MacRumors

Apple plans to unify its cloud services teams, including Siri, Apple Maps, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple News, and parts of iTunes and Apple Music, at its existing Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, California, according to Bloomberg.

Moving the teams into a single campus should streamline growth of Apple services, as the current structure of having teams spread out throughout various office buildings in Cupertino and Sunnyvale contributed to software bugs and slowed product development, the report claims.

The cloud services teams could be on the move again in the near future as Apple completes work on its new Campus 2 headquarters, where well over 13,000 employees are expected to work. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will begin moving employees to the new campus in 2017.

The report adds that Apple is also planning to shift its services to a single, Apple-made backend system, codenamed Pie. The infrastructure change will reportedly give Apple "more control" and "may speed up load times."

Apple has begun moving over parts of Siri, the iTunes Store, and Apple News to the new platform, one of the people said. Apple plans to move other services, including Maps, to its new system over the next few years. Apple has also developed an internal photo storage system dubbed McQueen to gradually end its reliance on Google and Amazon servers, the people said.

In March, it was reported that Apple is working on an in-house cloud storage system called "McQueen" to reduce its dependence on services like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, with today's report specifying it will be an internal photo storage system.

Apple experienced its first-ever iPhone sales decline earlier this year, but its services category continues to grow. In its most recent quarter, Apple reported nearly $6 billion in revenue tied to services like the App Store, Apple Music, AppleCare, Apple Pay, iCloud, and the iTunes Store, up 19% compared to the year-ago period.

Twitter shares took a tumble yesterday following reports that neither Apple nor Google are interested in making a bid for the social media company.

Last month, Twitter shares rose 20 percent after rumors emerged that it had received takeover approaches from several tech giants and that its board of directors was open to a deal, which could come by the end of this year.

But according to sources who spoke to Recode yesterday, Twitter should have "low expectations" of receiving an offer from Apple, whose focus "remains on its flagship consumer products and not on social networks", while Google – hitherto considered its most likely suitor – is no longer moving forward with an effort to buy at this time. Disney, which had also considered a bid, has also ruled itself out.

That leaves American cloud computing company Salesforce in the driving seat for a potential acquisition, but the firm has so far refused to comment publicly on speculation that it is considering a buy.

Twitter is said to be eager to wrap up any deal before its quarterly earnings report on October 27, but the latest share slump suggests investors are wringing their hands over the likelihood of a firm buy offer any time soon.

For the last two years Twitter has been searching for ways to attract new users as the growth and profitability of rival social media companies like Snapchat and Facebook continue to outpace it.

In June, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suggested Twitter can be somewhat confusing and alienating to its install base in comparison, but it remains to be seen whether its recent flurry of additional features will do enough to change that perception.

Critics remain skeptical and advertiser interest in Twitter has waned as a result, while the company has endured internal turmoil in recent years with a revolving door of executives and board members.

In the past couple of days, several Apple employees have begun tweeting about the Orchard, a new program created by Apple to find upcoming marketing talent. The Cupertino company has also created an Orchard page on its website teasing the program.

The moment is now. Throw everything you know out the window. All in. Head first. Join the Orchard. If you're lucky enough to make the cut, expect to surround yourself with like-minded souls who are as terrified and excited as you are. Be part of a hand-picked team with a plethora of talent. Kick ass together. Panic together. Grow together. Work alongside the brains of all the iconic work you love from Apple. Watch and learn. Trust your gut. Challenge our ways. Have an impact on everything you touch. Be prepared to stumble and fumble and embarrass yourself. It will be messy, and it won't be pretty at times, but if you stick together as a team, you'll build a special bond and something truly great will come out of it all. Take it from us. It's the only way. Does this whole proposal sound crazy to you? Good. We like crazy.

On its jobs page, Apple explains that the Orchard will be made up of 10 participants. Of those 10, there will be 4 art directors, 4 copywriters and 2 strategic planners. The program will last for six months and give participants the opportunity to work and grow alongside Apple's marketing communications team. The Orchard is intended for those with 0 to 3 years of experience.

The goal of the program, according to Apple, is for the "mutual learning and growth of the next generation of Apple thinkers and creators." Participants of the Orchard will also go through a set curriculum, receive mentoring from Apple employees and work on Apple projects. Enrichment opportunities and sessions with leaders of Apple departments outside of marketing will also be available.

Applicants must submit a cover letter, resume and examples of design, marketing or advertising that show a "talent or passion for communication." Applications will only be accepted from October 3 to November 4, and a selection committee will review all applications and screen applicants via FaceTime. In December, finalists will be flown to Apple's Cupertino headquarters for one-on-one interviews. Orchard participants will then be with the company from January 16, 2017 to August 25, 2017. All participants will be given a competitive salary and a relocation package.

This isn't the first time Apple has created a program intended to educate the next generation of Apple employees. In 2011, Apple created Apple University, an internal program to teach new employees about management techniques and the history of how Apple has approached problems and decisions.

Update: Apple has pulled the webpage describing the Orchard program, but the job listings remain available.

Samsung has acquired Viv, the AI assistant co-founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, who created Siri, which was acquired by Apple in 2010, reports TechCrunch. The trio left Apple in 2012 and founded Viv. Viv will continue to operate as an independent company.

Viv has enhanced contextual understanding thanks to "dynamic program generation," which means that Viv can understand the intent of a user's queries and self-code responses on the fly. Viv can understand context and stack multiple queries on top of each other. For instance, at TechCrunch's Disrupt NY event last year, Kittlaus was able to ask Viv whether it was raining in Seattle a couple days prior, following up with whether it'll be warmer than 70-degrees near Golden Gate Bridge after 5pm the day after tomorrow.

Kittlaus tells TechCrunch that the reason it sold to Samsung was ubiquity. The company ships 500 million devices a year, he explained, which gives Viv a large distribution network. On the other hand, the acquisition gives Samsung its own AI assistant that can go toe-to-toe with Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa.

Samsung says that while the acquisition was done by its mobile team, the company sees the benefits to multiple product categories. "From our perspective and from the client’s perspective, the interest and the power of this really comes from taking advantage of the Samsung scale overall, as well as the richness of the touch points we have with consumers." Viv's technology may eventually work its way into Samsung's non-mobile devices, like washing machines, refrigerators and TVs.

Advanced AI assistants have become a focus amongst Apple and its rivals recently. In May, it was reported that Apple was planning on introducing a next-gen natural language API in its rumored Amazon Echo competitor. The technology behind the API is the work of VocalIQ, a natural language outfit purchased by Apple in October 2015. The API has the ability to do "session-based" contextual responses similar to Viv.

Apple's first iOS Developer Academy is set to open this week at the University of Naples Federico II's new San Giovanni a Teduccio campus, located in a coastal suburb east of Naples, Italy.

The campus will see Apple teaching 200 Italian students how to write code to create apps that will run on Apple's iOS devices during the nine month course. Students will be provided with a current-generation MacBook, iPhone, and iPad, along with tuition, all for free.

More than 4,000 students applied for 200 spots during an open enrollment program. Next year, more spots will be available, as the university plans to accept 400 students.

Leopoldo Angrisani, a professor who has helped get the program up and running, spoke with The Guardian and shared some details on the campus ahead of its opening on October 6. Apple had a hand in the design of the academy, which is housed in one of three modern-looking buildings with glass facades.

The layout of the large, open-plan classroom was designed by Apple. "The didactic model is very new [for us]," Angrisani said. Small groups of students will sit at round tables equipped with special acoustic systems so the teacher can communicate with each table individually about their work. All courses will be taught in English, since it is meant to be open to students from around the world.

"Competition will be a fundamental part of the class," Angrisani said.

Couches and a lounge area are included in the classroom, giving students a chance to rest, and Apple expects collaboration between students will be a key part of the classroom experience. "Apple thinks that all of these activities, learning and rest and so on, have to stay very close to each other, because this is the best way to ensure that the concepts are absorbed and understood very well," Angrisani told The Guardian.

During its visit to the campus, The Guardian was shown the classroom where classes will be held, but was not allowed to sit in on a meeting where an Apple official was instructing academy teachers. University officials also said Apple had been "very, very" involved in the work at the academy, down to details like the lighting in the classroom and the color on the walls.

In the past, Apple has said the iOS Developer Academy will be expanded to other countries around the world in the future.

An increasing number of iPhone users are experiencing an Activation Lock issue in which the device is linked to an Apple ID email address that does not belong to them, according to crowdsourced information from MacRumors and Twitter.

MacRumors reader Balders, who recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus, explained in our discussion forums:

Just received my brand new 256GB Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus. Looks immaculate, screen is perfect, machining all fine… Only problem is, it appears someone has already used it as the iPhone is asking for the account used to activate it — o.....@icloud.com. Apple say it needs replacing […] Now got to wait for an expedited replacement iPhone once I've returned this one.

With the wrong Apple ID being displayed, users cannot sign in and are therefore unable to proceed with setting up the iPhone. The issue has primarily affected new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models upon being turned on for the first time, and iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models upon being restored to default settings, although older models appear to be affected to a lesser extent.

MacRumors user TheKricket said his iPhone 6s suddenly became activation locked:

I purchased an iPhone 6s full-price and outright directly from an Apple Store in September 2015. The phone was unlocked (I switched from T-Mobile to Verizon after I purchased it without issue). I recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus and after that phone was activated on Verizon's network, the iPhone 6s now indicates that it has an "Activation Lock." It is also linked to some unknown iCloud account (not the account I activated it with or have been using it with for close to a full year).

The discussion topics above and others have received multiple replies from other MacRumors readers experiencing the same issue, while several Twitter users have also shared similar complaints. It is unclear when the Apple ID mixups first began, but user reports have gained traction since at least September.

A number of affected users said Apple was able to remove the Activation Lock on their iPhones upon providing the company with proof of purchase. This process can seemingly be completed at an Apple retail store by scheduling a Genius Bar appointment, or remotely by calling Apple's support team at 1-800-MY-APPLE.

On rarer occasions, however, the Activation Lock screen linked to a wrong Apple ID email address reappears more than once. In these cases, some users report that Apple fully replaced their iPhones.

It remains unclear what is causing the Activation Lock issues. Apple has not publicly commented on the matter.

Over the past couple of weeks, YouTubers have been conducting all kinds of "tests" on the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, looking for flaws, confirming Apple's design claims, and exploring new features. One test on the sapphire cover of the rear-facing camera, calls into question whether lens cover is indeed made of sapphire after it's shown being scratched with picks designed to emulate the Mohs hardness scale.

On the Mohs scale of hardness, sapphire rates a 9, coming in just under diamond at a 10 on the top of the scale. Its hardness makes it resistant to scratching, and so it's used by high-end watch makers and by Apple to cover the Home button and the rear camera of the iPhone 7.

In the video, scratches are made on the iPhone 7 camera and a sapphire-equipped Tissot watch using specialized Mohs tools. With a pick the reviewer claims is "Mohs 6," he is able to make scratches on the camera lens, theorizing that it is made from sapphire-laminated glass or impure sapphire because sapphire should resist scratches at Mohs 6.

This test, and others like it, have caused people to claim that Apple is lying about using pure sapphire crystal over the camera lens, prompting the company to release an official statement subtly calling into question the testing methods used in the video. The reviewer does use tools to determine the composition of the sapphire and finds carbon, but it is not clear that the test was done without contamination.

Apple confirms the iPhone 7 camera lens is sapphire, and under proper testing conditions, achieves the hardness and purity results expected from sapphire.

Last month, Apple's Phil Schiller also confirmed on Twitter that the rear lens cover on the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus are constructed from sapphire.

According to iMore's Rene Ritchie, there's a simple explanation for the discrepancy between Apple's claims and what's going on in the video. The tools used in the video aren't scratching the lens -- they're causing fracturing, as can even be seen when the sapphire is placed under the microscope, due to heavy pressure.

Fracturing -- as opposed to scratching -- is what happens when you have something so incredibly thin -- unlike the much thicker watch used for comparison -- and you apply pressure with no level of control.

You'd have to precisely apply the same level of force, likely to the same thickness of material, to properly do that test.

Apple has used sapphire crystal for iPhone components for multiple years and maintains that sapphire crystal continues to be present in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, a conclusion that was also ultimately reached in the video.

Over the past few weeks, Samsung has been replacing recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that have faulty exploding batteries with new devices, but an incident today suggests the South Korean company's smartphone woes aren't over.

A Southwest flight from Louisville to Baltimore was today evacuated just before it pulled out of the gate because a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone started smoking. While no one was injured, there is a serious problem -- the Galaxy Note 7 in question was a replacement device that had been deemed "safe" by Samsung.

According to The Verge, the owner of the Galaxy Note 7, Brian Green, had replaced his original Galaxy Note at an AT&T store on September 21. The smartphone had a green battery icon and box the device came in features a black square, both of which are indicators of a replacement Note 7.

Green told The Verge he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and stowed it in his pocket before it started smoking.

He dropped it on the floor of the plane and a "thick grey-green angry smoke" was pouring out of the device. Green's colleague went back onto the plane to retrieve some personal belongings and said that the phone had burned through the carpet and scorched the subfloor of the plane.

He said the phone was at around 80 percent of battery capacity when the incident occurred and that he only used a wireless charger since receiving the device.

Samsung has already replaced more than one million Galaxy Note 7 devices, and has said the new Note 7 smartphones have batteries "that are not vulnerable to overheating and catching fire." Despite the recall, reports of overheating devices are circulating on a near-daily basis, and the company could have another disaster on its hands if replacement devices are also experiencing the same issues.

Rumors have suggested Samsung's Note 7 problems began after the company rushed the device into production after realizing the iPhone 7 would not feature major design changes, seeing it as an opportunity to one up Apple. Suppliers were pushed to meet tighter deadlines for an earlier launch, leading to critical oversights.

Samsung America president and COO Tim Baxter apologized to customers in September. "We did not meet the standard of excellence that you expect and deserve," he said, adding that Samsung is working to earn back customer trust.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming iOS 10 update to public beta testers for testing purposes, two weeks after releasing the first iOS 10.1 public beta and one day after providing the second beta to developers. It's been three weeks since iOS 10 was released to the public.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the new iOS 10.1 beta update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on their iOS device.

Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and macOS Sierra betas. Betas are not stable and include many bugs, so they should be installed on a secondary device.

iOS 10.1 introduces a “Portrait” mode for the iPhone 7 Plus, which takes advantage of the dual cameras in the device. Portrait mode is designed to mimic the kind of shallow depth of field images that can be taken with a high-end DSLR, with a front subject that stands out over a blurred background.

The two cameras in the iPhone 7 Plus capture images, which are scanned by the built-in image signal processor to create a depth map. Machine learning techniques are used to recognize people and/or foreground images, keeping people and main objects in focus while applying an artful blur or "bokeh" to the background. The 10.1 update also includes bug fixes and performance improvements to address issues discovered since the release of iOS 10 and it features some tweaks to the Messages interface, replacing dots that represented each installed app with a scroll bar.

iOS 10 is a major operating system update that includes features like a redesigned Lock screen, a Siri SDK to allow third-party apps to integrate with Siri, and a completely overhauled Messages app with stickers, a full App Store, Digital Touch, Bubble Effects, and more. Other new additions include a dedicated “Home” app for HomeKit users, new facial and object recognition capabilities in Photos, and redesigned Maps and Apple Music apps.

After reporting a few weeks ago that the Messages App Store has grown to 1,650 applications, 75 percent of them sticker packs, Sensor Tower recently published another report detailing the download growth statistics for pre-existing apps that introduced Messages support in iOS 10. According to the research firm, the advantages of being an original presence in the Messages App Store during launch week had a "profound" effect on the surge of downloads for each app.

Sticker-making app JibJab sits firmly atop the pile of apps looked at by Sensor Tower. Originally introduced in 2014, Apple advertised the app's new Messages-ready compatibility in the Messages App Store during iOS 10's launch, and JibJab subsequently saw a download growth of more than 1,500 percent the week of September 12, 2016, which Sensor Tower compared to two weeks prior, August 29, as a statistical baseline.

The data accrued throughout the study uses the same parameters for each app. It should also be noted that Sensor Tower's measurements only took into account well-established apps that received more than 50,000 downloads for August and September, 2016.

As you can see, the animated-sticker-making app JibJab, which has been available on the App Store since 2014, witnessed tremendous download growth of more than 1,500 percent for the week of September 12, 2016, compared to our baseline, the week of August 29, 2016. As one of the very first apps to debut on the iMessage App Store, JibJab also benefitted from featuring by Apple within the in-app storefront.

Being a first mover on the iMessage Apps platform has clearly paid off for these apps.

A few other apps that have introduced Messages support saw notable growth, just not as intense as JibJab's performance. GIF Keyboard took second place, with a 129 percent increase in downloads during iOS 10's launch week. Tenor's app has also been around since 2014, but with the advent of Messages apps users no longer have to allow the company access to their keyboard and laboriously copy/paste each gif into a message.

The top five was rounded out by song-sharing app Genius (108 percent increase), GIF search service Giphy (77 percent increase), and App Store gaming mainstay Words With Friends (74 percent increase).

Words With Friends is the only game in Sensor Tower's top ten list, which is mostly made up of social interactive experiences. The data also shows the effect Messages-enabled apps have had for non-social add-ons as well, including apps that streamline previously cumbersome activities, like deciding on a restaurant with friends in OpenTable (65 percent increase), and picking a movie showtime in Fandango (31 percent increase).

New apps add support for Messages nearly every day, but sticker packs remain the most popular app type in Apple's new Messages App Store. Of the more than 1,650 applications on the App Store for Messages (when originally reported), sticker packs made up 1,251 apps, 944 of which are paid versus 307 that are free.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is ranked 11th on Vanity Fair's 2016 New Establishment List, its annual ranking of the top 100 so-called Silicon Valley hotshots, Hollywood moguls, Wall Street titans, and cultural icons. Cook's profile was rather nondescript about him personally, instead focusing on Apple's recent battle with the FBI over its refusal to unlock an iPhone belonging to a San Bernardino shooter.

Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue, who oversees Apple Music, iCloud, the iTunes Store, and other services, was also named to the list at 54th. Cue is mentioned as being an "increasingly important part of Apple's future."

Cue, whose domain includes content, Internet software, and services, is widely believed to be an increasingly important part of Apple’s future—pushing the company into music-themed programming and other forms of content. Apple recently acquired a television series based on “Carpool Karaoke,” the popular brainchild of James Corden (No. 80).

Other notable company-related figures that made the cut include Disney CEO and Apple board member Bob Iger, 4th, former Apple investor Carl Icahn, 42nd, and Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs, 73rd.

CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
One of the world’s richest women (net worth: approximately $17 billion), Steve Jobs’s widow is pouring her wealth into Emerson Collective, a philanthropic organization that, like Priscilla Chan’s (No. 60), is structured as a limited-liability corporation.

DISPLAY OF VULCAN CHESS MASTERY
Powell objected to the Aaron Sorkin–written Steve Jobs movie (and to the Walter Isaacson book on which it was based), but she needn’t have bothered: the film flopped with moviegoers.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos topped the list, helping the online retailer turn five consecutive profitable quarters, followed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, Iger, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, Didi Chuxing's Jean Liu and Cheng Wei, and Beyoncé. The Kardashians rounded off the list at 100th.