iOS

Because Apple won’t report official Apple Watch sales numbers, we have to rely on analyst estimates to get an understanding of how well the Watch is faring with consumers. New numbers out of IDC push sales estimates upward somewhat, suggesting sales of 3.6 million units from April to June. In general, analyst consensus for Apple Watch sales is around 3 million units.

According to IDC, 3.6 million units shipped makes up 20% of the overall wearable market for the same period. Apple currently sits just behind Fitbit in sales volume, which shipped 4.4 million wearable devices. Due to the drastic difference in average selling price between models of Apple Watch and other wearables however, Apple is highly likely to be far ahead in terms of profits.

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As we approach the iPhone event, with invites very likely to go out to press shortly, we have more iPhone 6S rumors to discuss. Firstly, Hamza Sood has once again peeked into the iOS 9 source code and found references to ‘deep press’ gestures. This seems to confirm the existence of Force Touch in the new iPhones, which at this point is no surprise. Force Touch is widely assumed to be coming to all of the new iPhones and iPads Apple will announce this year. 9to5Mac reported that Force Touch will be used for various things across the OS: Sood found the Force Touch code reference in text selection code and appears to mean that a Force Touch gesture will activate the keyboard trackpad scrolling … a new feature for iPads in iOS 9.

A packaging photo has also leaked, although the validity is highly questionable. It appears to show packaging for the iPhone 6S Plus …

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Congrats, iPhone owners: Popular online food ordering service Eat24 has determined that you are healthier than users of Google’s Android. That’s based on data it collected from its mobile app over a three month period, tracking information regarding how ordering habits differed across the rival platforms.

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Verizon has recently started allowing customers to bring non-Verizon devices its network and will activate them. The program officially began this week and Verizon confirmed to 9to5Mac that it applies to the iPhone, as well as Google’s Nexus 6. Verizon notes, however, that the devices must be unlocked prior to being activated on its network.

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(Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

IDC released an updated forecast today lowering its expectations for worldwide smartphone shipments this year with a continuing slowdown in growth in China cited as the biggest contributor to the lower than expected shipments. It also shared some insight into expected growth for Apple in the years to come, predicting Android’s current 81% share of the market by operating system will likely hold strong through 2019 and that a cheaper iPhone 6C model wouldn’t do much to help.
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$AAPL stock has opened below $100 in the first minutes of trading, erasing any gains since October 2014. Apple’s stock officially opened at $95.12 but has corrected slightly upwards since to circa $101. The fall in share price saw Apple’s market capitalization lose about $60 billion dollars in value today. Although any fall in price is bad news for the company, the 7% fall should not be taken at face value.

The whole market is down with losses across the board: the S&P saw a 5% overall fall — the largest one-day drop for four years. Technology stocks are being affected as much as any other sector. Twitter, Alibaba, Tesla and Netflix all saw falls in the double digits.

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Cook surprised Cramer on his 10th anniversary episode of Mad Money earlier this year.

Although the stock market is currently experiencing turbulence, with $AAPL stock dipping below $100 in pre-market trading, Tim Cook has made a rare exception and directly responded to CNBC analyst Jim Cramer who raised doubts about Apple’s Chinese growth. Cook notes that Apple has seen strong business growth for its products in China though July and August. Quoting from the email via CNBC:

Growth in iPhone activations has actually accelerated over the past few weeks, and we have had the best performance of the year for the App Store in China during the last 2 weeks.

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The iPad accessory market is full of keyboards. Most of them double up as cases, they’re about as big as the iPad and they’re not well optimized for other devices. The Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard is different. It’s small enough to carry around in your pocket when folded, and works with iOS, Windows and Android devices. What’s more, you can have it paired to two devices at once and switch between them with the press of a button. It’s safe to say that this is one of the most versatile and portable Bluetooth keyboards on the market. This review was written entirely on it.

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Apple has discovered that a limited number of iPhone 6 Plus devices sold between September and January are affected by a manufacturing defect with the back camera. This defect causes photos taken with the back iSight camera to come out blurry. Apple will replace the camera in your affected device for free, if eligible. You can find out if you are eligible for a replacement by typing your serial number into this website, which will lookup if your phone is part of the batch with the manufacturing problem.

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We are just weeks away from the launch of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple’s newest addition to the iPhone lineup, but the fate of the iPhone 5c successor, a new 4-inch iPhone dubbed by the rumor mill as the ‘iPhone 6c’, remains unclear.

When Apple upped the screen sizes last year, it did not offer an update to the iPhone 5c. This has led much speculation that Apple was saving an update for the 4-inch iPhone to next year to allow the big screened iPhone 6 take the limelight. Since then, there have been many conflicting reports over the release of Apple’s next 4-inch iPhone. A Chinese media report indicates that Apple will actually release a smaller iPhone 6c in November.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Xdbr60wcg]

Square Enix announced earlier this year at E3 that it would bring back its beloved Final Fantasy VII title as a remake for consoles, PC, and iOS. Today, the iPhone and iPad version of the game officially arrives on the App Store.

While we learned previously that Square Enix wouldn’t be using its Luminous Engine for the remake, the game’s iTunes page does confirm that the iOS title is a direct “port based on Final Fantasy VII for PC” and arrives without any changes to the original game’s storyline. It’s also made some enhancements specially for the iPhone and iPad version…
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Data from Appsee claims to have identified information regarding the as-yet-unannounced larger iPad Pro, expected to feature a display ranging between 12.3 and 12.9 inches. The app analytics firm says an iPad with identifier ‘iPad6,8’ appeared in its logs with a reported screen resolution of 2732×2048. Internally, the larger iPad models are referred to as J98 and J99. The resolution is especially notable as it was previously spotted within code for iOS 9. For comparison, the current iPad Air 2 has a screen resolution of 2048×1536 with a ‘iPad5,1’ model identifier.

The jump in pixels for both axis is substantial although somewhat expected given the screen will also be increasing in area by about 80%. AppSee says its logs indicate the device has been used to open several apps from the App Store. The company has also identified ‘iPhone 8,1’ and ‘iPhone8,2’ devices corresponding to the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

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Another day, another series of iPhone rumors. Yesterday’s roundup included the latest information about a September 18th next-generation iPhone launch date, faked benchmarks, and new system-on-a-chip schematics, and today our roundup covers a likely fake rose gold iPhone 6S image, reservations for the new phone from carriers, and Germany, and a pair of claims out of China about future iPhone models. Let’s start with the rose gold image:

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Over the weekend, we learned some preliminary details about Apple’s planned updates for two of their most popular Mac accessories, the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse, in the form of FCC filings. Aside from new and improved connectivity thanks to Bluetooth 4.2, both accessories appear to have design deviations from their existing models, as detailed by the rough sketches accompanying the FCC filings. Based on these sketches, I decided to more fully visualize the changes Apple could be planning for an all new and more modern wireless keyboard based on other modern Apple product designs.

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Earlier this month SwiftKey for iOS gained a new emoji insight feature called “My Signature Emoji,” and now the company is further expanding on its emoji insight offerings. The company announced today that it is rolling out two new emoji insight features to users of its app, called “My Top Emoji” and “Emoji State.”

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