Apple Daily Report: Apple to donate to Hurricane Michael relief efforts (and more news)

Since Steve and I can’t cover everything, at the end of each week day, we’ll offer this wrap-up of news items you should check out.

Apple will donate an undisclosed sum to relief efforts for Hurricane Michael victims. The tech giant Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the upcoming donation in messages of support of support posted to Twitter.

In a note to clients — as noted by AppleInsider — analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is expecting the iPhone Xr debut in China to beat the iPhone 8’s debut in the country. He writes  that “replacement demands of the iPhone XR on the Chinese market will be better last year’s demand for the iPhone 8 series.”

Good news for Apple Pay users. Apple’s mobile payment service is now accepted at CVS Pharmacies and Discover.

China’s two mobile-payments giants said stolen Apple IDs were used to swipe customer funds, and called on Apple Inc. to address the issue. Alipay, the payments affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., in recent days posted an online notice warning iPhone users, and saying some customers had lost money as a result, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple has asked a California federal court to deny Qualcomm’s bid to dismiss portions of the ongoing patent case, saying the chipmaker’s promise not to sue over nine patents doesn’t address other claims at issue in the patent dispute.

Apple’s list of “Top Podcasts” started showing some very unusual shows over the weekend and podcasters noticed, calling it “weird.” According to Business Insider, the chart seemed to be fixed by Tuesday although Apple hasn’t commented.

New data from Merrill Lynch hints that a large percentage of top Android brand users now intend to switch to an iPhone in their next purchase, notes AppleInsider. 

A new kind of Apple mapping vehicle has been driving around L.A., according to BusinessInsider.  They’re white Subaru Impreza wagons with “a tower of gear sprouting from the roof and quite different-looking than the previously known Apple Maps vehicles, which were minivans,” the article notes.

According to App Store support page for developers, iOS is now installed on 53% of active devices that launched in the past four years.

According to a new report from Sensor Tower, the App Store earned nearly 93% more than Google Play in the third quarter of 2018.