Apple and Best Buy have agreed to begin selling both the standard AppleCare protection plan for Macs and the more premium AppleCare+ for iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch through Best Buy stores, according to sources. The plans call for Best Buy to begin offering the AppleCare plans in its stores at checkout around the week of September 14th, just ahead of the iPhone 6S launch. This will mark a notable expansion of the Apple and Best Buy relationship, and Best Buy will become one of the only retailers, aside from select U.S. carriers, to offer AppleCare outside of an Apple Store.

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While Force Touch on the Apple Watch allowed Apple to add an additional layer of buttons to a small display, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus screens don’t lack for either real estate or buttons. So why would Force Touch be desirable on larger displays? Following up on our May report that Force Touch is coming to Apple’s next iPhones, sources who have used the iPhone 6S have provided new details on how Force Touch works and feels under iOS.

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Despite reports that NBC Universal is not involved in negotiations for Apple’s upcoming subscription TV replacement service, NBC still hopes to arrive on the Apple TV as soon as the second half of 2015, according to a source with knowledge of NBC’s digital roadmap. A recent presentation slide provided by the source shows that NBC wants to launch Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox apps during the second half of this year, following its existing apps for iOS and Android devices. NBC also would like to add new affiliate stations, Nielsen Rating integration, and support for Google’s Chromecast…

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Apple’s iOS share numbers as tabulated by App Store visits are out for the first week of October and they are a “head scratcher”. iOS 8 gained only 1 point from 46% to 47%  since September 21st which should have well exceeded 1% gain by the millions of new iPhone 6/Plus shipments alone – even if not one person had updated their iPhone 5/s/c. Even more confusing is that the “Earlier” category of iOS 6 and before devices actually grew in percentage from 5% to 6% over the previous two week period.

It is possible some people downgraded to iOS 7 (which was an option until just after 8.0.2 was released) while others have stayed put on their current iOS version because of a succession of errors in rolling out iOS 8. Combined with the large amount of space required to do an over the air update, it appears that iOS users have all but stopped upgrading iOS –a marked departure from years past. expand full story

A new report from KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo sheds some interesting light on the iWatch specifications. Kuo believes the iWatch will feature 8 GB of internal storage, with 512 MB of RAM. Naturally, these stats are lower than current iOS devices (which have upwards of 16 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM), but still seems high for a wearable smartwatch. This may suggest the device can act more independently from an iPhone than most assume. 8 GB of storage space is quite a lot and could be used for things like caching maps, or perhaps enable offline voice recognition.

KGI also believes the iWatch will come in two sizes, with a 1.3 inch and a 1.5 inch screen. This reflects longstanding rumours that Apple is targeting two sizes, to make it appeal to both gender’s fashion preferences. Kuo seems less sure on what materials will make up the product, but ‘guesses’ aluminium based on Apple’s tendencies to use the metal across its products. There is also mention of a gold color option, which would match with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6’s gold varieties.

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