Apple did “exactly the right thing” by refusing a request from the U.S. government to create a backdoor to access a terrorist’s locked iPhone, billionaire Mark Cuban wrote in response to the encryption controversy this week.

Source:: Apple Insider

Right on schedule for a fall product launch, Apple’s suppliers are said to be reserving “a significant portion” of production capacities for the second and third quarters of 2016, ahead of the highly anticipated “iPhone 7” launch.

Source:: Apple Insider

This week, the AppleInsider podcast analyzes the far reaching implications of a federal court order — one that would see Apple undermine its own iOS encryption protocols to assist an FBI investigation.

Source:: Apple Insider

A rush from Chinese users to sign up for contactless transactions via Apple Pay has taken its toll on the service’s servers, preventing consumers from adding their credit and debit cards.

Source:: Apple Insider

Details surrounding Apple’s legal battle to keep iPhone encryption intact continue to trickle out, the latest being a report claiming the company has retained the services of two prominent attorneys well versed in free speech rights, suggesting such issues will play a key role in upcoming court arguments.

Source:: Apple Insider

Fresh statistics from Strategy Analytics show smartwatch shipments surpassed those of traditional Swiss-made timepieces for the first time ever in the last quarter of 2015, with Apple Watch leading the charge.

Source:: Apple Insider

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted “we stand with Tim Cook and Apple,” while Facebook expressed it would “fight aggressively” against any government actions to “weaken the security” of consumer products.

Source:: Apple Insider

Apple added new blood to its Canadian management team in February with the hire of Brent Johnston, a longtime Telus executive who handled the regional telco’s consumer segment.

Source:: Apple Insider

Amid a raging digital security debate sparked by Apple’s fight to protect encryption FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee is said to be working on legislation that would criminalize companies unwilling to comply with court-ordered decryption requests.

Source:: Apple Insider

Calling it a “black day and the beginning of the end of the U.S. as a world power,” software developer John McAfee criticized the FBI on Thursday for attempting to force Apple to build a backdoor to access data from a terrorist’s iPhone, saying that he will decrypt the handset himself for free.

Source:: Apple Insider