Mike Beasley

Apple has announced to developers that it will be dropping support for SSL 3.0 on its push notification service on October 29th in order to mitigate a vulnerability discovered in the software recently.

Developers who currently support both TLS and SSL 3.0 on their push servers will not be impacted by the change, but those using SSL 3.0 exclusively will need to switch to TLS before next Wednesday to ensure there is no disruption in their service. Apple has provided a way for developers to test compatibility with the updated system:

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Following up on a bevy of miscellaneous issues with Apple Pay, some Bank of America account holders are now reporting that the new service is charging them twice for some transactions. Re/code has now confirmed that Bank of America is in fact experiencing a technical error that is causing the double charges and is currently attempting to roll out a solution that will resolve the problem.

The glitch was apparently the result of a miscommunication between the bank’s systems and an unnamed payment network and wasn’t Apple’s fault at all, according to the report. The bank said that only about 1,000 transactions were affected by the problem, which is a relatively minute number compared to the number of transactions likely being carried out nationwide today.

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Reviews of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 have gone live across the web tonight and, as you may have expected, reviewers and pundits love Apple’s newest tablets. As usual, we’ve rounded up links to the reviews along with some choice quotes. You can find them all below the break:

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Apple has launched a new web service called Maps Connect that allows small business owners to manage their listings on Apple Maps along with a tool for setting up indoor positioning in select areas. Companies can enter their own listings and verify via a phone call or email address.

The iBeacon-powered indoor mapping tool allows businesses to setup interior views of their businesses on Apple Maps to help guide users through their venues. This tool is currently limited only to locations that meet specific criteria, such as Wi-Fi throughout the building and at least 1 million visitors per year.

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The iPad Air 2 only recently started shipping with delivery dates of October 22nd and 23rd, and it appears the first devices have been delivered to Australian owners over the past few hours, as several 9to5Mac readers have tipped us. At least one device in the wild was tested on Geekbench recently, revealing some interesting undisclosed facts about Apple’s A8X processor.

iPad Air 2 buyers in the United States and other launch countries should expect to start seeing deliveries tomorrow. If you haven’t already ordered yours, you can get it on Apple.com today.

Thanks, tipsters!

More photos below…

TechCrunch

TechCrunch went hands-on with Google’s newest smartphone, the Nexus 6, and took some time to compare it to the iPhone 6 Plus. In the photo above, you’ll see that the two phones share near identical dimensions, though the Nexus still manages to pack a larger 6.22-inch display space into the same body.

The Nexus is actually a bit bigger than it looks in the photo, though the perspective makes it a little hard to tell. When compared spec-for-spec, the Nexus comes in at 6mm taller, 5mm wider, and 3mm thicker than the iPhone. It’s not a huge difference, but the Nexus display is still noticeably bigger than the iPhone 5.5-inch screen. How?

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Geekbench results for the iMac with Retina 5K Display have hit the web and show that when it comes to 64-bit processing, the 4.0 GHz model of the new all-in-one comes out ahead of the lowest-end (3.7 GHz) Mac Pro. Of course, the rest of the Mac Pro family handily beats the iMac in the same category.

The extra power is almost certainly dedicating to keeping things running smoothly on the impressive new 5K display.

Meanwhile, on the mobile, new benchmarks for the iPad Air 2 have revealed…

Realmac Software’s popular website development tool RapidWeaver has been updated to version 6 today. The upgrade introduces many new features and enhancements to the app, including a completely redesigned interface for OS X Yosemite. The new update also adds improved publishing that’s much faster than the previous version and a new addon manager for keeping track of your installed plugins.

Five new responsive themes have been added to support a wide variety of screen sizes, and site previews can take advantage of this feature to show you exactly how your site will appear on a desktop browser or an iOS device. The previews can also be resized to any custom dimensions to fit your target display size.

Newly-added support for site-wide HTML/CSS/JavaScript allows you to write a code snippet once and apply it to your entire site. Markdown can also be used to format pages with a new template.

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Forbes reports today that during the 2014 World Series (which starts tomorrow) two MLB stadiums will be accepting Apple Pay at concessions stands. Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium and San Francisco’s AT&T Park will be the first professional sports stadiums to accept Apple’s new payment process.

MLB hasn’t clarified when the rest of the league’s stadiums will begin accepting Apple Pay. The hardware has apparently only been installed at the World Series stadiums so far.

There are also plans to implement Apple Pay in the MLB At the Ballpark app to allow users to purchase tickets using Touch ID in a future update, though there’s no timeline for when that feature will be available just yet.

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Following today’s release of Apple’s quarterly earnings report, Tim Cook has sent a letter to employees praising the company’s growth and the dedication of Apple employees to the development of new iPhones, iPads, and Retina iMac. Cook calls the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch the “most successful” in the history of the device.

Cook also talks about the Apple Pay launch and reiterates the points made during today’s earnings call, saying that the purpose of introducing a payment system was to ensure that customers have a “simple, secure and private way to pay.” He also commends the software development teams on the consistent cross-platform experience introduced in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

Cook closes by saying that he will be traveling to Beijing to talk to employees in a meeting that will be recorded and posted the company’s internal website. Employees from across Apple will be able to submit questions beforehand to be asked during the Q&A session.

You can read the full letter below:

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As we mentioned last month, Apple is scheduled to host its quarterly conference call today to discuss its earnings report from the fourth quarter of its fiscal year: this includes 39 million iPhones, 12.3 million iPads, 2.6 million iPods, and 5.5 million Macs. Apple already reported today that it earned $42.1 billion in revenue during its Q4 period.

This quarterly conference call with analysts and investors will include the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales which included a record 10 million sales including 4 million units sold during the first 24 hours of pre-orders. It will also be the first call since Apple previewed the Apple Watch to the public, shipped iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, and introduced new iPads and a Retina 5K iMac, although sales for those devices are not included in the previous quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri will also likely mention Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment service which launched for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users earlier today.

Investors and analysts will have an opportunity to ask Tim Cook and company questions during the earnings call and we’ll be listening to bring you coverage starting at 5pm EST/ 2pm PST.
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Last week Jony Ive took part in an interview during Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit where he discussed topics such as his views on product design, development of the first iPhone, Steve Jobs, and more. Today the magazine made the full 25-minute video from the interview available for viewing.

In the interview, Ive calls the fact that some other companies copy Apple’s product design style “theft” and gives more insight into the process behind why (and how) the first iPhone featured a large touchscreen display when other phones of the day were getting smaller and smaller. He also discusses his first experience with an Apple product and how to led to his current career in design.

You can watch the full video below:

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via iFixit

The folks over at iFixit have gotten their hands on one of Apple’s new 27″ Retina iMacs, and, as they are wont to do, immediately opened it up to find out what makes these things tick. Inside they found that most of the internal components are actually somewhat familiar.

The SSD inside the new iMac is the same unit found inside the latest-generation MacBook Pro, while the logic board, Bluetooth controller, and more are identical to that of previous iMacs. In fact, in the case of the logic board, iFixit didn’t even document the dissection, instead referring back to the previous year’s teardown.

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