As the company has done now for several years, Apple has posted some gift suggestions for Mother’s Day, which takes place on May 14, with prices starting from $49 … The gift page, headed ‘Perfect for Mother’s Day – and every other day,’ has the iPad Pro as its main promotion, with the Apple Pencil and Smart Cover suggested for those mums who already own an iPad. At the lower end of the pricing scale, the company suggests Woven Nylon and Sport Bands for the Apple Watch, each starting at $49, while wireless headphones fill out the middle ground at prices starting from $149....

The usually secretive Apple recently signaled that it would begin publishing artificial intelligence research, and now it appears that the first example of this has appeared online. The newly published research paper (via Forbes) is titled “Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training” and credits Ashish Shrivastava, Tomas Pfister, Oncel Tuzel, Josh Susskind, Wenda Wang, Russ Webb and Apple Inc. as its authors. The paper shows a publication date of December 22 although it was submitted for publication on November 15....

[UPDATE: Apple has now said that its reasoning for delaying the earnings call is because of the memorial service for former board member and tech icon Bill Campbell, who passed away this week.] Apple today has updated its investor relations page to reflect that its second quarter earnings call will now take place on Tuesday, April 26th. Previously, the company had said that it would hold the call on Monday, April 25th....

Apple today has released the first developer beta of macOS Catalina 10.15.1. This comes after the official release of the new operating system version for the public earlier this week. The latest developer release features some of the changes included in the iOS 13.2 beta, such as new emoji and Siri privacy settings. Developers can update to the latest beta through System Preferences if they’re already enrolled in the Beta Program....

One week after the release of iOS 14.5, Apple today is releasing iOS 14.5.1 to the public with bug fixes and performance improvements. Apple is also releasing iOS 12.5.3 for older iPhones that are not supported by iOS 14.5. Today’s new release iOS 14.5.1 is available via an over-the-air update in the Settings app. As usual, if the update does not immediately appear for download, keep checking, as it sometimes takes a few minutes to roll out to all users....

The report says the service may launch this fall, enabling iPhone users to pay for goods with their devices in retail outlets. Apple has apparently discussed the plans with credit card institutions, according to the report, as a user’s banking information “would essentially be uploaded to the wallet”. Apparently, Visa is already onboard with the project. According to the report, new phones will include a ‘secure element’ to store such sensitive data....

The Korea Times today reports that Apple is in negotiations with Samsung to have the company supply the flash memory for the next-gen iPhone models. Currently, the flash storage is provided by Toshiba, SK hynix and SanDisk. The report also notes that Apple is looking to increase the storage capacity of its iPhone models. Apple currently offers the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB variants. Today’s report suggests that Apple, rather than working to go beyond the 128GB amount, will increase the storage of the mid-tier models....

Update: TNW confirmed with Apple that a total of 12 countries have received access to movies in the Cloud, while France is the only to get TV shows today: As first reported by French website iGen.fr, Apple appears to be rolling out iCloud access to TV shows and movies in France. The feature allows users to download content purchased through iTunes to various Apple devices, and it has been available in the United States and elsewhere since 2011....

Apple’s Irish companies were relatively unimportant, according to the iPhone maker’s lawyer. Daniel Beard made the claim in the second and final day of the Irish tax appeal. On the face of it, that would seem a strange argument for the company to make… When justifying the fact that Apple accounted for all its retail sales across the European Union in its two Irish companies, you might have expected it to argue that these companies were pivotal to sales operations throughout Europe....

Following the release of iOS 14.5 beta 4 for developers, Apple continues to add new features to Apple Music. After bringing a new way to share song lyrics from Apple Music on Instagram and iMessage, Apple is now adding new “City Charts” daily playlists to its music streaming service with iOS 14.5. We still can’t find these playlists in the Music app even after installing today’s iOS beta, so perhaps the company is waiting until the official release of iOS 14....

According to a new report from Rolling Stone, Apple Music has started a $50 million COVID-19 advance fund for indie labels. Through this fund, Apple will be able to ensure that artists still get paid despite the coronavirus pandemic. Apple announced the new fund in an email to independent record labels this afternoon. Those labels who have a direct Apple Music distribution deal and earn at least $10,000 in quarterly Apple Music earnings will qualify for the advances on future royalties....

Earlier this week, Apple announced in a local press release that it would expand the availability of the HomePod mini to three more countries on December 13. And beating its own launch expectations, Apple is already selling HomePod mini in Sweden, Finland, and Norway. HomePod mini now available in Sweden and more countries While the original HomePod was only released in a small number of countries, Apple is now bringing the HomePod mini to more countries around the world....

Apple has officially unveiled its new Time to Walk feature for Apple Watch and Apple Fitness+ subscribers. Time to Walk offers “an inspiring new audio walking experience on Apple Watch for Fitness+ subscribers,” Apple announced in a press release. Apple says the new Time to Walk workouts will be available today, and they appear to be slowly rolling out to users on Apple Watch. Apple explains that each Time to Walk episode is “shaped by the guest’s personal, life-shaping moments” and is “recorded while walking outside or in locations that are meaningful to them....

Apple has been ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages for infringing upon patents held by the California Institute of Technology. According to a report from Bloomberg, a jury decided today that Apple and Broadcom must pay a combined $1.1 billion to Caltech. Apple is responsible for $838 million, while Broadcom is responsible for $270 million, Caltech lawyers say. The jury was responsible with determining whether Broadcom’s chips used Caltech’s patents, and how much Apple and Broadcom should have to pay in damages....

While Apple doesn’t reveal much in the way of specifics about usage of Apple Pay, consumer spending analytics company TXN has pulled some data from a panel of over three million consumers. It says that analysis of credit card bills from banks which distinguish Apple Pay transactions suggest that usage of the payment method grew by slightly over 50% in the 12 months ending December 2016. The company also revealed the most popular bricks and mortar retailers and websites among Apple Pay users …...

After several preview releases to testers, Apple has pushed yet another OS X 10.10.2 build to pre-release Yosemite testers through the Updates section of the Mac App Store. Previous builds of the Mac operating system focused on improving bugs with WiFi, Mail, and VoiceOver, and this pre-release seed is no exception. We’ll update our coverage with what we find in the latest pre-release seed. The OS X 10.10.2 software update has been in development for quite some time now—the first beta went out to testers on November 20th—and the last OS X 10....

Following the event today, Apple has not released any new hardware but it has rebranded the 2015 fourth-generation Apple TV as the Apple TV HD. The set-top box, formerly known as simply ‘Apple TV’, now has a better name that it distinguishes it from the newer Apple TV 4K. With the introduction of the Apple TV+ original content offering, Apple now has four products that start with the name ‘Apple TV’....

It is a fact that all mobile phones emit a certain level of radiation. Yes, even the iPhone. That’s why a company named tawkon developed an application to measure the amount of radiation coming through your iPhone. According to the company the application was praised by Apple executives for its graphically appealing design, use of non-private APIs, and overall functionality. The problem is that it was still rejected. This is not the first time an application was given a blessing from an Apple executive then still rejected (think Google Voice)....

Update: 12/14: Public beta versions of iOS and tvOS 11.2.5 are now available as well. Apple has released new beta versions of iOS, watchOS, and tvOS for developers to test. iOS 11.2.5, watchOS 4.2.2, and tvOS 11.2.5 are all available now. We’ll update to the latest versions and note any changes below. The new betas come hours after the release of iOS 11.2.1 and tvOS 11.2.1 for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV....

Four days after releasing the third beta version, Apple has released the fourth iOS 11.1 beta for iPhone and iPad. iOS 11.1 beta includes the return of 3D Touch gestures for multitasking as well as hundreds of new emoji characters including “Woman with Headscarf, Bearded Person, Breastfeeding, Zombie” and plenty more. Apple has also released the fourth beta version of watchOS 4.1 beta with Apple Music and Radio streaming. We’ll be looking for Apple Pay Cash which has recently been in testing as well as any other new features in the latest iOS 11....