AT&T announced today that it’s increasing the data allotment on two of its wireless service plans. Starting on Sunday, November 2nd, Ma Bell will begin offering 3GB of data for $40 per month and 6GB of date for $70 a month. Also sweetening the pot, AT&T is tossing in unlimited talk, text and international messaging at no additional charge.
Gazelle has long been a popular choice for conveniently turning a used iPhone or iPad into cash, and today the electronics trade-in service announced its own certified pre-owned store for buying “gently used devices” at a discounted price. While the pre-owned store lists categories including iPhone, cell phones, iPads, and tablets, Gazelle inventory is currently limited to pre-owned Apple devices including iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up, and iPad mini.
Expand
Expanding
Close
<em>Worldwide unit shipments for the top 5 tablet plus 2-in-1 device vendors over last five quarters</em>
New data from IDC tracking worldwide tablet shipments shows that Apple has maintained its lead during the third quarter despite “a decline in overall iPad shipment volume in 3Q14.” Specifically, Apple grabbed 22.8% of the market with 12.3 million shipments during the quarter compared to 14.1 million units and 29.2% share in the year ago quarter. That compares to Samsung at 18.3% of the market and 9.9 million units shipped up from 19.3% and 9.3 million units shipped in the third quarter last year:
Expand
Expanding
Close
While the MCX consortium’s CurrentC mobile payment service isn’t due to launch until next year, it has been carrying out limited trials, facilitated by placing the app in the iTunes store. iPhone owners have been expressing their displeasure at the blocking of Apple Pay by MCX members by rating and reviewing the app.
At the time of writing, the app had accumulated 2,856 1-star reviews against a total of just 30 reviews giving it 2 stars or more …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Earlier this week, retailers CVS and Rite Aid blocked NFC payments at their stores following the launch of Apple Pay because of their existing commitment to MCX’s CurrentC platform. Nevertheless, MCX CEO Dekkers Davidson assures that merchants accepting both CurrentC and Apple Pay “could be entirely possible” in the future.
The blockade has ignited somewhat of a controversy between Apple Pay and MCX, only worsened by the fact that it was confirmed that CurrentC suffered a security breach earlier this morning. MCX, or Merchant Customer Exchange, consists of a number of high-profile retailers that grouped together to work on their own CurrentC contactless payments platform.
Expand
Expanding
Close
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:
Click to enlarge, note Mac interface for scale
Update: The monitor doesn’t actually cost $2,499—that is the Australian price. In the U.S., the monitor will be shipping for a much more reasonable $1,399.
LG Electronics on Tuesday unveiled its new 31-inch Digital Cinema 4K monitor (4096×2160 px) for $1,399. Apple users will be pleased to hear that the monitor is compatible with both Mac and Thunderbolt. The monitor includes a Mini DisplayPort (in addition to 2 HDMI ports and 1 DisplayPort), which uses the same physical port as Thunderbolt enabling Mac users to drive the 4K display over a single Mini DisplayPort 1.2 cable.
[tweet https://twitter.com/ftc/status/527143324269170688]
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has announced that it is suing AT&T for “deceptive and unfair data throttling”. The FTC’s announcement seems to target AT&T’s practice of lowering data transfer speeds for customers with unlimited data plans versus customers with tiered data plans now offered. From the FTC’s press release:
“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”
AT&T has called the FTC’s allegations baseless adding that the carrier has been “completely transparent” with its subscribers.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHg6JL5sdaI]
Microsoft has had a great idea for making the next version of Windows better for power users: copy more trackpad gestures from OS X …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Image via Re/code
T-Mobile CEO John Legere said tonight during a talk at Re/code’s Code/Mobile conference that demand for the iPhone 6 Plus was higher than was originally anticipated, with the larger model grabbing about 45% of orders. He said initial expectations put demand somewhere in the ballpark of 20-25% (Video below)
This unexpected level of demand may have contributed to the supply problems many customers have experienced, and Legere says it will still be a while before iPhone shipments are able to meet demand again.
Legere also said that only about 100,000 people took advantage of the carrier’s ‘test drive’ offer that allowed customers to use an iPhone on T-Mobile for a week completely free of charge. He took a chance to reiterate the points made during his recent Apple SIM tweet storm as well.
Microsoft on Monday announced that it will be eliminating its top-tier cloud storage plan and offering unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 subscribers at no additional cost. The change will begin rolling out today for Office 365 Home, Personal and University customers and will continue over the coming months.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The White House shared earlier this year that Apple is a participant in President Obama’s ConnectED education program focused on bringing Internet access and technology to schools in need, and today Apple has provided a micro site profiling its effort in the program.
While it was already known that Apple has pledged $100 million to provide iPads, MacBooks, and other products toward the program for schools across the United States, Apple has shared that Apple ConnectED grants are being received by a total of 114 different schools across the country with these schools spread out across 29 states. Apple added that “92% of students from our partner schools are of Hispanic, Black, Native American, Alaskan Native, or Asian heritage.”
Expand
Expanding
Close
Alpine today announced its first aftermarket in-dash receiver with support for Apple’s CarPlay feature for iPhone users. The new Alpine iLX-007 will be the company’s first display to support CarPlay following Pioneer’s rollout of the feature to its latest NEX displays earlier this month. Alpine’s new in-dash receiver features a 7-inch capacitive touch screen comparable to Pioneer’s high end NEX8000 CarPlay compatible model ($1,400), but at a much lower price point of $800 as it lacks other hardware features.
Alpine’s CarPlay offering is still one of the first on the market yet and joins Pioneer in allowing drivers to have CarPlay without buying a new car. Several automakers have already announced CarPlay availability on certain models of new cars, some of which are already on the road, but will require firmware updates in the future before CarPlay is present.
Expand
Expanding
Close
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.
CVS Pharmacy has decided to disable all NFC terminals in all of its stores after it was discovered that Apple Pay would work with the hardware. CVS sent a memo to its stores, which was posted by SlashGear, saying that Apple Pay was not a supported payment type and that customers would have to choose some other payment method in order to check out.
The notice also explains the reason for the change: CVS is currently part of a consortium of retailers attempted to create an alternative mobile payment method called CurrentC. The new system isn’t based on NFC. It is, however, based on something you’ve probably seen before…
An internal Apple sales document clarifies the possible uses of the Apple SIM, which is included in cellular versions of the iPad mini 3 and Apple iPad Air 2. The Apple SIM launched with several supported carriers: T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint in the US and EE in the UK.
Given that EE is the only available carrier in the UK, the purpose of its existence in the region was unclear. However, this document confirms that customers travelling between the US and the UK can benefit from the deal.
Ron Johnson, who headed up Apple’s retail operations for almost 12 years, has raised $30M in funding for an intriguing-sounding online shopping service due to launch next year, reports the WSJ.
The new company is called Enjoy, and Mr. Johnson says its goal is to change the way people buy and use the “things that matter” in a world in which consumers start their shopping online […]
Johnson is not giving much away about what Enjoy will offer, but said that it’s designed to help bridge the gap between offline and online shopping for more complex and expensive products.
Enjoy aims to help shoppers develop a connection with new products, in the way that Apple Stores let shoppers try its products. For example, Mr. Johnson said it is hard for customers to understand the capabilities of a new product like a GoPro camera from shopping online.
The Apple background doesn’t end with Johnson, who was SVP of Retail Operations from January 2000 to November 2011: he’s also brought on board Jerry McDougal, a former retail VP at Apple, and creative director Tom Suiter, who played a key role in the iMac campaigns and in-store graphics for Apple Stores.
Photo: Reuters
Today, Google unveiled a new email solution called Inbox, which looks like a marriage between Gmail and Google Now. Currently available by invitation only, this new app takes bits from your email like purchase invoices and bank statements and groups them together for fast access. Like Google Now, Inbox adapts to the way you operate, highlighting key pieces of emails like flight plans, photos, documents and upcoming event information.
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?
According to Forbes, Microsoft will soon enter the wearable market with a competing smartwatch device. The report says the device will track heart rate for fitness, matching Apple Watch and other Android smartwatches.
It was reported last week that Apple would soon stop selling Bose headphones and speakers at its Apple Store locations. Previously, a variety of Bose headphones and speakers were demoed at each Apple Store location and available for purchase there and online. All Bose speakers and headphones have since been completely removed from sale through the Apple Online Store and several Apple Retail Store locations we’ve contacted have confirmed Bose inventory is no longer available.
Update: Visit Apple.com/ApplePay for the latest information on where to use Apple Pay in stores, and featured Apple Pay apps for iPhone and iPad here.
With Apple Pay launching on Monday with iOS 8.1 for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared an update at today’s special event with additional retailers and iOS apps that will accept Apple Pay at launch or have committed to accept Apple Pay in the future. According to Apple’s microsite for Apple Pay, the company has added 16 additional retailers and venues with plans to accept Apple Pay at launch or in the future. In addition to those retailers and venues, Apple has added 12 additional apps that plan to accept Apple Pay starting on Monday or sometime after the launch date.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Just one day after HBO announced that it would be offering a web-only subscription at some point next year, CBS has played leap-frog by announcing the immediate availability of a $5.99/month web & app subscription offering on-demand access to almost all content.
CBS All Access will offer subscribers thousands of episodes from the current season, previous seasons and classic shows on demand, as well as the ability to stream local CBS Television stations live in 14 of the largest U.S. markets at launch.
CBS All Access is available beginning today at CBS.com and on mobile devices through the CBS App for iOS and Android.
Cable companies have long shied away from offering access to popular, current programming without demanding that you sign-up to cable access first. But broadcasters now seem to be recognizing that it isn’t just cord-cutting that threatens their existing models, it’s also ‘cord nevers’ – young people who simply aren’t signing up for cable subscriptions in the first place, preferring to get their TV fix online …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Image via <a href="http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/10/16/will-introduces-wearable-puls/" target="_blank">The Next Web</a>
Pop musician Will.i.am has just taken the wraps off of his first wearable, the Puls smartwatch, during Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2014 conference (via The Next Web). The watch ships with a software suite that includes Facebook and Twitter connectivity, Instagram, and even integration with Salesforce. It also features a voice control system dubbed “Aneeda” that’s powered by Nuance. Aneeda also supports basic features such as reminders, music control, alarms, and more.
On the hardware side, the watch sports standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections along with a pedometer, GPS, acceleromter, and even a 3G connection powered by AT&T (or O2 in the UK) that will allow users to place calls or send text messages and emails without pairing the Puls with a phone at all. The battery is built into the strap, providing plenty of space beneath the face for the other internal components, which includes 16 GB of storage space and a full gigabyte of RAM. It also has built in speakers for music and alerts.