Apple News

Conserving mangroves, a lifeline for the world
Apple, Conservation International and Colombian Communities Partner to Protect Earth’s Carbon-Trapping Coastal Trees
The roots of a mangrove tree are like veins. They rise up and plunge down into the salty waters of Cispatá Bay in Córdoba, Colombia, along the coast of the Caribbean Sea, sprawling in every direction. A series of channels have formed an arterial highway connecting to the Sinú River, providing single-lane access into and out of the mangroves where fishermen and loggers begin their day’s work.
“Right now we have a lot of people working on opening channels to keep the water flowing,” says Luis Roberto Canchila Avila, president of Asoamanglebal, the first mangrove association in San Bernardo del Viento in Córdoba. “Because we are in summer, there are parts where the water flow is different and fish die as they are left without oxygen.” It’s a delicate balance: too much river water or too little salt water, and the mangroves could be destroyed.
The mangroves have long been a lifeline for the coastal communities of Colombia. They protect them from storm surges and provide food and wood supplies to families. They are also a lifeline for the world, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it deep in their soil below water for centuries. Recent studies show they can store up to 10 times the amount of carbon per acre as land-based forests.
But pressures from illegal farming, fishing and logging combined with climate change are threatening their existence. “There are many illegal groups working in the mangroves,” Canchila Avila says. “They don’t know or care for the sustainability efforts.” According to Conservation International, when degraded or destroyed, mangroves and other coastal ecosystems emit the carbon they have stored for centuries into the atmosphere and become sources of greenhouse gases. They estimate that as much as 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ are being released annually from degraded coastal ecosystems.¹ That’s equivalent to the total annual emissions from cars, buses, aircraft and boats in the US in 2017.
On this humid, sunny April morning, Cispatá Bay is still, save for a few local fishermen waist deep in the sea casting their hand-woven nets. Here, Conservation International and Invemar Research Institute are collecting mangrove soil samples to be analyzed for carbon stored in sediment below the waterline, known as “blue carbon.” Together with the Omacha Foundation, the three organizations are designing a carbon financing model to incentivize conservation and restoration of mangroves in the region, working in partnership with the local government environment authority (CVS) and the local communities.
For Apple’s Earth Day 2018

Apple expands global recycling programs
Cupertino, California — Apple today announced a major expansion of its recycling programs, quadrupling the number of locations US customers can send their iPhone to be disassembled by Daisy, its recycling robot. Daisy will disassemble and recycle select used iPhones returned to Best Buy stores throughout the US and KPN retailers in the Netherlands. Customers can also turn in their eligible devices to be recycled at any Apple Store or through apple.com as part of the Apple Trade In program.
Apple has received nearly 1 million devices through Apple programs and each Daisy can disassemble 1.2 million devices per year. In 2018, the company refurbished more than 7.8 million Apple devices and helped divert more than 48,000 metric tons of electronic waste from landfills. 
“Advanced recycling must become an important part of the electronics supply chain, and Apple is pioneering a new path to help push our industry forward,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “We work hard to design products that our customers can rely on for a long time. When it comes time to recycle them, we hope that the convenience and benefit of our programs will encourage everyone to bring in their old devices.”
Daisy is now able to disassemble 15 different iPhone models at the rate of 200 per hour, recovering even more important materials for re-use. Once materials have been recovered from Daisy, they are recycled back into the manufacturing process. For cobalt, which is a key battery material, Apple sends iPhone batteries recovered by Daisy upstream in its supply chain. They are then combined with scrap from select manufacturing sites and, for the first time, cobalt recovered through this process is now being used to make brand-new Apple batteries — a true closed loop for this precious material.
Apple also uses 100 percent recycled tin in a key component of the main logic boards of 11 different products. The company’s engineering of an aluminum alloy made from 100 percent recycled aluminum allows the new MacBook Air and Mac mini to have nearly half the carbon footprint of earlier models. Starting this year, aluminum recovered through the Apple Trade In program is being remelted into the enclosures for the MacBook Air.
To further its research on recycling, Apple today also announced the opening of its Material Recovery Lab dedicated to discovering future recycling processes. The new 9,000-square-foot facility in Austin, Texas, will look for innovative solutions involving robotics and machine learning to improve on traditional methods like targeted disassembly, sorting and shredding. The Lab will work with Apple engineering teams as well as academia to address and propose solutions to today’s industry […]

Qualcomm and Apple agree to drop all litigation
* Agreement ends all ongoing litigation, including with Apple’s contract manufacturers * Companies have reached a global patent license agreement and a chipset supply agreement
San Diego and Cupertino, California — Qualcomm and Apple today announced an agreement to dismiss all litigation between the two companies worldwide. The settlement includes a payment from Apple to Qualcomm. The companies also have reached a six-year license agreement, effective as of April 1, 2019, including a two-year option to extend, and a multiyear chipset supply agreement.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.
Qualcomm invents breakthrough technologies that transform how the world connects, computes and communicates. When we connected the phone to the Internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, our inventions are the foundation for life-changing products, experiences, and industries. As we lead the world to 5G, we envision this next big change in cellular technology spurring a new era of intelligent, connected devices and enabling new opportunities in connected cars, remote delivery of health care services, and the IoT — including smart cities, smart homes, and wearables. Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, all of our engineering, research and development functions, and all of our products and services businesses, including, the QCT semiconductor business. For more information, visit Qualcomm’s website, OnQ blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.
Press Contacts
Kristin Huguet,Apple,khuguet@apple.com,(408) 974-2414
Josh Rosenstock,Apple,jrosenstock@apple.com,(408) 862-1142
Pete Lancia,Qualcomm,corpcomm@qualcomm.com,(858) 845-5959
Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan,Qualcomm Investor Relations,ir@qualcomm.com,(858) 658-4813

Apple tops clean energy goal with new supplier commitments
Company Spends $2.5 Billion in Environmental Initiatives
Cupertino, California — Apple today announced it has nearly doubled the number of suppliers that have committed to run their Apple production on 100 percent clean energy, bringing the total number to 44. Because of this partnership between Apple and its suppliers, Apple will exceed its goal of bringing 4 gigawatts of renewable energy into its supply chain by 2020, with over an additional gigawatt projected within that timeframe. This comes one year after Apple announced that all of its global facilities are powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
“Every time one of our suppliers joins us in our efforts to address climate change, we move closer to a better future for the next generation,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “We’ve made it a priority to hold our suppliers accountable to the same environmental standards we observe and hope that our collaboration will show others what is possible. While we are proud of our announcement today, we won’t stop driving change within our industry to support the clean energy transition happening globally.”
Apple reduced its comprehensive carbon footprint for the third year in a row in 2018, in large part due to the company’s Supplier Clean Energy Program. Manufacturing makes up 74 percent of Apple’s carbon footprint, so the program helps its suppliers increase energy efficiency and transition to renewable energy sources. Just last year, Apple and its suppliers participated in clean energy generation that roughly equaled the electricity needed to power over 600,000 homes in the US.
Apple has further expanded its supplier education and support initiatives, including through its Clean Energy Portal, an online platform to help suppliers identify renewable energy sources globally. Over 100 suppliers have already registered to participate in the site. It also launched a first-of-its-kind fund with 10 of its suppliers last year to help finance renewable energy projects in China.
The company also announced major progress to address environmental solutions by allocating all $2.5 billion in green bonds it previously announced, the largest of any US corporation. Through its now-completed $2.5 billion Green Bond allocations, the company has contributed to 40 environmental initiatives around the world. That includes projects Apple has created to cover its entire electricity load — as of January 2019, approximately 66 percent of the renewable energy Apple uses comes from such endeavors.
Apple’s Green Bonds are also notable for the number of areas of environmental research and innovation they support. Projects include solar rooftops in Japan, an aquifer to conserve water in Oregon and the creation of a custom alloy made of 100 percent recycled aluminum that […]

ECG app and irregular rhythm notification on Apple Watch available today across Europe and Hong Kong
The ECG app on Apple Watch Series 4, a direct-to-consumer product that enables customers to take an electrocardiogram right from their wrist, is available in Hong Kong and 19 European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. In addition to receiving De Novo clearance in the US from the FDA, the ECG app¹ and irregular rhythm notification² are now CE marked and cleared in the European Economic Area.
Part of the free watchOS 5.2 software update, the ECG app can capture heart rhythm on demand in a moment when users experience symptoms such as a rapid or skipped heart beat and help provide clinically important data to physicians. The irregular rhythm notification feature on Apple Watch occasionally checks heart rhythm in the background and sends a notification if an irregular heart rhythm that appears to be atrial fibrillation (AFib) is identified. 
The ECG app and irregular rhythm notification feature can alert users to signs of AFib. Left untreated, AFib is one of the leading conditions that can result in stroke, the second most common cause of death around the world.

“We’ve seen the ECG app and irregular rhythm notifications on Apple Watch have meaningful impact on our customers across the United States,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “We are excited to bring these features to customers in Europe and Hong Kong, giving them access to empowering information about their heart health.”
ECG App
New electrodes built into the back crystal and Digital Crown on Apple Watch Series 4 work together with the ECG app to enable customers to take an ECG similar to a single-lead electrocardiogram. Taking an ECG recording is as simple as launching the ECG app on Apple Watch Series 4 and touching the Digital Crown, which completes the circuit and allows electrical signals across the user’s heart to be measured. After 30 seconds, the ECG app can classify the user’s heart rhythm as AFib or sinus rhythm.
All recordings, their associated classifications and any noted symptoms are stored securely in the Health app on iPhone, from which users can share a PDF of the results with physicians.
A clinical trial of around 600 participants found the ECG app on Apple Watch demonstrated 98.3 percent sensitivity in classifying AFib and 99.6 percent specificity in classifying sinus rhythm in classifiable recordings when compared to a gold standard 12-lead ECG administered by a cardiologist. 87.8 percent of recordings in the study could be classified by the ECG app.
Irregular Rhythm Notification
Available on Apple Watch Series 1 or later, the irregular rhythm notification feature will occasionally check the user’s heart rhythm in the background […]