Ben Lovejoy

Almost 100,000 iPhones which Apple paid a contractor to scrap were instead stolen and shipped off to China, according to an in-depth report.

Apple sued the company concerned, but now appears to have abandoned the lawsuit, with the report suggesting this is to avoid publicly admitting that it orders the shredding of perfectly usable devices, in stark contrast to the company’s environmental stance …

We’re expecting 2024 to be the year Apple builds generative AI features into iOS 18, and the company has announced a $250M investment to support ongoing work in this field. The Apple Singapore campus is growing from one building to three, to provide space for ‘new roles in AI and other key functions.’

Apple says that the expansion and refit will allow for greater collaboration between its growing teams in the country …

SIM swaps are one of the biggest security threats we face, allowing criminals to access most services protected by two-factor authentication. The situation could be about to get even worse, as we learn of an apparent large-scale attempt to bribe T-Mobile and Verizon workers to facilitate the swaps.

While new rules and security features are supposed to make these attacks harder to pull off, now would be an excellent time to ensure your accounts are protected by authenticator apps rather than text messages …

Tim Cook made a diplomatic comment about the possibility of Apple manufacturing in Indonesia, after the country’s president pressed him on the issue. The country is an important market for Apple, as the world’s 4th most populous country after China, India, and the US.

Indonesia is one of a growing number of countries to use the threat of import tariffs as a way to encourage foreign companies to invest in the local economy, and Apple has so far used an indirect method to escape these …

We’ve today received an update on Apple’s 2030 environmental goals, one of which is for the company’s entire supply-chain to be carbon neutral by that date.

The company says more than 320 suppliers – representing 95% of the company’s “direct” manufacturing spend – have made the transition to clean energy …

Phil Schiller has told a court in an antitrust case that he doesn’t know for sure whether the App Store is profitable, and never considered the return on investment when launching it.

He’s also explained the reason that there are very few written records of decisions made around the launch of the store is because Apple co-founder Steve Jobs felt that meeting notes were unnecessary – and the company still doesn’t record minutes for meetings between senior execs …

Canada is introducing a new digital services tax starting this year, which will see foreign tech giants like Apple and Google receive tax demands for income earned in Canada but not currently taxed there.

This follows the example of several European countries, including France, Italy, and the UK – and is designed to address tax avoidance …

Update: MacObserver has now issued a retraction.

Here we go again. LeaksApplePro is back, this time with a claim that iPhone 16 Pro storage tiers could start at 256GB, up from the 128GB starting point of last year’s model.

As we’ve noted before, the supposed source is an account with a history of just making stuff up, and we’re mentioning it at all simply because coverage elsewhere means readers might be misled into giving it credence …

Apple trade-ins aren’t known for their generosity, but they do make for a very painless experience when upgrading to new devices – and the company will accept any older electronic devices for recycling if they have too little value for trade-in.

The company is currently linking to its trade-in and recycling page from the Apple homepage, in the run-up to this year’s Earth Day on April 22 …

While shooting professional-standard video is possible with an iPhone, it generally requires the use of accessories like lighting and external microphones. The new Rode MagSafe mount is designed to let you do this at an affordable price.

If your video accessory needs are more demanding, there’s also a MagSafe Phone Cage with five cold shoe mounts, as well as plenty of 1/4-inch and 3/8-inch threads for use with tripods, handles and other accessories …

Apple’s ad transparency tools aren’t sufficient to investigate issues like paid influence, says a new report, which also scored the effectiveness of 11 other tech companies’ tools.

Five companies – including social network X and Microsoft’s Bing search engine – scored close to zero, while Apple got a yellow rating indicating “big gaps” in the information provided …

The rollout of the Apple Developer Academy continues, with the company announcing the latest one in Bali, Indonesia. However, you don’t have to be based in the country to participate – it welcomes applications from anyone in the world.

The academy program has now been operating for more than a decade, and Apple says that 90% of graduates go on to “find meaningful employment” …

Global iPhone market share dropped 9.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, enabling Samsung to retake the smartphone lead despite failing to increase its own shipments.

Apple saw the biggest slump of any brand, at a time when the global smartphone market as a whole continues to grow …

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Vietnam, and said today that the company is “committed to continuing to strengthen connections” in the country as it seeks to reduce dependence on China.

In addition to investing more in the Vietnamese supply chain, Apple is also supporting a scheme intended to bring clean water to more than 42,000 children by the end of this month …

BlackMagic has long offered powerful hardware add-ons for video editors, but the four-figure pricing has been a barrier to many, with even the Micro Panel coming in at $895.

The latest DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel comes close to halving the cost, but also adds an iPad Pro slot and internal battery for portable editing …

The iPhone 16 Pro camera could see a small-sounding improvement which could turn out to fix what I see as one of the biggest problems with current and recent models: internal reflections.

While iPhone cameras have gotten better with each generation, and are now good enough that many of us use them as our primary camera, there is one issue which can significantly degrade images when shooting into the light …

While the Supreme Court denied appeal requests from both Apple and Epic Games in the App Store case, that didn’t put an end to legal wrangling between the two companies.

In January, Epic Games headed back to court to accuse Apple of failing to comply with the original antitrust ruling, and now the Cupertino company has asked a judge to dismiss the complaint …

People have been complaining about Siri for years now, arguing that it’s fallen behind the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant. With clear evidence that 2024 is going to see dramatic improvements in Apple’s AI features, will iOS 18 Siri finally turn things around?

I’m very much hoping the answer is yes, and think there are three clues which provide some reason for optimism …