A trusted source provided a first-hand look at the Nest packaged at an Apple Store today—complete with the part number. Priced at $249.99 (the same as Nest’s price through its online store), the Nest has a part number of H9279ll/a in Apple’s systems. Our source was not able to say when the Nest will go on sale at Apple Stores, but the source indicated it will be soon. Deliveries of the Nest are now being made at multiple Apple Stores....

As the United States and other countries make progress in vaccinating against COVID-19, some public health agencies and private companies have started to ease mask requirements. According to a new report from Bloomberg, however, Apple will leave its mask mandate and other COVID-19 precautions in place at retail stores in the United States for the time being. The news comes after the CDC in the United States adjusted its guidance on Thursday to say full vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask....

Apple is the only large US tech company to announce plans to repatriate and spend the cash currently held overseas … Apple has not gone into specifics about its own plans, but did say during its recent earnings call that it plans to end up cash-neutral – implying that it will spend around $163B of its overseas cash holdings to bring its cash in line with its debt. The most likely scenario is that Apple plans to spend the bulk of the cash on stock buybacks and other returns to shareholders....

As announced in December, Apple TV is now available globally on the Chromecast with Google TV. The new app allows you to watch original Apple TV+ content, as well as access existing iTunes movie and television show purchases. The UI is quite straightforward, with a bar at the top letting users navigate between Watch Now, original content, Movies, TV Shows, Kids, Library, search, and settings. The app makes use of large cover images and card carousels....

Last Friday, Apple opened pre-orders for the cellular Apple Watch in New Zealand. Now, the first orders are arriving to customers and support is rolling out from New Zealand carrier Spark. As detailed by The New Zealand Herald, Apple is selling the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE in New Zealand for NZ$549 and the Apple Watch Series 5 with LTE for NZ$929. Spark is the only carrier in New Zealand to support the Apple Watch as of right now....

If a story from Zhongguancun Online News (A CBS subsidiary) is to be believed, Apple will be giving Foxconn employees a small percentage of the devices profits directly. The quote is 1-2% but it is unconfirmed. As Apple typically has a 30-40% margin on their wares, this doesn’t seem like it would hurt their bottom line too badly and the PR would certainly help. Plus it might give those distraught employees something to live for....

Today, we have updates on Apple and Samsung’s ongoing court woes. A report from Bloomberg noted U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in the San Jose, California case rejected Apple’s most recent request for a United States sales ban on 26 Samsung devices. According to the report, Koh said the decision was based on the fact that the “case involves lost sales—not a lost ability to be a viable market participant....

Apple has set its next Apple Watch Activity Challenge for Friday in honor of the International Day of Yoga. Apple Watch users will be able to unlock the achievement by completing a yoga workout of 15 minutes or more on June 21st. Apple says that users can earn this award by recording a yoga workout of at least 15 minutes via any app that records yoga workouts to the Health app....

All of today’s best deals are headlined by an Apple Watch clearance event at Woot from $130. You’ll also be able to score the very first discount on Belkin’s 15W MagSafe 3-in-1 Charger at $120 and an exclusive 50% Nomad Base Station Pro price cut. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Apple Watch deals start at just $130 in this 1-day sale Today only, Woot is discounting a selection of certified refurbished Apple Watch models starting at $130....

The legal battle between Apple supplier TSMC and chipmaker Global Foundries is heating up. TSMC was first sued by Global Foundries back in August over patent infringement, but now it is fighting back with its own countersuit, as first reported by Reuters. As noted last month, Apple was named a defendant in the patent infringement case against TSMC. The lawsuit aims to ban the import of Apple devices from both the United States and Germany....

Apple is telling employees to work from home this week if their job allows for it. Workers at Apple Park were told not to come to work on Friday, and now this policy has been expanded to cover Apple offices in California, Seattle, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. This represents most — but not all — of Apple’s corporate locations. The new policy was first reported by Bloomberg, and has now been confirmed by Apple itself....

Apple TV+ is just about to celebrate its one-year anniversary and today it has joined the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a group whose main goal is to fight media piracy. Reported by Variety, Apple joining the anti-piracy group is a notable move in Apple TV+ more deeply integrating into the media industry. And Apple isn’t just joining as a regular member of the alliance: The move represents a strengthening bond between Apple and the major studios, and draws the company deeply into industry efforts to check the flow of pirated content....

FX NOW is the streaming app for 21st Century Fox’s network cable channels FX, FXX, and FXM – it’s been available on iOS, Xbox One and Windows 8 for a while now. The FX Now app has already been available for iOS devices like iPhone and iPad. The channel offers content from FX, FXX, and FXM networks. FX is known for the popular TV shows Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story, Fargo, and more, including the Simpsons....

Apple’s “hobby” is less of a hobby these days, with in excess of one million sales the Apple TV is now accounting for more Netflix viewing hours than the iPad, Netflix announced this week. That’s noteworthy because while Apple has sold millions of iPads it has only shifted a million Netflix-happy Apple TVs, and with a substantial slice of those sold outside of the US of A, you can bet your dollar this represents tacit proof that people are making active use of the Apple TV....

Apple has released updates for its entire suite of iWork apps today on both iOS and OS X. The updates include bug fixes for issues with some Microsoft Office documents and stability fixes across both platforms. Other fixes on the Mac side include an issue that affected exporting presentations as images and master slides that included links in Keynote, and a problem that prevented users from being able to look up the definition of words in lists while using Pages....

[Update: Apple has officially announced it is making developer memberships free for qualifying groups, institutions, and government entities.] Apple dropped some new App Store review guidelines yesterday that detailed the latest policies and rules developers must abide by to see their apps approved. For template-generated apps, Apple will require that all apps published to the store must be submitted by the true owner of the app, with their own developer account....

According to a new tag discovered on iOS App Store pages by iFun, it would appear that Apple is testing a new label for applications that work with the upcoming Family Sharing feature in iOS 8. The feature, which was announced at WWDC, allows a family to share a single list of purchased music, movies, and iOS apps, all charged to a single credit card. It also includes parental controls so that purchases require permission from the card holder....

Near the end of each year Apple thanks its employees for their hard work with a nice souvenir. This year some employees are being given a black Incase backpack featuring a bright white Apple logo. At least one employee has already put the gift up on eBay with a starting bid of $49.99 and a Buy It Now of $99.99. From the images we’ve received, it appears that the bag is a customized version of the Incase Staple Backpack....

Following the release of macOS Big Sur, Apple has just released updates for all iWork apps on the Mac App Store. New versions of Numbers, Pages, and Keynote are now available with new icons and a refreshed interface ready for macOS Big Sur. Today’s updates don’t bring any significant new features to iWork apps, but they do improve compatibility with macOS Big Sur and also refresh the apps’ interfaces following the new macOS guidelines with more vibrant color and transparency....

Following updates to a number of its other iOS apps for iOS 8 earlier today, Apple has just released an update for its Numbers app. The update includes iOS 8 support and iCloud Drive compatibility and comes ahead of what we expect will be similar updates for Apple’s other iWork apps, Pages and Keynote, later today. (Update: Pages and Keynote 2.4.2 are now available with these changes.) Earlier today we noted that developers are warning users upgrading to iOS 8 to not opt into iCloud Drive until the release of OS X Yosemite....