Apple's Tim Cook makes first visit to Canada, surprises students in Apple Store

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple CEO Tim Cook made his first visit to Toronto, Canada. Cook surprised students at the popular Apple Store in the Eaton Centre, one of the country's busiest malls. The unnanounced visit took staff, customers and students by surprise. Cook also thanked app developers, who were running a coding clinic for their contributions to the Apple ecosystem.

The students in question were a class of Grade 7 Students in Toronto's east end who were programming robots dancing on tables using Apple's Swift Playgrounds app on the iPad. Apple opened its Everyone Can Code initiative late last year and this focuses on making technology accessible so virtually anyone can create apps and solutions.

Canada is an extremely important market for us. We have a great team in Canada," Cook said in an interview with The National Post.

There are 120,000 Canadian jobs directly related to Apple's iOS and App Store ecosystem, the company said.

Apple starts enabling worldwide discounts on iPhone battery replacements

Further to an earlier announcement regarding discounted iPhone battery replacement services for customers of older iPhones who may be experiencing performance slowdowns, Apple has enabled the discounted replacement service globally starting today.

Canadians who bring their older iPhones for a battery replacement to Apple Retail stores will be able to benefit from the reduced fee. 

"Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $64 — from $99 to $35 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com/ca," Apple said in an official statement earlier today. The initial timeframe for the discounted battery replacement was supposed to be in January 2018.

"We expected to need more time to be ready, but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away. Initial supplies of some replacement batteries may be limited," an Apple spokesperson clarified.

Apple issues apology for performance throttling, offers discounted battery replacement service throughout 2018

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple broke the silence about the issue that iOS 10.2.1 causes performance on older iPhones to slow down, ostensibly to counteract battery degradation. It's an issue that created a lot of confusion, with some pundits claiming that Apple is purposely throttling performance to push users to upgrade to newer devices. Apple issued a statement on its website explaining the issue in detail. The company, who makes most of its profits off the iPhone, is also offering discounted battery replacement services for older iPhones throughout 2018.

Responding to increasing confusion and even lawsuits from disgruntled users, Apple took to posting an open letter on its website.

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Apple and (RED) celebrate $160 million raised for AIDS awareness and treatment

Apple's been a staunch proponent of AIDS awareness with its involvement in the (RED) initiative. As one of the earliest partners of the program, Apple has released various (product) RED variants of products of which partial proceeds would go into AIDS awareness and treatment. The company also puts World AIDS Day front and centre by dressing up their stores with symbolic RED Apple logos and having their staff wear the colour. The company now celebrates a milestone.

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