Apple | featured news

Google, undaunted by a short-lived attempt to sell a smartphone on its own, is now pushing into Apple's iPad market by selling tablets directly to consumers than an online store.

Foxconn, a leader in electronics manufacturing, said it will sharply curtail working hours and increase wages after a monitoring group found widespread problems in its labor practices.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, who has been in China this week, continued his trip with a stop at a Foxconn Technology manufacturing plant, a key supplier that has been under scrutiny for work conditions.

Apple Inc. says it has sold 3 million iPads since Friday when it released the latest version of the tablet computer.

Apple, one of the world’s richest companies, will reward investors with a dividend- and share-purchase program totaling $45 billion over three years, the company said Monday. In a departure from the direction of late chief executive Steve Jobs, Apple will significantly draw from its massive $98 billion cash war chest to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fiscal quarter beginning July 1.

Apple has finally decided what to do with its cash hoard of nearly $100 billion. The company issued an unusual media alert on Sunday evening saying it planned to announce on Monday morning the long-awaited outcome to a discussion about what to do with its cash balance.

Mike Daisey, the off-Broadway performer who admitted that he made up parts of his one-man show about Apple products being made in Chinese sweatshops, has cut questionable sections from the monologue and added a prologue explaining the controversy.

The show says it was misled by Mike Daisey, whose one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" was the basis of a program that aired in January. Mr. Daisey responded, "I stand by my work."

Maybe it just seemed that way, but in the moments before Apple opened the doors to its Palo Alto, California store — hometown to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and current CEO Tim Cook — there seemed to be as many blue-shirted salespeople inside getting pumped up for the day as there were blanket-wrapped fans in the line outside.

Walmart's 24-hour stores will start selling the least-expensive version of the new iPad at 12:01 a.m.