Paypal

Apple’s payment-enable smartwatch may still be months off, but PayPal is hoping to beat the Cupertino-based tech giant to the punch with watch-based payments at physical retailers. The payment company today debuted its application for the Pebble smartwatch, which allows users to make purchases at supported locations.

Unlike the Apple Watch and its associated payment system, PayPal’s app doesn’t require a connected smartphone to use. It also doesn’t support NFC-based transactions. Instead, it generates a payment code that can be used to check out and charge an order to a user’s account. In some stores users will also be able to check out simply by checking into the store through the app.

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PayPal appears to be calling out Apple and its newly announced mobile payment service Apple Pay with an ad appearing in The New York Times print edition (via Pando Daily) indirectly reminding people of last month’s disastrous iCloud photo leak when a list of celebrities found their personal photos an intimate situations published on the web. The ad reads “We the people want our money safer than our selfies,” but PayPal isn’t without its own security issue in the past.

Apple already has over 500 million iTunes account with most having credit cards, the company says, and iCloud features like iCloud Keychain manage and utilize credit card data for auto-completing credit card information.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YXllIqD_E]

Small businesses looking to take occasional card payments without paying monthly fees now have a third option as Amazon has launched Local Register to compete with Square and PayPal Here – as we predicted last month. The $10 card-reader is compatible with any iPhone from the iPhone 4 onward, as well as any iPad or iPad mini.

Amazon is undercutting both competitor services with a flat fee of 2.5 percent per transaction (vs 2.7 percent for PayPal Here and 2.75 percent for Square). Not enough? Amazon is sweetening the deal with a special introductory rate of 1.75 percent until the end of 2015, and will also credit the $10 cost of the cardreader in full against transaction fees … 
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Amazon could be preparing to launch its own mobile credit card reading hardware in the coming weeks, according to internal Staples documents hinting at such a launch that we’ve obtained. According to the documents, Staples stores will prepare next month to stock a new product called the “Amazon Card Reader” alongside existing card readers from Square, PayPal, and Staples’ own in-house brand. The small hardware, which will likely connect to smartphones to process payments, will cost $9.99, according to the Staples internal sales systems…

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When Apple unveiled the Touch ID API during its WWDC keynote earlier this week, users and developers alike immediately started considering possible uses. It seems PayPal was also quite interested in putting the fingerprint technology to work in its mobile app.

According to Business Insider, several PayPal developers attended a WWDC session on the new API and the company is actively considering its implementation. The idea here is likely to get a head-start on Apple, which is currently said to be working on its own mobile payment service in conjunction with several major payment processors.

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Re/code is reporting that both Apple and Google have considered making acquisition offers for payments company Square, with CEO Jack Dorsey said to favor a sale to Apple.

In the last year, both Apple and Google have considered making acquisition offers for Square, according to industry sources familiar with the situation […]

[Dorsey] believes, sources said, that his company’s design aesthetic and values match up much more closely with Apple than Google …

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Click for a larger view.

Apple announced on Tuesday that iOS 7 will be publicly available on September 18th. The revamped OS moves completely away from the realistic designs of the past six generations, dropping almost all “artificial shadows” (as Apple SVP Craig Federighi called them), gloss, and even button borders. Instead, the Jony Ive-inspired interface features an entirely rethought design language that focuses heavily on large icons, lightweight fonts, whitespace, transparency, and conservative use of color.

We previously took a look at what some of Apple’s own in-house apps could look like when redesigned for iOS 7. During Apple’s September 10th event, Federighi flashed up a slide displaying the upcoming iOS 7 updates for many third-party applications. None of the apps were labeled, but we’ve tracked down names for most of them.

The apps featured are:

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I like my gadgets, and generally consider myself an early adopter. When my friends are looking at buying a new piece of technology, I’m the one they ask as they know I’ll either own it or have tried it.

So you might be surprised to learn that my phone is an iPhone 4S and that after yesterday’s unveiling of the 5s (no, I don’t know why it suddenly became lower-case either), I’m planning to wait for the iPhone 6 before upgrading.

It’s not that the 5s isn’t impressive from a purely technological viewpoint. It is. A 64-bit phone? That’s a pretty incredible achievement. Delegating sensor functions to a separate chip to enable constant use without the usual battery-drain? Brilliant. A truly state-of-the-art fingerprint sensor? Fantastic. A larger phone sensor with lower pixel-density? Exactly the right approach, and I was delighted to see Apple refusing to join in the stupid megapixel race.

But I’m still not going to buy one, and the reason for that is two-fold. Before I get to that, one piece of context. In the U.S., upgrading can be a no-brainer as you end up on the same tariff either way. In the UK, it’s better value long-term to buy the phone outright at full retail (around $1120 for the 64Gb 5s), so you have to balance incremental benefit over other gadgets you could buy with the same money – like a new iPad. So, back to those two reasons …
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As first spotted by our friends over at German language publication Macerkopf.de, Apple appears to be rolling out an option to make purchases on the Apple Online Store using PayPal. The feature appears to be limited to Germany currently, but it could mark the start of a broader roll out to other users.

Apple has never been opposed to offering the option to use PayPal for some services. Users in the U.S. have long been able to setup PayPal as a payment option for their Apple ID on the desktop, allowing them to purchase iTunes content with PayPal on iTunes & the Mac App Store. Apple does, however, already support PayPal payments for its online store in China.

It also allows its education customers to use PayPal for volume purchases of iOS apps, but the privilege didn’t extend to making purchases from the online store at Apple.com.

Apple’s help page for  payments and tax information in Germany now explains how users can opt for PayPal at checkout, but we’ve yet to find the feature live in other countries that we’ve tested.

Users will not have to setup their PayPal as their payment option for their Apple ID, instead they will be redirected to log in using their PayPal username and password at the time of purchase:
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9to5Mac first broke the news that Apple sold refurbished merchandise through its own eBay store last year, equipped with the same price tags, full warranties, and approved inspections, and now the company has dropped prices on many of those items below what it offers at store.apple.com.

9to5Toys and eventually Dealnews recently noticed a $100 price cut for Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air with 1.8GHz i5 and 128GB of storage (now over). It costs $100 more at store.apple.com for the same refurbished unit.

An even better eBay deal has emerged today: Apple’s 11.6-inch MacBook Air with 1.8GHz, 4GB SDRAM and 256GB SSD is only $949. It’s certified refurbished unite, while the same refurb model goes for $1,059 on Apple.com, and the 256GB MacBook Airs start at $1,299 new. All items come with free standard shipping, and eBay adds sales tax for only a few states at purchase and allows folks to pay with PayPal and BillMeLater.
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Xfinity TV Player version 1.2: Comcast updated its Xfinity TV Player app today to allow users to download TV shows & movies from the following networks: Starz, Encore, Showtime, and MoviePlex.

DataMan Pro for iPhone version 6.1: A new feature for tracking data used by apps hourly comes in an update to the DataMan for iPhone app today. The app is also 50% off in our deals (below).

・Advanced App Watch. See how much data is being used by each app every hour, every day.

PaperPort Notes version 2.0.0: This free note taking app from Nuance was recently updated with an interesting new feature: the ability to “convert your scanned documents from the camera or photo album into editable text” using the Nuance OmniPage Cloud Service.

PDF Expert Enterprise version 4.2:

• Full compatibility with iOS 6
• Workflow improvements:
o Search inside Briefcase
o “Completed” folder for document reference
o “Always Flatten” policy support when submitting a document
o Confirmation of “Compete” document action

Assassin’s Creed Rearmed version 3.0.1:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvbRqpik2A0]

Need for Speed Most Wanted: EA is out with the iOS version of its latest Need for Speed title today. It previously released Most Wanted for consoles and teased the iOS version, but now the app is officially on the App Store for $6.99. The game features over 35 customizable cars, touch and tilt steering, and EA Origin support to check leaderboards across platforms.

Evade a relentless police force while you clash with street racers. Race and chase hot cars like the SRT Viper GTS, Porsche 911 Carrera S, Hummer H1 Alpha, and many more. Feel the intensity of no-brakes-allowed street racing with realistic full-car damage for the first time on mobile.

Nike+ Kinect Training: Nike already has a few different iOS apps tied to its Nike+ gear. Today the company launched an iPhone app designed to work exclusively with Nike+ Kinect Training for Xbox 360. The app syncs with your personalized training workouts from the game, allowing you to access all of the content from your console on your iPhone.

You can track your programme progress, explore your workouts, get Challenge reminders, connect and cheer on friends and prepare for upcoming sessions.

ooVoo Video Chat version 1.3.0: A nice update goes to the free, 12-way HD group video chat app today:

* Support for iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5th generation with 4-way display
* Landscape video mode on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
* Improved connectivity
* Bug fixes for iOS 6

Yahoo! version 2.3.3:
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So…I have the new iPad, err, the third-generation iPad, and its value tanked by 30 percent to 50 percent in the last 24 hours thanks to the fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini unveiling at the California Theatre yesterday.

I now have a few decisions to make. I can keep my iPad and wait for a larger update in the fifth-generation iPad. I could also trade my iPad for money or credit to buy the fourth-generation iPad, or I can even use the trade-in money for my iPad to get the iPad mini and then keep the extra dough for myself.

I actually decided to take a fourth option: I am going to trade my not-so new iPad and my dusty ‘ole first-generation iPad for credit to go toward the fourth-generation iPad. This way, I will be up to date. I will also get more bang for my trade-in buck when Apple releases the fifth-generation iPad (next fall?), as I will have the latest version. As for the iPad mini, I guess I will have to shell out extra money for it. I could always trade my old iPhones to get cash for it, though…but more on that here.

9to5Mac has you covered, for whichever path you choose, as we have compiled another list of the top trade-in places for cash or credit.

Check out the top 13 list below.

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[tweet https://twitter.com/alastairh/status/224836579707985920]

On Friday, we broke the news on some worrying tips we received about an “in-app proxy” hack that allowed even novice users to illegally install paid in-app purchase content for free. In updates to our original story, we noted the hack’s developer, Alexey V. Borodin, said in an interview that Apple’s method of validating receipts for developers would not protect apps from the hack. Apple followed up with a statement that claimed it is investigating the issue. Today, we get an update from The Next Web that further claims Apple began taking action over the weekend:

Over the weekend, Apple began blocking the IP address of the server used by Russian hacker Alexey V. Borodin to authenticate purchases.

It followed this up with a takedown request on the original server, taking down third-party authentication with it, also issuing a copyright claim on the overview video Borodin used to document the circumvention method. PayPal also got involved, placing a block on the original donation account for violating its terms of service

Unfortunately, the service is reportedly still operational with Borodin apparently moving the server to a location outside of Russia. He told The Next Web that the new service has been “updated and cuts out Apple’s servers, ‘improving’ the protocol to include its own authorisation and transaction processes. The new method ‘can and will not reach the App Store anymore, so the proxy (or caching) feature has been disabled'”

[tweet https://twitter.com/alastairh/status/224834890665967616]

While Borodin also claimed he has changed the process to force users to sign out of their iTunes account (to ensure users he is not stealing personal/credit card data), there are more than a few reasons to still be concerned. Developer Alastair Houghton told us that he thinks Borodin’s method could be used “intercept traffic intended for any other secure website”:

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