iOS Devices

Since the cellular model of the iPad isn’t subject to typically two-year contracts, users have always been free to start or end pre-paid cellular data plans at will from the device’s settings. In the past, however, this meant buying your iPad from one carrier and being locked into that carrier’s plans.

With tomorrow’s launch of the iPad Air 2, however, Apple is changing that by including its own SIM card with each unit. This SIM card will work with multiple US carriers—AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile—and allow users to not only enable or disable a cellular plan as they see fit, but also switch back and forth between carriers to find the plan that works best for them at the moment.

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Apple has just announced a brand-new Retina 27-inch iMac. Apple is spreading Retina displays across the lineup, with the iMac leading that charge. This is the highest resolution screen in the world, according to Apple, with 14.7 million pixels. This is a 5K display — more than seven times the pixels of a HDTV. The screen builds on the technology Apple built on the iPhone and iPad, but to a whole new scale.

The iMac is just 5mm at its thinnest point, maintaining the same thinness as the previous generation, despite the massive leap in pixel density.

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Apple today announced the third generation of its 7.9-inch tablet with the new iPad mini 3. Apple says the new iPad mini 3 will start at $399 and be available for pre-order starting tomorrow. Storage capacities start at 16GB with both WiFi-only and Cellular options available. The new iPad mini 3 will be available in space gray, silver, and gold (for the first time).
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In addition to the new iPad Air 2, Apple today officially unveiled the follow up to the iPad mini with Retina display, the “iPad mini 3”.

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As part of its keynote, Apple has officially announced new versions of its iWork suite — Pages, Keynotes and Numbers. Each of the apps have received some ‘flattening’ UI changes to match the aesthetic of OS X Yosemite.

Each of the productivity apps also have other improvements, relevant to each task. In Numbers, you can now transpose tables in one step for example. Pages adds a new sidebar, with comments and other outline views. Keynote now includes some new text effects as well. The updates will be released alongside the release of OS X Yosemite today.

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Apple is reportedly adding the ability to track what users do inside certain apps in order to present them with targeted in-app ads across iOS devices, reports digital media site Digiday.

Say, for example, a visitor to a retailer’s iPhone app adds a pair of shoes to his cart but ultimately decide not to buy it. In this scenario, the retailer will now be able to retarget that user with an ad for that exact pair — even in another app on his iPad. When tapped, the ad would direct him back to his abandoned checkout page and automatically add the shoes to his online shopping cart.

Ad agencies say that Apple has been pitching the new capability since last month …

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An internal memo sent to Panera Bread employees and acquired by 9to5Mac has revealed that Apple will launch its mobile payment platform on Monday, October 20th. Panera Bread was listed as one of the initial launch partners for Apple Pay during its introduction last month.

An online training course for employees has been published that includes instructions for the VeriFone readers, including the Apple Pay functions. Stores that don’t have the appropriate hardware to support the technology will receive further information on the 20th about how the company plans to handle payments those locations.
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Apple’s iTunes Store has just made a little bit of a slip-up (and with perfect uncanny timing): screenshots for the iOS 8.1 iPad user guide have just appeared within iBooks and include Apple’s upcoming iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. Of course, Apple will be formally debuting these devices tomorrow.

The screenshots confirm that both new tablets will include nearly identical designs to their predecessors and the addition of Touch ID sensors in the Home button. Another new feature confirmed by this leak is a new Burst Mode (first introduced with the iPhone 5s) for the iPad Air 2 (image below).

These images also indicate that the new tablets will be named “iPad Air 2” and “iPad mini 3,” which means that Apple will bringing the numbering scheme for names back to the iPad lineup. Of course, the presence of this user guide means iOS 8.1 (with Apple Pay) is likely to drop tomorrow, too.

Besides the tweaked designs and Touch ID sensors, a gold color option, and a stronger A8X processor, improved camera optics, and new software can be expected at least on the new Air. Apple will also discuss the Mac line tomorrow, including the new iMac with Retina display and OS X Yosemite.

Boom?

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Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty has added AAPL to its Best Ideas list of investments, saying that increased margins from iPhone 6 sales see the stock “set for significant upside.”

While Credit Suisse had earlier suggested that margins on the iPhone 6 would be lower than that of the iPhone 5s and 5c, Huberty says that numerous sources are suggesting that more people this time are opting for the middle storage tier, thus pushing up both average selling price and margins … 
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With Apple preparing to show off an updated lineup of iPads on Thursday, designer Martin Hajek has asked the question “What if the new iPad’s were to borrow the design language from the iPhone6/6+?” on his site. As he has done in the past, Hajek has mocked up some remarkable 3D renderings of how the theoretical Apple devices could appear.

While the new iPads this year are expected to largely appear unchanged physically, the iPhone 6-style iPads in Hajek’s renderings adopt the protruding camera lens, flash, and antenna bands as well as the completely curved edges from the latest iPhones.
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Following component leaks over the weekend purporting to show an A8X chip and Touch ID button destined for new iPads, additional photos re-published by blog apple.club.tw point to a closer look at the modified system-on-a-chip as well as what appears to be 2GB of RAM for application memory. The purported increase in RAM on the updated tablet would double that of the current generation iPad Air (and iPhone 6 for that matter) and make more more powerful multitasking on the device.
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Not much is known about Apple’s deals with its suppliers, but court filings by former sapphire supplier GT Advanced reveal that the contract included a $50M penalty for any leak of Apple product information, reports the Financial Times.

While the amount of the penalty clause may vary according to the size of the supplier, it seems likely that a substantial leak penalty is a standard condition of supplying product components to Apple – though the number of leaks over the iPhone 6 suggests that such penalties offer limited protection.

Contracts between Apple and its suppliers will undoubtedly be subject to strict non-disclosure agreements, but lawyers for GT Advanced are asking the court to allow details to be made public … 
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Apple has announced that it will be rolling out the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to an additional 36 countries this month, bringing the total number of markets to 69. The latest rollout will begin with India and Monaco alongside China on Friday.

Apple today announced that iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the biggest advancements in iPhone history, will arrive in 36 additional countries and territories across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa by the end of October. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in a total of 69 countries and territories by the end of the month and are on track to be available in more than 115 countries by the end of the year, making this the fastest iPhone rollout ever … 

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The launch of Apple Pay, Apple’s NFC and Touch ID-based mobile payment solution, is upon us. Apple has begun preparing for the launch by kicking off Apple Pay training programs for its own group of retail store employees and by working with retailers to prepare for the debut later this month. The training materials, shared by a reliable source, for the Apple Pay launch at Apple retail stores have also detailed some new specifics regarding the Apple Pay setup and transaction processes both on customer iPhones and in Apple retail stores…

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Ahead of next Thursday’s Apple event, new images purportedly showing parts for the new, full-sized iPad have emerged. Photos re-published by blog apple.club.tw show a full logic board for the new iPad Air as well as parts for the new Home button, glass screen cover, and audio control components. At first glance, the new iPad Air logic board does not reveal too much new, but adjusting the colors of the image shows a fairly unexpected addition: an A8X system-on-a-chip:

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When announcing Apple Pay last month, Apple showed off a list of launch partners that would be putting the NFC-powered iPhone payment system to work in October, including McDonald’s, Nike, and Macy’s. However, the Daily Dot has compiled a list of businesses that don’t currently have plans to adopt Apple’s mobile payment system, and there are some notable entries on the list.

Of course, it doesn’t seem unexpected that many businesses that didn’t have early access to the hardware and software that makes up Apple Pay would be without current plans to adopt the technology. Many of the companies gave a “non-statement,” so to speak, confirming that they are considering the possibility of implementing the system in the future but don’t currently have a date set to roll it out.

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Sprint prepaid subsidiary Boost Mobile announced today that it will begin carrying the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus for customers starting next Friday on October 17th. As it has done in the past with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, Boost Mobile will carry the new iPhone models for $100 off the usual retail price of each device. Below is Boost Mobile’s full pricing lineup for each storage capacity of both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus:
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Apple has confirmed on its website that the October event will be streamed. The URL is ‘apple.com/live’, so it seems that Apple is using the same video/blog platform that it first used for the iPhone 6/Apple Watch event in September. As the event progressed, Apple added tweets, product information and photos to the timeline below the main video.

Let’s hope the stream doesn’t also experience the same issues as the September event this time around, which made the event unwatchable for many people.

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