ET. The call will report earnings from the three month period ending this month. Last quarter, Apple announced sales of 61.1 million iPhones, 12.6 million iPads, and 4.5 million Macs. The company reported revenue of $58 billion, including $13.6 billion in profit. Apple didn’t disclose sales for the Watch last quarter, and it seems unlikely that the company will do so this quarter either....

A report last week said that Apple had lost a trio of its top sales executives in India as its iPhone sales continued to fall in the country. Now, new data from Counterpoint Research indicates Apple secured just 1 percent of the smartphone market in India during Q2 of 2018… According to the data, Samsung came in atop of Xiaomi to become the top smartphone maker in India with 29 percent of the market, up from 24 percent during the same quarter last year....

Apple has reportedly axed one of its upcoming TV shows, according to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter. Due to disagreements over the focus of the show, Apple has scrapped the Apple TV+ dark drama “Bastards” that would have starred Richard Gere. Apple first gave “Bastards” a straight-to-series order in late 2018, after what today’s report describes as a “competitive” bidding war with other outlets. The Apple TV+ series was said to focus on two Vietnam veterans and best friends, and would have been Richard Gere’s highest-profile TV role:...

If you’re interested in Macs, you’ve probably heard one or more of these terms. But unless you’ve been closely following Apple’s technical progress, it might not be clear what they all mean and why they matter to your future buying decisions. With Apple expected to make a new set of Mac announcements tomorrow, I want to answer a relatively common reader question: What does it all mean? Understanding the CPU A computer – whether Mac, PC, Linux machine, Raspberry Pi, or even the embedded brain in your microwave – consists of a set of components....

With the accessory in short supply at Apple Stores, the new Apple Pencil stylus for the iPad Pro is listed for as high as $400 on eBay, four times the $99 sticker price through Apple. Most models of Apple’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro launched last week are available at Apple Stores and shipping for online orders in 1-7 days, but accessories for the device are harder to find. Despite Apple’s new Smart Keyboard case and Apple Pencil stylus being among the the standout new features alongside the iPad Pro’s larger display, they appear to be in shorter supply with both backordered 4-5 weeks online and hard to find in stores after hardly being available on day one....

Sipgate enabled iPhone users to make VoIP calls when connected to a local WiFi hotspot in Germany, which raised the anger of Apple’s German carrier, T-Mobile, which launched legal action to ban the app. The court agreed with T-Mobile that Sipgate had used unfair business practices in order to attract consumers that are otherwise locked to T-Mobile while making calls. The carrier also argued that because use of the application required that users jailbreak their iPhones, thus breaching their agreement with T-mobile....

Ars Technica posted Apple’s legal response (PDF) to the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the Cupertino, Calif.-based Company, and six publishers, for allegedly conspiring to fix eBook prices. In the document, Apple condemned the federal government for siding with “monopoly, rather than competition,” and then called the Department of Justice’s complaint “fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law.” Phrases like “false” and “absurd” appear throughout Apple’s response to the accusations, which parallels the company’s statement from April, in regards to the suit’s filing, where Apple essentially said it is breaking monopolies, rather than starting them....

Apple has supported USB 3.1 since 2015’s single-port MacBook release, but both it and the updated 2016 model feature the Gen 1 flavor of USB 3.1. Despite its name, USB 3.1 Gen 1 is basically rebranded USB 3.0, also known as SuperSpeed USB. That means that like USB 3.0, transfer speeds max out at 5 Gbps. With the upcoming release of macOS Sierra, however, there are strong indications that rumored new Mac hardware will support faster USB 3....

We got some idea about how Apple’s VR/AR headset might look from a simple rendering based on a prototype seen by The Information. A designer has now used this as the basis of more realistic renders of the design. The original cartoon-style drawing showed only a side view, but designer Antonio De Rosa has given us some ideas on how the rumored $3,000 headset might look from a variety of angles …...

Apple has released a new beta of OS X Server 3.1 to developers. The update requires OS X 10.9.2 on the target machine and has a build number of 13S4090c. The previous build was released on January 21st. This developer preview follows the release of iOS 7.1 beta 5, which came out earlier this morning. You can grab both betas on Apple’s Developer Center. Minimum System Requirements To install OS X Server Preview, you need one of these computers:...

The California DMV today briefly published self-driving car disengagement reports for the period of December 2017 to November 2018. While the data has since been pulled (and will be republished later this week), The Last Driver License Holder was able to summarize all of the information, including Apple self-driving numbers. Self-driving car disengagement reports breakdown the number of times a human driver has to take over control of an autonomous driving system....

Apple officially responded to the mounting privacy concerns related to how third-party iOS apps access address book data on users’ devices. Tom Neumayr, a spokesperson for the Cupertino, Calif.-headquartered gadget giant told AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski: So, there you have it. A forthcoming iOS software update will make sure no app can get access to iPhone contacts without your explicit approval. We are inclined to think Apple should not limit user approvals to just location data and contacts....