This morning, Pegatron signed a letter of intent to announce that it will invest up to $1 billion dollars to make a factory in Indonesia, via Reuters. The factory will make chips for Apple smartphones and may make components for MacBooks in the future. Pegatron is partnering with local electronics firm PT Sat Nusapersada. It is unclear how long it will take for the Pegatron operations to get off the ground....

Remember the good ol’ days when FaceTime wasn’t included with each Mac? Back then, you had to download a bit of software from the Mac App Store in order to make video calls to iPhone owners (though iChat could still do Mac-to-Mac calls). Even today, that standalone app is still available on the Mac App Store for $.99—and for some reason it’s still the #5 paid app on the entire store....

A BI Intelligence report on the future of wearables is predicting that by 2020 the Apple Watch will account for 40% of all premium watch sales, defined as watches costing upwards of $350. The report suggests Apple will be shipping over 40M Watches a year by this date. A supporting survey found that those currently considering a smartwatch purchase were most interested in notifications and health & fitness apps, with the Apple Watch unsurprisingly seeing substantially greater appeal than Android Wear models....

While there haven’t been any more announcements regarding its upcoming streaming service, Apple is doing quite a bit behind the scenes when it comes to original content. According to Variety, Apple has recently begun working with Oscar-winning indie studio A24 on several films and TV shows. As usual, Apple is not giving any specifics on the deal beyond saying it has a “multiyear agreement” and is involved in multiple films....

An upcoming Apple store in the heart of Hamburg, Germany. Photo courtesy of alkr.com In addition to the City Galerie store in Augsburg, which is opening tomorrow at 9:30am local time, Germany is about to become the home to yet another big Apple store, the country’s seventh. Local web sites iFun.de and Alkr.com published a series of photos this morning depicting a huge teaser poster in the window panels at the Jungfernstieg street in Hamburg, Germany....

Rounding out a week of Apple embargoed reviews, the first reviews of the Apple TV 4K and redesigned Siri Remote have now been published. These reviews detail the performance upgrades of the new Apple TV with an A12 Bionic processor on the inside, plus real-world life with the new Siri Remote. CNN Underscored says that the redesigned Siri Remote is the “best” they’ve ever tested and a “must buy” for Apple TV users:...

I’ve had a long road with the Apple Watch. I bought the original one on release day, but sold it within a few months due to the slowness of watchOS 1. I purchased a Series 2 when it was released, but I ended up returning it a few weeks later. When the Series 3 Apple Watch was released, I ended up buying one to write a review, but returned it before the return period was up (it was around Christmas so I had a longer return period)....

Apple Watch irregular heartbeat detection and the ECG app are being credited with helping save the life of a British father of two. A simple notification on the watch led the 30-year-old to seek answers at the hospital. According to The Sun, doctors were initially skeptical of the Apple Watch reading before confirming Chris Mint’s heart was in Afib using their own machines. The watch warning ultimately led to a corrective heart procedure to avoid a stroke or heart attack....

It looks like the ECG features for Apple Watch Series 4, 5, and 6 are finally coming to South Korea and Russia. This includes the ability to take an ECG as well as receive irregular heart rhythm notifications on Apple Watch. Apple has stated that the new ECG features will be added via the upcoming iOS 14.2 and WatchOS 7.1 software updates. While we aren’t exactly sure when these updates will get a public release, it should be shortly as Apple pushed out the iOS 14....

After Apple decided to allow its researchers to publicly share their findings, its first academic paper was published at the end of last year. Now, that research has just won a “Best Paper Award” at a prestigious machine learning and computer vision conference. The first academic paper to be published in connection with Apple was Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training by Ashish Shrivastava, Tomas Pfister, Oncel Tuzel, Josh Susskind, Wenda Wang, Russ Webb Apple Inc....

Digitimes is out today with a report that states Apple and Samsung are set to introduce wireless charging flagship phones this year. At least with Apple, this is unlikely. We heard 2013 is an ‘S’ year for the iPhone, implying minor design changes with at most the possibility of a fingerprint reader (as well as better cameras, faster processor, and the like), but the design changes to the aluminum shell would need to be significant to make wireless charging possible....

Today’s best deals include Apple Watch SE at nearly $40 off, plus Eve Button goes on sale, and AirPods see a rare refurbished discount. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Apple Watch SE goes on sale again Apple Watch SE delivers everything you love about Apple’s wearables in a more affordable package. While you’ll miss out on the blood/oxygen sensor of the high-end Series 6 models, there’s still a big Retina OLED display, fitness tracking, and a fully swimproof design to check out here....

A new report from Canalys shows that Apple’s phones accounted for 22% of smartphone shipments globally at the end of 2021. Canalys noted that the last time Apple ranked number one in the smartphone market was in Q4 of 2020. “Apple saw unprecedented iPhone performance in Mainland China, with aggressive pricing for its flagship devices keeping the value proposition strong,” Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said in a statement. “Apple’s supply chain is starting to recover, but it was still forced to cut production in Q4 amid shortages of key components and could not make enough iPhones to meet demand....

Apple is once again hosting an Apple Watch Activity Challenge for Earth Day. As it has done for the past two years, Apple is celebrating Earth Day by encouraging Apple Watch users to get out and celebrate the planet. Here’s how Apple pitches the Earth Day Apple Watch Activity Challenge this year: Apple Watch Activity Challenges returned after a brief hiatus in February when Apple held a Heart Month and Valentine’s Day themed challenge for users....

The 12 months of 2011 were an exhilarating ride for Apple of Cupertino, Calif. It went through a major leadership transition after the company lost its cofounder Steve Jobs and op-chief Tim Cook took the reigns and appointed several new executives. The iPhone 4S became a huge success and pushed Apple’s market capitalization above the half a trillion-dollar valuation. Editors at Fortune magazine did not have second thoughts when ranking Apple first on its annual list of World’s Most Admired Companies due to the company’s impending iPad 3 unveiling, off-the-chart sales, and beautiful new retail stores like the upcoming Amsterdam outlet....

When unveiling the Apple Watch, Apple heavily touted the fact that the device is an incredibly precise timekeeper. As the Watch has rolled out to retail stores we’ve slowly been finding a few features buried within Settings, including one that relates to the accuracy of the time. In Watch OS, Apple has included the ability to manually adjust the time displayed on the watch face of your device. Apple notes, however, that only the information displayed on your clock face is affected by adjusting the time via this setting....

A man who lost his Apple Watch while body surfing in Huntington Beach, California had a nice surprise this week. Robert Bainter originally lost his Apple Watch six months ago, but this month it made its way back to him – in working condition. As detailed by local news outlet KTLA, Bainter lost his Apple Watch while surfing in Huntington Beach late last year. He describes the Apple Watch as his “good luck charm” when surfing as it can show him detailed information about his location....

In the midst of all the high-profile Samsung vs. Apple cases throughout courtrooms worldwide, some have missed the smaller court cases popping up that could have just as much of an impact depending on the outcome. Bloomberg reports Taipei-based semiconductor manufacturer Via Technologies Inc. is suing Apple based on three patents related to microprocessors in tablets and smartphones. The case was filed yesterday with the U.S. District Court in Delaware and seeks an order to prevent Apple from selling products that are covered by the three invention patents in the US....

Servant was one of the first Apple TV+ original shows announced last year, and Apple confirmed today that the psychological thriller has been renewed for a third season. This comes ahead of its second season premiere on January 15, 2021. The show debuted in 2019 with 10 intriguing episodes that tell the story of Leanne, a nanny who was hired by Dorothy and Sean Turner to take care of a baby who is actually a doll....

Following the release of the new Pro Display XDR earlier today, Apple has published a new support document outlining how to keep the display clean. In typical Apple fashion, the company has specific instructions for the cleaning process. Apple’s support document includes instructions for the standard Pro Display XDR, as well as for the model with the nano-texture matte coating. Included in the box when you buy the Pro Display XDR is an Apple cleaning cloth, which is integral to the cleaning process....