A patent published today shows that Apple is investigating new halogen free, flame-retardant materials for use in its devices.

According to Apple, only about 12% of plastics currently contain flame retardants. An increased use of such materials would improve the safety of electrical wiring and electronic devices, and help reduce the number of fires caused by electronic devices as a result.

Halogenated flame retardants have been found to be effective in many plastics, but these are increasingly regulated as a result of environmental concerns. Since sustainability is a big topic for Apple, the company therefore wanted to discover a material that would possess similar fire-retardant qualities, while also not being damaging to the environment.

Tuesday’s patent describes a material with these qualities, that also produces only negligible amounts of toxic substances while burning. As per Apple, the material could be used in devices including the iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad.

After China, India represents Apple’s next big frontier, with 1.2 billion citizens and a rapidly growing smartphone market, that will have sold approximately 80 million handsets this year.

Which is why it’s great news that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is proving just as popular there as it is elsewhere in the world, with India’s first shipment of the iPhone 6 selling out in a lightning-fast 72 hours.

At 55,000 units, India’s first iPhone shipment may not have been the biggest one around, but it’s still impressive for a country that is still very much a developing market for high end smartphones. Last year, only 6,000 units of the flagship iPhone 5s were supplied by Apple, which also vanished from shelves very quickly.

Tim Cook may be the Apple CEO we picture when we think of the mission to make Apple a “force for good” in the world, including enhanced accessibility for deaf users. But Steve Jobs was the person who first got the ball rolling.

During the Tampa Bay Business 100 awards last night — an event dedicated to honoring the 100 largest private companies in Tampa Bay, Florida — the CEO of a company which makes Internet video communication tools recalled how Jobs helped him use the so-called ZVRS technology with FaceTime.

Apple may be out-earning its rivals, but there’s one place it’s lagging behind: political lobbying.

While companies like Google and Facebook continued to pour millions of dollars into influencing U.S. lawmakers during Q3, Apple spent a fraction of this sum.

According to recently published data, between July and September Google spent $3.94 million on lobbying, while Facebook spent $2.45 million. Apple, for its part, spent just over $1 million — mainly pushing issues related to consumer health legislation, transportation of lithium ion batteries, international taxes, e-books, medical devices, and copyright.

Your iPhone can make payments, control your smart home, and track your health — and soon it might be able to control your car, as well.

A new patent published Thursday describes a way of using the iPhone’s geo-location capabilities to intelligently monitor and control certain car functions, based on “geofences.”

Likely pairing with Apple’s vehicle-based OS, CarPlay, the patent notes how your car could be tracked in relation to your iPhone — with appropriate signals, sent using Bluetooth LE, to execute functions like locking your car and arming its alarm when you are a certain distance from the vehicle.

Are you looking for a high tech, upscale beverage maker to go along with your brand new 5K 27-inch Retina iMac?

If so you could do a lot worse than this revolutionary BKON Craft Brewer, a machine that allows you to make the perfect cup of loose-leaf tea, coffee, cocktail, and a variety of other drinks from your home, without the need for an intensive training course and plenty of spare time.

How does it do it? In one word: physics.

When Tim Cook took time out of yesterday’s iPad and iMac keynote to discuss just how excited he was about the iPhone 6 coming to China, he wasn’t kidding: the market Cook has previously said could one day overtake the U.S. has been going iPhone crazy.

Having been made available for preorder on October 10, today marks the first day in which the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are available for (authorized) sale in China, being made available on all three major networks.

Apple is attempting to push its Apple Maps software to the next level, courtesy of indoor mapping capabilities, according to a new patent application uncovered by Cult of Mac today.

Filed in April this year, the application describes a method of seamlessly transitioning from a map displaying exterior elements like roads and buildings to one that shows indoor elements, like stores and restaurants.

This technology is designed to work with iBeacons, Apple’s Bluetooth Low Energy emitters designed to make iDevices location aware indoors.

While some may see Xiaomi, Samsung, and other players in the smartphone race as iPhone copycats, Jony Ive sees it as downright “theft.” That was the clear takeaway from Ive’s interview at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit today.

It’s official: kids love the iPad more than they do Oreo cookies. According to the “2014 Young Love” study — an annual survey carried out by leading youth and family research firm Smarty Pants — the iPad beat out 255 other brands (including Disney, Nickelodeon, Toys”R”Us, McDonald’s and YouTube) to be named the #1 brand among children aged 6-12.

The survey was conducted among a representative sample of U.S. households, with a total of 256 consumer brands evaluated as part of a three-month study of 6,661 children and their parents. Scores were based on a composite scale of 0-1,000 based on brand awareness, love, and popularity.

The top ten brands can be seen below: