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Apple has released its annual holiday ad, and — unlike previous years — Apple has chosen to go with a fully animated video this time around. Rightfully titled “Share Your Gifts”, this year’s holiday ad focuses on everyone’s individual talents with almost no Apple product placement (save for an animated, stickered MacBook seen in the opening). Whether it be digitally with music or video creation, or simply cooking, the focus is on creation and expressing your creative talents....

Apple has lifted the curtain on its original content television show plans and showed the first snippets today of its own-produced TV shows. The company previewed what it has in a store in a fast-cut montage trailer. The Apple TV+ service will debut in the fall — pricing is yet to be announced. Apple will have dozens of original content shows, with more added every month when the service launches worldwide in the fall....

Alongside iOS 8.1, Apple has released a new version of its Apple Store app just in time for Apple Pay. The new version supports Apple’s new mobile payment service with a dedicated “Buy with Apple Pay” button available at checkout. You can download the update for free from the App Store, but be prepared to pay real money for whatever you end up buying in the app. Apple Pay is available today for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users, and iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 users will be able to buy merchandise within apps when the new tablets ship later this week....

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC4gPxc89Wg] Apple has a new 12W charger shipping with the iPad 4, and it is available online and compatible with a number of other iOS devices. Apple already told us the 12W adapter would indeed charge your iPad faster than the old 10W adapters, but it couldn’t give us an estimate on how much faster. Insanely Great Mac posted the video above today that shows the iPad drawing more power from the new adapter and claimed it was able to shave about 30 minutes to 45 minutes off the charge time....

Almost all the reports to date on the headset project commonly dubbed Apple Glasses have pointed to an augmented reality (AR) device, rather than a virtual reality (VR) one. But a new Bloomberg report suggests that Apple’s first headset will primarily be a VR device, with limited AR capabilities. It goes on to suggest that it will be the Mac Pro of VR devices. A VR focus would be surprising, as Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly said that AR is of far greater interest to the company …...

As has been widely reported, it is all but confirmed that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will not feature a 3.5mm headphone jack. This means buyers of the new iPhone will have to search for alternative types of headphones, whether that be via wireless Bluetooth or Apple’s Lightning cable. Right now, Apple bundles EarPods with every iPhone. It obviously makes no sense for Apple to continue bundling 3.5mm headphones with the headphone-jack-less iPhone 7....

After a few fits and starts, Safari 5 is ready for download here. We’re not exactly sure what happened but the image we captured above might have something to do with the delay. Press release below: SAN FRANCISCO, June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today released Safari(R) 5, the latest version of the world’s fastest and most innovative web browser, featuring the new Safari Reader for reading articles on the web without distraction, a 30 percent performance increase over Safari 4,* and the ability to choose Google, Yahoo!...

To celebrate and promote the release of his new single “No Brainer,” DJ Khaled is appearing in a new advertisement from Apple. In the ad, Apple shows off Apple Music, while the HomePod also makes a few appearances… In the ad, DJ Khaled’s son Asahd is seemingly plotting to overthrow Khaled’s reign in the music industry. Asahd is voiced by Kevin Hart. Throughout the ad, the two can be seen and heard using ‘Hey, Siri’ to control a HomePod and play music....

The Apple Store is down today, although it’s still several hours before the new products go on sale. The teaser message from Apple has actually been tweaked with new fonts and new text. It notes to look out for the 8.01 AM PDT time, when the PRODUCT(RED) iPhone 7 and the new cheaper iPad go on sale. On Tuesday, Apple announced the launch of a new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus color, in red....

Apple is rolling out the third macOS 10.12.5 developer beta through the Mac App Store. macOS Sierra 10.12.5 beta is currently only available to developers. Public beta versions usually come a few days after developer versions if not the same day. The upcoming update follows macOS 10.12.4 which brought Apple’s color shifting Night Shift feature to the Mac for the first time. Apple is also running developer betas for iOS 10....

Apple’s ad-tracking system is under attack by a privacy activist with a successful track record of fighting Facebook and other tech giants. Apple uses its own system known as IDFA (IDentifier For Advertisers) to assign a unique code to each of its devices, so that advertisers can track who has seen particular ads. But privacy campaigner Max Schrems claims that this breaches European law… Background We explained earlier in the year how IFDA works, and controversy over a change in iOS 14....

Following its detailed reports on displays used in the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, today DisplayMate published a scientific analysis of color accuracy for the six best mobile displays it’s tested this year. Despite ranking high in some categories in the test, Apple’s new entries, the iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2, end up at the bottom of the list overall. The test ranked the devices in four categories— Entire Color Gamut, Facial Skin Tone Colors, Organic Colors, and Blue Region from Cyan to Magenta Colors— in order to determine an overall color accuracy score....

With a long-running EU investigation into the legality of Apple’s tax arrangements in Europe still showing no signs of reaching a conclusion, the size of last year’s UK tax bill isn’t likely to help its cause. Apple’s latest accounts show that it paid just £12.9M ($17M) in UK corporation tax despite making an estimated £2B ($2.6B) profit in the country. As the Mail Online notes, this is the equivalent of just two hours’ profits on its global sales …...

When Apple announced its new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models earlier this week, it only provided preorder and shipping info for a handful of initially launch countries. The company has now confirmed a second wave of iPhone 6 launches for a long list of countries will kick off on September 26. Many of Apple’s websites abroad are now listing the September 26 order date. Here’s 20+ countries we’ve found so far:...

The switch to Lightning headphones has been a headache for some, but Apple says that a fix is coming for a bug that’s plaguing some users. A variety of complaints have surfaced on Twitter that say the volume controls on Lightning EarPods become nonfunctional after a short amount of time… Essentially, after the Lightning headphones have been plugged in for a few minutes, the buttons stop functioning, while audio continues to play....

Apple has revamped its plans for a new flagship San Francisco store in Union Square after concerns that a popular bronze fountain and sculpture would be removed, and that the building design wouldn’t offer sufficient visual interest from the exterior, reports SFGate. The building design, designed to provide 45 percent more space than its existing Stockton store, also faced accusations that the steel and glass cube would be too boring for passers-by....

In addition to a failed attempt to hire the stars of the BBC series Top Gear for its reported plans to develop in-house content, Re/code reports that media head Eddy Cue also approached sports commentator Bill Simmons. Simmons ended up signing with HBO, the deal including a new podcast from October – which is likely to be available on iTunes. Apple showed interest in signing up former ESPN star Bill Simmons to an exclusive audio podcast deal....

Apple today said that it is working on a fix for iPhone 8 users experiencing crackling sounds from their device’s earpiece. Since the iPhone 8 was released last week, some users have reported a “static” and “crackling sound,” but that shouldn’t be the case for much longer… In a statement to The Verge, Apple says the issue affects a “small number” users and noted that it is working on a fix for the issue that will be included in an upcoming iOS release....

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty says that an analysis of Apple’s recent SEC filing strongly suggests that the company has not only made a big bet on the success of the iPhone 6, with large advance orders, but also that it is likely to launch the long-awaited iWatch this quarter. The graph, obtained by Business Insider, shows the historical correlation between off-balance sheet commitments – the technical financial term for money invested in things like tooling, component purchases and manufacturing contracts – and quarterly revenue....

Less than a week following the previous seed, Apple has released build 14D105 of the upcoming OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 to both developers and users of the Public Beta. Apple has not yet said when 10.10.3 will be released to all OS X Yosemite users, but the increase in seeds in recent weeks likely indicates that a wider launch is fast approaching. As we’ve previously detailed, 10.10.3 will include the all new iCloud-based Photos app for the Mac, developer APIs for the new Force Touch Trackpad on the MacBook and MacBook Pro with Retina display, and a new Emoji picker across the system....