The Information

Apple is considering launching a new subscription service that would be focused on podcasts, according to unnamed sources that spoke to The Information. The service would charge people to listen to podcasts. By creating a paid podcasting service, Apple could potentially lure podcast creators with the promise of more money, stealing them away from other platforms like Spotify, SiriusXM, and...

Apple employees in Silicon Valley and other parts of the world have been working from home since early March, and a new report from The Information outlines how one of the most secretive companies conducts business when its workforce is telecommuting, based on interviews with a dozen current and former employees. Apple normally requires all of its employees to work in-office and places a...

Apple is working on an iPad keyboard that includes a built-in trackpad, reports The Information, citing sources with knowledge of Apple's plans. Apple has reportedly been experimenting with trackpads for the ‌iPad‌ for a "number of years." Some of the prototypes have featured capacitive keys, though it is not known if this feature is in the finished product. The Information's source says...

Apple has shelved a "walkie-talkie" feature that would have allowed iPhone users to communicate with each other in areas without cellular coverage, such as while skiing or hiking, according to The Information. The report claims Apple was working with Intel on the project, which supposedly would have enabled ‌iPhone‌ users to send messages directly to other ‌iPhone‌ users over long-distance...

The Information's Wayne Ma has published an interesting story about the measures Apple takes to prevent leaks of unreleased products like iPhones from emerging out of factories within its Asian supply chain. After photos of the colorful iPhone 5c leaked in 2013, the report claims Apple created a "New Product Security" team to monitor security at its most sensitive suppliers in China. At one...

The Information has published a lengthy look into Apple's seemingly deteriorating relationship with Intel in terms of iPhone modems, leading to Apple's rekindled relationship with rival chipmaker Qualcomm last month. The report claims that Apple's frustrations with Intel's modem efforts began much earlier than some previous reports had indicated, and involved struggles with modems for the ‌iP...

Rubén Caballero, a hardware engineering executive at Apple who worked with suppliers on modem hardware, recently left the company, reports The Information. Caballero's departure comes just after Apple settled its lawsuit with Qualcomm and inked a deal that will see Qualcomm supplying chips for future Apple devices, including the 5G chips Apple will need for its 2020 iPhones. Caballero...

Apple is actively building its own cellular modem chip for future iPhones, according to a paywalled report by The Information today. The report, citing a person briefed on the plans, claims that Apple has engineers working on the project close to its headquarters in Northern California. For several months, Apple has also been actively hiring engineers in San Diego, where the company has an...

Within the past four years, Apple has managed to "dramatically reduce" the rate of iPhone-related repair fraud in its retail stores in China, according to The Information's Wayne Ma. The report is based on interviews with more than a dozen former Apple employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. Image: iFixit In 2013, Apple is said to have discovered a highly sophisticated fraud scheme in...

Amazon appears to have gained an edge over Apple in deals with smart home builders, according to The Information. The paywalled report claims that an increasing number of home builders have agreed to partnerships with Amazon to build homes with preinstalled Alexa-enabled accessories, rather than HomeKit-based products from Apple. Last year, for example, Amazon reportedly struck a...

The Information has published an in-depth look at how Siri has transitioned from one of Apple's most promising technologies into a "major problem" for the company. The article includes interviews with a dozen former Apple employees who worked on the various teams responsible for the virtual assistant. The report claims that many of the employees acknowledged for the first time that Apple...

Apple News can yield a flood of traffic for news publishers, with the app accounting for as much as 50 to 60 percent of readership for some stories, according to a paywalled report by Tom Dotan for The Information. Apple News has generated half of Vox.com's daily traffic at times, according to a person familiar with Vox's numbers. An executive at the website of a major TV network said Apple...

AT&T has tentatively agreed to sell a flagship smartphone made by Chinese company Huawei, according to The Information. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, said the device AT&T carries may resemble Huawei's upcoming Mate 10 smartphone, a new high-end model that the company is rumored to unveil in Europe this October. However, the smartphone could have a different name in the...

Apple has shown a willingness to buy projects that can help promote its services, but its interest in acquiring original content remains tepid, according to The Information. The report claims Apple is not interested in getting into billion-dollar bidding wars over projects with rivals such as Netflix and Amazon. Apple bought an unscripted TV series based on James Corden's highly popular...

In an in-depth profile about Brian, Kevin, and Michael Sumner, three brothers said to be working on the Apple Car, The Information reports that Apple's rumored 2020 target for launching the much-rumored electric vehicle, codenamed Project Titan, may have slipped to 2021.The group has run into challenges, say people briefed about aspects of Titan along with other reports. Its top executive left in ...

Apple is actively developing a product that would compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home, reports The Information. Citing a source with direct knowledge of Apple's plans, the report suggests Apple is working on a Siri-based device that would include a speaker and microphone that could be used for features like listening to music, getting news headlines, and more. In addition to...

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...

Apple is moving forward with plans to build a unified platform for cloud-based web services such as iCloud, iTunes and Siri over the next few years, according to The Information. The new platform is based on Siri, which itself is powered by open source infrastructure software called Mesos on the backend, according to the report.The system will be what’s called an “orchestrated...

Apple renewed its maps and search partnership with Google in 2010, but with that contract reportedly set to end in 2015, both Yahoo and Microsoft are actively vying to be the next default search provider for Apple's Safari products, reports The Information. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have existing relationships with Apple, with Yahoo providing stock data to iOS and Microsoft supplying Siri with...

Apple is pushing NFC in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus for Apple Pay, but the company may have bigger plans for the wireless technology beyond mobile payments. A report from The Information claims Apple has been in talks with technology providers about using NFC for building security access and public transit ticketing. The Apple representatives have talked to technology providers like HID Global and...