Apple's new 'Stickers' ad focuses on MacBook Air love

A clever new ad from Apple shows the various ways MacBook Air owners personalize their notebooks with stickers, etchings and decals. It shows how into their devices people are as well as how creative one can get with the backlit Apple logo. Although personally, I wouldn't add stickers on my notebook, I still enjoyed the ad. Nice nod to Apple's rainbow logo towards the end.

iTunes Festival to return to London this September

After taking the show on the road to SXSW in Austin early this year, the iTunes Festival returns to its roots in London's Roundhouse in September. According to Apple this year's month-long festival will feature the likes of Pharrell,  Maroon 5, David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Beck, Sam Smith, Blondie, Kylie, 5 Seconds of Summer, Chrissie Hynde and many more.

“The iTunes Festival in London is back with another stunning line-up of world class performers and tremendous new acts,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “These live shows capture the heart and soul of iTunes and we love bringing them to our customers in the Roundhouse, as well as to the millions of people watching all over the world for free.”

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Apple and IBM forge global partnership to transform enterprise mobility

Apple and IBM announced an exclusive partnership that teams the market-leading strengths of each company to transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps—bringing IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to iPhone and iPad. The groundbreaking partnership brings together Apples' expertise in mobile devices and IBM's strength in cloud systems as well as enterprise deployment. 

The landmark partnership aims to redefine the way work will get done, address key industry mobility challenges and spark true mobile-led business change—grounded in four core capabilities:

• a new class of more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions including native apps, developed exclusively from the ground up, for iPhone and iPad;

• unique IBM cloud services optimized for iOS, including device management, security, analytics and mobile integration;

• new AppleCare service and support offering tailored to the needs of the enterprise;  and  

• new packaged offerings from IBM for device activation, supply and management.

Hit jump for the full details of the announcement. 

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Apple's iBeacon hardware revealed in FCC application

Apple's iBeacon technology allows for low-powered transmitters to recognize nearby devices and push localized information. This is useful for retailers or business owners wanting to reach out to customers to push sales and product information. Various third party manufacturers have built iBeacon devices but it looks like Apple is stepping in and looking to create their own line of iBeacon optimized hardware. An FCC application revealed Apple might be considering its own iBeacon devices and while there's no indication this will be made available to to the consumer market, some analysts are seeing the potential of using iBeacons for the connected home via Apple's HomeKit which is their framework for controlling and communicating with connected devices. iBeacon has been kept generally under wraps even if the use of these devices is becoming widespread.

Retailers like Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, JCPenney, Old Navy, Sports Authority, Target and others are said to be testing the implementation of iBeacons, which are optimized for iPhones but will also work with other smartphones, albeit in a limited capacity.

Source: Appleinsider