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Reports surfaced last fall that Apple was opening a new research and development office in Lund, Sweden, continuing a wave of new satellite locations outside of headquarters in Cupertino, California. Rapidus (via tech.eu) has followed up with a new details now claiming that Apple’s been building out operations in Lund over the last several months to develop ‘advanced mapping technology’ for Apple Maps. The ramp up of hiring at the Swedish offices focused on mapping comes four years after Apple bought C3 Technologies, which translated to Apple’s Flyover and 3D features in Maps....

Just a few moments after the September iPhone event keynote ended, Apple has started seeding out the golden master release for tvOS 10 today to all current testers and developers. To update to the final build, developers can check through the Software Update section on the Apple TV, or grab the Configuration Profile from Apple’s Developer center if you’d like to install it for the first time. Apple’s newest tvOS software introduces Dark Mode, Single Sign-on, HomeKit, and YouTube search to the latest Apple TV....

Apple last month announced a new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, committing $100 million to help support social justice initiatives in the United States and eventually around the world. As part of this project, Apple has announced today that it is rolling out a series of challenge-based curriculum projects for educators. The new project was announced by Apple’s VP of environment, policy, and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, on Twitter. The new resources for educators come as part of Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, allowing parents and teachers to find unique and creative ways for students to learn about race, injustice, and inequality....

Apple on Tuesday released the 2022 edition of its traditional Apple Watch Pride bands. Although in the past the company discontinued the old Pride bands after launching a new one, this time Apple is still selling the 2021 Pride Braided Solo Loop band for Apple Watch. The Pride Braided Solo Loop is one of the watch bands that Apple introduced last year to celebrate Pride Month. It was the first time the company released a more expensive watch band with the Pride theme, as the previous Pride bands were based on the Sport and Sport Loop models....

Update: The Apple Store is back. Apple released a new $329 iPad, a PRODUCT(RED) iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and a new range of Watch bands. As scheduled on its system status page, the Apple Store is now down for maintenance. Whilst it is still unclear if the downtime is merely for backend server upgrades, many people are expecting Apple to launch at least one new product when the website is available again — as usually happens when the store goes down....

A well-known Apple supplier, Largan Precision, has announced that it is shipping 3D depth-sensing lenses in the second half of 2017 (via Nikkei). Although it didn’t identify brands by name, industry experts believe that these camera components are for the iPhone 8. The special sensors will enable face recognition functionality, allowing users of the high-end iPhone to unlock their device just by looking at the screen. Largan already supplies most of the rear camera lenses used in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus....

With Earth Day coming later next week, Apple is once again promoting an interesting campaign. From now until April 22, the company will donate $1 to the World Wildlife Fund for every Apple Pay transaction made in Apple Stores, through the Apple Store app, or on its website. Apple explains the importance of World Wildlife Fund in an email sent to its customers: This Apple Pay campaign is only a small initiative among all the other efforts the company is making to become carbon neutral by 2030....

Apple has just announced a significant campaign to support World AIDS Day 2014 as part of its long-running (RED) program. The company will donate to the Global Fund to fight AIDS based on proceeds from its new Apps for (RED) section on the App Store, as well as a portion of online and retail sales made on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Apps for (RED) runs from November 24 through December 7 and consists of 25 apps with exclusive new content, in which all proceeds will go directly to the Global Fund to fight AIDS around the world....

According to iLounge, Apple will be the exclusive distributor for adapters for Apple’s new smaller dock connector. These new adapters would open up support for 30-pin Apple device dock connectors for devices with the new, smaller connector. These new adapters are said to come in both one and three packs: $10 for a one pack, and $29 for a three pack. Additionally, Apple’s new USB cables are said to cost $19....

Apple has refreshed its channel lineup on the Apple TV to include NBC Sports Live Extra. The channel provides “thousands of live sporting events that air on NBC, NBCSN and Golf Channel” for free. Aside from live content, the channel includes loads of highlights and replays of sporting events to view at no charge; NBC Sports Live Extra users can activate the full channel (including content from CNBC, USA, and NBC) by verifying a cable subscription....

A new Apple TV display calibration feature introduced as part of tvOS 14.5 can actually make your TV’s picture quality worse, found tests conducted by a professional television calibrator. Apple demonstrated the feature as part of its presentation on the 6th-gen Apple TV, but also made it available to older models too … Apple said last month that some TVs have poor color calibration out of the box, but the new feature can fix this....

During its October special event, Apple finally unveiled the third-generation of its popular wireless earbuds. AirPods 3 features a new design based on AirPods Pro, but this time with a universal fit and Spatial Audio support. AirPods 3 looks quite similar to AirPods Pro, with a shorter stem, more in-ear design, and new battery case. However, unlike the AirPods Pro, the new entry-level AirPods have a universal fit instead of the adjustable silicone tips....

Apple has just updated its Keynote app for iPhone and iPad today with a number of new features including new builds and transition effects. Version 2.0.1 of the Keynote app includes new transitions including: Blinds, Color Planes, Confetti, Fall, Perspective, Pivot, and Swoosh. The new builds include: Blinds, Fly in, Fly out, Orbital, Pivot, Scale Big, and Swoosh. Apple’s other iWork iOS apps, Pages and Numbers, also hit version 2.0.1 today with stability improvements and bug fixes....

Apple today released another firmware update for its Pro Display XDR, which improves the stability of the external display and also adds some new features. This time, Display Firmware 4.2.30 adds in-field recalibration options to Macs with Pro Display XDR. According to Apple, in-field recalibration lets users calibrate the Pro Display XDR for specific color workflows that require custom calibration by an in-house spectroradiometer. Pro Display XDR comes with several industry-standard color calibration profiles, including sRGB, BT....

The Apple Watch Series 6 has officially arrived, bringing new health-monitoring features, new colors, and more to the Apple Watch lineup. I’m a die-hard Apple Watch user, but unlike my iPhone, it’s not something I upgrade every year. Last year, I made the decision to skip the Series 5 and stick with my trusty Series 4 for another year. This time around, the addition of the blood oxygen sensor, an aging battery in my Series 4, and a desire to finally have the always-on display prompted me to make the jump to the Series 6....

Apple has yet to launch its AppleTV+ streaming service, but the tech giant is already busy marketing one of its first shows, For All Mankind, with a new video tied to the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing. This summer has seen the historic event remembered with a number of documentary films, both in theaters and on television. In addition to the IMAX-enhanced Apollo 11, National Geographic recently aired its feature documentary Apollo: Missions to the Moon, which not only recounted Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touching down on the lunar surface, but it also covered the history of the Apollo program in total....

WARNING: Spoilers for Aquaman. Aquaman’s after-credits scene delivers on one of the movie’s recurring gags and even sets up a sequel. Directed by James Wan, the latest DC blockbuster tells an epic tale of political turmoil in kingdom of Atlantis. Despite its massive scale, the journey of Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry to unite the seven underwater kingdoms is also very insular, containing almost no mention of any other DCEU movies, and that includes the tease that comes in the end credits....

Update: The bad DNS entries appear to almost completely be purged and it appears that Apple services are working correctly. [tweet https://twitter.com/RaceJohnson/status/443882675011469312 align=’center’] Apple’s website and online stores are experiencing issues for many users, according to various tips and reports we’ve received across Twitter. Apple.com, iTunes, the App Store, and some other web services (but not all) are all reporting that they are unavailable. Some services (like iMessage and Game Center) seem to be unaffected at the moment....

Shortly after releasing iOS 6.0.2 to the masses this afternoon, Apple seeded build 12D43 of OS X 10.8.3 to developers. The folks in Cupertino have not listed any new features or known issues, but they asked developers to focus on AirPlay, AirPort, Game Center, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. The last pre-release build was released on Dec. 5. You can check today’s release out on the developer center, while the full release note is below:...

A week following the previous build, Apple has released build 12E52 of the OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 beta to developers. Apple, once again, asks developers to focus on WiFi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. We previously noted that 10.8.4 includes support for Mac computers with 802.11ac WiFi chips. While 10.8.4 is a minor update to OS X Mountain Lion, Apple also has a major release launching in the next couple of months....