Posts

A new report today (via Gigaom) has provided some more information about the alliance the two companies recently forged. According to UBS analyst Steven Milunovich, Apple has taken a dominant role in the relationship, demanding that IBM salespeople carry MacBooks pre-loaded with sales presentations created by Apple. While IBM has mostly been building software for businesses like reators and banks, the analyst’s note indicates that the company may soon branch out into other offerings as well, potentially including supply chain applications and the like....

On the heels of a report from the WSJ last week about Apple planning to roll out more protections for kids’ apps on iOS, the company has detailed its latest steps to increase privacy and security for young users. Apple didn’t specify the changes for apps in the kids category on stage during the WWDC keynote, but an update to its App Store Review Guidelines covers the new changes. This update should eliminate any possibility of kids’ apps collecting and sending data to third-parties, that is if developers adhere to the new rules....

Apple Pay today added more banks and credit unions that now support the payment service, including over 20 for the U.S. and two new banks in Russia. The full list of newly added banks is below. Today’s wave of newly supported banks and credit unions follows the launch of Apple Pay in Taiwan and Ireland last month, those latest additions brings Apple to a total of 15 countries where the service is now available....

Apple Pay Cash, Apple’s upcoming person-to-person payment product that debuted at its WWDC developer conference this past June, is scheduled to be released in late October. This according to a footnote at the bottom of its Apple Watch Series 1 website. Apple Pay Cash will allow Apple Pay users to quickly send and receive secure payments between friends and family. iOS 11 and watchOS 4 users will be able to use the Messages app, or utilize Siri to pay someone using credit and debit cards available in the Wallet app....

During Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings call this afternoon, Tim Cook revealed that Apple Pay will be expanding to more users this year. Cook revealed that Apple will come to MTA in New York, as well as Ticketmaster’s website and app. Apple Pay support for MTA users has been in the works for a while now, but Cook today said that the functionality will start to roll out in early July. This means commuters will be able to travel using Apple Pay Transit from their iPhone and Apple Watch....

Apple Pay support for any card in Europe has become at least indirectly available through Curve… Curve is similar to other prepaid Mastercards, like Revolut, in connecting a physical card to an app, which then lets you top-up the card on demand, freeze and unfreeze it and so on. Although primarily intended for travel, with mid-market currency rates and fee-free ATM withdrawals, you can also use the Curve card in your own country....

Image via Sean Percival Our spidey sense has been tingling over the past few weeks on this “Late May, 10th anniversary meeting” we’ve been hearing much about. Today BGR lays the groundwork for such an event: There’s an overnight shift planned for around 10-15 individuals at each Apple Store to work from late Saturday all the way through mid-Sunday. During the overnight shift, it’s going to be required that employees lock cell phones in the main office....

Years of rumors and speculation met with an iPad market that has faced growth issues in recent quarters has finally led to this: iPad Pro. The long-awaited, larger iPad is here and it’s real. iPad Pro name is official Larger display: 12.9-inch Enhanced custom keyboard Higher resolution than 15-inch MacBook Pro at 2732×2048 A9X processor, 1.8X faster than A8X, 2x faster graphics 10-hour battery Can simultaneously edit 3 4K streams at once 4 speaker audio system (stereo) 6....

The video accompanying the memo Ahrendts sent to staff last week has been published by Mac4Ever. Apple retail boss Angela Ahrendts clarified some of the details of the Apple Watch and MacBook rollouts that are starting this week. The executive confirmed that for the time being, watch orders will only be available online due to extremely limited supply. Regarding the new products, Ahrendts says customer feedback is “overwhelmingly positive” and says the call to limit orders to online-only for the time being was “not an easy decision....

The WSJ is suggesting that Apple’s growing presence in Israel is focused on expanding the company’s chip design capabilities, reporting that it has hired most of the local employees of a chip design company shut down by Texas Instruments and is advertising new positions in silicon and semiconductor design. While the report contains more speculation than hard fact, we noted yesterday that Tim Cook–who is currently visiting the country–is accompanied by Johny Srouji, whose bio on the Apple website says that he “leads all custom silicon architecture and development” …...

Apple has posted a new SEC filing to report that Vice President and Corporate Controller Betsy Rafael will be retiring on October 19, 2012. Rafael is a crucial member of Apple’s finance team, managing the company’s finances and serving as the Principle Accounting Officer. Apple is yet to name a replacement. Rafael previously worked at several companies, including Cisco and Sun Microsystems, all in management or financial positions. Apple typically does not announce departures of Vice Presidents, but they appear to have been required to do so due to Rafael’s high-level accounting position....

Apple today has released a pair of Safari betas for earlier version of OS X. Safari 7.1.5 beta for OS X Mavericks and version 6.2.5 beta for OS X Mountain Lion are both available on the Mac Developer Center for registered developers. Safari 8.0.5, which includes the same upgrades as the Mavericks and Mountain Lion versions, is not available as a separate download, but it comes as part of the OS X Yosemite 10....

Apple has announced that for the month of October it will be accepting donations through the iTunes Store on behalf of City of Hope in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. City of Hope is a research facility that focuses on prevention and treatment of not only cancer, but many serious diseases such as lymphoma. The Cupertino company has previously collected donations on behalf of organizations such as the Red Cross following catastrophic events such as typhoons and hurricanes....

Apple TV+ will have a presence at the winter Television Critics Association Press Tour, the event organizers announced today. This is the first time Apple has participated in an industry television event like this, as its streaming service is only two months old. Networks like Fox, ABS, NBC, HBO use the winter press tours to announce their midseason schedule changes and upcoming TV shows. The 2020 event runs from January 7 through January 19....

Apple has added a second round of new Apple Pay banks and credit union partners in the United States for the month of August. These are the latest banks to work with Apple’s mobile payment service: Bank of St. Francisville Bank of Winnfield & Trust Company Billings Federal Credit Union Central Bank (OK) Citizens Business Bank City County Employees Credit Union First Community Bank (both Arkansas and Michigan now) First Federal Bank of Florida First International Bank & Trust First Internet Bank of Indiana First Volunteer Bank HOMEBANK Industrial State Bank Kitsap Credit Union KleinBank LA Capitol Federal Credit Union Member One Federal Credit Union Midwest Bankcentre National Bank of Commerce Needham Bank Northwestern Bank Park Side Credit Union Park State Bank & Trust Redstone Federal Credit Union Scenic Community Credit Union Services Credit Union Springs Valley Bank and Trust State Bank of Chilton Summit State Bank Sun Federal Credit Union The Arlington Bank The Bank of Hemet U....

Apple earlier this week announced a handful of retailers that will be the first to offer loyalty card support through Apple Pay, but there’s one company planned for the initial launch that it didn’t mention: Whole Foods. Expect the roll out of other rewards cards to be slow, however, as NFC terminals work to enable support with retailers… The adoption of loyalty cards through Apple Pay will likely be slower than credit and payment cards as NFC terminal makers, such as Verifone, have to enable each program on a case by case basis, according to sources close to the situation....

After the announcement of its Podcasts app coming to Apple Watch yesterday, Apple has shared an update on its podcast platform with some new milestone achievements today at WWDC. The last time we heard an update on numbers for Apple Podcasts was at the end of April, where the platform hit over 50 billion downloads with 525,000 active shows. As reported by TechCrunch, Apple shared a few new metrics, along with some of the same data from April....

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHsXH6CO8Tg] After showing more journalists around its solar-powered North Carolina data center (where it is building a third solar farm), Apple says that its new focus for renewable energy is its supply chain. The Guardian reports that the sapphire factory in Arizona forms part of this initiative. Apple’s VP of environmental initiatives Lisa Jackson said that the company is conscious that its supply chain cannot claim the same green credentials as Apple itself … The company is also moving to install solar and geothermal power at a plant in Mesa, Arizona that has been manufacturing sapphire glass....

After previously testing in beta, Apple is pushing a new 32-bit app warning live for users on macOS 10.13.4 starting at midnight local time. The alert will appear once per app when a user launches 32-bit software for the first when running the current macOS version. The dialogue box can be dismissed with the ‘OK’ button or users can click ‘Learn More…’ to access a newly published explainer document on 32-bit app compatibility with macOS High Sierra....

As it has done in the past, Apple has released the open source Darwin code for macOS 10.12 Sierra. The code, located on Apple’s open source website, can be accessed via direct link now, although it doesn’t yet appear on the site’s home page. The release builds on a long-standing library of open source code that dates all the way back to OS X 10.0. There, you’ll also find the Open Source Reference Library, developer tools, along with iOS and OS X Server resources....