By the end of this year, about half of the top 100 merchants in the United States should roll out Apple Pay to their stores, Apple hopes.
A spokesperson told Reuters today that the firm is constantly in contact with these merchants, half of whom have expressed their intent to support Apple Pay for their customers, with “many more” merchants expected to adopt the wireless payment service the following year.
Since its April debut, the Apple Watch has been exclusively available through the convoluted process where you favorited your preferred model on the webstore or in the Apple Store app before visiting an Apple Store for your try-on appointment.
But as availability of both the device itself and the bands has been improving lately, the company is now inviting prospective buyers for walk-in try-ons at their local Apple Store, as indicated by MacRumors.
As reported earlier this week, Apple has stopped selling new iPhones to customers on a two-year contract with AT&T as of today.
As first noted by MacRumors, subsidized $199/$299 prices for new iPhones on a two-year AT&T contract have been removed overnight and replaced with the carrier's financing program called AT&T Next.
Apple is reportedly still negotiating terms with record labels for its rumored music-streaming service, just days before its annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with a keynote next Monday, Bloomberg said today.
People familiar with the negotiations told the news organization that the labels are pushing to get a larger chunk of revenue than they receive under their current deals with Spotify.
A couple of hours ago, I got my first real hands-on experience with HomeKit—the connected smart home framework that Apple announced at WWDC 2014. A year later, and some of the very first HomeKit enabled products are now landing on store shelves.
The folks over at Lutron were nice enough to send us the Caséta Wireless Smart Lighting Dimmer Kit ($229.95 on Amazon). This kit comes with a Smart Bridge, two remote controls and two plug-in lamp dimmers. Although the kit in and of itself is interesting, our main interest at iDownloadBlog is with its HomeKit support. With that in mind, this post consists of an unboxing and overview of Lutron's kit and a walkthrough of the HomeKit configuration, including Siri control.
Want to see how HomeKit works in the real world? Then watch our full video walkthrough for more details.
Apple said today its watch will be hitting seven new markets later this month, with the sole exception of the 42mm Space Black Stainless Steel model with Space Black Link Bracelet.
In an email sent to customers who ordered that device, a copy of which was obtained by 9to5Mac, Apple has clarified that the 42mm Space Black Stainless Steel model with Space Black Link Bracelet won't be arriving in retail stores until all online orders have been fulfilled.
Additionally, availability of many Apple Watch bands has improved substantially as many are now shipping in one business day, WatchAware noted Thursday.
Originally announced back in March, a substantial update to Minecraft: Pocket Edition 0.11.1 has finally landed on the App Store today bringing loads of new features such as skins, chicken jockeys, fishing and much more.
Yes, you can now stuff wolves in boats and go fishing in Minecraft, isn't that wonderful? All joking aside, you can now customize the appearance of your Minecraft characters with skins.
Skins are sold through the In-App Purchase mechanism, and some don't cost a dime. In addition, players can easily upload custom skins to the game and even create their own ones using the Minecraft: Skin Studio app or any image editing software for that matter.
In a pair of new television commercials, Samsung is back at what it does best: bashing Apple's iPhone. Promoted under the tagline “six is greater than six,” the 30-second videos highlight three features of Samsung's Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge: wireless charging, a wider-angle lens on the selfie camera out the front and a curved screen which displays tidbits of information across the edges of Samsung phones.
I've included both ads for your viewing pleasure.
Viber, the popular VoIP and messaging platform owned by Japan's Rakuten, hasn't updated its iPhone app in any meaningful way for a while now. And just when you thought they've neglected the iOS app for good, here comes a brand new release packing a few solid improvements.
I've always hated Viber wouldn't let me chat while on a VoIP or video call. This should be expected behavior as iPhones have always supported messaging during a cellular call.
In latest Viber 5.4 for iPhone update it's now possible to minimize a VoIP call and open any other screen within the app without interrupting your conversation.
Apple has just named “2Do” its App of the Week for this week. This means that from now through next Thursday, you’ll be able to download the powerful task manager for both iPhone and iPad for free—a staggering savings of $14.99.
2Do prides itself on its "completely different approach to managing your tasks." Unlike the numerous other task management software offerings, it doesn't force you to adopt a particular methodology. There is no wrong way to use 2Do.
Sunrise Calendar, a cross-platform calendar application that Microsoft bought four months ago, just announced immediate availability of its Apple Watch app. With Sunrise for Apple Watch, you can see all of your upcoming events, get custom notifications and check all the details for your next meeting at a glance.
In addition to supporting Microsoft Exchange and iCloud, Sunrise is the only iOS calendar alternative that does push for Google Calendar.
And yes, that feature is now available on your wrist, too!
Marc Newson, a reputable industrial designer whom Apple hired last September to help shape future products, recently sat down with the London Evening Standard newspaper in his first print interview since formally starting his new role at Apple.
In the article that the paper published Thursday, Newson offers his view of the design world, comments on Apple's newly found focus on fashion and touches briefly on the subject of a rumored Apple car project.
The Sydney-born designer, 51, whose part-time role at Apple is taking up 60 percent of his time, also responds to the criticism coming from the fashion industry regarding the Apple Watch being too mass market for it to be a true luxury item and becoming outdated.