The idea of a smart home is a long running meme in technological circles. Apple has made the biggest stride recently with HomeKit and there is now a significant ecosystem of lights, switches, and other accessories to buy for your home. That being said, smart home accessories are still novelties and quite pricey: they aren’t must-have purchases. However, this makes them great gifts for the holiday season — uncommon presents that are fun to play with and have some long-lasting usefulness. We’ve rounded up our favorite HomeKit accessories below …
Still no Apple Pay in stores at Target just yet, but Apple Watch will be joining the lineup of iPhones and iPads in select stores this week – and all stores by October 25th.
Target operates over 1800 stores across the United States, greatly expanding the points-of-sale for Apple Watch going into the holiday quarter. Aside from the couple hundred Apple Stores in the US, Apple Watch has been sold in a few premium vendors plus Best Buy, T-Mobile, and Sprint… Expand Expanding Close
So you’ve waited until the last minute to pick up gift, eh? Well don’t worry, we’ve put together a handful of great gifts for the techie in your life. This gift guide isn’t going to be Apple-specific, but it’s definitely aimed at all of the tech fans out there…
For those worried that they might not get quite enough Christmas music this month from coffee shops, stores, bars and just about everywhere else in existence, iTunes Radio has you covered. Apple yesterday added a whole collection of new stations to its streaming music service, each of them playing Christmas music and nothing but Christmas music – mirroring the holiday movie section added to iTunes.
The ten (yes, ten) stations range from Classical Holiday to Country Holiday. As ever with iTunes Radio, the stations play ad-free for iTunes Match subscribers, while others get ads (including visual ads) every few tracks after an earlier ad-free day courtesy of Verizon.
If you’re keen on minimizing your exposure to holiday music, however, you can stay out of the stores and do most of your shopping online thanks to the links in our holiday gift guides – with additional gift ideas over on 9to5Toys.
Apple has sent an email to registered developers on Wednesday to inform them that iTunes Connect will be shutting down for the holidays from December 22 to December 29. During this time, developers will be unable to submit new apps, app updates or in-app purchases to appear on the App Store. Access to iTunes Connect, Application Loader, iTunes Connect for iOS and making changes to TestFlight Beta Testing will also be unavailable as a whole. Expand Expanding Close
T-Mobile has announced that they will no longer require a down payment on certain iPhone models during the holiday season. Specifically, customers will no longer have to pay anything when purchasing a 16 GB iPhone 5s or 5c. Several iPad models—the 16 GB Air, mini, and Retina mini—are also available for no money down, though that seems to be their regular price. Monthly payments on these devices ranges from $17-$26.
This deal is available both in physical T-Mobile stores and through the carrier’s online store starting on December 11th. This special price is only available for a limited time, though the carrier hasn’t given an official ending date. The full press release is below:
Apple has sent out an email to developers (via iMore) informing them that iTunes Connect will once again be closed for the holidays. During that time, no new apps or updates will be released, app prices won’t be able to be changed, Newsstand updates won’t be processed, and any price changes scheduled for that week will result in the app becoming completely unavailable until the 27th. Even statisitics and sales reports for developers will be delayed during that time.
The full email is below:
iTunes Connect will be temporarily unavailable from Saturday, December 21, to Friday, December 27, 2013.
During that time, iTunes Connect will not be accessible and you will not be able to submit any apps or In-App Purchases. Processing of any Newsstand Atom feeds will be delayed until after December 27. Sales and Trends reports via the Autoingestion tool will be available but may also be delayed.
Also, you should not schedule any pricing changes or apps to go live between those dates. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect in that date range will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until after December 27. Similarly, apps scheduled to go live during that range will not be released until after December 27.
If you have any additional questions, use the Contact Us module on iTunes Connect.
Following the launch of two new iPhone models and iOS 7 earlier this month, Tim Cook today emailed Apple employees thanking them for working tirelessly on the new products and rewarding them with extra, paid time off for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.
I realize many of you worked tirelessly to bring us this far. I know it required great personal sacrifice…In recognition of your incredible efforts and achievements, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday this year.
Cook announced that Apple will shut down on November 25, 26, and 27 so employees can have the entire week off for the holiday. Retail and AppleCare employees will continue to work on those days to serve customers, but they’ll get the additional, paid time off at a later date along with international employees.
And I am proud to tell you that Apple is also a force for good in our world beyond our products. Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making a substantial contribution to society.
None of this would have been possible without you. Our most important resource is not our money, our intellectual property, or any capital asset. Our most important resource — our soul — is our people.
When asked about staggered product launches during the Q&A of Apple’s Q2 2013 earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that he wished Apple would have postponed the launch of the new iMac until after the holiday season in order to avoid the significant delays that customers experienced in the initial months of launch:
I don’t spend a lot of time looking back… If we could run it over, i would have announced the iMac after the turn of the year… we felt our customers had to wait too long for that specific product… Where the iPad mini was in shortage in the December quarter, I would not have done that differently because we were able to get the product out to many customers that wanted it. In retrospect, I wish it [iMac] was after the turn of the year so customers would not have had to wait as long as they did.
Following up on Lucky Bags that were handed out to Japanese Apple customers this weekend, Apple is also celebrating the Lunar New Year with a one day Apple shopping event, dubbed “Red Friday” on Friday, Jan. 6 in China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. In the past, Apple has given modest discounts to its products for the Lunar New Year.
The Lunar New Year celebration starts on Monday, Jan. 23.
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