Through a press release and a post on Medium by Apple VP Lisa Jackson, Apple and The Conservation Fund have today announced a ‘breakthrough’ arrangement for sustainability. The deal involves Apple purchasing 36,000 acres of forest land in the eastern United States. Apple will use the paper from the forests for sustainable product packaging with guarantees to ensure that “forests stay forests” and harvested timber is done so in a sustainable way....

A patent application filing by Apple demonstrates a system where a vehicle can be unlocked via mobile biometric authentication, perhaps opening the door (literally) for Face ID to one day secure our cars. Entitled “System and Method for Vehicle Authorization”, the patent was only published last Friday, however, it was filed over two years ago in February 2017. The patent offers up a background, explaining: By the car specifically knowing who is unlocking it, a shared family vehicle in theory could tailor specific music and driver settings automatically based on the person actively approaching the car — similar to separate user profile settings on a computer....

Apple has been slowly investing in gaming content with Apple Arcade, but there is still a whole market that the company could explore – and maybe it will. The company’s latest patents reveal that it has plans to introduce its own game controller. Patents related to game controllers have been granted to Apple by the US Patent & Trademark Office and the European Patent Office in the past two weeks (via Patently Apple)....

We learned last fall that Apple plans to bring Apple Pay to China by partnering with UnionPay. Code found within iOS pointed to Apple preparing its mobile payment service for China while MarketWatch reported Apple was working on a deal with the institution. Several months later, however, MarketWatch now reports that Apple is “struggling with its relationship with UnionPay,” adding that Apple has not yet established an agreement it hoped to reach by March....

Public transit users in San Francisco now have a new way to pay. The Clipper card, which is used for most public transit systems in San Francisco, now supports Apple Pay with Express Transit Mode. This was first announced back in February, and it’s now available to everyone. The Clipper card is a reloadable smart card used for transit fare payment in the San Francisco Bay Area. It gives access to buses, rails, ferries, and trains from 24 different transit agencies, which includes BART and Muni....

As the competition in the podcast industry continues to heat up, Apple has made a new partnership to help its younger users find appropriate content. Teaming up with Common Sense Media will see new kid podcast recommendations in the Apple Podcast app as well as online. Apple has long been leading the podcast industry. Just last week, we heard one of the first reports that predicts Spotify will end up overtaking Apple this year when it comes to monthly podcast listenership....

Apple continues to share insights from its collection of health studies. Last week, the company shared insights from a hearing study based on iPhone and Apple Watch data. Today, the Apple Women’s Health Study team at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released a preliminary study update about women and their menstrual symptoms. Medical research on menstruation has often been limited to studies of smaller sizes, which are not representative of the broader population....

Two weeks after releasing the first beta, Apple today has released the second developer beta of iOS 9.3.2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. iOS 9.3.2 is a much smaller update compared to the recent significant iOS 9.3 update that brought about features such as Night Shift and Touch ID notes. The developer notes for the first iOS 9.3.2 beta were pretty standard, mentioning developer-specific issues and workarounds for Dictionary, iBooks, Safari, and Simulator....

Last month, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook inquiring about specific iPhone data usage practices. Today, Apple has officially responded to that letter, explaining in detail its commitment to privacy… In the letter, Apple’s director of federal government affairs Timothy Powderly explains that Apple believes privacy is a “fundamental human right,” echoing comments Apple has made in the past. Powderly goes on to note that, unlike some other technology companies, Apple does not make its users the products – nor is its business model dependent upon collecting identifiable information on users:...

Apple yesterday unveiled its new Face ID biometric technology and while the company spent a considerable amount of time talking about the security of the feature, some people are already showing doubt. As noted by Recode, United States Senator Al Franken is pressing Apple to offer more detail on privacy and security safeguards…. In a detailed and thorough letter sent directly to Tim Cook, Franken expressed his concern that Apple could use the faceprints it collects from Face ID to benefit other aspects of its business or to aid in law enforcement requests....

In another example of Apple walking a fine line with global governments, it has changed how Crimea is displayed in its Maps and Weather apps after heeding Russian demands. Update 11/29: Apple has officially responded to the change about how Crimea now populates in Maps and Weather as being a part of Russia when viewed from within Russia via CNBC. The response comes after the Ukraine publicly criticized Apple for the move....

Apple has joined the “First Movers Coalition,” a partnership between the World Economic Forum and the US Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate to maintain its commitment to becoming a carbon-neutral company by 2030. In a Twitter post, Apple VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson announced that she’s attending COP26 in Glasgow and announced that Apple is part of the First Movers Coalition and will “help accelerate new decarbonization technologies....

“We continue to see Apple as the best play on digital media in the home and a large beneficiary of the shift to mobile computing,” Wu wrote. Wu also thinks the recession’s bite will be felt first among value-conscious consumers, rather than the slightly higher income customers who form Apple’s base. “In two of its three big franchises, Mac and iPhone, penetration is very low and starting in the higher-income demographics....

Apple has given a straight-to-series order to a drama based Stephen King’s 2006 book “Lisey’s Story.” The series will star Julianne Moore in the leading role, according to a new report. Variety reports this evening that Apple has ordered eight episodes of the series, which will carry the same name as the book on which it is based. Stephen King will write all eight episodes of the show, while J.J. Abrams and Ben Stephenson will serve as executive producers....

HP’s Touchstone wireless charging technology as shown with the Pre The Wall Street Journal follows up on their earlier report about the iPhone 5, once again calling for a thinner and lighter device with an 8 megapixel camera – but with a design akin to the iPhone 4. Tonight’s new report claims that Apple is already at working on a major iPhone revamp for the product’s sixth iteration. The phone, which will launch sometime in 2012, is said to include a “new way of charging the phone....

Apple has just released the first developers betas of iOS 13, iPadOS 13, watchOS 6, macOS 10.15 and tvOS 13. The updates are available through the developer portal, for members of the Apple Developer Program. Currently, the iOS 13 beta must be installed using an IPSW through iTunes, we’ll update the post if a profile is made available. iOS 13 iPadOS watchOS 6 macOS 10.15 tvOS 13 As usual, a good advice is to not install the first developer betas on a personal device, since first betas of major updates tend to be fairly unstable....

Following its event earlier today, Apple this evening has released iTunes 12.7 with a variety of enhancements to the public. The update brings new features such as new social capabilities for Apple Music, support for iOS 11 devices, and more. The update simplifies iTunes with a stronger focus on music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. Gone are categories for apps, iTunes U, Internet Radio, Ringtones, and Books on Windows. This is noticeable when you click the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of iTunes....

As pointed out by Tonymacx86, Apple has released the Open Source code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, otherwise known as Darwin 10.10.0. This includes the xnu-2782.1.97 kernel. The update occurred last night and is available to anyone who wants to root around Apple’s open source code. Apple is just about exactly on schedule from last year’s Mavericks release a year and a week ago. Darwin forms the core set of components upon which OS X and iOS are based....

Code analytics platform SourceDNA has found hundreds of apps on the App Store that used private APIs to collect private user data, like email addresses and device identifiers, slipping under Apple’s radar in the approval process. The code got into these apps through the inclusion of a mischievous third-party advertising SDK, which secretly stored this data and sent it off to its own servers. Apple has now verified the SourceDNA report and is removing all of the apps that included the advertising SDK from the store, as using private API calls is a breach of App Review Guidelines....

After initially holding back a new iOS 9 feature called App Thinning (or App Slicing) that allows developers to ship smaller apps to customers and download additional content as needed, Apple now says it has resolved the issue that caused the delay. Starting with the recently released iOS 9.0.2, users will have access to updated apps that take advantage of App Thinning. Apple also updated developers on a Game Center-related change and rolled out an improved way for finding content from Apple’s developer sessions....