With recent spats with the FBI and the Obama administration, Apple’s presence in Washington is growing rapidly. Today it was revealed that Apple hired insider Cynthia Hogan to head up its Washington office. Politico broke the story:

more…

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, Cynthia Hogan, NFL

Earth Day is just over a week away and it appears Apple plans to highlight it this year with a campaign to raise money for the World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF and Apple teamed up this time last year on an environmental initiative in China, and this year it’s an App Store campaign that brings to two groups and developers together. Several iOS apps have updated today to highlight money from app sales and in-app purchases going toward WWF through April 24th. The App Store will likely update later today to feature these apps, but we’ve collected apps we’ve found so far below:

more…

Filed under: Apps Tagged: App Store, Apple, WWF

Apple has announced that users can no longer setup iTunes Allowances for kids from today, ahead of a complete shutdown of the iTunes Allowances program on May 25th, 2016. iTunes Allowances let parents set up monthly credit for their kids to spend on App Store and iTunes Store purchases.

In the support note announcing the closure, Apple recommends families instead use Family Sharing to manage purchase and spending habits across family members. This does not impact the availability of iTunes Gifts — Apple customers will still be able to buy iTunes gift cards to give to friends and family as normal.

more…

Filed under: AAPL Company, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: allowances, credit, families, family sharing, gift cards, iTunes, Kids

We predicted yesterday that the Apple Car piece teased by Motor Trend was likely to be nothing more than a speculative piece or design exercise rather than anything based on solid information – and we were right. Despite the ‘Apple Car exclusive’ headline, the entire lengthy piece is nothing more than a bunch of people brainstorming ideas for the car and then producing sketches and renders from them.

Bad sketches and renders, as it turns out. They’ve effectively just taken design cues from the iPhone, slapped some wheels on it and called it a car. Seriously – it even has an antenna cutout …

more…

Filed under: Apple Car Tagged: Apple Car, Apple Car designs, Apple Car renders, Apple Car sketches, motor trend

A proposed law that would force Apple and other tech companies to decrypt devices for law enforcement agencies has reached the stage of a draft bill – but one Senator has vowed to filibuster it. A filibuster is when a parliamentarian makes a lengthy, uninterrupted speech which results in running out of time to debate the bill, causing it to fail.

The Senate Intelligence Committee first proposed to introduce the bill in February, and the FBI lent its support by briefing two sponsoring Senators. However, many lawmakers oppose the bill, and it has been reported that the White House will not publicly support it.

The Verge now reports that one Senator has pledged to filibuster the bill if it gets as far as a Senate debate …

more…

Filed under: iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple, Congress, Encryption, FBI, Filibuster, iPhone, San Bernardino, Senate, Senator Ron Wyden

The FBI has so far been ambivalent about whether or not it will reveal to Apple the method used to access the San Bernardino iPhone, but a Reuters report suggests that the agency may not even know – or have the legal right to disclose it if it does.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that it was freelance hackers, and not Cellebrite, who sold the FBI the tool used to access the phone. But the group may not have revealed the vulnerability on which it was based, and the government process that decides which vulnerabilities to share with companies does not apply in this case …

more…

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Cellebrite, Encryption, FBI, iPhone, privacy, Privaqcy, San Bernardino, White House

Earlier today, more details regarding how the FBI was able to gain access to the iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen emerged. Now, a new report from CBS News is offering some information as to the contents of the device, or lack thereof rather. The report says that, as of right now, the FBI has not found anything of “real significance” on the device.

more…

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, FBI, San Bernardino

Popular short-form video sharing service Vine has today announced a new feature that avid users of the service could appreciate. In a blog post, the Twitter-owned service announced that there is now a “Watch” button on all Vine channels that allows viewers to seamlessly watch all of the content from a single channel with one tap.

more…

Filed under: iOS Tagged: app, update, Vine

Betteridge’s law of headlines tells us that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word no, and Motor Trend was working hard to prove it today. The auto industry publication had a lot of Apple and EV enthusiasts excited today after teasing a reveal set for tomorrow with several design sketches and pictures posted to their Twitter feed:

Is this the #AppleCar we’ve all been waiting for? Find out 4/14. #MTAppleCar https://t.co/K3ADiuhoEf

—
Motor Trend (@MotorTrend) April 13, 2016

Is this the Apple Car we’ve all been waiting for? As per Betteridge’s law of headlines, no it’s not. more…

Filed under: Apple Car Tagged: Apple, Apple Car, motor trend, motor trend apple car

Minecraft developers Mojang today announced a new online gameplay feature coming soon to the Minecraft: Pocket Edition mobile apps called “Minecraft Realms.”

Realms aims to make it easy to play online with friends, sort of like desktop players have been doing for years running their own servers, but without having to do much more than set up a group of approved users: more…

Filed under: Apps Tagged: alpha, iOS, Minecraft, Mojang, online, Pocket Edition, realms