Retail data analytics firm InfoScout has told payment industry conference PYMNTS R2 that the percentage of U.S. iPhone 6 owners who have tried Apple Pay fell from 15% in March to 13.1% in June. Usage has also fallen sharply among those who have tried the service. Surveying iPhone 6 owners who have previously used Apple Pay and were shopping in a store that accepts the payment method, the percentage using Apple Pay fell from 39....

Following a delay, Apple has officially announced that it is launching its new Apple Podcasts Subscriptions platform next week. According to an email sent to podcasters today, Apple said that subscriptions and channels in the Apple Podcasts application will go live on June 15. The Apple Podcasts Subscriptions platform was originally slated to go live in May, but Apple delayed the rollout to “ensure the best experience for creators and listeners....

Apple last week pulled the first watchOS 5 beta due to it bricking certain Apple Watch models. Today, Apple has re-issued the first beta that will hopefully resolve any bricking issues. The initial watchOS 5 beta launched just after the WWDC keynote last week, adding new features such as Walkie-Talkie and Activity Competitions. As per usual, we highly advise against updating to the watchOS beta. Unlike Apple’s other platforms, there is currently no way to revert back to a public stable version of watchOS after updating to the beta without sending your Apple Watch off to Apple....

Apple has released the first iOS 10.3 public beta for testing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. iOS 10.3 public beta 1 follows two days after the first developer version of the upcoming software update. Apple’s public beta program is free to participate in unlike its paid developer program. iOS 10.3 will be released to everyone likely this spring, and the public beta allows more users to test pre-release versions of the software update before it’s finalized....

Apple’s streaming service Apple TV+ has officially renewed the series for a second season ahead of the season finale, which will be released this Friday. The drama series stars Justin Theroux in the lead role, and is loosely based on the characters from relative Paul Theroux’s book The Mosquito Coast. The seven-part first season was originally planned to have nine episodes but was cut short partly to COVID scheduling issues. The show is the latest Apple TV+ original to get a second season renewal as the company continues expands its catalog of titles....

It looks like Apple is working on an electric, possibly autonomous automobile. Numerous publications have reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook started the project about a year ago, which followed a M&A meeting with Tesla’s Elon Musk in the Spring of 2013. We must remember that Apple has many R&D projects and “says no a thousand times for every yes” and of course even if the car project does happen, any type of product is many years off (barring any acquisition)....

Today’s best deals include new price drops on Apple’s latest 27-inch Retina 5K iMac, plus Anker has a new Back to School sale, and you can save on Apple TV, as well. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Save on 27-inch Retina 5K iMac Apple’s latest Retina 5K iMacs feature a familiar design but with upgraded internals, along with a new 10th-generation processor and a 1080p webcam....

http://youtu.be/Zr1s_B0zqX0 Bloomberg reports that a survey by ad effectiveness specialist Ace Metrix Inc showed that Apple’s new ‘mission statement‘ ad campaign has been far less effective than its traditional product-focused ads. Advertising experts have suggested that the ad campaign, which aims to focus on the experience people have when using Apple products, rather than the products themselves, may have been a forced decision for Apple, since it doesn’t currently have much in the way of new products to promote....

The case, number 1-08-CV-110403, was filed by the Boston Retirement Board, claiming new evidence to have been unearthed as a result of an investigation of Apple’s own confidential records. Boston Retirement Board says it cannot describe this evidence at this stage of the court filing because the court has not ruled yet on how the confidential information should be treated. It says the evidence may have to be submitted in a sealed form to the court, arguing that the case should be heard (even though the window in which such a case could be filed has passed) because of the time it took to secure the necessary clearance to examine Apple’s confidential papers....

Apple has today updated its iOS version statistics for developers. Apple publishes these numbers every few months based on usage traffic to the App Store. The company says that 88% of all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models are now running iOS 12. That proportion rises to 90% if counting only devices released in the last four years. These are likely the final figures for iOS 12 as Apple readies iOS 13 for release next month....

Just a day after sharing three new advertisements for its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple this evening has unveiled yet another. Today’s new ad features Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry showing off Live Photos. The ad shows Curry shooting a half-court shot while a teammate watches and snaps a photo right after Curry releases the ball. The two then use the Live Photos feature of iPhone 6s to view the image....

Seven European countries have now agreed to use an Apple-style contact tracing approach, where Bluetooth codes are stored on phones, not in a central server … Reuters notes that Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland have all agreed to this approach as part of an initiative to ensure that coronavirus contact tracing apps work across countries. They call for apps to allow users to simply switch countries within the app as they travel, instead of having to install a different app for every country they visit....

Many are viewing the expected removal of the headphone socket from the iPhone 7 as a radical move, even by a company noted for its readiness to abandon what it considers to be legacy ports. But a fascinating chart put together by The Verge (below) suggests that perhaps it’s not so radical after all. It shows that Apple typically supports a port, or I/O standard, for around 15 years. The headphone socket has been in every Apple product since 1984 – some 32 years....

Tim Cook has made it clear that Apple is focused and very bullish on the future of augmented reality. iOS 11 introduced a new ARKit framework for developers to bring the technology to their apps, and iOS 11.3 includes ARKit 1.5. Now, Apple’s head ARKit engineer is slated to give a public talk about the company’s work in augmented reality… Michael Kuhn, head of Apple’s ARKit engineering, is on the schedule to give an “Introduction to Apple’s ARKit” at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next month....

For the second year in a row, Apple will launch an Apple Watch Activity Challenge to celebrate the New Year. Set to start showing up from the 28th December, the new activity challenge promotes fitness by asking users to complete their Activity rings (Move, Exercise, and Stand) for seven consecutive days in January 2018. Apple Watch owners can earn a special iMessage sticker (pictured below) and achievement medal in the Activity app....

Apple kicked off its WWDC keynote starting with iOS 12 and Augmented Reality. Along with further ARKit developments, like USDZ file format, and upcoming native USDZ support in Adobe Creative Cloud, and ARKit 2, it unveiled Measure. Measure is a first-party ARKit-enabled Measuring app shipping with iOS 12 that can auto-detect dimensions of objects in 3D space and provide automatic measurements. Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, demonstrated Measure on stage in San Jose this morning....

Apple has released the fifth iOS 10.3.2 beta for testing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (and the second this week). The version number suggests we should only see under-the-hood bug fixes and security improvements in these releases when ready. iOS 10.3.2 beta 5 is currently only available in beta for registered developers. The public beta version of each update usually follows a few days after the developer version if not the same day....

Coming just a day after Apple released the iOS 10.1 developer beta 1 with the new depth of field effect, the iOS 10.1 public beta is also now available. Users installing the public beta on the iPhone 7 Plus will see the new beta Portrait mode under their camera settings. Users on the macOS Sierra public beta will also be seeing the first macOS 10.12.1 public beta update rolling out too....

As rumored last week, Apple has today released a new model of iMac. These machines are considerably cheaper than their predecessors, priced at $1099. Previously, the cheapest iMac SKU was priced at $1299 (which is now the mid-range model). The cheaper iMac features a 1.4 GHz dual-core i5 CPU, which represents a significant worsening in performance over the previous base model of iMac, which featured a processor clocked at 2.7 GHz....

Apple has today shared refreshed assets for to help affiliates promote and share music, movies, and TV content that can be found on Apple Music and the iTunes Store. Apple shared the news in an email sent to members of the affiliate program. The new assets feature a cleaner design in line with Apple’s recent MFi branding update that we discovered over the weekend. Notably, the iTunes Store logo now features the star logo, like the iOS app, as opposed to the previous use of the Apple logo....