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Midweek news bites: Earth Day, 5G iPhones, and a $1bn lawsuit

We wouldn’t blame you for checking out from the world of Apple news over the long Easter weekend. But the tech world didn’t stop turning, and now the world is back to work, we figured it was time to take a quick look over what you might have missed these past few days.

Please dig into this week’s Apple bites, freshly sourced from all around the web. As ever, click through to read the full stories if you want to know more!

Tim Cook shares iPhone photos for Earth Day

Monday was Earth Day, and this year Apple CEO Tim Cook celebrated by sharing a bunch of nature photos from the popular #shotoniPhone campaign.

Apple also shared a press release detailing its other recent environmental efforts, including how it’s helping to conserve mangroves in Colombia.

5G iPhone to come late next year

Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that Apple will release a 5G-compatible iPhone in the second half of 2020, and will massively impact sales – perhaps leading to 200 million iPhones sold. That’s big talk from a man known for his (mostly) accurate predictions.

Teenager sues Apple for $1 billion

An 18-year-old from New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against Apple after its in-store facial recognition system mistakenly pegged him as a suspect in a theft, leading to a false arrest. The numbers involved seem more headline-worthy that realistic, but it’s possible he’ll get some kind of kickback from Apple’s mistake.

iPhone NFC improvements coming this year

Apple’s big WWDC show is coming in June, and with it a bunch of new software features and improvements. We don’t know exactly what to expect yet, but leaks suggest there will be significant improvements to the NFC capabilities of the iPhone. That means it could be used to swipe and scan more tags than ever, making it possible to implement the smartphone with swipe entry systems, bus passes, and more.

Apple has a full-time philosopher on staff

It turns out Apple takes philosophy pretty seriously, and as such has had a full-time professional philosopher on hand at Apple University, an internal training program for employees. Despite being employed for the better part of a decade, his work is kept pretty quiet and Apple declines interview requests. Who knows what kind of stuff he’s advising on?