Apple’s marketing honcho Phil Schiller joins biotech company Illumina’s board of directors

Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, has been named to biotechnology company Illumina's board of directors. According to Illumina's announcement, Phil’s track record and global experience in marketing world-class products “will help guide us as we continue to develop innovative new solutions for our customers.”

Of course, Apple's interest in health-related technologies for the Apple Watch is well known. Illuminas President and CEO, Francis deSouza, said that Phil's vision, integrity and passion are “fully aligned” with Illumina’s core values.

Pokémon GO Plus companion wearable accessory has been delayed until September

Pokémon GO Plus, a Bluetooth-driven wearable device that helps you catch 'em all without looking at Nintendo's Pokémon GO augmented-reality game on your smartphone, is now set to launch in September, not late-July as previously announced. Nintendo of America tweeted news of the delay earlier this week.

“The Pokemon GO Plus accessory will now be released Sept 2016 instead of the originally expected end of July launch,” reads the announcement.

Controlling what your Eevee evolves into in Pokémon GO

Eevee is an unusual Pokémon in the hit mobile game because unlike other Pokémon, it can evolve into three possible outcomes. Those three are Flareon (fire), Jolteon (electric), and Vaporeon (water).

Typically, when you evolve an Eevee, the outcome is going to be 100% random, but as the game publisher Niantic confirmed this week, there is a small cheat that you can use to actually control what your Eevee evolves into, and we'll talk about that in this tutorial.

This tweak brings iOS 8-styled alerts back to iOS 9

iOS 9 made some UI refinements over iOS 8, despite the fact that most of the UI looks primarily the same as before. One of the things Apple tweaked were the alerts that can pop up on your screen from notifications.

In iOS 9, Apple changed the design a little bit and made the corners much rounder, and if you aren't a fan of the change, then a new jailbreak tweak called 8Alerts may tickle your fancy.

Apple is reportedly revoking some certificates used to jailbreak iOS 9.3.3 from Safari

Over the weekend, Pangu and 25PP launched a jailbreak for iOS 9.2-9.3.3, and not long after, iOS developers found a way to make the jailbreak possible via the Safari web browser without the need to use a computer.

Unfortunately, however, Apple appears to be blocking the enterprise certificate that has been used in this process, so attempting jailbreaks from the device itself isn't currently working.

Apple passes 1 billion iPhones sold

Apple on Wednesday announced that it recently passed the 1 billion iPhones sold milestone. In a press release, the company said that during a staff meeting in Cupertino this morning, Tim Cook told employees that they had sold their one billionth handset last week.

The news comes just a day after Apple issued its third quarter earnings report, in which it said it sold just over 40 million iPhones during the 3-month period. That number is down some 7 million units from Q3 2015, but obviously they still have a reason to celebrate.

Google app gains Forward button (seriously!), more reliable voice search & other new features

In addition to adding support for Accelerated Mobile Pages to Chrome for iOS, Google also this morning issued a refresh to its native search app on the App Store, which supports Google Now cards. Google 17.0 for iOS, a free download, packs in improvements to help you get things done more quickly in the app such as the addition of a Forward button (what took them so long, really?), a more reliable voice search, the ability to revisit recent pages for a full seven days and a few local search results improvements.

Chrome for iOS now supports Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages

Google today issued a small but important refresh to the Chrome browser for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on the App Store. The updated software bumps up version number to 52.0.2743.84 and brings official support for Accelerated Mobile Pages that, similar to Instant Articles on Facebook, load in a fraction of the time of their non-accelerated mobile versions. Any news stories and articles from partner publishers that have a lightning bolt and “AMP” next to them in search results will load instantly when tapped on.

Apple makes significant progress on its first retail store in Singapore

Apple's first retail store in Singapore appears to be progressing nicely, with new photos obtained by MacRumors proving that the construction of the store's glass facade and canopy is now well underway. Apple confirmed in November 2015 that its first-ever store in the Southeast Asia city-state will be powered by hundred percent renewable energy, but did not provide a timeframe for the opening.

The store location has been under renovation since earlier this year.

Much-enhanced parking space information comes to Apple Maps courtesy of Parkopedia

Finding a parking lot in your area has gotten a whole lot easier with an announcement this morning from parking service company Parkopedia that its detailed parking data is now being used by Apple Maps across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Parkopedia offers detailed information on more than 40 million parking spaces in 75 countries and Maps users on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch can now view detailed information about parking garages and lots around the world.

Is Xiaomi’s first-ever Windows PC notebook a shameless MacBook Air ripoff?

Xiaomi (pronounced “sh-YEOW-mee”), a booming Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics maker, today took the wraps off its first-ever Windows PC notebook and it looks awfully familiar to the MacBook Air. The familiarity starts with the device's silly 'Mi Notebook Air' moniker and extends to its unibody industrial design that's thinner and lighter than Apple's notebook.

Offered in 12.5 and 13.3-inch varieties, the product matches and—in terms of graphics, lightness and thinness—one-ups the MacBook Air while costing half as much. Xiaomi's new notebooks run Windows 10 and will hit store shelves in China on August 2.