iPhone 6 Plus

I’m always looking for the best possible case for my needs. I’m not the type of person that requires a bulky case with a lot of drop protection, but it’s nice to have something there to protect against scratches and small dings. The only option I’ve had in the past is to use a skin. It’s not always the best solution though, as a skin is nothing more than a thick sticker that will eventually start to wear and peel up at the edges.

Recently, I discovered Caudabe and their ultra thin iPhone 6 and 6 Plus case, The Veil. This isn’t the most protective case in the world, but it’s the perfect solution to my problem. It offers the same protection as a skin, with the advantages of a case. If your goal is to keep an iPhone clean and thin, there’s no better option…

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Following the introduction of Voice-over-LTE technology with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which increases call quality by routing calls through an LTE network opposed to last generation 3G networks, US carriers have experienced a big increase in VoLTE calls. That’s according to a new report from Newfield Wireless that highlights a decrease for calls over 3G by about one-fifth compared to previous generation iPhones and other LTE-capable devices:

The majority of voice calls made on other 4G-enabled devices are currently routed through legacy 2G and 3G networks, due to the fact that not all networks and devices are optimised to deliver next-generation voice services. iPhone 6 devices are VoLTE-compatible and as a result, U.S. networks have experienced a surge in VoLTE calls since the September launch.

The report also shared some other data points from its research noting a few stats for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus uptake compared to previous generations:
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Verizon and AT&T announced today that they are working together to allow Voice over LTE calls between their customers. The carriers, which both previously announced the roll out of VoLTE technology earlier this year, said they expect VoLTE interoperability between their customers to arrive next year:
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Update: USAA, US Bank and Navy Federal have just confirmed Apple Pay support starting today. In addition, MasterCard confirmed a roll out for Barclaycard, USAA and Navy Federal Credit Union, while readers report cards from PNC, and M&T Bank also working in Apple Pay.

Ahead of a previously announced Nov. 7 launch for Apple Pay support, a number of users today report being able to load USAA issued cards into the new payment service. We’ve received tips from readers regarding support for USAA Debit MasterCards and a long list of other customers online report support for other card types through the bank.

Apple has yet to update its support document detailing supported banks and card types. Currently the list includes American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, J.P Morgan, Merrill Lynch, U.S. Trust and Wells Fargo.

A long list of other supported banks and cards are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks and months, however. Apple previously said it had signed up approximately 500 banks for Apple Pay in the US.
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CurrentC, the much discussed infamous competitor to the Apple Pay mobile payments platform, has some more bad press coming its way. According to an email sent out this morning to its pilot program customers, the MCX service has already been hacked. According to the notice, “unauthorized third parties” obtained email address information for an unannounced number of users:

Thank you for your interest in CurrentC. You are receiving this message because you are either a participant in our pilot program or requested information about CurrentC. Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the e-mail addresses of some of you. Based on investigations conducted by MCX security personnel, only these e-mail addresses were involved and no other information.

In an abundance of caution, we wanted to make you aware of this incident and urge you not to open links or attachments from unknown third parties. Also know that neither CurrentC nor Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) will ever send you emails asking for your financial account, social security number or other personally identifiable information. So if you are ever asked for this information in an email, you can be confident it is not from us and you should not respond.

MCX is continuing to investigate this situation and will provide updates as necessary. We take the security of your information extremely seriously, apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your support of CurrentC.

For those not following the MCX vs. Apple Pay saga, MCX powers a payments platform utilized by key retailers such as WalMart, CVS, and RiteAid. After initially supporting NFC-based payments via Apple Pay and Google Wallet, those aforementioned retailers shut down their industry standard NFC-based payment processing systems in favor of the CurrentC app from MCX.

MCX has since responded to this controversy on its website, and Apple CEO Tim Cook referred to the entire situation as a “skirmish.” Meanwhile, reports have indicated that retailers are playing along with MCX in order to avoid fines discussed in early contractual agreements. Nonetheless, Apple Pay has already amassed over a million activations, becoming the most ubiquitous mobile payments platform in just about a week.

MCX has confirmed that the email to customers is legitimate and said the following:

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Apple has provided the following statement to Business Insider when asked about CVS and Rite Aid both blocking Apple Pay at their checkout terminals:

The feedback we are getting from customers and retailers about Apple Pay is overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic. We are working to get as many merchants as possible to support this convenient, secure and private payment option for consumers. Many retailers have already seen the benefits and are delighting their customers at over 220,000 locations.

Earlier today CVS confirmed in a statement to CNBC that it will not be accepting Apple Pay after users previously reported being able to the chain’s NFC terminals:
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If you’ve ever made a contactless credit card payment in a retail store, you’ve likely run into a VeriFone NFC-terminal: recent estimates put it at approximately 60% global market share for EMV payment terminals, for example. Today, the company is launching a new campaign along with payment processing company Vantiv that encourages Verifone’s massive network of clients to upgrade their terminals and get ready for Apple Pay:
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The WSJ is reporting that Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on preorder in South Korea on Friday, following their official launch this Friday, October 31st, as part of the next wave of iPhone rollouts. Analyst estimates show that presales for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus topped 100,000 units. By comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 recorded a third of that number (around 30,000) in preorders in a similar timeframe when it launched in September.

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A fix for a bug in Apple Pay that causes credit cards from Chase and others to not display the correct physical card design is being worked on, according to sources close to the situation.
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TechCrunch

TechCrunch went hands-on with Google’s newest smartphone, the Nexus 6, and took some time to compare it to the iPhone 6 Plus. In the photo above, you’ll see that the two phones share near identical dimensions, though the Nexus still manages to pack a larger 6.22-inch display space into the same body.

The Nexus is actually a bit bigger than it looks in the photo, though the perspective makes it a little hard to tell. When compared spec-for-spec, the Nexus comes in at 6mm taller, 5mm wider, and 3mm thicker than the iPhone. It’s not a huge difference, but the Nexus display is still noticeably bigger than the iPhone 5.5-inch screen. How?

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Geekbench results for the iMac with Retina 5K Display have hit the web and show that when it comes to 64-bit processing, the 4.0 GHz model of the new all-in-one comes out ahead of the lowest-end (3.7 GHz) Mac Pro. Of course, the rest of the Mac Pro family handily beats the iMac in the same category.

The extra power is almost certainly dedicating to keeping things running smoothly on the impressive new 5K display.

Meanwhile, on the mobile, new benchmarks for the iPad Air 2 have revealed…

As we mentioned last month, Apple is scheduled to host its quarterly conference call today to discuss its earnings report from the fourth quarter of its fiscal year: this includes 39 million iPhones, 12.3 million iPads, 2.6 million iPods, and 5.5 million Macs. Apple already reported today that it earned $42.1 billion in revenue during its Q4 period.

This quarterly conference call with analysts and investors will include the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales which included a record 10 million sales including 4 million units sold during the first 24 hours of pre-orders. It will also be the first call since Apple previewed the Apple Watch to the public, shipped iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, and introduced new iPads and a Retina 5K iMac, although sales for those devices are not included in the previous quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri will also likely mention Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment service which launched for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users earlier today.

Investors and analysts will have an opportunity to ask Tim Cook and company questions during the earnings call and we’ll be listening to bring you coverage starting at 5pm EST/ 2pm PST.
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Apple today announced its Q4 2014 earnings results reporting that the company earned $42.1 billion in revenue and $8.5 billion in profit during the quarter.

“Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2014. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $42.1 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.5 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $37.5 billion and net profit of $7.5 billion, or $1.18 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 37 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue.”

In addition to reporting its earnings, Apple has disclosed sales numbers for its main revenue generators. The company sold:

• iPhone: 39.272 million, up 16.2%
• iPad: 12.316 million, down 12.5%
• Mac: 5.52 million, up 20.7%
• iPod: 2.62 million, down 25.1%
• iTunes: $4.208 billion, up 8.2%
• Accessories: $1.486 billion, up 12.7%

Totals:

• Revenue: $42.123 billion, up 12.4%
• EPS: $1.42 per share, up 20.3%

Apple CEO Tim Cook had the following to say regarding the results:

“Our fiscal 2014 was one for the record books, including the biggest iPhone launch ever with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With amazing innovations in our new iPhones, iPads and Macs, as well as iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, we are heading into the holidays with Apple’s strongest product lineup ever. We are also incredibly excited about Apple Watch and other great products and services in the pipeline for 2015.”

Apple CFO Luca Maestri added this:

“Our strong business performance drove EPS growth of 20 percent and a record $13.3 billion in cash flow from operations in the September quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We continued to execute aggressively against our capital return program, spending over $20 billion in the quarter and bringing cumulative returns to $94 billion.”

Apple’s stock price, which closed at $99.76 (up 2.14% today following the launch of Apple Pay) is up during after-hours trading as well crossing the $100 mark at certain points.

During Apple’s fourth quarter, the company shipped the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to customers and closed on its deal to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music. During the previous earnings call with investors and analysts, Apple CFO Luca Maestri shared that the company will begin separately reporting earnings from Beats in 2015.

These numbers compare to last quarter’s results of $37.4 billion in revenue and sales of 35.2 million iPhones, 13.2 million iPads, and 4.4 million Macs. You can also compare today’s numbers to analyst expectations from before the announcement. Apple is holding a conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern time to discuss the quarter’s earnings, which we will be covering live. Cook and Maestri will likely share prepared remarks and then take a series of questions at the end from financial analysts.

For Q1 2015 Apple is providing guidance between $63.5 billion and $66.5 billion. The full Q4 earnings results release is below:

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Apple has released iOS 8.1 and with that, we have Apple Pay support. This is Apple’s new mobile payment platform that takes advantage of the NFC capabilities of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. This will allow you to make purchases in stores that support Apple Pay using supported cards from a growing list of banks. Setting up Apple Pay is very simple and we’ve put together a quick tutorial to walk you through the process…

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Today we’re going to be comparing Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4. I realized that there are a limited range of “comparisons” that can happen between these two devices, but we’re going to touch on some of the most important factors between the two such as design, software, features, and cameras.

I’m not going to make this a battle between iOS and Android as many people have their own preferences which lead them to one platform or another. Either way, these two devices are shaping up to be the most coveted large screen smartphones of 2014 and it makes sense to compare them and help you make an informed decision…

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Just as Apple announced at its iPad & Mac event last Thursday, iOS 8.1 is now publicly available with new features including Apple Pay, iCloud Photo Library, and additional Continuity features. Apple Pay is available for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users for making payments for purchases with the new iPhone rather than a physical credit card in supported retail stores and apps; iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 users will be able to use Apple Pay within supported apps as well. In addition to iOS 8.1, Apple also released version 7.0.1 for third-generation Apple TV boxes.

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