Long Way Up is just a couple of guys out for a 13,000 mile ride. Photo: Apple
Ewan McGregor and his buddy Charley Boorman took a little motorcycle ride — a mere 13,000 miles over 100 days. They went through 16 border crossings and 13 countries, starting from the city of Ushuaia at the tip of South America.
Their epic journey is the subject of Long Way Up, a series that launches on Apple TV+ in September.
Some day, iPhone could take credit cards like a cash register. Photo: Apple
Mobeewave helps handsets act like little cash registers. Apple reportedly purchased this company, which could lead to iPhones able to easily receive money from credit cards with just a tap.
Apple has been battling with the company for years. Photo: Apple
A company based in Shanghai has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit that could stop Apple from offering products with its Siri voice assistant in China, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Apple could release the iPhone 12 in two phases this year. Photo: Terquosive Labs
The iPhone 12 release could be staggered, with certain models going on sale before others, a new report from Digitimes suggests.
This year, Apple is expected to release four iPhone models. These are likely to include a regular iPhone 12 in 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch models, and an iPhone 12 Pro in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch variants.
This was one of the top games of the quarter. Photo: Niantic
Spending on mobile games in the App Store grew significantly over the past quarter, despite the coronavirus pandemic, a new report by Sensor Tower claims. Across the App Store and Google Play, global spending grew 27% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2020 to hit $19.3 billion.
Of the total revenue, the App Store made up $11.6 billion to Google Play’s $7.7 billion. That’s even though the App Store only making up a tiny 2.7 billion of the overall 15.1 billion app downloads in the quarter. As ever, the App Store is where the lion’s share of profits is to be made!
One of Apple's flagship retail stores in the UK. Photo: Richard Shrum for Cult of Mac
Despite pulling in record earnings last quarter, Apple reportedly asked the landlords of its U.K. retail outlets to cut their rent by a massive 50%, The Sunday Times reports.
The newspaper says Apple is also asking for a “rent-free period” as the COVID-19 pandemic plays out. In return, the company says it will extend its leases for a lengthy period — although some of the stores in question have several years left on their lease agreements.
Apple Originals are free to view on flights. Well, free aside from the cost of actually flying that is! Photo: Apple
Apple struck a deal with American Airlines to stream Apple TV+ shows during flights.
The agreement, which started this month, means American’s seat-back entertainment systems come preloaded with Apple Originals. These include The Morning Show, For All Mankind, Dickinson, Defending Jacob and seven more.
Time to get back in the game! Cover: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
If you put your fitness goals on the back burner due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s time to turn up the heat. And if you own an Apple Watch, the wonderful wearable is your ultimate post-lockdown fitness pal.
These tips will help you get back in shape, post-lockdown, with a little help from your friend. Find out how in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now to read on your iOS device, or follow the links below to read this week’s top Apple news, how-tos and reviews in your browser.
Apple is now valued at $1.78 trillion. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple shares hit a new all-time high Friday on the back of the company’s shockingly good Q3 earnings. AAPL closed up 10.47% at $425.04, fueled by Thursday’s record-breaking report.
Friday’s surge gives Apple a market cap of an astonishing $1.84 trillion, within spitting distance of the once-unimaginable $2 trillion valuation. And it makes Apple the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.
Rather than state-sponsored hackers, the Twitter hacker is someone too young to vote. Photo: sebastiaan stam/Pexels CC
In mid July, a hacker gained access to Apple’s Twitter account, along with those other corporations, high-profile politicians, and celebrities. At the time, there was speculation it was done by Russian hackers. Or perhaps they were Chinese. Some pointed fingers at international criminal gangs.
Nope. Turns out it was a 17-year-old kid from Tampa.
Jobs rarely signed autographs. Apparently he didn't want to sign this one. Photo: Nate D. Sanders Auctions
Like Steve Jobs? Have approximately $11,000 as a starting bid to pick up some memorabilia to prove as much? Then you could be in the market for a Jobs-autographed October 1989 copy of Fortune magazine autographed by the Apple co-founder.
The magazine, which was signed for one of Jobs’ former chauffeur drivers, is going up for auction this week. And it comes complete with a story of Jobs being, well, Jobs.
Update July 31, 2020: The copy of Fortune that Steve Jobs reluctantly signed for his chauffeur sold for $16,638 on Thursday, significantly above the minimum bid.
New Apple Store looks similar to the iconic Steve Jobs Theater. Photo: Apple
Apple opened its second and largest retail location in Thailand Friday. Located in Bangkok’s famous Ratchaprasong, the new store is spectacular even by the high standards of existing Apple Stores.
“In December, I visited the team in Bangkok as construction was underway, and I know they can’t wait to help our customers and to share this special space with the whole community,” Tim Cook tweeted in celebration.
No more iTunes gift cards and Apple Store gift cards. There’s just Apple gift cards. Photo: Apple
Apple now offers a gift card that can be used at the Apple Store to buy hardware and also at the App Store to buy software. And iTunes is included as well.
Previously, the company sold separate cards, one for iTunes/App Store and another for the Apple Store.
Apple Watch could gain a new health-oriented feature. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
Apple Watch Series 6 reportedly will come with a blood oxygen sensor capable of measuring the amount of oxygen being carried by a wearer’s red blood cells.
Making sure the balance of oxygen-saturated blood is at the correct levels is crucial to a person’s health.
Friday is "new shows" day on Apple TV+! Photo: Apple
Apple TV+ today released the latest episode of its series Little Voice.
Producer J.J. Abrams’ series, created with songwriter Sara Bareilles and writer Jessie Nelson, is about aspiring singer Bess King and her attempts to forge a path for herself as a singer.
Alongside the new episode, Apple TV+ also has the first two episodes of Oprah’s new show The Oprah Conversation.
iPhone's about the only smartphone thriving during lockdown. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Apple has defied the odds by consistently growing its business through the COVID-19. But just how amazing that is isn’t apparent until you compare Apple’s iPhone success in Q2 to other smartphone makers.
According to a new report by research company Canalys, Apple was the only vendor to grow its smartphone shipments during the April through June quarter. Apple shipments increased 25% from the previous year. That made it the only smartphone maker to experience positive growth during the period.
iOS 14 could be bad news for companies that rely on digital ads. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Facebook is concerned that one of the big new features in iOS 14 will hurt the social networking giant’s ad-targeting business model.
As reported by CNBC, Facebook CFO David Wehner said Thursday that Apple’s new feature for the upcoming operating system, which allows users to see how activity is being tracked across apps and websites, will make things tough on Facebook ads.
People around the world turned to Apple products at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. And the result was an 11% increase in Apple revenue during the June quarter. Some products contributed to that growth more than others.
The pandemic sent people buying Mac and iPad in huge numbers. But it hurt handset sales, despite a relatively strong launch for the iPhone SE. And Apple services experienced something of an off quarter, too.
We're going to be waiting a little bit longer than usual for this year's iPhones. Photo: Ben Geskin
The 2020 iPhones likely won’t arrive until October at the earliest, Apple said during Thursday’s earnings call.
“Last year we started selling new iPhones in late September,” said Apple CFO Luca Maestri. “This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.”
Get ready for another stock split, Apple investors! Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
Apple’s board of directors has approved a four-to-one stock split, the company said Thursday. AAPL stock, which closed Thursday at $384.76, should go for around $100 a share when the split occurs in late August.
The news, revealed in Apple’s blowout Q3 2020 earnings report, means investors with one share at close of business on Aug. 24 will be given three additional shares trading at one-fourth the price. It’s basically a psychological move that makes Apple stock seem more affordable.
Apple brought in far more money than expected recent during the April-to-June quarter. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple took in $59.7 billion in revenue last quarter, an annual increase of 11%. That solidly beats the estimates of analysts, who predicted a drop in revenue as the iPhone-maker, and the rest of the world, grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Very strong increases in revenue from Mac and iPad significantly pushed up the total.
Season one also had to be rewritten at the last moment. Photo: Apple
For the second time, a season of The Morning Show is having to be completely rewritten to reflect sweeping global changes.
The Apple TV+ show had to be virtually rebooted prior to the filming of Season 1 due to the #MeToo movement and the firing of TV host Matt Lauer as the result of sexual impropriety accusations. Now Deadline reveals that Season 2 is also being rewritten — this time to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eddy Cue met with Jeff Bezos to talk about the deal. Photo: CNBC
Apple agreed to halve its App Store fee for Amazon so the company would bring its Prime Video app to iOS and Apple TV, emails reveal (.pdf).
Apple exec Eddy Cue and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos personally negotiated the deal in 2016, it was revealed during Wednesday’s antitrust hearing looking into tech giants’ business practices. They agreed that Apple would get a 15% revenue cut from day one for customers who signed up through the app. Apple normally gets a 30% cut for the first year of an app’s subscription. It then claims a 15% commission for subsequent years.
Telegram adds its voice to the chorus of developers complaining about Apple. Photo: Telegram
Popular secure messaging app Telegram filed a formal antitrust complaint with the European Union over App Store practices, the Financial Times reports.
In a complaint addressed to EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager, Telegram’s creators argue that Apple must “allow users to have the opportunity of downloading software outside of the App Store.”