MacRumors

Apple has opted not to move forward with an Elvis Presley biopic series produced by The Weinstein Company following a sexual harassment scandal involving founder Harvey Weinstein, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The Apple Music project with The Weinstein Company was in the early stages of production, and would have seen Apple airing a 10-part Elvis biopic. It was reportedly one of four music-related projects that Apple had in the works with The Weinstein Company, with the others set to feature Michael Jackson, Prince, and Frank Sinatra.

Apple first established the deal with The Weinstein Company ahead of the June hiring of Sony executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, and the Elvis biopic was the only one of the four projects that was nearing development.

The Elvis series was first announced in September of 2016, but at that time, Apple's involvement was not known. It was developed alongside the Presley estate, with the estate offering access to the entire Elvis Presley music catalog, cars, clothing, and Elvis' Graceland home.

Apple's decision to end the project comes following a Thursday report from The New York Times that detailed the decades-long sexual harassment history of founder Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company over the weekend, and sources have told The Hollywood Reporter that the company will change its name shortly.

(Image via Elvis.com)

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

BNZ, aka Bank of New Zealand, plans to begin offering Apple Pay in the near future, reports New Zealand site Stuff. When Apple Pay support is implemented, BNZ customers will be able to use the Apple Pay service with their BNZ Advantage Visa credit cards and BNZ Flexi Debit Visa cards.

BNZ director of products and technology David Bullock said BNZ is planning to offer support for Apple Pay following feedback from customers. "More and more retailers are accepting it," he told Stuff. "There's a fairly high acceptance rate in New Zealand.

Apple Pay launched in New Zealand in October of 2016 in partnership with ANZ, and at the current time, Apple Pay is only available to ANZ customers.

BNZ does not have a set date for the release of Apple Pay, but expects the feature to become available later in the month of October.

The Ionic is Fitbit's first real effort at a "true" smartwatch, and there's plenty riding on the $300 device. Not only is the activity tracker company late to the smartwatch game, its market share in wearables has shrunk because of increasingly sophisticated rival devices from the likes Apple and Xiaomi.

To have a hope of reviving its fortunes, Fitbit sought out a new creative direction and subsequently bought Pebble late last year. The wearable technology that Fitbit inherited as part of the acquisition now powers the new Ionic operating system, called Fitbit OS.

Last month, app makers were supplied with an SDK to see what third-party apps they can come up with for the Ionic. In the meantime, I was interested to look at what Fitbit's smartwatch has to offer out of the box, and in particular, how it compares to its closest kin, the Fitbit Blaze.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook today met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, and over the course of 45 minutes, the two discussed topics like education, the economy, and taxes in Europe, according to French news sites.

Apple would like to extend its "Everyone Can Code" educational initiative to France, and plans to discuss its expansion with the Ministry of National Education.

Introduced in 2016, Everyone Can Code is aimed at adding coding lessons into elementary schools and colleges. Hundreds of elementary schools have adopted Everyone Can Code material in the United States, and community colleges across the country have also begun offering App Development with Swift classes.

As rumored, Apple also plans to open an installation at Parisian startup incubator "Station F" in an effort to help French app developers create and launch iOS apps. Station F is the largest startup facility in the world and other companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Ubisoft, already run startup programs at the incubator.

The two also discussed the relationship between Apple and French suppliers and how it can be improved, with Apple planning to work with additional French suppliers for future products.

Taxes in Europe were the last topic of discussion. Cook and Macron discussed the need for tech companies to contribute to the economy in the countries in which they operate. Led by Macron, France and Germany have called for an aggressive overhaul of how tech companies pay taxes across the European Union with the aim of introducing a more unified corporate tax system across Europe.

Cook and Macron are said to have had a constructive discussion on taxes, with no deadlock in the dialogue, but both agreed that a solution will ultimately be enacted by the European Union rather than France.

Cook had a busy day in France. In addition to meeting with Macron, he also visited iPhone X component supplier Eldim, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, "My Little Paris" recommendation startup, and "CoachGuitar," a company that makes an app for teaching people how to play the guitar.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.1 update to developers for testing purposes, a week and a half after seeding the first tvOS 11.1 update and three weeks after releasing tvOS 11 to the public.

Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the tvOS 11.1 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that's installed using Xcode on the Mac.

The tvOS 11.1 update appears to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements rather than outward-facing design changes, and no new features were found in the first beta. Should anything new surface in the second tvOS 11.1 beta, we'll update this post.

tvOS 11 introduces features like full support for AirPods, automatic switching between light and dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options designed to keep multiple Apple TVs in a single household in sync, and new background modes and notification support.

Update: Apple has also released the second beta of tvOS 11.1 to public beta testers.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 4 update to developers for testing purposes, nearly two weeks after releasing the first watchOS 4.1 beta and three weeks after releasing the new watchOS 4 operating system to the public.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

The watchOS 4.1 update introduces support for streaming Apple Music content directly to the Apple Watch Series 3 over LTE and it brings a new Radio app with access to Beats 1 and other Apple Music radio stations.

Support for Apple Music streaming appears to be the main feature in the new watchOS 4.1 update, but Apple is also introducing new Unicode 10 emoji characters. Today's update adds a new Wi-Fi toggle for turning off Wi-Fi to force the Apple Watch Series 3 to use LTE and it displays the Wi-Fi SSID so users can see the Wi-Fi Network an Apple Watch is connected to.

watchOS 4 is a significant refresh of the watchOS operating system introducing new watch faces, including a personalized Siri face, improvements to the Workout app, support for integration with gym equipment, an Apple News app, a vertical Dock, and a new Flashlight feature in the Control Center.

For more on what's included in watchOS 4, check out our watchOS 4 roundup.

HBO recently announced a new TV project in the works by director Steven Soderbergh called "Mosaic." The show will air as a six-part linear narrative in early 2018, but in addition to the traditional distribution, HBO is launching an app where viewers can watch the show, make decisions, and help shape the outcome of certain events (via The Verge).

The Mosaic iOS app will be available to download for free beginning in November, and it will let viewers choose what point of view they want to follow the story, effectively building their own experience from material written and directed by Ed Solomon and Soderbergh, respectively. According to HBO, each choice "builds upon one another," leading to different versions of the same scene, and different endings.

“MOSAIC is a branching narrative piece. While branching narratives have been around forever, technology now allows, I hope, for a more elegant, intuitive form of engagement than used to be possible. Also, we weren’t reverse engineering the story to fit an existing piece of technology; the story was being created in lockstep with the technical team. The fluidity of that relationship made me feel comfortable because I wanted it to be a simple, intuitive experience. I didn’t want moments where you are making a decision to feel like interruptions.”

In both mediums, the show will star Sharon Stone, Garrett Hedlund, Beau Bridges, Paul Reubens, and others. The iOS app will include character profiles and various pieces of content -- like newspaper clippings and voice recordings -- that serve to deepen the show's story. The plot itself is largely being kept under wraps by HBO and Soderbergh, but is expected to have some murder mystery elements.

Microsoft has publicly admitted for the first time that its Windows Phone is dead. In a series of tweets, Windows 10 chief Joe Belfiore said that the company is no longer developing new features or hardware for Windows 10 Mobile, with only bug fixes and security updates to come for existing users.

Belfiore explained that his team had tried "very hard" to incentivize app developers by paying them and writing apps for them, but the low volume of users meant it was no longer worth the investment in Windows Phone.

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Phone back in July, but the software giant never owned up to the fact that the move was essentially the final nail in the coffin for its flagship mobile platform. Today's news that the Windows 10 Mobile hardware is no longer a focus for the company now puts that beyond doubt, and makes the possibility of a long-rumored Surface-branded phone seem further away than ever.

In another sign of the times, the New York Police Department recently confirmed it will begin transitioning from Windows Phones to iPhones for its 36,000 police officers in the fall.

In Belfiore's series of tweets, the corporate VP also revealed that he had switched away from Windows Phone to a rival mobile operating system, but didn't say which one.

Blackberry announced its latest crack at an all-screen smartphone during the GITEX Technology Week in Dubai on Sunday. The Motion is the company's third Android phone to ditch the keyboard following the release of the DTEK50 and DTEK60 in 2016. Blackberry also released the KEYone earlier this year, but that device includes a keyboard below the touchscreen.

The Motion's 5.5-inch LCD display and Snapdragon 625 system-on-a-chip is powered by a large 4,000mAh battery (the iPhone 8 Plus has a 2,675mAh battery), which Blackberry hopes will appeal to business users looking for all-day battery life. Like all of the company's branded handsets these days, the Motion is actually made by Chinese company TCL Communication.

Blackberry officially discontinued its keyboard-rocking Blackberry Classic in July 2016 and later declared it would cease internally developing its own handsets, relying on partnerships with other companies instead while it focuses on software development.

The rise of the iPhone famously wiped out Blackberry's smartphone market share, but the company's pivot towards mobile security has been a profitable one, with its recent quarterly earnings report exceeding expectations.

The company reported record gross margins of 76 percent, up from 67 percent last quarter and 62 percent a year ago, despite the fact its hardware market share remains essentially zero.

There are still 26 days to go before Apple officially launches iPhone X, but at least one person has already gotten their hands on one of the sought-after 5.8-inch devices, if a video shared on Reddit is anything to go by.

The short clip, embedded below, shows someone swiveling in their hand what looks like a silver glass-backed iPhone X with a new, previously unseen dynamic wallpaper on the lock screen.

As the handset is rotated, the padlock above the time visibly shudders as Face ID refuses to unlock, suggesting the person holding the phone is not the owner.

Speculation is rife among Redditors as to who the owner could be and how they ever got hold of an iPhone X so far ahead of the official launch next month.

According to the original poster, the video was uploaded from the San Jose area, California, making it likely that the clip was recorded by someone who knows an Apple employee with early access to the device. The iPhone X in the clip is also displaying an AT&T logo in the upper left corner, adding further weight to the suggestion this was recorded in the U.S.