Joe Rossignol

Apple this weekend participated in the annual San Francisco Pride Parade, as part of its longstanding support of the LGBTQ community. Photo: Trey Forgety Apple's CEO Tim Cook, environmental chief Lisa Jackson, and health and fitness director Jay Blahnik were among the many Apple employees who marched in the parade, wearing Pride-themed t-shirts with rainbow-colored Apple logos. Happy Pride ...

Apple has initiated a new worldwide service program offering free repairs of MacBook and MacBook models equipped with low-profile, butterfly mechanism keyboards, after the company determined that "a small percentage" of the keyboards may develop one or more of the following issues:Letters or characters repeat unexpectedly Letters or characters do not appear Key(s) feel "sticky" or do not...

Apple Maps vehicles equipped with LiDAR sensors have begun collecting street-level data in Japan for the first time this month. Apple will be surveying the Tokyo and Urayasu areas between June and October of this year, according to a new Apple Maps vehicles page created specifically for Japan, first spotted by Japanese blog Mac Otakara. Japan is the 11th country where the vehicles are...

Facebook today announced it is expanding chat translation within Messenger to all users in the United States and Mexico. When you receive a message in a language that is different from your default language in Messenger, Facebook's artificial intelligence assistant M will automatically offer a suggestion to translate the message. When you tap on the suggestion, you will be asked to enable...

Just weeks after Apple abandoned its plans to build a $1 billion data center in Ireland, and amid a major Irish tax dispute with the European Commission, Apple CEO Tim Cook ensures his company remains committed to the country. In a recent interview with The Irish Times, Cook said Apple appreciated the support it received from the community who wanted the data center to be there, and...

As a side note in his report about technical challenges facing the AirPower, expected to be released by September, well-connected reporter Mark Gurman also noted that Apple considered removing wired charging from the iPhone X. From his Bloomberg News story:During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn't feasible at the time...

Apple aims to release its multi-device AirPower charging mat "before or in September," after facing a handful of technical challenges with its hardware and software, according to well-connected reporter Mark Gurman. An excerpt from his Bloomberg News story:Apple didn't say when in 2018 it would release AirPower, but engineers hoped to launch the charger by June. The aim now is to put it on...

Toshiyasu Abe, a resident of Vancouver, Washington, has filed a lawsuit against Apple in Oregon district court this week, accusing the company of infringing upon his patent with Key Flicks and 3D Touch on select iPhone and iPad models. The patent in question is No. 6,520,699, granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in February 2003.Mr. Abe has been an entrepreneur and...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has arrived in Ireland, the latest destination on his European tour, which has included stops in Italy and the Netherlands. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Ireland's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach or Prime Minister of Ireland, tweeted that he had a "good meeting" with Cook in the capital of Dublin on Monday. It's unclear what was discussed, but it appears to have ...

In 2011, a class action lawsuit filed against Apple accused the company of operating an illegal monopoly by not allowing iPhone users to download mobile apps outside of its own App Store, reducing consumer choice. The antitrust case was eventually dismissed in 2013 by a U.S. district court in Northern California, due to errors in the complaint, leading to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the...

Apple today announced that, starting later this year with iOS 12, iPhones will automatically share precise location data with first responders during 911 calls in the United States, helping to reduce emergency response times. The new functionality will be powered by RapidSOS's IP-based data pipeline, which will quickly and securely provide 911 call centers with Hybridized Emergency Location...

Nearly five months after the HomePod launched in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, Apple today expanded availability of the Siri-enabled speaker to customers in Canada, France, and Germany. HomePod is available in white and space gray for $449 in Canada and €349 in Germany and France via Apple's online store and the Apple Store app for iPhone and iPad. It's also available at...

Apple is widely rumored to introduce three new iPhone models in September, including a second-generation iPhone X, a larger version dubbed the iPhone X Plus, and a lower-priced but lesser-featured version. Given the iPhone X Plus is expected to have an OLED display, like the iPhone X, it would be reasonable to assume that the majority of iPhones that Apple plans to manufacture in 2018 will...

Danalock today announced that the HomeKit version of its Danalock V3 smart lock is now available for purchase from Apple's website and retail stores in more than 20 other countries across Europe, after limited availability in April. Danalock V3 is said to be the first and only retrofit smart lock compatible with Apple's HomeKit platform and Home app in Europe. Like the August Smart Lock, it...

If you are attempting to navigate with Apple Maps right now, you may be unable to do so, as the service appears to be experiencing downtime. "Directions Not Available," the app says, when attempting to search for or navigate to destinations. "Route information is not available at this moment." The issue appears to be widespread, with many users reporting that Apple Maps is down across...

Ahead of the HomePod launching in Canada, France, and Germany in three days from now, the speaker has gained the ability to read the news in those countries. Siri can now provide news briefs from a handful of sources in Canada, for example, including CBC, Global TV, CTV, and CNN. To start, say "Hey Siri" and then say something like "read me the news" or "what's the news today?" MacRumors...

Just in time for the FIFA World Cup, which began today, live sports are now available in Apple's TV app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV in Canada. At launch, Sportsnet, TSN, RDS, CBC, and DAZN will bring sports content from a large selection of major sports leagues to the TV app on iPhones and iPads with iOS 11.2 and later, the fourth-generation Apple TV, and Apple TV 4K. Here is a list of...

A few weeks after Apple rejected Valve's planned Steam Link app due to App Store review guideline violations related to in-app purchases, among other things, the company has made a key change to the app in hopes of getting it approved. Namely, in the latest beta version of Steam Link on TestFlight, Valve has removed the option to purchase games within the app. Instead, the app now informs...

Russian company ElcomSoft today claimed that the latest version of its Phone Breaker software can remotely access iMessage conversation histories stored in iCloud, although there are several strings attached. Namely, the person attempting to extract iMessages from an iCloud account would need the following before being able to do so:Elcomsoft Phone Breaker version 8.3 The associated Apple...

Last week, Apple hosted its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, where over 5,000 developers descended upon the McEnery Convention Center for five days of coding labs and sessions, one-on-one consultations with Apple engineers, get-togethers, and even some early morning exercise. Apple CEO Tim Cook with WWDC 2018 scholarship winners Among those developers were some 350...