MacRumors

Following the launch of the new 12-inch Retina MacBook earlier this week, Apple Stores in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, U.K. and other countries have begun receiving limited stock of the notebook to set up as display models and to fulfill in-store purchases.

Apple today reenabled its web-based Personal Pickup tool for the 12-inch MacBook, and the availability checker shows that select models are currently in stock at select Apple Stores in or near major U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

Outside of the U.S., the 12-inch MacBook is also available in or within the surrounding metropolitan area of a number of major international cities, including Adelaide, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brisbane, Hamburg, Ottawa, London, Madrid, Milan, Montréal, Munich, Naples, Paris, Perth, Rome, Sydney, Toronto, and Vancouver. Many other locations offer the notebook on a ship-to-store basis.

Due to limited per-store availability of the 12-inch MacBook during launch week, it is highly recommended that prospective buyers call their local store ahead of time to confirm in-store stock. A crowdsourced list of Apple Stores with new 12-inch MacBook stock is also available in the MacRumors discussion forums.

The new 12-inch MacBook is also coming to Apple Authorized Resellers like Adorama, Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo, MacMall, and others.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was once again named one of "the 100 most influential people" by TIME magazine in its annual list recognizing individuals who have made a major impact on the world. Tim Cook is recognized as a "Titan" alongside people like Yuri Milner, Binny and Sachin Bansal, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Wang Jianlin, and Pope Francis.

Each person included on TIME's list is featured alongside an essay written by an associate, with Cook's 2016 note penned by Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Apple is known for elegant, innovative products that change the world by transforming how we connect, create and communicate, as well as how we work, think and act. Its continued success requires a leader of great courage and character who demands excellence, upholds the highest ethical standards and routinely challenges the status quo, including encouraging vital conversations about who we are as a culture and a community.

Tim Cook is that kind of leader.

Behind his soft-spoken demeanor and Southern manners is a focused fearlessness that comes from deep personal conviction. Tim is committed to doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time and for the right reasons. As CEO, he's led Apple to new heights, and he continues to build a global brand that is universally recognized as an industry leader and widely respected for its values.

Tim Cook has been included on the list of most influential people several times, and in 2014, Cook was nominated for the TIME person of the year after making the bold move of publicly announcing his sexual orientation despite being a notoriously private person.

Other notable people included on TIME's 2016 list include actors, world leaders, scientists, and notable people from the tech world. Priscilla and Mark Zuckerberg, YouTuber Pewdiepie, Aziz Ansari, Sundar Pichai, Stephen Curry, Adele, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Barack Obama were some of this year's most influential people.

Apple today released the second beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3.2 update to public beta testers, just a day after seeding the second iOS 9.3.2 beta to developers. iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 comes just over a month after the public release of iOS 9.3 and three weeks after the release of iOS 9.3.1, a followup bug fix update. iOS 9.3.2 has been in testing since April 6.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the iOS 9.3.2 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 OS X betas.

iOS 9.3.2, as a minor 9.x.x update, focuses primarily on performance improvements and under-the-hood bug fixes to address issues that have been discovered since the release of iOS 9.3. We don't know all of the fixes that will be included, but significant Game Center bug appears to have been fixed in the first beta, while iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 added the ability to use Low Power Mode and Night Shift simultaneously. No other outward-facing changes or immediately apparent bug fixes have been discovered in the first two developer betas.

Apple's efforts to move its cloud infrastructure in-house for its web services are being slowed by "political infighting" between the company's iCloud and Siri engineering teams, according to The Information.

The paywalled report claims that the fighting is holding back Apple from fixing "technical problems that have plagued iCloud and iTunes," while at least one key engineering manager is said to have departed the company over the ongoing conflict.

Steve D’Aurora, an engineering manager in a team led by Patrick Gates, resigned last week. That’s raised the possibility that Mr. D’Aurora’s superior, Darren Haas, a “head of cloud engineering,” would leave as well. Both Mr. D’Aurora and Mr. Haas joined Apple through its 2010 acquisition of Siri, the voice-activated assistant on the iPhone.

Multiple sources claim that Apple is working on building its own internal cloud infrastructure, known as "Project McQueen" internally, to reduce its dependence on services like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Apple spends an estimated $1 billion or more on cloud services each year.

Apple reportedly inked a $400 to $600 million deal with Google last year to "significantly" cut down on its reliance on Amazon Web Services, but its reliance on third-party providers should decrease as it builds or expands new data centers in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Ireland, and Denmark.

The new infrastructure is meant to help improve the reliability of iCloud and Apple’s other apps. The infrastructure work has taken on added significance this year. Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly played up the company’s intention to generate more Internet-services revenue from existing iPhone owners, including from the App Store and things like Apple Music.

In June 2015, it was reported that Apple is building a high-speed content delivery network and planning to upgrade its data centers with more of its own equipment. The foundation of the high-speed data network was reported to be long-haul pipes connecting Apple data centers in California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oregon.

Apple may be enlisting Chinese server vendor Inspur to help migrate its cloud services in house. Inspur already has employees and facilities close to Apple's headquarters in California, including an R&D team and production center, and it has previously agreed to partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and other technology companies.

Qualcomm shares are currently trading lower after the chip maker suggested during an earnings call Wednesday that it will be losing orders from one of its major customers to one of its leading competitors.

Analysts believe that customer will be Apple, according to Bloomberg, following rumors that the Cupertino-based company will rely on Intel to supply the majority of LTE modems for the iPhone 7, which is expected to be announced at a media event this September.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf told analysts he is “assuming” that a major customer will give orders to a rival, indicating a potential loss of business for the company. […] Samsung already uses multiple suppliers, leaving only Apple to make this change.

In early March, CLSA Securities analyst Srini Pajjuri issued a research note claiming that Intel has secured a "significant portion" of LTE chip orders from Apple, likely in the range of 30 to 40 percent of production. Pajjuri believes Qualcomm will likely be tasked with at least a portion of the remaining orders.

Intel reportedly has 1,000 or more employees working on preparing its 7360 LTE modem for the next-generation iPhone. Intel's 7360 LTE modem chip [PDF] features faster theoretical downlink speeds up to 450 Mbps, uplink speeds up to 100 Mbps, and support for LTE category 10 and 29 LTE bands overall.

The switch to Intel LTE chips means the iPhone 7 could have even faster LTE speeds for browsing the web, downloading apps, streaming video, and other data-related tasks. Apple already improved LTE speeds on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus by adopting LTE-Advanced, which pushed downlink speeds up to a theoretical max of 300 Mbps.

Apple currently sources all of its LTE modems for iPhones from Qualcomm, including the MDM9635 chipset in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which provides theoretical downlink speeds up to 300 Mbps and uplink speeds up to 50 Mbps. Qualcomm has been Apple's exclusive supplier of LTE modems for over three years.

Rumors suggest that Apple may eventually create an all-in-one system-on-a-chip that includes both an A-series processor and an LTE modem chip for improved speed and power management. Intel could play a key role in licensing and fabricating the chipset based on its advanced 14-nanometer process.

Apple has been unable to establish a deal with Daimler and BMW over a possible manufacturing deal for the Apple Car, reports German news site Handelsblatt. Apple is said to be seeking a partner that could potentially help it produce the Apple Car, as Apple has no experience with vehicle production.

Talks with Daimler and BMW reportedly ended because there were questions over who would lead the project and which company would have ownership over data. Apple is said to be holding out for deep iCloud integration.

Apple wants the car to be closely built into its own cloud software, while the German carmakers have made customer data protection a key element of their future strategy.

The talks with BMW collapsed last year, while those with Daimler collapsed more recently, the sources said.

Rumors last year suggested Apple was considering using the BMW i3 as the basis for its electric car project, but as was mentioned today and in past rumors, Apple's talks with BMW fell apart after just a few months. Additional rumors have speculated Apple and BMW could resume talks at a later date, and Apple is also said to be in talks with Magna Steyr. Apple executives have visited Austria to speak with Magna Steyr and there's not yet any indication that those talks have come to an end. Today's report suggests Magna Steyr is the frontrunner to work with Apple on manufacturing the so-called Apple Car.

Apple's car project is focused on creating an electric car, which may or may not include self-driving capabilities. Such a vehicle will likely interface with the iPhone and other Apple services, but beyond the fact that a car is in development, little is known about the project.

Hundreds of employees are working on the car, at secret locations rumored to be located in Sunnyvale, California and Berlin, Germany. Apple is said to be aiming to complete work on the car in 2019 or 2020.