After a period of delays and an official hearing with Irish regulatory body An Bord Pleanála, Apple has finally been given permission to move ahead with its 500-acre data center site near the west coast of Ireland.

Apple’s case was heard back in May this year, but it took until recently for inspector Stephen Kay to submit his recommendations to the Irish advisory board about the $960 million project.

Disney dropped a brand new trailer for the upcoming movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story during the Olympics tonight, giving fans of the Force their first glimpse at Darth Vader’s return to the big screen.

The action-packed trailer is full of new bad guys, droids, and rebels, some of which have teamed up to steal plans from the Empire right before it begins testing the dreaded Death Star. James Earl Jones is returning to provide the voice of the Chosen One who is probably not going to be happy by the end of the film that’s set before the events of A New Hope

Behold:

The lifting of sanctions on Iran could turn into a gold mine for American companies, and Apple is set to be one of the first through the gates as the country plans to lift is ban on iPhone sales.

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If you’re a fan of base-building strategy games, there’s a good chance you’ve been playing Cloud Raiders on your mobile phones and tablets in the last few years — but you might not know that Cloud Raiders recently made the jump to the Mac App Store. We’ve been playing it on Mac, and as a geeky crew of gamers, we’re impressed.

Boy, iPhones sure do grow up fast. There’s a brand new model out almost every six months, while the one in your pocket gets sluggish and senile.

If you’re looking to upgrade and aren’t sure what to do with your hobbled old phone, sell your iPhone to us first! Most of the time, Cult of Mac’s Apple gear buyback program can get you more money for your outdated, used or even broken devices than Gazelle, Walmart, Best Buy, and Apple themselves.

When this Valentine guitar arrived, I took a look at it, puffed out a quiet “Hmmph,” and carried on working. Even though I’d seen photos, I was still underwhelmed by the instrument’s appearance: pale, natural wood; a tortoise shell pickguard; and the kind of doughy, conservative shape that could make even an audience of meth-fueled Juggalos fall asleep.

Then I picked it up, and fell in love.

A display assembly purportedly destined for the iPhone 7 has leaked out ahead of the handset’s official debut next month. The part gives us an early glimpse at the changes Apple has made, like flipping the LCD panel upside down.

Apple famously wants no part in a museum dedicated to its revolutionary products. However, one key contributor to Apple’s early years feels differently — and is helping a Maine teenager elevate his basement computer collection into a thriving technology museum.

Jerry Manock, Apple’s first design guru, will serve on the board of directors for the future Maine Technology Museum, which will house the collection of 15-year-old Alex Jason, who has established what many serious collectors say is one of the best Apple collections anywhere.

With the iPhone 7 just weeks away, new high-resolution pictures have popped up online revealing what appear to be the finished handsets as they’ll appear on launch day.

In terms of what we can expect from Apple’s new handset, these photos don’t reveal anything new, but instead apparently reconfirm reports like the dual-lens camera on the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus and the availability of a range of colors.

Apple has confirmed that its new World Trade Center retail store will open on Tuesday, August 16. The new location at 185 Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan will become Apple’s tenth store in New York City.

Everyone’s taking photos these days thanks to smartphones, but unless you’re a professional photo editor you don’t need an expensive subscription to Photoshop to make your images look their best. With this bundle of photo editing apps for Mac — from noise reduction and artificial light source simulators to photo stitching, mosaic makers, image organizers and more — you’ll have everything you need to make every image a keeper. And right now you can get the whole shebang for just $29.99 at Cult of Mac Deals. Here’s what’s included:

As part of its mobile health drive, Apple has rehired Evan Doll, co-founder of “social magazine” company Flipboard. Doll will serve as Apple’s new director of health software engineering.

Tech security company Exodus Intelligence is offering $500,000 to anyone who can discover and share with them critical holes which exist in iOS 9.3 and above — as well as smaller (but still significant) sums to anyone finding bugs in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Adobe Flash.

You can breath a sigh of relief: Apple’s forthcoming Project Titan apparently isn’t going to be an articulated tank, after all!

As it turns out, the patent which circulated yesterday — showing how Apple had acquired a patent for allowing an articulated vehicle to survive gunfire or harsh weather situations — should never have been signed over to Cupertino in the first place.

Netflix has created an all-new app for iPhone and Android users, only instead of letting you binge on all the video content you want, the new app simply checks if your Internet connection is up for the challenge.

To ensure it remains the most popular app on iOS, Apple is giving Messages a big overhaul with iOS 10. Users have a whole bunch of awesome new features to look forward to — including the ability to send animations. Here’s how.

Three men broke into an Apple campus building in Cupertino this morning, prompting Silicon Valley law enforcement to conduct a huge manhunt for the burglars.

Sheriff’s deputies and police officers went door to door through the Cambrian Park neighborhood of San Jose in an effort to find the suspects, who were spotted by Apple security breaking a glass door of the building in the early morning hours.

Google’s official Docs, Sheets and Slides apps for iOS finally support Split View multitasking on iPad, giving users the ability to compose reports and edit their spreadsheets while simultaneously using a second app.

In a new wide ranging interview, Apple’s senior VP of internet software and services, Eddy Cue, revealed how the company fixed a lot of mistakes it made with the launch of Apple Maps in 2012 by utilizing data from the hundreds of millions of iPhones around the globe.

Cue and Apple software chief Craig Federighi sat down to talk about the troubles with Apple Maps, the difference between working for Tim Cook and Steve Jobs, Apple’s competition with Facebook and Amazon and learning from failure.

Apple’s next-generation A10 processor has been pictured for the first time ahead of its big debut this fall. The chip, which will power the iPhone 7 series that’s coming this fall, was obtained by a Chinese repair shop.

Backpacks aimed at tech heads are seemingly everywhere these days. But even with such a crowded marketplace, a couple of bags really leap out.

Two such backpacks are the Lowepro’s Fastback BP 250 AW II and Streetline BP 250, both of which are my go-to carriers when I need to haul my camera equipment, laptop, tablet — and maybe even an odd change of clothes — around with me.

Why do these two bags stand out from the pack? Check out the video below for my full reviews:

We’re gradually getting closer and closer to the public release of iOS 10 later this fall, which means developer betas are dropping fast. Just a week after beta 4 was released, beta 5 is already here.

Check out what’s new in our hands-on video below.

Some ideas have a combination of common sense and innovation that it feels good just to think about. An example: since you’re charging your smartphone while you drive, why not turn that charger into a locator so you know where your car is after you get out? That’s exactly what this car charger from Zus does, a brilliant, simple device built for double duty that can be yours for almost half off — get one for $29.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple’s decision to sell national flag-themed Apple Watch bands exclusively in Rio may look like an official Olympics tie-in, but it’s actually a smart bit of guerrilla marketing that’s having the (unintentional?) side effect of drawing attention away from rival Samsung, a.k.a. the official phone sponsor of the Olympic games.