Apple

iPhone 7 launches in India today, starts at nearly $900 due to high import taxes

As of today, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are available for purchase in India ahead of the country's gift-giving season. As CNBC reported, the new handsets cost more than the average Indian citizen earns in six months due to local import taxes which jack up retail price of the entry-level $649 32GB iPhone 7 to as high as $900, or a whopping $1.382 for the flagship 256GB iPhone 7 Plus model.

How to use Digital Touch in Messages for iPhone and iPad

Digital Touch debuted as a sort of gimmicky feature of the Apple Watch software. On iOS 10, Digital Touch has made its way into the stock Messages app, making it easy and to add various effects to photo or video attachments, send sketches, taps, kisses, heartbeats and more. In this step-by-step tutorial, you're going to learn how to express your feelings in style with the Digital Touch features on your iOS 10-enabled iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Apple’s school for app developers has opened its doors to students in Naples, Italy

Apple’s European iOS App Development Center at the University of Naples has opened its doors to students on Thursday. British newspaper The Guardian visited Apple's school for programmers in the days leading up to the launch, showing off the facility in a batch of photos. The project was formally announced in January 2016. Specialized curriculum gives students practical skills and training on developing iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps.

Read Tim Cook’s email to Apple employees about fifth anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death

Yesterday marked fifth anniversary of Steve Jobs's passing. The legendary Apple co-founder died on October 5, 2011 of respiratory arrest related to the pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor he was diagnosed with back in 2003. As we reported, Apple's boss Tim Cook paid tribute to Jobs by sharing one of his famous quotes on Twitter.

He also emailed a touching message to Apple employees, this part stuck with me: “Steve also taught me that life’s great joy is in the journey, not in any particular occasion or event. It’s not about shipping or selling or winning an award. The real joy is in getting there.”

US regulators investigating case of replacement Note 7 going ablaze on a plane

Jordan Golson, reporting for The Verge, is writing that the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission is opening an investigation into yesterday's incident when Southwest Airlines flight 994 from Louisville to Baltimore was evacuated while still at the gate because of a smoking Note 7.

A spokesperson for the airline told The Verge that all passengers and crew exited the plane through the main cabin door and no injuries were reported.

Apple’s iPhone 7 Lightning headphone adapter packs in a surprising amount of circuitry

Repair wizards over at iFixit along with their pals at Creative Electron gave Apple’s new $9 iPhone 7 Lightning headphone adapter a thorough X-ray treatment. The analysis has revealed a surprising amount of circuitry inside of the dongle.

Most notably, it packs in a pretty unique integrated circuit that's most likely a built-in digital-to-analog (DAC) converter. There’s actually a lot going on in the diminutive adapter aside from the DAC, writes iFixit, including things like an integrated amplifier and an analog-to-digital-converter (ADC).

“We’re surprised how much electronics Apple was able to include inside this little cable,” said Creative Electron, which builds X-ray inspection systems for electronics.

Apple to unify its separate cloud services teams to improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud & more

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is reporting today that Apple is in the process of unifying its separate cloud services team in an effort to foster tighter collaboration between them, better compete with Google and Amazon in the cloud space and improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud and other services.

Eddy Cue, Apple's boss of Internet Software and Services, will oversee the effort to move cloud service engineering teams to a single campus as Apple continues shifting its cloud to its own infrastructure.

Apple creates new ‘Orchard’ program to develop marketing talent

Apple has created a new marketing apprenticeship program called 'Orchard,' reports MacRumors. The site discovered an intriguing landing page, tweeted out by a number of Apple employees, that leads to the Jobs section of Apple's website.

The Orchard is described as an "innovative, creative program" in the Marketing Communications group at Apple. Its mission is to bring together a talented and diverse group of up-and-coming creatives to grow and develop with professionals.

Apple issues a statement regarding sapphire protection on iPhone 7 camera lens

Coverage of YouTuber JerryRigEverything's scratch test of the iPhone 7's iSight camera lens wasn't lost on Apple. In the video, the device's camera lens is shown attracting scratch marks at a level six on the Mohs scale of hardness. That's quite surprising given both the official iPhone stats webpage and Apple's marketing boss Phil Schiller insist all current iPhones use sapphire for camera lens protection.

Now, pure sapphire crystal should sustain scratches up to a level nine, so it's odd that the iPhone 7's camera lens would scratch more easily than it should. As it turns out, the sapphire “issue” was serious enough to warrant an official statement from Apple.

Identifying songs inside iOS 10 Messages with Shazam’s new iMessage app

Shazam, a music identification service that's integrated into iOS (“Hey Siri, what song is this?”), recently celebrated a billionth download of its popular mobile app. Today, the company pushed a sweet little update to Shazam and Shazam Encore iOS apps in the App Store. Bumped to version 10.1, the refresh software packs in a brand new iMessage app with support for music detection within iOS 10's stock Messages app, here's how to use it.

Latest iOS 10.1 and macOS Sierra betas now available to public beta testers

Apple today released a second beta of an upcoming iOS 10.1 software update and a third beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.1 software update to non-developers who are enrolled in the official Apple Beta Software Program.

Both macOS Sierra and iOS 10.1 public betas can be downloaded over-the-air through Apple's Software Update mechanism on devices enrolled in the beta program. iOS devices must have the proper certificate installed to run public betas.