The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) told Apple on Wednesday that it will not spend another dollar on the Pearson software installed on its iPads, reports local public radio station KPCC. Additionally, the school district is seeking a multimillion-dollar refund from the Cupertino giant for its failed technology initiative to put a tablet in the hands of each of its 650,000 students.
Thursday, Apple seeded the first beta of the upcoming OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 software update to its Mac developers, as first reported by MacRumors. Registered Mac developers can grab the installer manually through Apple's portal for developers, or automatically, using the OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility.
We'll be reporting on any interesting new features, changes and enhancements in OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 beta 1 as we encounter them.
Tim Cook added to his long list of accolades on Thursday, by making TIME's annual '100 Most Influential People' list. The Apple CEO joins other pioneers, leaders and cultural icons such as rap artist Kanye West, Pope Francis, and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun.
Civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis calls Cook a 'courageous innovator' in his TIME piece on the executive, praising him for both the work he has done at Apple, and his unwavering commitment to the fight for equality and human rights.
Google on Thursday issued an update to its Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad. Available free of charge on the App Store, Chrome now lets you start using the app faster by providing a nifty little Today widget in the Notification Center with handy shortcuts to quickly access the voice search feature and tab creation functionality.
Moreover, the browser now plays nice with iOS 8's App Extensions, starting with support for 1Password and LastPass extensions so you can use your previously stored passwords on websites.
Thursday, Microsoft Studios unleashed a pair of new triple-A games for the iPhone and iPad unto the App Store. Both Halo: Spartan Strike and Halo: Spartan Assault pit you against an insurmountable Covenant force and are now available at $5.99 each.
Spartan Strike files as a top-down shooter which makes you a Spartan supersoldier tasked with battling evil forces.
Spartan Assault is the original Halo top-down shooter that plays through the historic first missions of the Spartan Ops program featured in Halo 4 as Commander Palmer.
Windows maker Microsoft today announced that Bing for iPhone and Android now makes it easy to find images faster than before, without typing or by typing less.
The new search experience is now live on iPhone and Android devices in mobile browsers and lets you search images with “no typing required to discover more”.
Astropad, an awesome iPad application which turns your Apple tablet into a professional-grade graphics tablet for your Mac, now works with the Pencil stylus by FiftyThree.
A major update, Astropad 1.1 includes major accuracy and wavy line improvements for the Jot Touch Pixelpoint stylus, improved palm rejection for Adonit styluses, support for Adobe Ink (choose Adonit when pairing), new settings and built-in help.
In another environmentally friendly move, Apple and SunPower Corporation today announced a partnership that will result in two solar power plants, currently under construction in China, marking SunPower's first international solar collaboration with the iPhone maker.
Located in the ABA Region of China's Sichuan Province, these power plants will initially provide a total of forty megawatts of power. This is just the start, Apple's vice president for environmental initiatives, Lisa Jackson, told The Associated Press.
Taiwan's Economic Daily News reported Thursday that Apple will adopt 7000 Series aluminum for the next iPhone, a custom alloy the company developed for the Apple Watch Sport.
The iPhone maker says that the 7000 Series aluminum used to make the entry-level Watch is sixty percent stronger than standard alloys but just as light, meaning the chassis of the upcoming iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus could be significantly more durable than that of the current iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models.
A trio of dedicated task-automation apps for the iPhone released on the App Store back in February by the IFTTT (If This Than That) service are available on the Apple Watch as of today.
The refreshed Do Button, Do Note and Do Camera apps now feature compatibility with the Apple wearable, empowering users with the ability to assign complex actions to the virtual button on the Watch's tiny screen, including actions that tie into third-party services that have not yet rolled out first-party support for the Apple Watch.
In addition to Apple Watch support, these apps have also gained native iPad interface in today's update while adding the following new channels: Scout Alarm, ecobee, iSmart Alarm, Zubie, Mojio, Moni.ai, Nimbus Note, Harvest, WallyHome, HomeSeer, ThermoStat and Wireless Tag.
Apple has partnered with The Conservation Fund on a far-reaching initiative designed to permanently protect working forests in the United States while ensuring steady supply of paper products for sustainable product packaging, according to a press release Thursday by The Conservation Fund.
The “breakthrough” deal will see the Cupertino firm purchase over 36,000 acres of vulnerable forestland in the Maine and North Carolina regions, which is larger than the land area of the City of San Francisco.
The collaboration will ensure that America’s working forests stay working forests. “For Apple, this is the beginning of a worldwide effort, one that represents a new approach as it reassesses its impact on the world’s paper supply chain,” noted the company.
Apple is reportedly testing two different designs for incorporating Force Touch pressure sensing into the screen of the next iPhone, according to a supply chain report Thursday published by DigiTimes, a hit-and-miss Taiwanese trade publication.
In considering how to best add the Apple Watch-style Force Touch technology to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which should debut this fall, the Cupertino firm could either place the pressure sensor underneath the touch panel backlighting layer or between the outermost protective screen cover and the in-cell touch panel.