Apple

Apple hires several tech executives to develop Apple Pay loyalty program

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated June 11, 2018

Coming soon after the introduction of its mobile payment system, Apple is hiring several high-profile tech executives from companies including American Express, Google, and PayPal. These new recruits are not only to help expand Apple Pay, the newly-announced method of paying for transactions both online and in retail stores, but to develop a loyalty system for Apple Pay.

This rewards program is reported as offering a free music, TV show, or app download to users after a transaction or number of transactions have been completed using Apple Pay. In this way, the merchant doesn't have to be affected at all, and Apple can work to promote its mobile payment system with an enticing loyalty system.

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.

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.”

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.

Yahoo adds native iPad UI to News Digest, weekly Katie Couric show and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

After launching its excellent news summarization app, News Digest, in the App Store back in January 2014, the Internet pioneer Yahoo on Friday refreshed the application with a native user interface on iPads and three new iPad-specific features.

First up, there's a brand new weekly video show available by Katie Couric. You'll recall that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently hired the former “The Today Show” host as a global news anchor for Yahoo News.

Couric's show is premiering every Sunday to walk you through a significant story from the week before and give you “key context to get you in the know”. More on an extra news category and new alert timings right after the break.

Poll: which iPhone 6 are you?

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 12, 2014

Apple last midnight started accepting pre-orders for both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico and Singapore.

The handset is scheduled to start shipping to customers next Friday, a week from today, September 19.

Already reports are coming in that the 5.5-inch model is in short supply (as expected), with all iPhone 6 models said to be selling out across Germany and United Kingdom. Elsewhere, the sought-after device remains in high demand.

Unfortunately, accessibility and transactional issues with the Online Apple Store are persisting and spoiling the fun for some people: chances are you, too, had to jump through hoops before reserving yours. With that in mind, we'd want to learn which iPhone model, colorway and storage SKU ended up in your shopping basket.

So, which iPhone 6 did you buy?

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are now available for pre-order

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Following their unveilings on Tuesday, Apple has made both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus available for online pre-order. I want to be up front and say that I have not seen the online store (website) come back up yet, but myself and a number of readers/colleagues have managed to place orders through other avenues.

It seems like people are having the most success with the Apple Store app. It takes some patience, and maybe even a few tries, but that's how I placed my order, and was able to opt for in-store pickup. Otherwise, you can try your carrier's website—I see some folks on Twitter have had luck ordering with AT&T and Verizon.