MacRumors

Apple has recently hired John Fenwick and Michael Trela, two Google satellite executives, reports Bloomberg. Fenwick led Google's spacecraft operations, while Trela was head of satellite engineering.

Both Trela and Fenwick are reporting to Greg Duffy, the former co-founder of camera company Dropcam. What the two are doing at Apple is unclear, but Bloomberg speculates they're either working on satellites for image collection or satellites for communications.

Rumors have suggested Apple is using a fleet of drones to collect data to improve Apple Maps, with the company having filed for an FAA permit to be able to fly drones for commercial purposes. Apple also acquired Aether Industries in 2015, a previously unknown purchase.

Aether Industries develops high-bandwidth radio transceivers and high-altitude balloons. On its website, Aether Industries shows off a range of high-resolution aerial imagery and claims to provide a "full imaging and mapping solution for full color aerial images."

There's also evidence Apple is interested in deploying satellites for communication purposes. Boeing has been working on sending more than 1,000 satellites into low-earth orbit for the purpose of providing broadband access, and the company has reportedly been in talks with Apple.

The aerospace company has talked with Apple about the technology company being an investor-partner in the project, a person familiar with the situation said. It's unclear if those talks will result in a deal.

At the annual Satellite 2017 conference in Washington D.C. last month, industry insiders said Boeing's project was being funded by Apple, Tim Farrar, a satellite and telecom consultant at TMF Associates Inc., wrote in a recent blog. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.

Former Boeing executive James Bell also joined Apple's board of directors back in October of 2015, another potential link between Apple and Boeing.

It continues to be unclear if Apple will get involved with Boeing's broadband endeavor, but it's easy to see why Apple might be interested with Boeing aiming for faster speeds than existing cellular systems.

Apple and Google declined to comment on the hiring, while Fenwick, Trela, and Duffy did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comments.

Multiple design renders of Apple's much-rumored 5.8-inch OLED iPhone have surfaced over the course of the last two weeks, giving us our first look at what the device might look like.

Apple is testing multiple prototypes so we have seen several designs, but two of them have focused on a device with an aluminum frame, a vertical dual-lens camera, and a mysterious hole on the back below the Apple logo.

Now a third render has popped up featuring the same general design, but this time, it's a render of a full rear casing, which provides a clearer look at what the "iPhone 8" might look like at launch, should this be the design Apple chooses to use.

Created by Instagram user bro.king, the renderings are directly based on the previously leaked design schematics.

The rendered shell is made from silver aluminum, with a squared design that's highly reminiscent of the iPhone 5 family rather than the smoother curves of more recent iPhone models. Size details are not included, but the design schematics it's likely based on suggested the device measures in at 149.5mm tall by 72.5mm wide, which is slightly larger than the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 at 138.3mm by 67.1mm.

In line with multiple rumors, it features a vertical dual-lens camera which Apple is said to be implementing to introduce better picture quality and perhaps augmented reality functionality, and most notably, there's a circular cutout on the back.

Rumors have suggested that this is for a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and this is perhaps the prototype Apple will use if it can't reliably integrate Touch ID under the display of the iPhone 8, but there's also the possibility that the cutout is for an inductive wireless charging module.

Apple is rumored to be implementing wireless charging in the iPhone 8, and the latest information on the matter has suggested Apple will use an inductive charging solution rather than long-range wireless charging technology, which is not yet reliable enough.

As mentioned above, Apple is allegedly testing up to 10 OLED iPhone prototypes, so this isn't necessarily the finished product that we're going to see in September. We have also seen a design prototype featuring a device with a glass body, a 4mm bezel and an edge-to-edge display, along with no visible Touch ID sensor.

We're getting closer to the point when Apple will need to start finalizing a design, so we may soon see part leaks that give us a better idea of the direction the company decided to go in.

Apple has added the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, originally released in October 2016, to its refurbished store for the first time.

The base model with a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 256GB flash storage, 8GB of RAM, and Intel Iris Graphics 550 is available for $1,529 in the United States, reflecting savings of $270 off Apple's regular price of $1,799. Available colors include both Silver and Space Gray.

The base model is also available with an upgraded 16GB of RAM for $1,699, or $300 off Apple's regular price of $1,999.

The higher-end model with a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 512GB flash storage, 8GB of RAM, and Intel Iris Graphics 550 is available for $1,699 in the United States, reflecting savings of $300 off Apple's regular price of $1,999. Available colors include both Silver and Space Gray.

The higher-end model is also available with an upgraded 16GB of RAM for $1,869, or $330 off Apple's regular price of $2,199.

Other built-to-order configurations are available for between $1,949 and $2,459 in the United States, including models with up to a 3.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, 1TB flash storage, and 16GB of RAM.

Apple has also made refurbished 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models available in Canada for between $290 and $350 off.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and 13-inch model with standard function keys were added to Apple's refurbished store in March.

Apple says refurbished MacBook Pro models are thoroughly inspected, tested, cleaned, and repackaged, including the manuals and cables included in the box. The notebooks are each given a new serial number and undergo a final quality assurance inspection prior to being added to Apple's refurbished store.

A refurbished MacBook Pro comes with Apple's standard 1-year warranty effective on the date the notebook is delivered. The warranty can be extended to three years from the original purchase date with the AppleCare Protection Plan, which costs $279 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro in the United States.

Related: Guide to Buying Refurbished Apple Products

Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones went on sale today in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and Korea, as the company looks to rebound from last year's Note7 debacle. Samsung will be encouraged by the record one million pre-orders it has already taken in Korea alone, while analysts are predicting global sales to reach at least 45 million units.

The 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch devices cost $725 and $825, respectively, which gets users an OLED screen that takes up 80 percent of the front of the handsets. Online reviews appeared earlier this week praising the phones' Infinity Display, but several marked them down for the relocation of the fingerprint scanner to the rear of the devices, right alongside the camera lens.

The camera itself has received less coverage, as it's actually the same 12MP dual pixel module as the one that appeared in last year's Galaxy S7. However, Samsung has tweaked the software powering the f/1.7 lens in an attempt to improve image processing. To compare the results with those of the iPhone 7 Plus, Tom's Guide posted a selection of side-by-side comparison shots taken with the two rival phones.

Overall, the Galaxy S8 came out on top, but only by a slight margin. Despite lackluster macro performance with the S8, both phones' bright light results were said to be generally equal, but Samsung's new device bested the iPhone 7 Plus in well-lit nighttime and low-light shots, offering "generally richer" colors, sharper subjects, and "significantly more detail" in indoor and outdoor tests.

Despite the higher megapixel count of the S8's front-facing camera (8MP versus 7MP on the iPhone 7), Apple's phone was deemed to take sharper selfie shots with richer colors, while the two phones were tied in 4K 30fps video tests, although the S8's audio was said to be slightly cleaner.

Apple is thought to be testing a new dual-lens camera system similar to the iPhone 7 Plus for this year's upcoming OLED iPhone, which will have a Samsung-made display. Rumors suggest the front-facing camera of the iPhone 8 will use a "revolutionary" 3D-sensing system capable of identifying the depth and location of subjects, which could be used for facial and iris recognition or in future augmented reality features.

Intel plans to move up the launch of its 14-nanometer Coffee Lake processors, introducing them in August of 2017 instead of January 2018. According to DigiTimes, the launch is being moved up because of "increasing competition from AMD's Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 processors."

The site says Intel will release several K-series Core i3, i5, and i7 processors starting in August, along with its Z370 chipsets. Additional CPUs will come at the end of 2017 or early in 2018.

Intel also plans to unveil its Basin Falls platform, with Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors at Computex 2017, which takes place from May 30 to June 3, which is two months earlier than originally scheduled.

Intel's Skylake-X series features 140W processors with 6, 8, and 10-core architectures, while Kaby Lake X-series features a 112W quad-core processor. Intel also plans to release a 12-core Skylake-X processor in August. Intel's Basin Falls platform could potentially be used in future Mac Pro machines and the rumored high-end server-grade iMac.

Coffee Lake chips appropriate for Apple machines were originally set to launch somewhere around the second quarter of 2018, so if rumors of Intel's updated timeline are true, the launch could be moved forward to either late 2017 or early in 2018.

Coffee Lake chips are manufactured on Intel's 14-nanometer process and will be the fourth processor family to use the architecture after Broadwell, Skylake, and Kaby Lake.

Apple is rumored to have new machines in the works for 2017, including new iMacs, which are likely to use Kaby Lake chips.

Didi Chuxing president Jean Liu has been named one of TIME's 2017 most influential people, and Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an excerpt about her for the magazine.

In it, Cook calls Liu a "disrupter" for building a transportation platform that offers "convenience and flexibility" to millions of commuters. He lauds Didi Chuxing's work on algorithms that improve traffic, saying the technology could eliminate traffic jams in the future.

She and her team are succeeding with innovative, big-data algorithms that aim both to improve the efficiency of Didi's service and to ease the congestion on roadways. By analyzing commuter patterns the way oceanographers track the tides, Didi may help traffic jams go the way of the flip phone.

In over 400 cities across China, Jean has also built a company that is dedicated to serving the community around it. Guiding Didi to this higher purpose, and giving back to the places where it does business, she shares my belief that companies can and should measure themselves by more than just the bottom line.

Apple CEO Tim Cook met Jean Liu in 2016 after Apple invested $1 billion in the ride-sharing company. Following its investment, Apple was given a Didi Chuxing board seat, held by Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions.

Apple's Didi Chuxing investment provides Apple with access to data and expertise on both electric and autonomous car technology, a useful resource as Apple works to develop a self-driving car software platform.

Nike today announced that it has teamed up with Apple to create a new version of the Apple Watch Nike+, which pairs a Space Gray Apple Watch Series 2 aluminum case with a black and cream Nike band.

Called the Apple Watch NikeLab, the new device is limited edition and designed to be "the ultimate style companion" for those who love to run.

The limited edition, neutral-toned Apple Watch NikeLab maintains the beloved features of its predecessor: deep integration with the Nike+ Run Club app, exclusive Siri commands, GPS, a two-times-brighter display and water resistance to 50 meters*, all made possible by a powerful dual-core processor and watchOS 3. ​

Apple Watch NikeLab will be available starting on April 27 from Nike.com, at NikeLab locations, and at the Apple Tokyo pop-up store at the Isetan department store. It will not be sold in Apple Stores or from the Apple website, a first for an Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch NikeLab will likely be priced at $369 for the 38mm model and $399 for the 42mm model, the same price as the rest of the Apple Watch Nike+ lineup.

Apple and Nike first teamed up in September of 2016 for the Nike+ Apple Watch that launched alongside Apple's own set of Series 2 Apple Watch devices. Apple offers two Apple Watch Nike+ models in Silver and Space Gray aluminum along with standalone Apple Watch Nike+ bands.

On its Apple Music Twitter account, Apple today announced a new "Up Next" feature for Apple Music, which is designed to promote "Music's Next Generation," highlighting a new artists each month.

For April, Apple is partnering with singer and rapper 6LACK for a range of projects to promote his latest album, FREE 6LACK.

The new "Up Next" Apple Music section in iTunes features a documentary that delves into 6LACK's upbringing, the Free 6LACK album, a live performance, an interview with Zane Lowe, and several Apple Music playlists.

Both Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe and 6LACK will also be on the Late Late Show with James Corden on April 20, presumably to talk about the new project and 6LACK's work.