The hottest Apple-related news for the week of Aug. 21-26

There’s a lot happening in the world of Apple news this week. Following are the hottest articles for the week of August 21-16.

A new rumor says that Apple will announce new iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 3 and a new Apple TV on Tuesday, Sept. 12. Another rumor says the “iPhone 8” will come with 64GB, 256GB and 512GB of RAM.

Apple’s next U.S. data center will be built in Iowa. The tech giant has announced plans to build a 400,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art data center in Waukee, Iowa, to better serve North American users of iMessage, Siri, the App Store and other Apple services. Like all Apple data centers, the new facility will run entirely on renewable energy from day one.

Apple’s iMessage is apparently the the most-used messaging platform for U.S. teens, according to a comparative analysis by Fam CEO Giuseppe Stuto.

Apple has launched a new Safari Extensions section on the Mac App Store Currently there are 27 Safari Extensions on the MAS, a mix of free and for-pay extensions.

Technavio has announced the top five leading vendors in their recent global smart speaker market report that covers a time period through 2021. Apple’s on the list. Since the tech giant doesn’t make smart speakers, I’m assuming that the company makes the list based on expected sales of the HomePod when it debuts.

New research from Gartner says the global wearables market will grow 16.7% this year driven by strong smartwatch sales led by Apple.