Apple and GT Advanced fought to keep key documents related to their sapphire agreement out of the public eye after the latter company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, but earlier this week, a judge ruled that the documents did not contain trade secrets or confidential information, and would thus be largely unsealed.

Samsung was replaced by the iPhone maker as No. 1 in China's mobile sector this year, according to the China Brand Research Center's 2014 China Brand Power Index ranking report released Tuesday.

GT Advanced Technologies has announced a multi-year, US$578 million contract with Apple to supply advanced sapphire material.

Samsung is expected to start producing application processors (APs) for clients such as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, using its 14-nanometre process around the end of the year.

Tim Cook's declaration on Thursday that "I'm proud to be gay" made him the first publicly gay chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.

The iPhone 6 will be sold in China from Oct 17, after rigorous regulator scrutiny led to Apple reassuring the Chinese government that the smartphones did not have security "backdoors" through which US agencies can access users' data.

Marc Newson has become the latest world-renowned designer to join Apple, it has been announced. Newson, who has designed watches in the past, has worked on designs with Apple recently, prompting further speculation the company is planning to move into new product areas.

BlackBerry is in talks with rival technology groups about partnerships to compete with the newly forged alliance between Apple and IBM.