MacRumors

As part of the winding down of its iAd platform, Apple today sent out a notice to customers who listen to its radio service letting them know the radio feature is being discontinued at the end of January.

In the email, Apple says that Beats 1 radio will be the only free listening option available to those who do not subscribe to the Apple Music service. Customers who listen to radio stations sans ads with an iTunes Match subscription are also receiving the emails and will no longer be able to listen to radio stations as an iTunes Match perk.

Apple has quietly continued to offer ad-supported iTunes Radio stations in the United States and Australia even after the launch of Apple Music, but with the end of its current iAd platform on the horizon, the feature will be limited to those who pay for Apple Music going forward. Customers in Australia are receiving emails stating the radio service will end on January 29, while U.S. customers are receiving emails that suggest it will no longer be available as of January 28.

Earlier this week, BuzzFeed reporter John Paczkowski said that Apple was working towards dismantling its in-house iAd sales team in favor of a more automated platform. This afternoon, Apple announced the end of its iAd App Network, and it's likely there will be additional changes to products and services as the iAd platform is revamped.

It is approaching five years since Apple began shipping the Thunderbolt Display in September 2011, leading many to wonder when the monitor will receive a long-anticipated update, if ever.

Apple could have refreshed the Thunderbolt Display with USB 3.0, Thunderbolt 2 and a tapered iMac-style design as early as 2013, but it has chosen not to do that. The company continues to sell the 2011 27" model with USB 2.0 and first-generation Thunderbolt ports for $999.

So, what has been the holdup? The answer likely lies in supply chain considerations and connectivity.

4K Thunderbolt Display

Many have been long hoping that Apple would release a 4K Thunderbolt Display, considering that the latest Macs, and most models refreshed since late 2013, can be used with at least one 4K display.

But, typically, standalone Apple displays have shared the same screens as iMacs. Since Apple skipped over a 4K 27" iMac, Apple would have to source a separate screen to release a 4K Thunderbolt Display, and the product may be too niche for that to be worthwhile.

Meanwhile, with Thunderbolt 3 rolling out this year, it seems unlikely that Apple will bother with a refreshed non-4K Thunderbolt Display in the interim. So, as time goes on, the more likely possibility is that Apple will eventually release a much improved 5K Thunderbolt Display.

5K Thunderbolt Display

5K displays have an incredible 14.7 million pixels, resulting in sharper and crisper images, but they remain expensive. 5K models from Dell and HP retail for between $1,649 and $1,999, while Apple's all-in-one 5K iMac starts at $1,799, but cannot be used in target display mode.

Apple already sells a 27" Retina 5K iMac, and its screen could be the basis for a corresponding 5K Thunderbolt Display. The display could share the same 5,120×2,880 resolution, USB Type-C ports for connecting Thunderbolt 3 peripherals and possibly an ultra-thin design like the newest iMacs. But no current Macs could drive such a 5K display over a single cable.

Apple won't release the first Macs with Intel's new Skylake chips and Thunderbolt 3 support until later in 2016, and only those models will be able to drive a 5K display at 60Hz over one cable. While that makes a 5K Thunderbolt Display a possibility in 2016, Apple has good reason to wait until at least 2017.

Intel's Skylake processors for Mac notebooks, launching in early 2016, and Kaby Lake processors, expected to launch in the first half of 2017, will not be able to drive a 5K Thunderbolt Display over Single-Stream Transport (SST). The underlying issue is that both processor lineups lack support for DisplayPort 1.3.

Instead, the display would sync two channels over Multi-Stream Transport (MST), which can cause some performance issues. That means Apple may wait until at least Cannon Lake chipset (which promise SST 5K support) in the second half of 2017, before releasing a 5K Thunderbolt Display.

Because external displays are a relatively small market for Apple, it's possible Apple never plans to introduce an updated Thunderbolt Display. If a new model is in the company's plans, Apple will likely wait to introduce a 5K display until 2017 when most Macs can easily support it in order to maximize supply chain efficiency.

If you are interested in exploring third-party 4K displays, read our 4K and 5K Display Buyer's Guide for Macs.

Apple could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes if the European Commission finds issue with the iPhone maker's corporate tax policies in Ireland, according to analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.

Apple is one of several multinational corporations that have been scrutinized for corporate tax avoidance in Europe over the past few years. The European Commission began Apple's tax probe in June 2014, and formally accused the iPhone maker of receiving illegal state aid from Ireland three months later.

The company's $64.1 billion in profit generated from 2004 to 2012 could be subject to a 12.5% tax rate, compared to its current foreign tax rate of about 1.8%, depending on the outcome of the investigation. A decision in the probe is expected in Brussels by March, possibly after the 2016 Irish election.

Apple operates multiple subsidiary companies in Ireland to pay significantly less tax outside the U.S., where it earns about 55% of its revenue. Apple continues to deny any wrongdoing, and both the company and Ireland vow to take the European Commission to court over any negative verdict.

Last month, Apple agreed to pay 318 million euros in Italy to settle an investigation that accused the company of booking profits generated in Italy through an Irish subsidiary, in an effort to lower its taxable income base and save 879 million euros between 2008 and 2013. Italian regulators concluded that tax probe in March.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Alongside the iOS 9.3 beta seeded to developers earlier this week, Apple also provided an OS X 10.11.4 beta with some minor updates to the OS X El Capitan operating system. OS X 10.11.4 was overshadowed by all of the features introduced in iOS 9.3 so it's taken a few days for people to dig into the release to find out what's new.

One of the new additions to OS X 10.11.4 is improved Live Photos support in the Messages app. When Live Photos were introduced with the launch of the iPhone 6s, the only place to view them on a Mac was within the Mac Photos app. As of OS X 10.11.4, Live Photos can also be viewed directly in the Messages app on a Mac running the operating system update.

When a message containing a Live Photo is received on OS X 10.11.4, it will have the familiar concentric circles icon that marks a Live Photo. Clicking on a Live Photo will open up the mini photo viewer as is standard procedure with viewing any photo within Messages on a Mac, and in this view, the Live Photo will now play when the Live Photo icon is clicked.

The ability to view Live Photos directly within the Messages app is a useful change that makes it possible to see Live Photos content sent from friends and family without needing to open it up on an iOS device or save it to Photos on the Mac. In the future, Apple could expand Live Photos support even further, making them viewable in other apps like Mail, Safari, notes, and more.

For those unfamiliar with Live Photos, it's an iPhone 6s feature that adds a hint of motion to still photos, not unlike the magical animated photos from the Harry Potter universe. Live Photos capture 3 seconds of video around a still image, which is played back when a photo is touched using a 3D Touch gesture on an iPhone 6s. Live Photos can only be taken with an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, but they can be viewed on any iOS device running iOS 9 or any Mac running OS X El Capitan.

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OS X 10.11.4 will likely come out alongside iOS 9.3, which Apple says will be released in the spring. As for other new features, the update also includes support for password protected notes in the Notes app.

With iOS 9.3, Apple introduced Night Shift, a feature that is designed to cut down on nighttime blue light exposure from iOS devices to encourage better sleep. Its similarity to the popular f.lux app for Mac did not go unnoticed, especially since Apple put a stop to an f.lux for iOS app just two months before Night Shift debuted.

The developers behind f.lux have now published an official response to Apple's Night Shift feature, calling Apple's move to address nighttime exposure to blue light a "big commitment and an important first step." They ask Apple to take its support a step further by implementing the tools that would allow for an App Store version of the f.lux app.

We're proud that we are the original innovators and leaders in this area. In our continued work over the last seven years, we have learned how complicated people actually are. The next phase of f.lux is something we cannot wait to ship to the world. [...]

Today we call on Apple to allow us to release f.lux on iOS, to open up access to the features announced this week, and to support our goal of furthering research in sleep and chronobiology.

F.lux for the Mac has been available for years and is popular in the Mac community with users who want to avoid blue light at night. Research has suggested that bright light exposure (especially the blue wavelength) at night can interrupt the circadian rhythm, causing sleep problems and other harmful effects on the immune system. While there's been a Mac solution to blue light for some time, no such tool has been available on a non-jailbroken iOS device.

In November, the developers behind f.lux attempted to bring an official iOS version of f.lux to the iPhone and the iPad using an app side-loaded onto iOS devices via Xcode, but Apple quickly put a stop to it and told f.lux that asking customers to side-load apps onto their iOS devices violates the Developer Program Agreement.

F.lux's developers are not able to create an official App Store version of f.lux for iOS devices without Apple's help because the APIs to control display temperature are not provided by Apple. The version of f.lux that was briefly available used private APIs that would prevent it from being approved for release in the App Store.

Night Shift mode is currently available to developers and public beta testers who are running iOS 9.3. The feature will see a public release this spring when iOS 9 launches.

Apple today seeded a minor 1.1 update for the iOS 9.3 beta that was provided to developers earlier this week to fix a few critical bugs that needed to be immediately addressed.

The iOS 9.3 Beta 1.1, build 13E5181f, is available as an over-the-air update and through the Apple Developer Center.

According to Apple's release notes, the iOS 9.3 1.1 beta fixes an installation issue that developers encountered when trying to install the first iOS 9.3 beta. On some devices, updating to iOS 9.3 failed, causing the update to freeze at the Apple logo. We at MacRumors encountered this installation issue on an iPad mini 2, with multiple failures preventing the beta from being installed.

The update also fixed an issue with apps that used compass data on devices that did not include a motion coprocessor. On these devices, the locationd service would continually crash for as long as the compass request continued.

As a major .1 update to the iOS 9 operating system, iOS 9.3 introduces quite a few new features. There's a new Night Shift mode that cuts down on the amount of blue light iOS users are exposed to in the evening hours by automatically shifting the iPhone or iPad display to a warmer (yellower) color spectrum, and there are several new features designed to improve the iPad for Education program.

Several apps and features are also being updated, including Health, Notes, CarPlay, and ore, plus there are new Quick Actions for Weather, Settings, Compass, Health, App Store, and iTunes Store.

iOS 9.3 is expected to be released to the public in the spring, so it is likely to see several additional updates over the beta testing period.

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.4 beta to public beta testers, just a few days after releasing the first OS X 10.11.4 beta to developers and more than a month after releasing OS X 10.11.2.

The new beta is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store for those who are enrolled in Apple's beta testing program. Those wishing to join the program can sign up on Apple's beta testing website.

OS X 10.11.4 has been provided to developers and public beta testers alongside OS X 10.11.3, which is also currently in testing. Apple has provided testers with two betas of OS X 10.11.3, and it could be released to the public shortly.

Both OS X 10.11.3 and OS X 10.11.4 appear to focus largely on under-the-hood bug fixes, security enhancements, and performance optimizations with few noticeable outward-facing changes. OS X 10.11.4 does support password protected notes in the Notes app, allowing a password to be assigned to individual notes.

Apple today released the first beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3 update for public beta testers, just a few days after seeding the iOS 9.3 beta to developers. iOS 9.3 is available to public beta testers alongside iOS 9.2.1, a minor update that is also in testing.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the iOS 9.3 update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on their iOS device.

Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and OS X betas.

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iOS 9.3 is a major update to the iOS 9 operating system, introducing a long list of new features and improvements. iOS 9.3's biggest new feature is Night Shift mode, which is designed to automatically cut down on the amount of blue light an iOS user is exposed to at night by shifting to more yellow tones for the iPhone or iPad's display. With iOS 9.3, there's a number of changes for educational users, and the iPhone is now able to pair with multiple Apple Watches.

The update also includes new 3D Touch Quick Actions for stock apps like Weather, Settings, Compass, Health, App Store, and iTunes Store, plus it introduces password protection for individual notes in the Notes app. News in iOS 9.3 includes in-line video playback, landscape mode on the iPhone, and more personalization, while the Health app introduces a new Apple Watch-style "Activity" interface.

A full list of changes in iOS 9.3 can be found in our "What's New" post. iOS 9.3 will be launching this spring.

Samsung Display is close to reaching an agreement with Apple to supply flexible OLED displays for future iPhones, and will invest up to $7.47 billion in OLED manufacturing equipment to fulfill orders, according to Korea-based ET News.

Samsung's display-making division will reportedly increase OLED display production by 30,000 to 45,000 panels per month this year, followed by an additional 45,000 substrates each month in 2017, per the terms of its nearly finalized contract.

OLED manufacturing and inspection equipment will primarily come from South Korean display businesses AP Systems and HB Technology, the report claims.

Multiple reports claim Apple will launch iPhones with OLED displays in 2018. In addition to Samsung Display, the OLED panel orders may be spread out over a number of suppliers, possibly including AU Optronics, LG and Japan Display. All three display makers have supplied Apple with LCD panels for existing iPhones.

Apple is reportedly operating a Taiwanese factory where a team of engineers are developing thinner, lighter and brighter displays for future Apple devices. The secretive lab may be specifically focused on flexible OLED and Micro-LED display technologies for use in future-generation iPhones.