As we move past Christmas and into Boxing Day worldwide, Apple has confirmed its annual ‘Lucky Bag’ sale for Jan. 2 in Japan. The sale, which takes place in seven stores across the country, allows shoppers who get in line early to purchase a 33,000 yen ($390 USD) gift bag that includes the possibility of headphones, an iPod touch, cases, an Apple T-shirt, and other accessories. The real surprise is a few gift bags are loaded with special items like a MacBook Air or iPad that a few lucky people will receive....

There is now a way for security researchers to gain (legal) access to unlocked iPhone test devices which do not have the usual protections surrounding arbitrary code execution and other defences. Access to ‘rooted’ hardware enables security researchers to inspect core parts of the operating system more easily, which helps to track down exploits in the kernel and other low-level areas of the iOS operating system. Apple announced its plans to do this almost a year ago....

Apple introduced the Beats Flex wireless earphones last year, which came as a better and cheaper replacement to the BeatsX. While the Beats Flex earphones were available for $49 until a few days ago, Apple mysteriously raised the price to $69 this week. As noted by Apple blogger Pedro Henrique on Monday (via MacMagazine), the Beats Flex purchase page on the Apple Online Store now shows the product priced at $69....

Outages in Apple’s online services are not unusual, but this one is rather peculiar. Some users may not be able to add their Mastercard credit and debit cards to Apple Pay on Wednesday, according to Apple. The company says there’s an ongoing outage in its payment system, but it seems to only affect Mastercard users. Update: Apple says all issues have now been fixed and users should be able to add their cards to Apple Pay....

Apple this year is really endorsing the idea that having an iPhone 13 Pro is having “Hollywood in your pocket.” Now the company is promoting the video capabilities of its flagship smartphone with three new short clips shared on YouTube and other media. The new clips highlight some of the iPhone 13 Pro’s key camera features for shooting video. The first one, called “Detectives,” shows Cinematic Mode in action with two people and one of them blurred in the background....

Apple today published a report on its website detailing the “Economic and Fiscal Impacts Generated by Apple in Cupertino – Current Facilities and Apple Campus 2.” Apple notes that the report, which details a number of topics from job creation to construction of its new spaceship campus, was put together by Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. (KMA) for the City of Cupertino under contract with Apple Inc. Much of the report focuses on the economic impacts and future contributions of Apple’s currently under construction Apple Campus 2....

In a recent change to its iCloud syncing service, Apple has raised the total number of contacts it will store and sync across your devices before hitting the maximum allowed. Previously iCloud enforced a hard limit of syncing 25,000 contacts, but an updated support document (via iFun.de) highlights that limit doubling now to a total of 50,000 contacts… Apple states that exceeding the limit may cause iCloud to experience “issues keeping changes up to date across your devices,” advising that users stay within the doubled contacts limit as well as other limits for calendars, reminders, and Safari bookmarks....

Apple has released the first iOS 12 public beta for iPhone and iPad — which means more Memoji for the iPhone X users! This allows users who are not registered developers to test pre-release versions of iOS with new features for free (and a few bugs). Prior to the public beta availability, iOS 12 has only been available to test with a $99/year developer account. In terms of stability, the same warnings apply to any pre-release software so you should proceed with caution....

Earlier today, Apple released the fourth betas of macOS 10.12.5 and iOS 10.3.2 to developers. Now, the company has released the betas to public beta testers too, as it usually does following the initial release to developers… macOS 10.12.5 is a minor update and focuses on bug fixes and security improvements. The update comes following the more significant update of macOS 10.12.4, which brought Apple’s color shifting Night Shift feature to the Mac for the first time....

Apple is releasing HomePod 15.1.1 Software to all users today. This update comes a few days after the company seeded version 15.1.1 of tvOS. Today’s build is 1A2591. It’s not yet clear what is changing with this version, but it’s probably just bug fixes, as with tvOS 15.1.1. Also this week, Apple launched three new colors of the HomePod mini which ship with version 15 of the software. With version 15....

Apple has just seeded the first iOS 10.1 beta for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This follows the public release of iOS 10 from just last week. It has also seeded the first update to watchOS 3; watchOS 3.1. There is also a bug fix for tvOS being seeded; tvOS 10.0.1. iOS 10.1 includes the bokeh depth-of-field Portrait feature for the iPhone 7 Plus, which allows users to take pictures of people and have the phone synthetically blur the background....

Apple has released a notable supplemental update to macOS Catalina 10.15.4 today. The update brings a FaceTime bug fix, MacBook Air 2020 improvements, and more. Apple released macOS Catalina 10.15.4 to the public last week, brining support for iCloud Drive Folder Sharing, Apple Music, time-synced lyrics, and more. Since then, there have been some complaints from users about the stability of the update; and that’s what today’s supplement release aims to address....

If you’ve been wondering what’s different with Apple’s ads lately, you are probably not alone. Scott Trattner had been working with Apple’s exclusive ad agency, TBWA’s Media Arts Lab, since 2004, but left the firm in the summer of 2012 to join 72andSunny. Trattner worked on multiple campaigns for Apple, including the famous Get a Mac series. He served as the Executive Creative Director during his initial run with Apple’s ad firm....

Wired has an interesting profile today on Lisa Jackson, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency who joined Apple in June last year to oversee environmental issues. The publication joined Jackson as she traveled to Apple’s new data center outside of Reno, Nevada, and through the interview offers some interesting insight into what Jackson is trying to accomplish at Apple. The interview with Jackson is landing just as Apple is set to celebrate Earth Day tomorrow and make some new environmental related announcements:...

Digitimes’ latest report puts some numbers on the low end iPhones coming out of China. The 2.5 year old iPhone 3GS has continued to sell briskly with the volume likely to reach two million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 1.4-1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to “industry sources”. Think about that for a second. In a world where a new, free Android flagship phone comes out every week or so and dying out a few months later, Apple is selling 2 million/quarter of a device that was introduced two and a half years ago....

Apple last week confirmed 2.29 million Mac sales in its second quarter. Mac sales overall climbed 51 per cent, year-on-year, a rate of growth an astonishing 3.5 times that of the overall PC market. Desktop sales climbed 37 per cent, also faster than PC market averages, The company’s portable sales were driven by continued strong demand for Macbook, Macbook Pros and the MacBook Air. This steady demand meant Quanta Computer saw profits climb 18 per cent to book NT$4 billion for the quarter....

There’s been a huge Apple Maps update over the course of the past few weeks, with real-time transit information now available the whole of Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and most of the UK (excludes Northern Ireland). It has also been made available in selected cities in Australia and China – as well as many more US cities and states. There are also substantial expansions to Look Around, Nearby, Turn-by-turn Navigation, and Indoor Maps for airports …...

As Apple Music continues to expand with content and features, the service is picking up three new distributors to offer music, music videos, lyrics, and concert footage. As reported by Billboard (via Digital Music News), Apple Music has signed deals with CD Baby, Kontor, and The Orchard to include them in the “Apple Preferred Distribution Program”. There are three distributor tiers for this program, and all three of the new distributors are coming on with the top “Preferred Plus” designation....

Apple this week announced a new feature called Apple Music Sing, which brings a karaoke experience to most songs available on the streaming platform. However, although Apple has said that the feature will be released soon for iPhone and iPad users with iOS 16.2, not every model will support it. Read on as we detail which devices are compatible with Apple Music Sing. Apple Music Sing requires newer devices As described by the company, Apple Music Sing is a new way to “hum, rap, jam, or sing along with millions of your favorite songs....

Apple announced at WWDC in June that Apple Pay would be coming to Spain at some point this year, and Spanish site Applesfera is reporting that the service will launch tomorrow for Banco Santander customers. The mobile payment system Apple Pay will definitely come to Spain this Thursday, December 1, for Banco Santander customers. Several sources have confirmed to Applesfera that – barring any last-minute changes – the rollout date will be tomorrow … The site implies that its sources are within the bank, rather than Apple....