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Apple today officially announced its long anticipated revamped Apple TV set top box, marking one of the biggest jumps forward for a product category the company previously classified as a hobby project. Prior to today’s event we reported extensively on Apple’s development of the new Apple TV and the features it planned for the device and developers. While proclaiming that “The future of TV is apps,” Tim Cook and team highlighted the key areas of the updated hardware and software: new powerful hardware, a modern OS, an all-new user experience, developer tools, and an App Store....

The heart monitoring features of the Apple Watch are again being credited with alerting a user to an undiagnosed condition. As 24 News reports, 25-year-old Zachary Zies was notified by his watch of a high resting heart rate at 210 beats per minute. As the report explains, Zies, a recent graduate of Ohio State University, has battled Friedreich’s ataxia for most of his life and been in a wheelchair since middle school....

Last month in the UK, a bill that could significantly change how Apple is able to encrypt user data on iOS was introduced. Called the Investigatory Powers Bill, it has the potential to require Apple to hold a key to encrypted smartphones and services such as iMessage and FaceTime. While Apple didn’t comment on the bill at the time, it has now, as expected, spoken out against it in a written submission to the UK House of Parliament....

As always, we will update our list of new apps and updates hitting the App Store and Mac App Store throughout the day: Angry Birds Seasons version 2.5.0: New content for Rovio’s “Seasons” edition of Angry Birds rolled out today (including the HD version). The update includes 20 new schoolyard levels, bonus levels, a new pink bird, and new theme music for the playground levels. Shazam version 5.0.6: All of the versions of the song recognition app Shazam were updated today with an improved recognition rate and faster application startup time....

In accordance with a local Russian law that requires technology companies to store some user data on servers within the state, new filings reveal that Apple stores some iCloud information on local Russian servers. While the information stored is apparently limited to full name, address, email and phone number, Apple says more information is stored locally from their Russian employees. Specifically, messages, photos, contacts and documents are not saved locally for average users, however, Russian Apple employees’ records include passport numbers, work and income history, and full address reports....

Apple began a support Twitter account early in 2016, answering customer queries and tweeting out the occasional iOS tip. It has now expanded into a dedicated Apple Support YouTube channel. The account features highly-produced tutorial videos explaining all sorts of iOS features from how to change your wallpaper to deleting your call history. Each video shows a person’s hand walk through each step of the process, along with on-screen bullet points to reinforce the directions....

The Apple system status page is showing major outages for the App Store, Mac App Store, Apple Music and Radio. While the key merely says ‘outage’ for the red triangles, this symbol is almost never seen on the page … Apple generally uses a yellow blob to indicate ‘issues’ with a service, even when it is a severe one impacting a great many customers. The company did so for the major Google outage over the weekend, for example, which significantly affected a large number of Apple cloud services....

True Knowledge, the brains behind a popular Siri alternative for iOS devices, received a note from Apple that the company will shoot down the popular 99-cent download from its mobile bazaar. According to TechCrunch, True Knowledge had a call from an Apple representative on Friday evening who informed them the company was “going to pull Evi from the App Store,” citing similarities with Siri. However, pundits point out that Evi, which couples Nuance-licensed speech recognition engine with its own core semantic search technology dubbed the “True Knowledge Answer Engine,” may pose a threat to the otherwise stellar iPhone 4S sales due to folks running Evi on iPhone 4 being uncompelled to upgrade to an iPhone 4S....

The World Health Organization and Global Citizen have announced the “One World: Together At Home” virtual benefit concert for COVID-19 relief efforts. Hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert, the event will be streamed live by Apple as well as many other platforms. The virtual benefit concert will take place on April 18 with a wide lineup of performers, including Elton John, Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves, and Chris Martin....

Apple is this week expected to reveal the first major brands who’ve signed-up for iAds in Europe, though initial euphoria greeting the launch of the service has now waned, with ads agencies complaining on price and that Apple are difficult to work with. The Financial Times reports Apple has delayed launching the service in Europe twice in the last few weeks, and has reportedly been willing to move slightly on price in order to attract big name brands....

Apple is coming out with its own subscription TV service, and if you didn’t know that by now, then we can only assume that you have cut yourself off from social media. To be honest, another subscription service is not what we need right now. But it’s trending, and every successful company knows that they have to be on-trend. That being said, we have to admit that Apple is coming to the table with some great prospects....

Earlier this week, Apple released eleven new underwater screensavers for the Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K. If you are using the Aerial screensaver, the Apple TV will automatically download them and appear in the rotation alongside the existing videos. The new videos were added sometime this week, around Monday or Tuesday. The new screensavers are available in 1080p and 4K variants, which means they will show up on any tvOS-compatible Apple TV....

With the reveal of watchOS 2, the upcoming update for the Apple Watch operating system arriving for users this fall, Apple is also introducing its Activation Lock theft deterrent feature for the device. Apple didn’t talk about the feature on stage during its demo of watchOS 2 during its keynote presentation on the opening day of WWDC, but it did confirm the feature on the webpage for the update’s preview available to developers starting today....

Apple this evening has launched a new Reserve & Pickup system for Apple Watch customers in the UK, Australia, and other countries as they change to June 17th. Earlier today it was reported that Apple Watch would soon be available in retail stores and this development is a step towards that for customers. Apple’s webpage for Reserve & Pickup says that Apple Watch models are available by reservation in retail stores, although availability will still be sparse and limited to select variants of Apple Watch....

A Taiwanese report cites supply-chain sources in suggesting that the Apple Watch Series 7 battery capacity will be boosted, alongside new colors. A previous report has pointed to a new green color, while this one indicates colors plural but doesn’t say which ones … Background The Apple Watch Series 7 is expected to be announced alongside this year’s iPhones. Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo last year said that this year’s Watch will get “a significant form factor design change” – and the obvious direction would be a more slab-sided design in line with current iPhones and iPads....

According to a report from AllThingsD, Apple will debut the next generation of iPad hardware at a media event on October 22. We’ve been seeing more and more leaks allegedly showing the slimmer, iPad mini-like design of the next-generation iPad 5 that we first posted images of back in January, and it’s likely Apple will debut the product alongside the much rumored second gen iPad mini later this month. The new iPad 5 is rumored to get the refreshed design and improved internals, while the second generation iPad mini is rumored to include a Retina display....

In case there was any question, we’ve heard directly from Apple PR that there won’t be a webcast of Apple’s iPhone launch event. Last Year’s September event was live streamed but for unspecified reasons, Apple has chosen to keep this one off the airwaves. They will provide a live closed feed to the UK for European journalists however. We’ll still be covering the event as it unfolds so make sure to stop by at 10am PT, 1pm ET or your local varient....

Apple introduced AppleCare+ monthly plans in 2018, but this option was only available in the United States. Now, the company has confirmed that it’s expanding AppleCare+’s monthly plans to three more countries: Australia, Canada, and Japan. AppleCare+ monthly plans aren’t yet available in the listed countries, but that will likely change soon. As noted by MacRumors, Apple confirmed the expansion to Australia, Canada, and Japan in an official support article....

MacRumors posts that Apple is getting rid of boxed software in its stores this morning. They quote this line from a previous 9to5mac post: Sure, you may ask about software that can’t be put in the App Store. Like Apple’s OSes for instance. Or Hard Drive utilities. Or Creative Suite. Or any software that doesn’t fit in the App Store for one reason or another. That’s a good question because those products are on Apple’s store shelves now and there doesn’t appear to be a quick replacement....

We’re less than an hour away from WWDC 2019, where Apple is expected to unveil major enhancements to the iPad. Ahead of the event, Apple has updated its Apple Developer Program License Agreement with new references to iPadOS. The iPad Home screen is also expected to be revamped, while the new iPadOS is also expected to include support for mouse interaction as an Accessibility feature. Further, there’s also a new desktop extension feature coming to macOS 10....