iOS

On Apple’s public specs page, it says that the new Apple TV includes an A8 chip and that’s about it in terms of the bundled SoC. However, Apple’s developer documentation goes into more detail specifically listing the hardware as having 2 GB RAM (via Steve Troughton-Smith). This means the internals are actually better than the A8 in the iPhone 6 and latest-generation iPod touch, which only have 1 GB of RAM.

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With Apple’s introduction of its new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus going on sale later this month, the company will discontinue the gold color option for the previous generation iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 5s.
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Announced earlier in the year, it is now official: Discover bank cards will be supported by Apple Pay from September 16th, the same day as iOS 9 is released. Discover joins Visa and MasterCard in the US as supporting card types for Apple’s contactless payments service.

To sweeten the deal, Discover is even offering a special cashback promotion to celebrate the addition of Apple Pay. You can get 10% cashback on up to $10,000 of in-store purchases until the end of the year, as long as those transactions were using Apple Pay.

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The new Apple TV comes in 32 GB and 64 GB flavours, but Apple doesn’t want you using all that space up too quickly. Developers have to comply to strict rules about how their apps can use local storage. For starters, the app binaries themselves cannot exceed 200 megabytes of static resources: any resources required over that cap must be available to download on-demand and are only cached for a limited time. This means that games are going to have to really reorganize their code to segment their gigabyte blogs into small level chunks.

In addition, Apple says the Apple TV has no app-accessible persistent local storage. This means that all data must also reside in iCloud, such that if the system decides to delete the app data, it can be redownloaded.

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With iOS 9 set to release on September 16th, Apple has released the final beta build, the Golden Master, to developers. Along with this beta is an all new preview build of iOS 9.1. The exact changes in iOS 9.1 aren’t yet known, but we’ll keep this post updated with any changes we find in either build.

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The iPhone Upgrade Program is a new program that gives you a new iPhone every year, with AppleCare+ for just $32 a month for two years. Keeping paying and you keep getting new phones and service coverage. This option is available in US Apple Stores to start with more countries coming soon.

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Apple has announced the new powerful Apple TV will be backed up by a huge app library from the developer community. They have announced many on stage today, and many more will be announced very shortly as the entire community gets onboard.

The new hardware is much more powerful than the previous generation. Coupled with an App Store, it creates a whole new opportunity for developers and all new user experiences for customers on the TV.

Here’s a complete gallery of all Apple TV apps announced so far:

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9to5Mac has been reporting that Apple was planning some cosmetic updates to the Apple Watch, including new Sport bands and a gold aluminum Apple Watch Sport, for some time. A few hours ahead of Apple’s event, an image has appeared on Twitter depicting what appears to be a Product (RED) Apple Watch Sport band. To date, Apple has offered Apple Watch Sport bands in white, black, green, blue and pink.

Although Apple is supportive of the charity, the Apple Watch notably debuted without any Product (RED) affiliation. This appears to be changing today …

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As expected, the Apple Store has gone down ahead of Apple’s Hey Siri event later today at 10 AM PST. Although we don’t expect the iPhone, iPad Pro or Apple TV to be available to buy today, the site will return with information about the new products after the presentation is over. There is a chance that Apple’s updates to Apple Watch — new band colors and a new gold Sport watch — may be available immediately.

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9to5Mac has been saying for a while that Apple’s Hey Siri event today will be a product blitz of announcements, with at least three major new products set to be shown off: the new iPhone 6S, the new larger iPad Pro and a revamped Apple TV with a new remote. There’s also likely to be a new iPad mini and some updates for Apple Watch — you can read it all in our roundup.

Some people were confused about why Apple is stuffing so many announcements into one event. Having called a single event “not logical” earlier in the day, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber now agrees with our prior reports: breaking tradition, there won’t be an October event this year.

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Twitter’s official app has almost always lagged behind the iPhone version when it comes to design and features, but today the company has announced a major update that changes that. Twitter for iOS today has been updated to bring the same iPhone-style interface to the iPad, as well as many of the features that were previously iPhone-only.

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We have reported many times that the new Apple TV is getting an App Store. The new A8-powered box combined with a revamped software interface will enable developers to make apps and games for the new hardware, set to be announced at tomorrow’s iPhone 6S/Apple TV/iPad event. TechCrunch is reporting, via sources, that Periscope, the video live streaming app for iPhone and Android, is working with Apple in advance of the unveiling to create a custom Periscope app for the new Apple TV.

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Keeping to the ‘Hey Siri’ theme of the event, the day before the big show, Apple has added a new set of reply phrases to Siri teasing the event tomorrow. There’s about a half-dozen new witty responses in addition to those added last week. To hear them, hold-down the Home Button activate Siri and say ‘Hey Siri, give me a hint’.

Obviously, these hints are little more than funny jokes (the binary one spells the word ‘Gotcha’ if decoded) and don’t give away secret product information. If you want details about what Apple is announcing tomorrow, read 9to5Mac’s exclusive roundup of the event, which will feature the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, iPad Pro, new Apple Watch bands and the unveiling of the long-awaited brand new Apple TV.

Check out the full gallery of new hints below and let us know in the comments if you find Siri saying any more hints we haven’t discovered …

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Alongside the new iPhones, new Apple TV, new Apple Watch bands, and a gold anodized version of the Apple Watch Sport, Apple plans to debut a pair of new iPads on Wednesday: the larger iPad Pro and a new iPad mini. Since our report last week that the iPad Pro would be unveiled at this event, we’ve gathered a few more details about the device from several sources who have either used the iPad Pro or are familiar with the product.

Unlike earlier iPads, which have started at 16GB of capacity and been designed to appeal in both pricing and size to the masses, even the base model iPad Pro will have features fitting its name. We’re also hearing that it’s coming a little later than originally expected, but will still make it out by year’s end…

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Reuters reports that Apple is working on significantly increasing the number of artificial intelligence specialists it employs as it works to make Siri smarter, but that the company’s commitment to user privacy imposes constraints.

As part of its push, the company is currently trying to hire at least 86 more employees with expertise in the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning, according to a recent analysis of Apple job postings. The company has also stepped up its courtship of machine-learning PhD’s, joining Google, Amazon, Facebook and others in a fierce contest, leading academics say.

Machine learning relies heavily on large-scale data-crunching to figure out what users are likely to want to know. But while Google analyses the data of Android users en-masse, Apple’s approach to privacy means that far less data is sent from the iPhone to its servers, making it more challenging to increase Siri’s intelligence … 
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Our exclusive report that the Force Touch feature in the new iPhones will be a more advanced form of the technology than used in the Apple Watch has been supported by what may be the patent behind it.

Prompted by our report, Patently Apple revisited a patent published in Europe in July and found references which point to the ability to measure three levels of force. While the technology used in the Apple Watch can measure varying levels of pressure (as can be seen in the animation if you slowly increase pressure, for example on the notifications screen), the measurement is translated into just two levels: a touch or a press. 3D Force Touch adds a third level of sensitivity … 
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