Apple has opened pre-orders on a new exclusive album on the iTunes Store, titled “Dance (RED) Save Lives, Vol. 2”. The album, which is expected to debut on November 25th, is in support of the Global Fund, with 100% of proceeds being donated to the cause. Apple promoted Volume 1 of the album last year, with proceeds benefiting the same cause. Notable artists who have tracks featured on the album include Katy Perry, Coldplay, Robin Thicke, and Calvin Harris....

Apple quickly mentioned some improvements to Podcasts on stage at WWDC yesterday. Now, the company has outlined some additional improvements for Podcasts in iOS 13 in an email to creators and via its developer website. In an email to Podcast Providers this afternoon, Apple outlined enhancements coming to Podcasts search, which it also mentioned on stage yesterday. For instance, when a user searches in Podcasts, the search will also look for the term in transcripts....

Sometimes Apple Pencil stops charging at 25% or lower. Other times it doesn’t charge at all. Many users can’t pair Apple Pencil with their iPad. Follow the below simple guide to fix when Apple Pencil Won’t pair with My iPad Pro, in very straightforward steps. An Apple Pencil is one of the best pieces of kit you can buy for your new iPad, to help you make the most of the slate by allowing you to sketch, doodle, annotate, handwrite, and more....

Apple is no stranger to beefing up its mapping efforts through company purchases. We’ve counted at least three big map company purchases including Placebase, C3 and Poly9 that have helped Apple in its growing mapping and location services effort. As we know Apple is still a long way from mapping nirvana and as any Apple PR person will read from a boilerplate to you, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans....

If you jump back to calendar Q3 2013, Apple was falling behind Samsung in US smartphone marketshare with just 34% of the market compared to Samsung’s 38%. The theory at the time was that US buyers were holding out for the new iPhones that launched in September. Fast forward to last quarter, the three month period ended December 31, and that theory appears to be holding up. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) just sent over its latest reports showing Apple has once again taken the lead thanks to a strong holiday quarter of iPhone sales....

After officially launching its last major release, macOS 12.3, in the middle of March with Universal Control, new emoji, and more, Apple has started up its testing cycle again. The first macOS 12.4 beta is now showing up. Update 4/6: Apple has now made the first macOS 12.4 beta available to public testers. We’ve also learned that for Universal Control to work in iPadOS 15.5, Macs need to be running macOS 12....

Apple has started sending out OS X Yosemite builds for Beta Program, as announced yesterday. The build is being sent out to a million Beta Program members. Participants can get a redemption code from the site, to redeem in the Mac App Store. Apple has said that Apple will not update the Beta Program Yosemite builds as often as the developer seeds (which come out every two weeks, usually), but participants will be able to upgrade to the final public version of Yosemite seamlessly through the App Store, when it is released....

Apple CEO Tim Cook today informed staff that it is “likely” the majority of teams won’t be back in offices until June of 2021 at the earliest. This comes as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in many parts of the world. As first reported by Bloomberg, Cook’s comments came during a virtual town hall with employees earlier today. The Apple CEO said that while there is no replacement for face-to-face collaboration, there’s a lot to be learned from working remotely this year:...

It was back in January that we first heard that Apple was planning a new flagship retail store in Milan, Italy, with an outdoor amphitheater – and the company has now confirmed those plans. The store will sit beneath the amphitheater, and you’ll enter it using a staircase that descends through the middle of a fountain … The store will be named Apple Piazza Liberty and will be located at Piazza del Liberty, 1–20121 Milano....

Apple is prominently spotlighting alternative solutions to the new Maps app on the App Store. The promotion of third-party apps is in conjunction with CEO Tim Cook’s open letter from this morning that apologized to iOS customers for the company’s less-than-perfect Maps offering. Apple further detailed on its website today how to add Google and Nokia maps website icons to an iOS 6 device’s Home screen. [tweet https://twitter.com/djmexi/status/251729875046645760] In related news, Reuters created an infographic recently that illustrates a side-by-side comparison of the key features available on mobile map apps from Google and Apple’s iOS in 27 countries (as seen below):...

Apple has released new versions of the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display in China to support the area’s TD-LTE networks. This brings high-speed capable versions of the late-2013 iPad models to China for the first time: The 16 GB model sells for RMB 4,488, while the prices for larger capacities go as high as RMB 6,588 for the 128 GB model. iOS 7.1 builds previously indicated that a few new iPad models were en route, and this announcement seems to answer what those models are....

While Apple offers macOS updates through the Software Update menu in the System Preferences app, users can also download the same updates as a standalone installation package from Apple’s website. However, the company seems to have discontinued the standalone delta and combo updates with macOS Big Sur. As first noticed by Mr. Macintosh and then shared by The Eclectic Light Company, Apple didn’t provide downloadable update packages for macOS Big Sur 11....

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_lDKon0bUM] Apple, over the weekend, opened an new front on Google’s YouTube video service to host its Japanese videos. The site is verified by YouTube and has been up for 3 days but appears to have gone unnoticed. None of the videos as of this writing have more than 100 views and there are only 49 subscribers. I have a feeling that’s a bout to change. Update: Apple also launched a S....

Apple Pay is now accepted at an additional 5,000+ online stores in Denmark, Finland and Sweden … Apple’s mobile wallet service first came to the three Nordic countries in October of last year, initially to physical stores. Online payments followed as ecommerce payment providers adopted Apple Pay, and a deal between payment service provider Quickpay and online payment specialist Clearhaus now brings the facility to thousands more web stores. Clearhaus said that Apple Pay offers the quickest possible checkout service to customers....

Apple fans in India have been waiting for an Apple retail store for quite a few years now. It was supposed to launch this year, but due to COVID-19, the company had to delay its plans. Now, Apple is finally starting to hire people. According to Apple’s head of recruiting in India in a LinkedIn post, the company is now hiring workers for its retail stores. Renu Sevanthi shared a post from another employee, Nidhi Sharma....

[Update: The public beta for macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 is now available] Following the release of iOS 11.4 to developers and public beta users Apple this evening has pushed the first developer beta of macOS High Sierra 10.13.5. The update follows macOS 10.13.4, which included features such as enhanced eGPU support and more. macOS 10.13.5 is available via the Mac App Store. Read more about this round of betas at the links below:...

As Apple gets serious about creating quality original content, the company is reportedly eyeing a new production headquarters in West LA to house the effort. Real estate website The Real Deal reported this week that Apple wants to lease an 85,000-square-foot space that happens to be around the corner from its Beats headquarters in Culver City. The Real Deal notes that the property will go for $3.83 million/year and will be ready for a tenant at the beginning of next year — just in time for Apple to start spending its reported billion dollar budget on original content....

Burberry CEO-turned-Apple Retail SVP Angela Ahrendts returned to posting on her LinkedIn blog after nearly five months over the weekend with a holiday message to her followers: “Let peace begin with me.” In the blog post, Ahrendts wrote about her effort to share a leadership lesson relevant to the holidays, something which she admits she has struggled to do initially, but points to being inspired by B.J. Thomas’ recording of “Let There Be Peace On Earth....

[Update: The issues seem to be resolved around 12:00 PM EST.] [Update 2x: Apple has also acknowledged the outage on its system status page noting that it began last night and may still be ongoing.] No word on Apple’s official iCloud system status page, but the Calendar and Reminders web apps on iCloud.com are currently down as several readers have pointed out. We’ve tested it here and the above error was returned....

Leading up to the unveiling of Apple’s new iTunes Radio service earlier this month at WWDC, we reported on some small details regarding deals Apple had reached with the major labels necessary to get bring its Pandora competitor to market. Earlier reports claimed that Apple was paying Warner around 10% of ad revenue— that’s around twice as much as Pandora reportedly pays. Today, The Wall Street Journal provides us with some in-depth info on what Apple is paying labels and publishers after taking a look at the terms of the deal....