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You don’t have an iPhone 6 yet, but you can already win a case for it [winners announced]

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated September 22, 2014

You were barely able to pre-order your new iPhone 6 Friday morning, but don't stop that from entering our iPhone 6 case giveaway, brought to you by the fine folks over at Spigen. Unlike Apple and the carriers, iDB's servers will most definitely be able to handle the traffic of this special giveaway, so if you have a couple minutes to spare, and want a chance to win a case for your yet-to-be-delivered iPhone 6, you've come to the right place.

Gold ‘Edition’ Apple Watch could cost as much as $1,200

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

The high-end version of the new Apple Watch could cost over $1,000, according to TechCrunch. The website has spoken to experts within the jewelry industry who say that if the 18-karat gold 'Edition' version of the Watch is actually made of gold, it could sell for as much as $1,200.

It's not clear if the entire case is made of gold, or the device is just gold-plated, but TC's contacts say it's more likely the former. For one, an all-gold case matches up with the size and weight provided for the watch, and two, gold-plating doesn't really live up to Apple's design standards.

Apple said to have held talks with Square regarding acquisition

Cody Lee ∙ September 12, 2014

Before raising its latest $100 million in funding, Square was in talks with Apple regarding a possible acquisition, reports TechCrunch this afternoon. The outlet says that the two companies held discussions briefly, but the conversation quickly ended when their final numbers didn't match up.

Apparently Apple was willing to pay around $3 billion for the mobile payments company, about 30% over its value. TechCrunch even claims that the Cupertino firm showed Square hardware it was working on that would compete directly with its point-of-sale tools, but the company declined.

Tim Cook talks Steve Jobs, Beats buyout and more in Charlie Rose interview

Cody Lee ∙ September 12, 2014

Apple CEO Tim Cook is making the media rounds this week, following his company's big product unveiling event on Tuesday. He's spoken with ABC, The Wall Street Journal and several other outlets, and today he has popped up in an interview on PBS' The Charlie Rose Show.

It's a two-part interview, with the first segment airing today, and PBS has just posted a handful of clips from the conversation to YouTube. In them, Cook talks to Charlie about a wide range of topics, including Steve Jobs, Apple's Beats acquisition, and its future plans for TV.

Apple will reportedly get a 0.15% cut of all Apple Pay transactions

Cody Lee ∙ September 12, 2014

Apple has negotiated a never-before-seen deal for its new mobile payment system, according to a new report from the Financial Times. Citing sources familiar with the terms of the agreement, the outlet says that the Cupertino firm stands to make 15 cents of every $100 spent (or 0.15%) using Apple Pay.

We knew that Apple stood to make a lot of money from its new Pay service, but this is the first time we're hearing hard numbers. "It's unprecedented," says Dickson Chu, former engineer at PayPal and Google Wallet. "It’s somewhat surprising that Apple was able to negotiate something Google couldn’t.”

Concept imagines Apple Watch OS running on an iPhone 6

Timothy Reavis ∙ September 12, 2014

Apple's announcements of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus this week were largely expected, but the real surprises of the keynote came from the Apple Watch, a wearable device with a custom-designed OS. With a home screen filled with a honeycomb-like grid of circular icons and navigated largely by zooming, the Apple Watch is different from anything we've seen from Apple in the past.

Following the announcement, Andras Horvath has posted a concept video to his channel imagining what the iPhone 6 would be like if it ran the software found on the Apple Watch. The result is an interface that is surprisingly pleasant and intuitive. Browsing through apps in this manner seems perhaps more appealing than the standard home screen layout of iOS.

AT&T dragging its feet with Wi-Fi Calling

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 12, 2014

AT&T, the nation's second-biggest wireless provider, is allegedly planning on rolling out the Wi-Fi Calling feature to its subscribers, but in 2015 rather than this year, LightReading reported Friday.

Already supported on T-Mobile, but not coming anytime soon to Verizon (Sprint has yet to announce it), Wi-Fi Calling is supported by the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The feature will be coming to older iPhones from the iPhone 5 onward, courtesy of the free iOS 8 update scheduled to release next Wednesday.

iPhone 6 pre-orders set unprecedented records

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated April 17, 2018

Coming soon after pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went live last night, both Apple and AT&T reported that the respective companies were seeing record pre-orders, with demand for the larger iPhone 6 surpassing that of both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5.

Apple, despite its late start, saw record pre-orders last night alone, issuing a statement saying, "Response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible with a record number of preorders overnight." Although Apple didn't specify exactly how many units were sold, we can assume it surpassed iPhone 5 sales of 2 million in 24 hours when Apple last had pre-orders two years ago.

Apple: iOS 8’s SMS forwarding arriving in October

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 28, 2016

When iOS 8 launches for public consumption next Wednesday, text message relaying will not work immediately from day one because Apple plans to enable the feature in October, according to the just-refreshed iOS 8 webpage detailing the Continuity feature that was first spotted Friday morning by iLongue.

Now listed as ”coming in October”, the delayed launch coincides nicely with an upcoming October release of the free OS X Yosemite update. A discussion thread at MacRumors corroborates iLounge's findings, suggesting Apple has disabled SMS relaying on its servers in the past couple of days, likely until Yosemite is officially released.

This development isn't surprising to us given that iOS 8 and Yosemite are more dependent on each other by Continuity than previously.

Rumor claims ultra-slim 12″ Retina MacBook Air coming in 2015 in Silver, Space Gray and Gold

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 9, 2017

File this one under the 'We Shall See' drawer: Apple's long-rumored MacBook Air with a 12-inch Retina display is reportedly launching next year in Space Gray and Gold, in addition to the usual aluminum silver look, A Tech Website said Friday citing sources “familiar with Apple’s plans”.

This is the first time someone has mentioned iPhone-inspired colors with respect to Apple's ultra-thin notebook. We're not sure what to make of this report because in my personal view, a gold MacBook Air sounds preposterous, to say the least.

Apple rumored to launch Retina iMacs and ultra high-resolution 5K Thuderbolt Display by year-end

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 12, 2014

Apple is said to be releasing a 27-inch iMac with Retina display and a new high-resolution 27-inch Thunderbolt Display by the end of the fourth quarter of 2014, Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes reported Friday citing a report from Taiwan-based display researchers WitsView.

The upcoming Thunderbolt Display should feature a 5K resolution of a whopping 5,120-by-2,880 pixel versus the 2,560-by-1,440 pixel resolution on the current Thunderbolt Display.

U2’s “free” album download cost Apple $100 million, other projects with U2 on the way

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 12, 2014

As people continue to freak out over Apple’s forced iTunes download of U2’s new album titled “Songs of Innocence,” the New York Times newspaper has learned from sources that the value of the arrangement between the iPhone maker and the aging Irish rock band is in the ballpark of $100 million.

“To release U2’s album free, Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royalty and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth up to $100 million, according to several people briefed on the deal,” writes NYT.

And according to the band’s manager Guy Oseary, the Cupertino firm has other U2-backed music related projects in the works.