Today, Apple released a new licensing scheme for K-12 and higher education. The new plan is aimed at reducing paperwork and headaches for school administrators while at the same time saving institutions money and making software audits easier. Interestingly, they’ve also bundled iLife and iWork into the basic OS package which will likely put the software on many more educational machines. Millions more. Until now iWork has been a separate purchase and often left off of lab computers and kiosks in favor of Microsoft Office....

Apple has today updated the iMac with a few tech spec bumps. Although the rumored redesign did not come to pass, Apple has updated the 27-inch models with new 10th-generation Intel CPUs, a higher-resolution 1080p webcam. Apple has also standardized SSDs across the lineup for fast internal storage, finally adding the Apple T2 chip. The 21.5-inch iMac also gets the SSD chip, with Fusion Drive as a build-to-order option. As far as specs are concerned, the 2020 iMac update features 10th-gen Intel CPUs across the board, in 6 and 8 core options....

Apple is rolling out a round of updates today to the iWork collection of apps for Mac. These updates bring iCloud Drive folder sharing support and much more to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for macOS. Update: Apple is also now rolling out updates to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for iOS and iPadOS with these features as well as support for the upcoming Magic Keyboard. All three applications now allow you to add a document to a shared iCloud Drive folder, thanks to the recent release of macOS Catalina 10....

Apple and Staples have struck a deal for the United States office supply retail chain to sell both iPads and iPods beginning next month, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. This person says that several versions of both the iPad and iPod will be available via the Staples Online Store in the U.S. for the first time beginning as soon as October 1st. Staples currently sells the iPad via its website in Canada....

A few months after its debut, the new Chromecast with Google TV picked up support for Apple TV last week. An added bonus? Apple TV for Chromecast can be controlled by Google Assistant speakers and smart displays. Google mentioned in its announcement last week that this feature would be supported, and it’s also now mentioned on an official support page. Notably, this doesn’t apply to older Chromecast devices; it only works for the new Chromecast with Google TV....

Apple violated US sanctions as a result of a negligent approach to compliance, according to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The Cupertino company voluntarily disclosed that the App Store had inadvertently violated sanctions against a Slovenian developer for more than two years… The WSJ reports that while OFAC was pleased Apple disclosed the violation as soon as it realized what it had done, the incident revealed that the company’s approach to sanctions compliance during that time had been ‘reckless....

Last New Year’s Day I decided to start eating healthy, exercising daily, and filling the Activity Rings on my Apple Watch as a way to get in shape. I broke my New Year’s resolution by January 4, but I started again on April 1 and ultimately lost over 50 pounds in 2016. Apple Watch didn’t lose the weight for me — it took a lot of dedication and really changing my lifestyle — but the fitness tracking features and Apple’s Activity app helped quantify my effort without me doing too little or going overboard....

Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of human interface design, has discussed the Apple Watch UI in a new Monocle on Design podcast episode. It follows an interview on Hodinkee Radio earlier in the month. He said that a core challenge with the user interface design was working with the smallest display ever seen in an Apple product … Dye said that they went right back to basics when they first started working on the UI....

Apple’s recently published User Guide for the Apple Watch appears to reveal that Apple is planning an authorized program for non-Apple branded Apple Watch straps: Apple is yet to announce such a program, but such an offering for the future makes sense given Apple’s official “MFI” accessory programs for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. A marquee feature of the Apple Watch is its ability to be quickly attached to various bands via a standard connection on the two sides of the device....

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, Sir Jonathan Ive, has just purchased a 7,274-square-foot house on San Francisco’s “Gold Coast”. The well-known executive, given credit or designing a slew of Apple products, paid $17 million for the home that is said to be located on “one of the city’s most exclusive blocks.” Ive joined Apple in 1996, and he has since played a crucial role in the company....

Today, Apple announced that its video subscription service, Apple TV+, will be available starting November 1 and priced at just $4.99 per month. As well as iOS devices, Macs, Apple TV, Samsung TVs, and more, Apple TV+ content can also be watched on the web. The web app will go live at tv.apple.com when Apple TV+ launches. Apple TV+ is launching with a small library, adding new original TV shows and movies each month....

After arriving on Chromecast with Google TV earlier this year, Apple TV is further expanding its reach on Android TV devices. Starting today, Apple TV is available on Nvidia Shield. The arrival of Apple TV on Shield gives more users access to the iPhone-maker’s growing streaming service, Apple TV+, which includes hits such as Ted Lasso, Mythic Quest, The Morning Show, and several other series. Apple TV app is now available on all Android TV devices, too As Nvidia points out, Shield TV’s port of Apple TV includes support for Dolby Vision and 4K content....

Apple updated its entire iWork suite this afternoon. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS were all updated to version 1.7 with improved compatibility with Microsoft Office and iWork. Each iOS app also got bug fixes and minor updates, as seen below. Additionally, available via software update and directly from Apple’s website, iWork for Mac has been updated to version 9.3. It mainly features support for the new iWork for iOS apps....

Dialog Semiconductor, which makes most of its revenue from supplying power-management chips to Apple, has reported record quarterly revenue of $463M in Q4 last year. This was up 27% year-on-year. The firm saw its shares climb 4% on the news, though not clawing back the fall following last month’s admission that it faced an uncertain future with Apple … Dialog shares fell by as much as 19% after it admitted that its contract to supply power management chips to Apple could be at risk....

Following last night’s report that new Macs are still on track for this month and as predicted, Recode now reports that Apple is planning to hold an event on October 27th to announce its latest lineup, meaning that we’re just over a week away from those long overdue updates… The report cites unnamed sources and claims that the event will take place “at or near” Apple’s Cupertino campus, not in San Francisco where other recent events have been held....

Apple has just announced that it will hold its quarterly investor conference call on April 23rd at 5 PM. As usual, Apple executives will go over all of the sales and earnings for the second quarter of 2014. The company will also likely continue teasing “new product categories” to be announced later this year. The first half of FY2014 hasn’t been especially full of new Apple products. Instead, the company has focused on revising its existing lineup....

The start of 2021 has been great for Apple TV+ originals. Following the Academy Award nominations for “Wolfwalkers” and “Greyhound”, the film “The Banker” has now earned an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture. Apple celebrated the victory in a tweet, as you can see below. The NAACP Image Awards is recognized as the nation’s preeminent multicultural awards show from an African American Perspective. They celebrate the achievements and performances of people of color in the arts and those who promote social justice through their creative work....

When Apple initially announced the fourth-generation Apple TV, the company made a point to focus on a new feature called universal search. This capability allows users to perform a single search using Siri or the Search app and see content across multiple channels. Until today, the feature was limited to Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, PBS, PBS Kids, Showtime, Showtime Anytime, HBO Go and HBO Now, but now, three new apps have gained support for universal search: Nat Geo TV, Fox Now, and FXNow....

Apple today unveiled a brand new Siri Remote for the Apple TV, alongside a hardware refresh for the Apple TV box itself. The new remotes combines a trackpad with clickable D-Pad buttons. The remote is backwards-compatible with older Apple TVs than run tvOS, and it will be available in May. You can buy the remote separately for $59. The new remote has got rid of the breakable glass touch surface, and instead features a fully-aluminium design....

On the Mail.app update, some users may experience issues with Mail after updating to 10.5.6. If so, run Software Update and you should see the fix. Otherwise, you can download it directly from Apple. Searching for contacts in a large address book (more than 1000 contacts) is faster and no longer results in a “slow script” browser alert message Exported vCards with multi-line addresses or notes can now be imported into the Mac OS X Address Book...