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MacRumors reports that drone photographer Duncan Sinfield has today posted a new “Aerial Update” video of Apple Park on YouTube that shows the development of some of the landscaping projects in particular. Here’s his description of the video, which explains a little more about it:
Once completed, Apple Park will be home to approximately 9,000 trees; Dave Muffly, the senior arborist overseeing the landscaping of the massive campus, previously told Backchannel that he was sought out and personally chosen for the task by the late Steve Jobs, who thought that trees should be one of the most important aspects of Apple Park in the style of the old Silicon Valley, which was said to have had more fruit trees than it had engineers.

Source: Latest Drone Footage Reveals Landscaping Progress in Apple Park's Inner Circle

Niantic’s first annual Pokémon GO Fest took place yesterday at Chicago’s Grant Park. It had initially promised so much, including the first appearance of a Legendary Pokémon in the game, but in the end the massive crowd of more than 20,000 attendees (an amazing feat in itself) went home sorely disappointed due to technical issues.

9to5 Mac reports that the biggest problem of all was that all major cell networks in the area gave up the ghost under the strain of 20,000 people all trying to use them at once. Once there was no cell network, there was no game, it was as simple as that. The few that were able to get online found that it was still pretty much impossible to play the game due to Niantic’s server issues. In particular, TechCrunch said that Trainers were unable to catch Pokémon when they tapped on them, seeing only an error message. Many people had travelled from all over the world to actually have a chance to catch the first Legendary Pokémon to appear in the game, and so when things started to go wrong, the disappointed fans started booing and chanting “we can’t play” on the global live stream, as well as booing the Niantic CEO.

It really was a great shame that it turned out as it did, overshadowing the announcement of Lugia as the first Legendary Pokémon to appear in the game, and the sheer scale of the crowd all there to play Pokémon Go, but, to its credit, Niantic has been swift to respond with an update on its official Pokémon Go blog.

In the blog post, Niantic apologized for the technical issues, and outlined several steps that it would be taking immediately to redress matters, including offering a full refund to all registered attendees, as well as giving them $100 in PokéCoins. Possibly best of all, all registered attendees will have Legendary Pokémon Lugia added to their account.

Niantic also said that it would be extending the range around Grant Park by 2 miles so that attendees can capture special Pokémon and visit...

MacRumors reports that after some Verizon Wireless customers started noticing last week that various streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube were being throttled, Verizon admitted to Ars Technica that it is in fact throttling some services. A Verizon spokesperson said that it was doing so as “part of a temporary test” of a “new video optimization system,” adding that “the testing should be completed shortly,” and assuring customers that their “video experience was not affected.” The company is due to end its temporary test very soon.

News of Verizon throttling streaming speeds first appeared on reddit earlier last week, with Verizon users picking up on the fact that the Netflix speed-test site was showing streaming speeds limited to around 10Mb/s, yet other sites such as Ookla Speedtest were showing streams as normal with no throttling.

Bringing up the issue of Net Neutrality, The Verge said that Verizon’s throttling of Netflix and You Tube in this way was actually more of a hard cap than anything else.

Sources: ttps://www.macrumors.com/2017/07/21/verizon-throttling-netflix-traffic/

Verizon admits to throttling video in apparent violation of net neutrality

According to a report on AppleInsider, insurance firm State Farm has just logged a complaint against Apple with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The suit says that a “defective and unreasonably dangerous” iPhone 4s cause a house fire in Wisconsin in 2016. Co-complainant Xai Thao incurred over $75,000 in damages as a result of the fire.

Thao bought the iPhone 4s in 2014, but it is not known whether that was via an Apple Store or an authorised Apple retailer. According to the legal documents, Thao’s iPhone 4s “failed” on April 1, 2016, resulting in a fire at her home in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

State Farm said that its investigations revealed evidence of a “significant and localized heating event” close to the battery, and remnants of internal shorting, with the house fire being the end result.

The plaintiffs also said that further examinations showed that the battery was the source of the fire, not any damage that might have occurred to the battery.

The complaint said that the phone was in new condition, and that neither the phone or the battery had been tampered with.

AppleInsider does not mentioned whether or not the battery had been charged using a third-party charger, which is the usual reason for iPhones catching fire.

Source: State Farm sues Apple over house fire allegedly caused by 'defective' iPhone

Niantic has today announced that Legendary Pokémon are finally coming to Pokémon Go this weekend as part of Pokémon Go’s first-year anniversary celebrations. The Legendary Pokémon will be available at Gyms, and you can catch one of your own in a couple of different ways. Firstly, you can find Legendary Eggs at Gyms. Secondly, if you help to defeat a Legendary Raid Boss, you will then have the chance to catch the Legendary Pokémon. Once caught, you won’t be able to leave your Legendary Pokémon at a Gym, however, although you can use them during the Raid and Gym Battles.

The first Legendary Pokémon will be revealed on July 22 during Pokémon GO Fest, which is taking place in Grant Park, Chicago, but only if trainers around the world manage to catch enough Pokémon during the Pokémon GO Fest Challenge Windows. Should the Trainers in Chicago then defeat the Legendary Pokémon, it will start to appear in Raid Battles all over the world, following Pokémon GO Fest.

Source: A Legendary first year of Pokémon GO! - Pokémon GO

Two days ago we posted about renders that were said to accurately depict the forthcoming iPhone 8 that showed that the phone had a particularly big power button. Now, BGR’s executive editor, Zach Epstein, in an exclusive entitled “I Might Know the Truth About Touch ID on Apple’s iPhone 8,” says that he has heard from three separate “well-placed sources” over the past few weeks that “the iPhone 8’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor is in the power button.”

Epstein says that he was first told the news approximately one month ago by a source that he knows “quite well,” and that all three of the sources have told him accurate information in the past. He says that he did not report what he had been told any sooner than today because the information that he had been given in the past by all three sources had been of “a different nature” to the power button information, and therefore he “didn’t feel comfortable reporting it as fact.” He says that he has finally decided to report it now due to “the lack of answers.” He adds that he was also further convinced by today’s leak of supposed iPhone 8 casings showing the rear Touch ID sensor yet again. “This is a horrible design. It’s not going to happen. These rumors are false.” Epstein says that if the rear Touch ID rumour was real, we would have had it confirmed by a “solid source” by now.

Epstein says that more rumours have surfaced recently of the Touch ID sensor being integrated into the power button, and Apple has previously patented technology that would make this possible. Also, it would certainly explain that extra large power button.

Image: Baidu.

Source: I might know the truth about Touch ID on Apple’s iPhone 8

Jagex has announced that its flagship MMORPG RuneScape will be coming to iOS this winter, complete with interoperable PC play.

The Cambridge-based developer says that Old School RuneScape will be released first, with RuneScape to follow, making them the first mainstream and fully established Western MMORPGs to deliver the total MMO experience on both PC and mobile platforms, complete with full interoperable play, where players can seamlessly switch between playing on PC and mobile and back again, enjoying exactly the same gameplay on the move as they would on their PC at home.

You don’t have to have played, or be playing, the games on PC at all, you can choose to simply play only on mobile if you so wish, and if you used to play the game on PC but now want to play only on mobile, you’ll be able to do so.

Yesterday we brought you happy news via Forbes and AppleInsider that it looks like the final iPhone 8 design will not have a rear Touch ID sensor after all. Today, BGR has posted exclusive 3D model images provided by the third-party case-maker Nodus that show how the new phone looks from all angles, and even with the display powered on. Both Forbes and BGR seem convinced that what Nodus is showing us is very close to the final design, so this could be the best idea to date of what the iPhone 8 will look like. And hopefully this means that Apple has settled on the final design.

As far as when this stunning new iPhone might actually be released, elsewhere on the site BGR writes that according to “trusted sources” quoted by French-language Apple fan site iGeneration, Apple could be planning to postpone the iPhone 8 launch event until October, later than usual, and then release the phone in limited quantities just a few weeks later. The aim of Apple making the announcement later than usual could be to make the delayed release date less obvious than if the phone was announced in September.

Sources: Exclusive images reveal what Apple’s iPhone 8 looks like powered on

This might be Apple’s ingenious trick to prevent iPhone 8 delays

AppleInsider reports today on new iPhone 8 renders published by Forbes from the case manufacturer Nodus that are said to be based on accurate CAD files of what the manufacturer expects the new iPhone to look like.

Possibly the most significant aspect of the image is that there is no rear Touch ID sensor, and Forbes says that the recent rumours that Apple would be siting the Touch ID on the rear of the iPhone 8 were “unfounded,” which will come as a relief to most people should it prove to be true.

The camera array looks very much like that shown on many other previous dummy designs, and Forbes actually claims that the iPhone 8 has a “more protruding camera” than the iPhone 7, but judging by the render it doesn’t look to be that much more protruding. Could just be the angle though. One part of the phone that does look a lot bigger, however, is the power/lock button on the side.

As to how accurate the renders may be, Nodus clearly thinks they are pretty close to the real thing, as it is manufacturing its retail cases based entirely on the data from which the renders are taken.

Source: New 'iPhone 8' renders based on case manufacturer CAD files show large power/lock button

According to a new report in The Korea Herald, via MacRumors, Samsung Electronics is set to return to manufacturing chips for Apple’s iPhone line-up from 2018. Currently, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the sole supplier for the A10 chip for the iPhone 7 and the A11 chip for the forthcoming iPhone 8.

The Korea Herald says that Apple and Samsung Electronics co-CEO Kwon Oh-hyun signed a “crucial deal” when Oh-hyun visited Apple’s Cupertino headquarters last month.

The source says that it was Samsung’s decision to buy equipment, such as extreme ultra-violet lithography machines, to manufacture 7-nanometer chips for iPhones that really helped the company secure the new deal with Apple, as well as Samsung’s “close ties on OLED.”

The Korea Herald did not offer much more in the way of details, other than saying that Samsung would “share some parts” of the 2018 iPhone orders with TSMC. Samsung is said to be planning to “seek final approval from Apple for the chip production” for next year’s A12 chip.

Source: Samsung Rumored to Return to iPhone Chip Production in 2018