iTunes Store Now Accepting Donations for Superstorm Sandy Relief

Apple has launched a new page on its iTunes Store allowing users to easily donate money to the American Red Cross toward Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. The donation page, which is accessible through the desktop iTunes Store as well as the iTunes and App Store apps on iOS, permits donations at the $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200 levels.


Apple will transfer 100% of each donation directly to the American Red Cross, allowing users to have their donations seamlessly billed to their existing iTunes Store accounts. With Apple currently holding over 400 million iTunes Store accounts with credit cards attached, the company has a very significant customer base that can take advantage of the donation program.

Apple has conducted several similar campaigns in the past, most recently in March 2011 following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and in January 2010 following the Haitian earthquakes.

Update: Apple has now added a link to the iTunes Store donation page on the main apple.com page.

Apple Releases iOS 6.0.1 with Fixes for Keyboard Screen Glitch, Camera Flash Issues, and More

One day before the launch of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad, Apple has just released iOS 6.0.1. The update had been reported to be in carrier testing two weeks ago.

This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

- Fixes a bug that prevents iPhone 5 from installing software updates wirelessly over the air
- Fixes a bug where horizontal lines may be displayed across the keyboard
- Fixes an issue that could cause camera flash to not go off
- Improves reliability of iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation) when connected to encrypted WPA2 Wi-Fi networks
- Resolves an issue that prevents iPhone from using the cellular network in some instances
- Consolidated the Use Cellular Data switch for iTunes Match
- Fixes a Passcode Lock bug which sometimes allowed access to Passbook pass details from lock screen
- Fixes a bug affecting Exchange meetings

iPhone 5 users updating from their devices are required to first install an "updater" application to fix a bug that would otherwise prevent over-the-air updates. Once the updater has been applied users can download iOS 6.0.1 from their devices.

Apple Seeds First iOS 6.1 Beta to Developers

Apple today released the first beta of iOS 6.1 to developers. The beta has a build number of 10B5095f, versus 10A523 (10A525 for the iPhone 5) for the just-released iOS 6.0.1.


Apple mentions a number of changes and known issues, including several related to how developers can integrate Apple's new mapping service in their apps, as well as an improvement to how boarding passes are handled in Passbook, and a few minor changes to Safari.

Registered developers can download the beta via Apple's Developer page.