A day after the Apple Music Lossless Audio announcement, there’s still a great deal of confusion. A few things have become clear in the meantime, but other elements remain murky. Apple spent most of its press release talking about Spatial Audio, and very little talking about Lossless Audio. That wasn’t a surprise: Anyone with the right kit will be able to hear the benefit of the former, while rather few will be able to hear the lossless difference…...

Earlier this year a rumor began floating around that claimed Apple had acquired Faceshift, the company behind the motion capture technology used in Star Wars. Now, TechCrunch reports that the acquisition has become official and Apple has acquired the Zurich-based Faceshift startup. Apple has not directly confirmed the acquisition, but issued its standard statement regarding its purchasing of smaller companies. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said....

Uber announced today that it is adding Apple Pay support to its food delivery Uber Eats service. While Apple Pay has been available in the Uber ride-sharing app for several years, it was notably missing from the Uber Eats counterpart. As first reported by TechCrunch, customers can now use Apple Pay directly in the Uber Eats application to complete the checkout process. Apple Pay uses either Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate each purchase....

Apple is planning to hold an “enormous” iPhone-related event in its stores this week in order to boost sales, according to a source with knowledge of the initiative. Beginning May 8th, the source said, Apple will be contacting upgrade-eligible iPhone users with older iPhone models via email to come into their local Apple Store to update to a new iPhone 5s or iPhone 5c… This program blends nicely with Apple’s Apple Store-based iPhone hardware trade-in program, which allows customers to turn-in older iPhone models to purchase a new model at a discounted price....

Apple has shared some tips this week to show how developers and users can properly report bugs they have experienced with Apple’s products. The article, “How to file great bug reports” couldn’t have come at a better time, as the company is about to release the first beta version of iOS 14 this month at WWDC 2020. Beta versions of iOS, macOS, and other operating systems often have several bugs, which is even more common with major updates....

Apple has just published two new software betas for developers on its Developer Center. The new betas cover both OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, with what appear to be bug fix releases on each platform. You can find the change logs below. We’ll also include a running list of changes. Apple recently distributed iOS 9 beta 3 to developers and beta testers, and OS X 10.10.4 to the general public....

Apple has released the first iOS 10.3.3 public beta for users to test without paid developer accounts. The update likely includes bug fixes and performance improvements as well as new wallpapers discovered only on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro… Apple’s public beta program is free to participate in unlike its paid developer program. iOS 10.3.3 will be released to everyone likely next month, and the public beta allows more users to test pre-release versions of the software update before it’s finalized....

Apple has released macOS High Sierra beta 9 for developer testing, the second release this week. macOS High Sierra includes the new Apple File System, HEVC video playback, Metal 2, Photos and Safari upgrades, and more. macOS High Sierra beta 9 is currently only available to registered developers for now. Apple typically holds new public beta versions for a few days for major updates, although recent versions have launched on the same day....

Apart from that, there is not much else to tell, so, this looks like a last minute discovery that possibly did not make it into 11.2. Apple suffered a terrible week of bugs and disclosures in iOS 11 a couple weeks ago. The mobile OS launched in last September and has since received eight updates. This is starting to look like the beginning of a new trend of frequent updates....

Apple is rolling out macOS 10.12.2 beta 6 for Mac — the second release in three days. The new update follows the initial macOS 10.12.2 beta at the end of October and multiple additional builds since. Today’s build is available on the developer center and will likely hit the Mac App Store soon [update: OTA available now]. macOS 10.12.2 includes Unicode 9.0 emoji support, which matches compatibility in beta versions of iOS 10....

Some of Apple’s services are currently down for some users around the world. Apple has confirmed the ongoing outage, which affects Find My, iCloud Calendar, iCloud Mail, the iCloud website, and even the Screen Time feature. Find My and iCloud are currently down According to Apple’s website, the issues were first detected around 3:55 AM ET. The company says that “some users have been affected” and that they may be “experiencing an issue with the service....

Android may be heading toward becoming the dominant mobile OS on strength of simply being ‘good enough’, but Apple’s iPhone remains the best, building user loyalty no other platform currently possesses. New research from GfK says nearly 60 percent of iPhone owners plan to stay loyal to Apple — compare this with competitors, the percentage of how many owners plan to say loyal follow: 35 percent of BlackBerry 28 per cent Android 24 per cent Symbian 21 percent Windows Mobile...

We are already used to seeing patents from Apple showing new technologies that the company has been experimenting with in its devices, but this one is a bit different. The US Patent and Trademark Office this week granted Apple a patent for a car sunroof – which certainly wasn’t made for an iPhone or iPad. The Apple-patented sunroof has variable opacity glass, meaning that the driver would have the option to adjust the sunroof’s transparency....

Apple has launched a new website today that allows business owners to order Apple Pay decal packs for their stores. Each of these packs includes two glass decals in different sizes, two register decals (also in different sizes), and a tool for affixing the ads to the appropriate surfaces. Businesses can order up to five of these packs (for a total of twenty decals) absolutely free of charge, but those who need more than five will need to call Apple to place an order....

Apple has kicked off a new ad campaign for the iPad Pro that targets PC users skeptical of the tablet as a real computer. The new videos are quite different from recent advertisements from Apple and have a similar tone to Apple’s famous ‘I’m a Mac and I’m a PC’ ad era. Each ad features tweets from PC users with a reason they don’t think the iPad Pro is right for them, then a voiceover answers the critique with details about what the iPad can do better than a PC....

Apple has been denied an effort to move a consumer privacy lawsuit to private arbitration today. The case involves customer complaints against Apple and T-Mobile over iMessage and FaceTime not being as secure as they’re marketed. Reported by Bloomberg, the consumer lawsuit Ohanian v. Apple Inc. is based on multiple customers’ claims that an iOS bug + T-Mobile’s approach to recycling phone numbers created a privacy breach: Apple and T-Mobile made a request to handle the complaints through private arbitration, and US District Judge Lorna G....

Following the announcement of the first Apple Entrepreneur Camp for Black developers and founders last week, Apple today opened applications for another Entrepreneur Camp for female founders and developers. The event will take place online in July and applications are now open. Apple shared the news on the Apple Developer website, inviting women to join Entrepreneur Camp, which will be held July 20-29, 2021. The first female-focused Entrepreneur Camp was held in October 2019 as part of Apple’s initiatives to promote inclusion and diversity....

Apple announced last month that Apple Pay is ‘coming soon’ in Germany after launching in the United States in 2014. While there was no specific date mentioned, it now looks like customers in Germany will be able to use Apple’s mobile payment service as soon as tomorrow. The original announcement last month was made through an update to Apple’s website in Germany as well as a partner bank update: Apple Pay also recently debuted in both Belgium and Kazakhstan, continuing the global rollout four years after first launching with select partners in the United States....

Apple has posted ads for all the usual retail store positions in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. This could indicate plans for the company’s first full retail store in the country. Apple mostly relies on a network of authorized resellers in Bangkok. It currently has almost 100 of these, dotted around the capital … While the job listings are for all the current positions found in an Apple store, this doesn’t amount to definitive evidence....

Following up on last year’s Snapchat geofilter, Apple continues this year with a new sponsored filter for WWDC 2017. Snapchat users near the McEnery Convention Center will be able to use the new filter when sharing photos. Last year’s filters included different options for users to pick from, but Apple has only one this year. The filter overlays “WWDC17” and three stickers over the shared photo. The stickers can also be found in the official WWDC app’s iMessage app....