The iOS 14.6 RC released to developers and public beta users last week revealed an unannounced new pair of Beats Studio Buds earbuds. Now, those earbuds have officially received FCC approval, further suggesting that an official announcement could be imminent. The FCC filing was first spotted by the folks at MyHealthyApple. The filing does not reveal any additional information about the features or design of the headphones, but rather servers as additional corroboration and indication of an impending release....

The Mayo Clinic announced today that it now supports Apple’s Health Records feature. This means that Mayo Clinic patients with a Patient Online Services account can now use Health Records to access health data directly from their iPhone. Using Health Records within the Apple Health app on iPhone allows users to gather their health data from different providers and institutions into a single location. It also allows users to see their health records alongside data collected by other third-party apps and from the Apple Watch....

Earlier this week, Apple has reorganized its online page where it details upcoming data collection operations for Apple Maps. This takes the form of cars equipped with LIDAR and photographic cameras being driven around cities, and ‘pedestrian’ surveys where Maps employees walk around wearing backpacks fitted with similar sensors. The data is ultimately fed back into Apple Maps to improve accuracy. The page now reports that ground surveys will begin in Andorra in April....

Apple today launched support for turn-by-turn directions in Apple Maps for India, an emerging market that Apple has pinpointed for future growth potential. Now, Indian iPhone customers or tourists can get precise routing throughout the country. Apple also launched support for ride-hailing apps Uber and Ola, so you can request rides from inside of Maps using the two biggest taxi app in India. Apple has a thousands of employees at its Indian offices, who are all focused on improvements to the worldwide Apple Maps service....

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was spotted alongside Tim Cook at the annual Sun Valley conference for technology and media executives. According to a tweet from Bloomberg‘s Jon Erlichman, Cue and Cook arrived today at the conference, as pictured above. In response to a question about the event being a “big week,” Cook reportedly said, “we’ll see.” The week long conference held in Idaho, which Tim Cook attended last year, is a media-and-content-heavy conference focused on making deals, partnerships, and acquisitions....

Apple Music has a little-known feature called “Essentials Anniversaries” and today it’s highlighting Radiohead’s OK Computer celebrating its 25th anniversary. And beyond that, the collection features some of the most “game-changing” albums from as far as 60 years back along with behind-the-scenes radio episodes that include exclusive artist interviews and more. Reported by MacStories, Apple Music’s Essentials Anniversaries is a feature that’s been available on the service for some time but has gone under the radar....

Apple has officially confirmed its highly anticipated iPhone 13 and Apple Watch Series 7 event for September 14. The event will be completely virtual and streamed from Apple Park. Apple is teasing the September event with the tagline: “California streaming.” Head below for the full details on everything you need to know. Apple September event is official Apple’s September 14 event will be held at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. This marks the second year in a row that Apple has held its annual September event completely virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic....

Apple has been steadily adding more banks to its list of those officially supported for Apple Pay, and today it adds yet another 50+ for users of the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch-based payment service. The new additions include a mix of banks and credit unions across the US, but don’t bring any newly supported institutions to users internationally. Head below for the full list of new banks and credit unions....

Apple has already begun building and expanding its Maiden, North Carolina data site and according to new plans sent by Apple to Catawba County, the Cupertino-based company plans to add another 21,030-square-foot data center to it. According to the plans, Apple is planning to build a new $1.9 million data center that will house 11 rooms, t-boned to the existing 500,000-square-foot data center that’s already on the site reports Winston Salem Journal....

Express Pickup at Apple Aventura (Photo courtesy of @jgrano305) Apple is significantly expanding its new Express Storefront pickup service to help safely serve customers in regions where full in-store service cannot resume due to COVID-19 conditions. The new accommodations arrive as Apple prepares to enter its busiest product launch season of the year. The iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 mini, new iPad Air, MagSafe accessories, and HomePod mini will all be available by mid-November....

Apple has released macOS 10.13.4 beta 2 for registered developers to test on compatible Macs. We’ll dig in to the new version and detail changes below. New Privacy explainer included in macOS 32-bit app warning starting now New ‘Ink Cloud’ wallpaper on all Macs, previously iMac Pro only Messages in the Cloud is opt-in on High Sierra, requires checking a box iBooks Mac app renamed Books to match iOS (iBooks Author is a Mac App Store app so it likely won’t change until the beta cycle ends )...

After moving to weekly releases with beta 6, Apple has made watchOS 7 beta 7 available to developers today. The release of watchOS 7 beta for developers comes along with the public release of iOS 13.7 today that brings the new Exposure Notifications Express feature. Now that we’re getting further into the beta period, we’re seeing fewer user-facing changes with beta 7 and more under the hood bug and performance updates....

Looking at our Web analytics, as we do from time to time, we found a very interesting referrer. This one happens to be the Intranet of Media Arts Lab, a super-secret part of advertising giant TBWA/Chiat/Day. Media Arts Lab has only one customer. Apple. And all of the stuff we’ve found has Apple written all over it. Read on for music… So what do they have on their Intranet? Our favorite is Music Fridays....

Apple’s Magic Keyboard with trackpad for iPad may be the first of the company’s iPad keyboards to persuade me to switch from Brydge. The company’s Smart Keyboard and Smart Keyboard Folio products didn’t impress me. The typing feel wasn’t good, they didn’t balance well on my lap and overall had the feel of something cheap and plasticky. That’s the reason I’ve so far stuck with Brydge keyboards. But early indications are that the Magic Keyboard may be the one to win me over …...

We brought you an “iPhone 5 conversion kit” earlier this week that essentially allowed you to purchase a back plate mod kit resembling the leaked images of the white and black next-generation iPhone backs. Apple does not want you to get your hands on the new iPhone design just yet, so it not surprisingly issued a take down notice to the makers of the mod kit. The sellers still promise to accept orders for the next 48 hours and continue to ship to those who have already ordered....

As it does every year, Apple has officially kicked off its iTunes Boxing Week sale with discounts on select albums for this week only. The sale, which both UK and Canadian users will find under a special section in the iTunes store on both iOS and Mac, will likely remain available through the end of the week. While “Boxing Day” is officially recognized in Canada and elsewhere on the 26th, retailers usually offer a Black Friday-type event for Boxing Day with most sales lasting the entire week following Dec....

In a report from Bloomberg, Apple is facing a lawsuit by a woman working on the set of the upcoming film Emancipation. Emancipation is an upcoming thriller on Apple TV+ starring Will Smith. Alicia Kelly claims the Cupertino company did not do anything to protect her from sexual harassment while working in a COVID-19 support role on set. Kelly is suing Lionsgate Entertainment Inc. and Jerry Bruckheimer Inc. as well. She claims the companies aided a workplace that allowed sexual harassment against female workers....

Apple is preparing to enhance its Apple Store-based iPhone sales operations in the United States around pre-paid and month-to-month plans in order boost sales, according to a source briefed on the upcoming initiatives. For the first time in U.S. Apple Stores, customers will be able to purchase an iPhone at full-price and then connect the phone to a pre-paid plan or a month-to-month plan within the store. Previously, iPhone customers could only buy full-priced iPhones as unlocked devices then connect the devices to pre-paid plans or month-to-month plans via a previously purchased SIM-card or through a carrier store…...

Seemingly in an effort to combat the ongoing problem of accidental App Store subscriptions, Apple has added an extra step to the subscription process in the App Store. Apple will now present users with a “Confirm Subscription” popup before finalizing the details. This change was first noted by developer David Barnard on Twitter this afternoon. Starting sometime in the last week, Apple has added an additional step to the subscription process....

Apple is looking to expand its efforts in crowdsourcing data to improve its Maps app for iOS and OS X, according to hints in a new job listing on the company’s site. So far Apple’s efforts in crowdsourcing data to improve its Maps app has been limited to its own data collection projects and the “Report a problem” function in the Maps app. It also collects crowdsourced data from iOS’s Frequent Locations feature if users allow it....