iOS Devices

It’s happening: Apple has just announced a keynote address for Thursday, October 16th to take place at the Town Hall auditorium on its Infinite Loop Campus in Cupertino, California. Invitations to select members of the media and special guests indicate that the event will, as always, begin at 10 AM Pacific time/1 PM Eastern Time. News of the October 16th date broke last week. We’ll be providing full, live coverage on 9to5Mac.com of the event’s proceedings. Here’s everything we’re expecting Apple to discuss at the event:

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Apple has now officially commented on the startling announcement that sapphire supplier GTAT will file for bankruptcy. Like most observers, Apple was “surprised” by the move. Apple told the Wall Street Journal:

In its first comments since GT’s Chapter 11 filing Monday, Apple said, “We are focused on preserving jobs in Arizona following GT’s surprising decision and we will continue to work with state and local officials as we consider our next steps.”

Wall Street Journal sources indicate that GTAT was forced into financial distress because Apple withheld the final tranche payment of its contract, totally $139 million. Apparently, the sapphire supplier did not meet the agreed terms so Apple exerted its contractual right to withdraw. From the statement, it seems that Apple did not expect the consequential ramification of bankruptcy, however.

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Vietnamese blog Tinhte.vn has pictures claiming to show the design of the new iPad Air, likely a dummy unit which acts as a reasonable portrayal of the device’s characteristics. Shown in white, the device is reportedley only 7 mm thin. This is almost the same depth as Apple’s latest iPhones, which measure 6.9 mm and 7.1 mm thin. As such, it also features the same recessed volume button style as the iPhone 6.

The leaks show the next generation iPad to be mostly identical to the current iPad Air, but with some notable changes. Aside from thinness, the iPad now features a ‘glass’ (likely sapphire) Touch ID home button to match previous rumors. Interestingly, the side shots of the device appear to lack a mute switch.

The blog speculates this was for space-saving reasons, meaning the mute switch (which can also be a rotation lock) was sacrificed in order for Apple to attain the desired thinness. Video below.

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Ray Ozzie, who used to be Microsoft’s Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect, has come out with a new app for the iPhone. In an extensive profile, Steven Levy explains the premise behind the app, dubbed Talko. You can read the full overview on Medium. The app has been in development for more than two years.

A new take on phone calls, the app shows if your recipient is currently walking or driving — giving a hint at attentiveness of the speaker before the conversation even begins. It’s a nice use of the Apple M7 and M8 coprocessors. Any voice communication is archived into the growing thread … to organize a conversation like any other modern chat app really. Talko seems best as an app for modern meetings, like a conference call replacement, although Ozzie insists it can be used beyond business.

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Following some statistical analysis from yesterday that indicated the iPhone 6 usage ratio was beginning to favor iPhone 6 Plus, Digitimes now reports that Apple is following through on market shifts with production schedule adjustments.

Digitimes says that with iPhone 6 Plus exceeding expectations, Apple has asked the supply chain to move some production away from its 4.7 inch phone. This will mean that shipments for iPhone 6 will fall by 3-4 million units to accommodate the change in production lines.

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A new rumor from Digitimes makes the bold claim that Apple is working on an ‘iPad’ (tablet device) that runs both Mac OS X and iOS. This is sourced as ‘according to rumors in the upstream supply chain’, so read with skepticism. Supply chain analysis can often be incorrect about Apple’s future software plans.

The report says that two versions of a 12.9 inch iPad are in development. One of which is the more typical larger iPad that has been rumored for a while now, but the other is a multifunction device that can run both OS X and iOS. Digitimes notes that it does not know whether both devices will actually enter mass production for public release. It indicates the larger iPad is currently headed for an early 2015 debut. Frankly, a 2-in-1 device seems unlikely.

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Apple sapphire supplier GT Advanced Tech has today released a statement announcing that it is filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. Filing for Chapter 11 means the company will be able to continue normal operations until it can resolve issues with creditors. As of September 28th, GTAT had $85 million in cash.

What implications this has on Apple’s upcoming Watch wearable, which uses a sapphire screen cover for both Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition models, is currently unclear. Apple also uses sapphire from GTAT in its iPhone lineup, for the camera cover and the Touch ID sensor.

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A modified version of the Facebook Messenger has revealed that person-to-person payment interfaces and other elements are already integrated into the app. The discovery was made by iOS developer Andre Aude.

Just like sending a message or sending a photo, Facebook’s payments implementation is integrated into the chat window. The idea being, that if you talk to a friend about getting coffee, you can pay your half of the bill in the same place. A history of payments appears in the settings pages.

Facebook has not confirmed that the feature is coming any time soon. Zuckerberg has floated the idea of Facebook tying mobile payments before, but warned it was a long way off.

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Apple has announced that iAd is now available in nine additional countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden. This means iAd is now available in a total of twenty-five countries spanning North America, Europe and Asia.

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Need to learn how to replace your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus’s battery, display, or other components? Our friends over at iFixit, the same ones that regularly tear apart the newest devices to have a look inside, today published its latest iPhone repair guides for the recently released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
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Re/code reports that Apple will hold its October event, featuring iPads, on October 16th. According to John Paczkowski, the event will feature updates to Apple’s iPad line, OSX 10.10 Yosemite as well as the new Retina iMacs that we reported on earlier this week. Mac mini updates would be nice too.

The event will also feature Yosemite, assumedly the OS will be released soon after the event, if Apple follows historic patterns.

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Starting about half an hour ago, the App Store is currently experiencing errors where apps do not finish downloading (or updating). Some users are reporting obtuse error messages, like the one above, whereas others are simply left with paused downloads on their iOS and Mac devices.

Availability likely varies by App Store region, but Twitter reports of App Store issues started around 6.30 Pacific Time. The problems are sporadic and do not necessarily arise on every device, but have been seen to occur across operating system versions: it is not limited to iOS 8 and Yosemite (which is still in beta).

Apple is yet to update its system service status page to acknowledge any issues.

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What can I say about the iPhone 6 that you don’t know or haven’t already assumed? Not much, actually. It’s running iOS 8, has a great camera, thinner design, and a handful of features that make it different from last year’s iPhone.

This year, Apple has bumped up the display size and released two models. We have the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 Plus, but if you were paying attention to the rumor mill leading up to the launch, these two models probably weren’t a surprise. That being said, there are still some points I’d like to make about both devices, but instead of creating two reviews, I think it’s safe to combine them so that you can find out which one is right for you…

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Yesterday, Chinese iPhone 6 reservations were stated as 2 million in six hours, a rather stunning statistic. Today, an update from the Chinese media press Tencent now says that reservations have topped 4 million. If all these reservations convert into orders, China alone may beat out the iPhone 6’s launch numbers, which — at the time — were considered to be impressive.

What’s more interesting is that Tencent claims it has exact order numbers from one of the main companies offering reservations. This gives some insight into how sales will be split between the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus.

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A new report by Digitimes says that, contrary to public opinion, the iPhone 6 Plus is receiving more orders after beating initial demand expectations. The report says 60% of iPhone production is iPhone 6 Plus units, which may be interpreted as the iPhone 6 Plus being the more popular model. It also says that Foxconn is responsible for iPhone 6 Plus supply, whereas Pegatron is taking up iPhone 6 output.

However, Digitimes doesn’t have the best track record and this information sort of defies other evidence. Firstly, it is important to note that production does not correlate proportionally to demand. It was well publicised that the iPhone 6 Plus was supply-constrained in the runup to release. The burst of iPhone 6 Plus production now may simply be restoring the balance, clearing the backlog of orders.

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Although benchmarks have already shown that the iPhone 6 has raw performance gains over the current competition, this video by PhoneBuff highlights what this advantage means in a real word test of loading a variety of apps and switching between them. Due to the differences between Android and iOS, the tester uses equivalent apps as closely as possible.

In total, the iPhone took 1 minute 55 seconds to load and multitask between the 30 apps tested, whereas the M8 was about 10 seconds slower. The Galaxy S5 lagged significantly, taking over a minute longer than the iPhone to complete the test at 2 minutes 58 seconds.

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At a press conference, ZDNet says that Samsung president of the company’s semiconductor arm is looking forward to reversing its profit forecasts when it starts producing chips for Apple using its next-generation technology.

Kim Ki-nam, president of the Korean electronic giant’s semiconductor business and head of System LSI business, told reporters at Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul that once the company begins to supply Apple with chips using its latest technology, profits “will improve positively”.

Samsung is expected to start producing application processors (APs) for clients such as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, using its 14-nanometre process around the end of the year.

Effectively, Samsung has all but confirmed that it is signed up to manufacture Apple’s next-generation SoC for iPhones and iPads, likely named ‘A9’, probably using a 14 nanometer process. The current A8 chip is produced using 20 nanometer fabrication, with most orders being taken by TSMC.

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