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So the Apple Store went down again briefly last night. It goes down all of the time. Probably about once or twice a week. Sometimes for as much as a few hours. Much more than the Dell site or HP’s site. Or at least it certainly seems that way because just about every Mac and gadget blog announces each outage. When Dell’s online store goes down even for ten minutes, the losses to the company are counted in the millions of dollars....

Apple has today proposed a new set of emoji to the Unicode Consortium that focuses on accessibility. The new set includes at least nine new emoji. As reported by Emojipedia in a blog post: Emojipedia notes the opening remarks of Apple’s submission: Furthermore, Apple says this is just “an initial starting point,” as the company is partnering with the American Council of the Blind, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, and the National Association of the Deaf....

First, make sure you’ve updated your Apple TV to the latest version – 5.0 (4099). After you’ve updated, go to the main screen and you’ll see the changes that are included. The most obvious change is the layout for its apps — no more menu bar. This makes navigation much easier. Here’s a look at each of the apps available to choose from. It looks more like an iDevice now....

Based on the most recent verdict in Apple v. Samsung, Apple is attempting to seek a permanent injunction against any Samsung device that infringes upon its patents. While this includes the devices that were at the center of the latest court case, it also includes “software or code capable of implementing any Infringing Feature, and/or any feature not more than colorably different therefrom,” which could be construed to mean current and even future devices....

Apple has reportedly been developing a non-invasive glucose monitoring system using the Apple Watch, but a new report claims the feature won’t be shipping anytime soon. The New York Times has detailed the Apple Watch proving its role as a medical device, and included is this bit: The detail comes months after CNBC reported that Apple has a team of experts developing sensors for the Apple Watch that can monitor blood sugar levels throughout the day....

“Third-party applications will differentiate the iPhone from a growing number of its smartphone competitors,” analyst David Bailey told The Financial Post. The analyst pointed out that deployment of Mac OS X on the device offers a “more robust” application development environment for developers, with the App Store promising a much better user experience, likely to sell more applications than existing smartphone application purchasing systems. The analyst predicts applications will cost between 99-cents and $29....

Aquaman director James Wan is asking his fans not to harass those who aren’t keen on his work, and vice versa. The latest installment of the DCEU hit theaters this month. Wan’s Aquaman succeeded in winning over some new fans for the Atlantean hero. But some continue to criticize the film, finding fault in the genre, the film itself, or just struggling to root for a guy who controls fish. Whatever the reason, no film can please everybody....

During Warner Bros.’ Aquaman presentation at CinemaCon, Jason Momoa declared LEGO Batman Movie star Will Arnett the best Batman ever, ignoring his Justice League co-star Ben Affleck. Many men have donned the Caped Crusader’s cowl since Adam West first brought the character to life on television in the original 1960s Batman series. Michael Keaton took the role when Batman finally made his way to movie screens in 1989, and since then a parade of actors has tried their hand at playing the darkest of all superheroes....

Archero is an arcade action game available for both Android and iOS. The game was initially launched back in 2019 and is published and developed by Happy. In this game, the player is in control of an archer and the main aim of the player is to kill all the monsters and enemies. However, the player has to use different combinations and skills to take down any opponent. New stages and new combinations are a part of the journey of the game....

Apple is about to roll out its Volume Purchase Program, which allows business and education customers to purchase and distribute iOS apps in bulk for deployed devices, into 16 new countries. Apple’s website for both the Volume Purchase Program for Business and for Education have been updated to announce the expansion and now list the following countries as coming soon to the program: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan,Turkey, and United Arab Emirates....

Apple responded to the latest EU efforts to enforce a standardized single connector for smartphones like the iPhone, saying that “regulation that forces conformity across the type of connector …. stifles innovation” (via the Financial Times). Apple said that the proposed EU rules would force it to abandon the Lightning port and inconvenience consumers, as well as cause vast amounts of electronic waste from people needing to ditch all of their existing Lightning accessories, like docking stations and car adapters....

Apple this evening is out with its latest Apple Pay-focused advertisement. This video focuses on Apple Pay Cash and how it can be used between roommates to easily handle things such as rent payments. The video comes in at 15 seconds long and is entitled ‘Apple Pay – Just text them the money.’ In the video, a renter is reminded that rent is due soon, so they use Apple Pay Cash in the Messages application to pay the $700....

We learned earlier this morning via an email to Apple employees affected by the store and office closures due to coronavirus that the re-opening date of February 10 would likely be pushed back. Now Apple has shared more details that the new plan is to open most stores and offices late next week (via Bloomberg). A comment from Apple to Bloomberg echoes what the company’s SVP of people and retail previously told employees in a letter....

Internal iCloud training As Apple’s yet-to-be-made-official fall festivities approach, we’ve heard that Apple has begun iOS 5 and iCloud training with retail store employees. According to these sources, training is done through a new section inside of the company’s recently released internal RetailMe application. Apple typically rolls out their major iOS releases in the days surrounding new iPhone launches. Apple Stores usually only begin their training of new software in the couple of weeks leading up to a respective product launch (obviously this time around could be different, though)....

Apple has today announced that it will be bringing its coding curriculum to the Computer Science Education Week. Starting today, students can register for thousands of free Hour of Code sessions available at all Apple Store locations worldwide. The sessions will begin December 1st and run through 14th. Apple is also introducing today new Swift Coding Club materials that help educators teach coding outside the classroom. This curriculum is based on Apple’s own Swift programming language....

NBC is reporting that Apple will offer female employees up to $20,000 to cover the costs of freezing their eggs if they want to defer having children until later in their career, following the example of Facebook which recently introduced the same employee benefit. Fertility specialists advise that women who want to freeze eggs in order to have children later in life should freeze at least 20 eggs, which will typically take two rounds of treatment at a cost of $10,000 each....

Apple’s key partner Foxconn has iPhone production lines in a few other places in the world outside of China, such as Brazil and India. However, China’s operations remain the most important when it comes to worldwide iPhone shipments. This time, however, it seems that Apple will begin production of the iPhone 14 simultaneously in India and China. The report comes from reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who revealed that at least one of the new iPhone 14 models will be produced in India at the same time as in China....

Aquaman has now passed both Venom and Solo: A Star Wars Story at the domestic box office. James Wan’s entry into the DC Extended Universe proved to be just the comeback vehicle the franchise desperately needed after the letdown that was Justice League. Not only did Aquaman receive generally favorable reviews from audiences and critics, it (arguably more importantly) was a massive box office success. Despite a so-so opening domestically, Aquaman steamrolled everything internationally and has already made more than $750 million globally....

Essentially your input device will be transposed to your display in a virtual view. To break it down even further, your trackpad will be displayed on your computer monitor and you would control it via your monitor’s touch-screen. This of course gets into the patents and rumors of multi-touch iMacs. This does seem a bit counter-intuitive but there are many future-applications Apple could potentially use this patent for. One would be those touch iMacs with no physical input device, and another could possibly be a notebook with a second, smaller, display as the trackpad....