Monday, Tim Cook visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, where over 9,300 U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II are buried.
Tim Cook is scheduled to meet French president Emmanuel Macron today and, as part of his itinerary, he has now paid a quick visit to a small French company that makes critical components for iPhone X's Face ID system.
Apple yesterday shared a short “Shot on iPhone” film, titled “Détour”, by French Oscar-winning director Michel Gondry who is known for such independent movies as “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Science of Sleep”.
The eleven-minute video was posted to the Cupertino company's YouTube channels in France and the United Kingdom as part of its focus on producing local video content that can be shared online rather than the more traditional broadcast ads.
The film runs eleven minutes long and features original soundtrack by indie composer Étienne Charry. It follows the adventures of a small tricycle as it sets off along the French roads in search of its young owner, a nice take on the lost-and-found theme.
And here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrN1ytnQ-Tg
Along with the short film, Apple also shared a series behind-the-sccenes videos, seen below.
The clips show Gondry at work, explaining his approach to shooting films on iPhone and detailing some of the equipment used for “Détour”, which includes a multi-iPhone rig, Lightning-compatible microphones, a BeastGrip professional gimbal system and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDUqqFzELk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPdwbvJCqfY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jYI10yT07c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXgyX6cc5eE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIW5qChZJPg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vInEUWuRq_Q
Gondry won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his work on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. The director is scheduled to discuss the film and his career while sharing some of the tips for achieving cinematographic results on Apple's devices in a “Today at Apple” session at Apple March Saint-Germain on June 30.
Apple has added transit options to its Maps app for the city of Paris, TechCrunch reported Monday. Customers can now use Apple Maps on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and Apple Watch to calculate itineraries using the available public transportation options which include subway, RER and busses lines, among others.
French tax authorities have recently issued Apple a fine in the amount of 400 million euros (about $422 million), according to L'Express. At the core of the adjustment is Apple's complex and controversial tax optimization scheme that allows the firm to send back the lion share of its profits to tax-friendly countries such as Ireland.
The original Apple Watch debuted in April 2015 in a few markets, with Apple pushing the $10,000-$17,000 Apple Watch Edition aggressively via pop up shops found in high-profile department stores, including Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Selfridges in London and Isetan in Tokyo. But those pop up shops won't be open for much longer, it would seem.
As reported by French blog Mac4Ever, Apple will be closing the mini-store in Galeries Lafayette effective January 2017 due to poor sales of the device at the location.
Molotov.tv, France's premium video streaming service that offers access to nearly all of French television networks in one place, has launched exclusively on the Apple TV, as first reported by local blog iPhone Addict. The service was previously available via the desktop, through the web and on mobile devices.
Molotov.tv provides 37 premium channels, including those from Canal+ like D8, D17 and Cine+, plus 100 hours of on-demand streaming in exchange for a flat monthly fee of €9.99, or about $11.16. The free service includes 35 free channels and ten hours of on-demand content.
Apple today announced that its mobile payments service, called Apple Pay, is now accepted in France through launch partnerships established with card issuers Visa and MasterCard. Customers in France can now add their MasterCard and Visa cards to the Wallet app on their iPhone and start paying for goods and service in stores and apps with Apple Pay.
Last Thursday's deadly terrorist attack in France's Nice left eighty-four people dead when an attacker ploughed a lorry into people celebrating the national Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais. In the aftermath of the attack, Nintendo is postponing the planned release of Pokémon Go in the country out of respect for the French people “in this time of national mourning,” a Pokémon Company spokesperson told IGN France.
In addition to celebrating Bastille Day with 'Shot on iPhone' imagery in blue/white/red tones representing the country's national flag appearing on the company's French website and billboards across the country, the Cupertino firm has also signed a lease with the city of Grenoble to open a research and development center at the heart of the town.
The 800-square-meter facility will reportedly focus on imaging components and employ about thirty engineers, according to the local newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré cited by French blog iPhone.fr.
France is celebrating Bastille Day today and Apple has joined the festivities with a clever use of imagery from its award-winning 'Shot on iPhone' ad campaign on the Apple France homepage. The company carefully selected a batch of images from the campaign with predominant blue, white and red tones, and used them smartly on its website to form a basis for the French national flag colors.
During yesterday's WWDC 2016 keynote, Apple has confirmed that its mobile payments service is officially launching later this year in France, Hong Kong and Switzerland. Local Apple Pay webpages in these countries have already been refreshed to acknowledge the forthcoming launches in partnerships with Visa, MasterCard and American Express and detail participating banks and merchants.