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The coronavirus and its aftermath appear to be taking a toll on manufacturing of updated AirPods, with a new report indicating an update to Apple’s popular earbuds will be delayed slightly and roll into the first quarter of 2021.

The Nikkei Asian Review also reported Friday sources as saying around 30% of all classic AirPods to be produced this quarter for Apple will be “made in Vietnam”. That the report said is “a sign the company is accelerating its diversification of production out of China amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

This week, I finally got around to adding Dark Mode support to Reps & Sets, the iPhone bodybuilding app I develop as a side hustle. That’s almost a year after Apple first announced the feature at its Worldwide Developers Conference.

What took me so long? Supporting Dark Mode is not as simple as it seems. It’s not just indie devs like me who have struggled with it, either. WhatsApp only recently added Dark Mode support, and Facebook is still beta-testing it.

So if you’re waiting for your favorite app to switch to the dark side, here’s why it might be taking so long.

Microsoft plans to add trackpad and mouse functionality to its Office for iPad suite of apps by the fall, according to two published reports.

The American crime drama and miniseries Defending Jacob is apparently a hit with Apple TV+ viewers, with reports Thursday that it now ranks among the two fastest-growing series premieres for the fledgling streaming network.

Apple plans to reopen all its 15 retail stores in Germany on May 11, according to a published report.

Germany will become only the second country in Europe to resume Apple Store operations since the majority of locations closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic almost two months ago.

The popular journaling application Day One has updated its product with full support for iPadOS 13.4 and trackpad navigation. The update also adds a new Day View interface along with bug fixes and various other improvements.

Following a two-year legal tussle over patents and royalties, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said Thursday the chipmaker’s dealings with Apple have greatly improved and phrased the relationship as one of two “good partners.”

With most of its brick-and-mortar locations closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Apple launched Friday an online virtual services store focused on helping customers find and complete no-contact purchases and educate users through on-demand videos.

Titled “Everything you love about our stores is online,” the new hub is linked from the home page of Apple.com and accessible at apple.com/shop.

The CBS All Access streaming service expanded Thursday, adding dozens of classic movies made by Paramount. Newly added titles include classic films like The Godfather series,Spider-Man and Roman Holiday.

Also appearing today are several Star Trek movies to go with the multiple Star Trek shows that are the highlights of CBS All Access. All of this content can be watched on iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV.

Zoom on Thursday acquired Keybase for its experience with encryption and security.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought millions of new users to Zoom, but also criticism for weak security. Its stated goal in purchasing the smaller company, which developed its own messaging and file-sharing service, is to bring end-to-end encryption to Zoom meetings.

While it might be far down the pecking order of best selling streaming boxes, the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K got high marks in the first quarter of this year for best picture quality speed and shortest lag time in starting videos, according to data collected from billions of sensors embedded into video applications.

The results are a clear sign of how well streaming devices and services performed in a period where more people around the world were homebound due to the coronavirus pandemic and turned to watching television en masse.

The 6.1-inch iPhone 12 will jump from dual to triple camera lenses, if an unconfirmed report is correct. New renders supposedly showing other details this handset came to light as well.

If the basic 2020 iPhone gets a big camera upgrade, this would further blur the line between the iPhone 12 and the more expensive iPhone 12 Pro models. Previous leaks indicate that every iOS device coming this fall will have 5G and an OLED screen.

Apple’s Magic Keyboard add-on for the iPad Pro looks amazing. And it appears even more spectacular when iFixit X-rayed this accessory to see the inner details of the scissor-switch keys, the trackpad and the hinges that make an iPad seem to float.

Apple and the U.S. economy will recover from the coronavirus pandemic despite the current “challenging” times, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said Thursday in a broadcast interview, remaining “bullish in the long haul.”

Rapper 50 Cent claims that he personally pitched Steve Jobs on paying him $150,000 to promote the iPod in his 2003 music video for the hit song “P.I.M.P.”

“You think you could sell an iPod? I could sell an iPod,” 50 recalled telling Jobs in a recent interview. “Jimmy [Iovine] will tell you, in that 10 minutes that I sat there, I got [Jobs] to give me $150,000. [It was] the first time Apple did product placement in anything, any music video.”

The first reviews of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro all praise the laptop’s Magic Keyboard and laud the demise of the pesky butterfly keyboard.

Across the board, reviewers love the keyboard upgrade. But they also appreciate the faster processor and doubled storage in the long-overdue update. Here’s a roundup of the very first reviews of the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, which Apple released on May 4.

Brydge on Wednesday rolled out the first firmware update for its Pro+ keyboard for iPad Pro. It’s designed to fix some of the issues users and reviewers have been experiencing with the built-in trackpad — and it’s certainly a good start.

But there are some things you should be aware of before you rush off to buy a Pro+ for your iPad Pro.

Apple’s first products to incorporate Mini LED display technology might not make it onto store shelves until 2021 due to development delays related to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report Thursday from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Those products could include everything from iPad’s to iMacs and laptops.

A new Apple TV 4K, powered by the company’s A12X chip from 2018’s 11-inch iPad Pro, is primed to drop any day, claims tipster Jon Prosser.

“Apple got no chill right now,” Prosser tweeted Thursday. He adds that he has not yet heard a projected date of release.

Apple is awarding $10 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, a company making sample collection kits for COVID-19 coronavirus testing.

This funding will let COPAN “rapidly accelerate” its supply of collection kits for hospitals across the United States, helping it expand production to more than a million kits per week by early July.

Want to know how the new 13-inch MacBook Pro stacks up against its predecessor or other MacBooks on the market? A new report by Japanese language Apple blog Macotakara compares the Geekbench CPU scores for various MacBooks.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, announced earlier this week, has a Geekbench score of 4565 and 1093 for multi and single core scores for its Intel Core i7 variant. Meanwhile, the lower spec Intel Core i5-sporting MacBook Pro model scores 4489 and 1066. That’s only marginally better than 2019 13-inch models.

Although, if pure processing power is what you’re after, you’re better off opting for the 16-inch MacBook Pro Apple debuted last year!

Apple TV+ show For All Mankind is currently between seasons — with season one concluded, but season two stalled by the same production challenges facing everyone in Hollywood right now.

To make sure that the retro space drama stays in people’s minds, however, Apple Wednesday dropped a new video providing a narrated tour of one of the show’s locations. Check it out below.

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Drew, two of the high profile executives Apple brought in with its $3 billion purchase of Beats, are profiled in the new issue of GQ. While both have stepped back from their daily involvement with Apple, the article nonetheless briefly touches on Cupertino’s 2014 Beats purchase — and why Iovine says it made total sense for Apple.

Iovine, who stepped aside as head of Apple Music in 2018, said that he and Dre now spend their time searching for the next Steve Jobs, via a focus on education.

On Thursday, Australia became the first country outside of China to reopen large numbers of Apple Stores as 21 of its 22 retail outlets opened their doors again for the first time in more than six weeks.

The Australian Apple Stores, like all others outside China, have been closed since March 14. They were temporarily shuttered due to the spread of COVID-19.

Apple Watch made up a whopping 55.5% of global smartwatch shipments in the first three months of the year, according to a report released Wednesday by a market-research firm.

Apple shipments grew significantly, and so did those of its top competitors. Still, the COVID-19 epidemic is hurting smartwatch sales, and is expected to continue to do so.