MacRumors

Today marks 15 years since the first two Apple retail stores opened on May 19, 2001 in Tysons Corner, Virginia and Glendale, California. The locations welcomed over 7,700 people and combined to sell $599,000 worth of merchandise during their first two-day weekend. Apple opened 25 more stores by year's end.

The retail initiative was spearheaded by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who recognized the need for a better customer experience than provided by third-party retailers such as Circuit City. Jobs was helped by a retail team led by former Target vice president of merchandising Ron Johnson and Gap CEO Millard Drexler.

While some critics believed that Apple retail stores would be a resounding failure, especially given the dot-com collapse, the concept proved to be highly profitable and successful. Apple Stores now attract over 1 million customers worldwide per day and often generate the highest sales-per-square-foot of any U.S. retailer.

The first Apple Store outside of the U.S. opened on November 30, 2003 in Tokyo, Japan, and the company now operates over 475 stores in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates.

Under the leadership of Angela Ahrendts, Apple has been aggressively expanding its retail footprint in China, its second largest market by revenue, while opening and renovating several stores in Brussels, Cupertino, Dubai, London, Memphis, and other cities with Jony Ive-inspired next-generation designs since 2015.Read our Apple Stores roundup to learn more and keep track of new, renovated, upcoming, and rumored stores around the world.

In line with previous rumors and confirmations, Apple today announced the opening of a new development center in Hyderabad, India focused on Apple Maps development.

The new center, launched in partnership with RMSI, will employ up to 4,000 workers, with the announcement coming as part of Tim Cook's ongoing trip to China and India.

“Apple is focused on making the best products and services in the world and we are thrilled to open this new office in Hyderabad which will focus on Maps development,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The talent here in the local area is incredible and we are looking forward to expanding our relationships and introducing more universities and partners to our platforms as we scale our operations.” [...]

“Apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world and we are very proud they chose us to partner with for this important project,” said Anup Jindal, RMSI’s CEO. “We are experts in geospatial data and we will be hiring thousands of people from the local area to support this effort.”

According to previous reports, the new center at Tishman Speyer's WaveRock campus in Hyderabad is 250,000 square feet, with Apple investing $25 million in the project.

The news comes a day after Apple announced plans to open an iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bangalore, India. That center, intended to aid Indian app developers in adopting Apple's Swift programming language and help with development and one-on-one app reviews, is planned to open early next year.

Google hosted its annual I/O developers keynote at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California today, announcing multiple new products and services related to Android, search, messaging, home automation, and more.

Google Assistant

Google Assistant is described as a "conversational assistant" that builds upon Google Now based on two-way dialog. The tool can be used, for example, to ask who directed the movie Avatar, and to ask which other movies he has directed, and Google should be able to isolate the questions from the conversation and provide answers.

The new Siri and Alexa rival, compatible with both voice and chat, will be widely available on Android, iOS, in the home, and elsewhere later this year.

Google Home

Google Home is a new Wi-Fi-enabled personal assistant device for the home that enables people to ask Google search queries, manage everyday tasks, enjoy music and entertainment, and more using hands-free "OK Google" voice commands.

The Amazon Echo rival features a clean, color-changing design with no buttons, a speaker on the bottom, multiple room support, remote control of Chromecast and other speakers, compatibility with Nest and other popular home automation platforms, and more.

Google Home can be used to make general searches, check flight statuses, track shipments, set dinner reservations, turn on lights or play music in certain rooms, receive real-time traffic and routing information, check your appointments, and more.

Google Home will be available later this year. Pricing was not disclosed.

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Rumors have indicated Siri integration will be one of the key features coming in OS X 10.12, and new screenshots of a Siri menu bar and Siri app icon suggest Apple is indeed working on bringing Siri to the Mac in its 2016 operating system update. The screenshots were shared with MacRumors by a source who has provided us with reliable information about Apple's software plans in the past.

In the menu bar, there's a simple Siri black and white icon that features the word "Siri" surrounded by a box, while the full dock icon is more colorful and features a colorful Siri waveform in the style of other built-in app icons. Clicking on either of the icons brings up a Siri waveform to give users a visual cue that the virtual assistant is listening for commands, much like on iOS devices when the Home button is held down.

In addition to accessing Siri through these two buttons, a hands-free "Hey Siri" activation command is also supported. "Hey Siri" is an option that's disabled by default at the current time, but it can be turned on in the Preferences menu.

Siri integration in the Mac is still in the early stages of development, but the assistant will presumably be able to answer many of the same queries and perform many of the same tasks it can on iOS devices - opening apps, conducting web searches, controlling HomeKit, sending text messages, reading emails, setting calendar events, and more.

Because work on Siri is far from complete, there's a chance these icons could be tweaked between now and when the feature is introduced as part of OS X 10.12 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. The Menu Bar icon in particular looks like it could be a placeholder icon, with a finalized design, perhaps depicting a microphone or waveform, to come in the future. Apple has also been known to shelve expected features at the last minute if work is not complete and up to the company's standards.

WWDC is set to take place from June 13 to June 17, with a keynote event scheduled for Monday, June 13, which is where we'll see our first glimpse of OS X 10.12 and iOS 10.

After arriving in India from Beijing on late Tuesday night, Apple CEO Tim Cook started his five-day trip in the country with a pre-dawn visit to the famous Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai on Wednesday, according to The Indian Express. Cook was accompanied by newly promoted Apple India head Sanjay Kaul.

Cook proceeded to meet Anant Ambani, the son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, before holding business meetings with Vodafone India CEO Sunil Sood, Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, and TCS CEO Natarajan Chandrasekaran, among others, at the luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel where he is staying in Mumbai.

Local media reports claim that Cook also has plans to have dinner with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan at his seaside home in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, and meet Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis.

Indian website Mid-Day reported that Cook will travel to Hyderabad, India on Thursday, where he is expected to formally announce a $25 million technology development center that will focus on Apple Maps development and house over 150 employees. The CEO is also expected to make stops in Bangalore and Delhi later this week.

Cook is reportedly scheduled to meet India Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday before wrapping up his visit. The conversation may center upon the Indian government's recent decisions to approve single-branded Apple Stores, which could open within 18 months, but deny the sale of refurbished iPhones in the country.

Apple's market share in price-sensitive India remains less than 2 percent, but Cook believes the country provides a "really great opportunity" for growth after sales in the U.S. and China have slowed. Apple's revenue grew 56 percent in India last quarter, passing the $1 billion mark for the first time.

Earlier, Apple announced plans to establish a new iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bangalore.

As was rumored earlier this week, Apple today announced plans to establish a new iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bangalore, India. According to Apple, the accelerator is part of an effort to support engineering talent and boost growth in India's iOS developer community.

"India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we're giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world."

On a weekly basis, Apple experts plan to lead briefings and offer one-on-one app reviews for developers. The facility will also feature support and guidance to help Indian developers master Swift, Apple's programming language. Apple plans to open its iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in early 2017.

"This is a huge vote of confidence in India's developer community and a tremendous opportunity to gain world-class design and development expertise," said Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal. "Apple's support will help drive growth and accelerate progress among the country's vast talent pool."

News of Apple's Development Accelerator comes as Apple CEO Tim Cook is making his first official visit to India, where he will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Apple is also planning to open a technology development center in Hyderabad, India, where it will focus on Maps development, and rumors suggest Apple will open its first three retail stores in India over the course of the next 18 months.

The launch of the fourth-generation Apple TV, with Siri integration and a full App Store, resulted in a huge Apple TV sales boost, according to new data shared by Parks Associates. In 2015, Apple TV unit sales were 50 percent higher than unit sales in 2014.

Despite the surge in sales, the Apple TV continues to rank as the fourth most popular streaming media player in the United States, coming in behind Roku, Amazon, and Google. The Apple TV accounted for 20 percent of streaming media players purchased from 1Q 2015 to 1Q 2016, compared to 30 percent for Roku and 22 percent each for Amazon and Google.

While Apple TV remains in fourth place among the four major brands, it had the largest increase in unit sales year-over-year, primarily due to its long-awaited new version, launched in 4Q 2015. Its share of sales in 2015 was 50% higher than its share in 2014. Amazon also had a substantially higher share of unit sales in 2015.

Parks Associates believes Apple trails behind because both Amazon and Roku offer multiple form factors with both standard boxes and smaller sticks available. Amazon, Roku, and Google also offer more affordably priced streaming media players than Apple, with its latest box starting at $149. Apple does, however, continue to sell its third-generation Apple TV for $69, more competitively priced with competing set-top boxes.

In total, 36 percent of U.S. broadband households now have at least one streaming media player, up from 27 percent last year, and media players from Amazon, Roku, Apple, and Google make up 94 percent of those. Media player sales are expected to grow significantly over the next few years, with an estimated 86 million streaming media players set to be sold globally in 2019.

Since Apple just released its latest Apple TV set-top box in October of 2015, there's no word on when another update is planned. Apple has recently been working on building out the tvOS software included on the fourth-generation Apple TV, introducing much-needed new features like dictation, app folders, and Bluetooth keyboard support.

Over the past six weeks, a number of 9.7-inch iPad Pro early adopters have reported sporadic crashing issues that result in the tablet soft rebooting to the Apple logo start up screen and prompting Touch ID or passcode verification.

The bug has afflicted a wide range of 9.7-inch iPad Pro models since the tablet launched on March 31, regardless of storage capacity, color, and Wi-Fi or cellular capabilities. Both iOS 9.3.1 and iOS 9.3.2 appear to be affected.

Based on crowdsourced information from the Apple Support Communities and MacRumors discussion forums, it appears that Safari, while not necessarily the root cause of the problem, may be triggering the crashing and reboot cycles.

MacRumors reader jekjones1558 writes:

I have started getting random reboots. Today for the first time my 9.7-inch iPad Pro froze on the Apple screen during reboot. It seems to happen most when switching between Mail and Safari. I had to hold the on/off button to get it unstuck.

Apple Support Communities user MangoSoda experienced similar behavior:

My 9.7-inch iPad Pro (32GB) is less than 15 days old and has exhibited this behavior at least twice now. I'm up to date on iOS. […] Last time [it crashed] I was looking at […] images on Safari. I also had 5-6 apps running in the background.

Various related discussion topics have amassed over 30,000 views and 500 comments, indicating more than a few isolated users are affected.

The actual underlying problem remains unknown, but it is likely rooted in software and should be addressed by Apple in a future update if warranted, in the same vein as iOS 9.3.2 fixed iPhone SE Bluetooth issues and multiple other bugs. Most affected users report seeing "bug type 298" under Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & Usage > Diagnostic & Usage Data.

Apple has not officially commented on the matter, but some customers that have contacted support claim the company is aware of the issue and working on a fix. In the interim, some customers have had their iPad Pro swapped out for a new model at an Apple retail store; however, for some, the problems persist. We will update this article if and as new information becomes available.

As rumors swirl around Apple's potential integration of wireless charging in future iPhone models, The Verge discovered the company has recently hired a pair of engineers with specialties focused in wireless charging and ultrasonic technology. Those two hires came in the past four months, but they are part of a larger group of more than a dozen wireless charging hires over the past two years.

The two latest hires, Jonathan Bolus and Andrew Joyce, come from startup uBeam, which is working on a wireless charging technique centered around the harnessing of ultrasonic waves that are converted into electricity to charge an electronic device. Questions about the viability of uBeam's technology have been around for a while, and former VP of Engineering at uBeam, Paul Reynolds, has been highlighting the company's errors and potential for failure on his personal blog. The most recent post centers around the mishandled and controversial PR battle faced by blood test startup Theranos, and the suggested implications similarly affecting uBeam.

Last week a former engineer from the much hyped wireless charging startup uBeam left some scathing criticism of the company on his blog. He compared uBeam to the now disgraced startup Theranos, saying that uBeam has avoided any full-fledged public demonstrations because its technology doesn't work as advertised. While it can do some very limited charging over a short distance, he allowed, the basic laws of physics prevent the product from being practical at any commercial level.

Given the ongoing controversy over the viability of uBeam's proposed technology, it is perhaps unsurprising some of its engineers are looking at other job opportunities, and Apple's interest in wireless charging makes the company a natural fit.

Apple has filed various patents relating to wireless charging in the past, but remains quiet on its implementation in a future iPhone. Apple executives have downplayed the significance and usefulness of wireless charging before, mainly due to the necessity of users needing some kind of mat to lay the iPhone on, which would still need to be plugged into a wall.

A possible solution for that problem came from a Bloomberg report earlier in the year, which said Apple was pursuing an extended range wireless charging technique that would negate the need of a separate charging mat and fuel up an iPhone from across a room with no extraneous accessories required. Apple never commented on the report, but speculation suggested Apple could be working with Energous Corporation on the technology.

uBeam's promise for wireless charging is similar to Apple's alleged goal of a free range, totally wireless charging ability for iPhone devices, so the two new hires could be helping the company introduce such a feature into a new model down the line. Reports early in the year pointed to the introduction of wireless charging in this year's iPhone 7, but it's largely expected now for the feature to be held off until 2017 or even later.