MacRumors

The Apple Watch accounted for close to half of all smart watches shipped in the second quarter of 2019, according to a new report shared this afternoon by Strategy Analytics.

Apple shipped an estimated 5.7 million smart watches worldwide during the quarter, earning it 46 percent marketshare and its continued position as the number one smart watch company.

Apple shipped 5.7 million smartwatches worldwide in Q2 2019, rising an above-average 50 percent from 3.8 million in Q2 2018. Apple Watch remains a long way ahead of the chasing pack and its global smartwatch marketshare has grown to 46 percent this quarter, up from 44 percent a year ago. Apple Watch has fended off strong competition from hungry rivals like Fitbit. Apple remains the clear smartwatch market leader.

There were 12.3 million smart watches shipped in total in the second quarter of 2019. Apple's closest competitor Samsung shipped 2 million smart watches, while Fitbit, the number three smart watch vendor, shipped 1.2 million smart watches.

Apple Watch shipments were significantly up year over year in the second quarter of 2019, with Apple having shipped 3.8 million smart watches in the second quarter of 2018. Apple's growth mirrors the overall growth in the smart watch market, which was up from 8.6 million units in Q2 2018.

Apple does not break down Apple Watch sales, instead including Apple Watch revenue in a Wearables, Home, and Accessories category, so Strategy Analytics' numbers are estimates.

During Apple's recently earnings call for the third fiscal quarter of 2019 (second calendar quarter), Apple CEO Tim Cook said that wearables had an "absolute blowout" quarter with growth well over 50 percent. The Apple Watch set a new June quarter revenue record and reached millions of new users during the quarter.

An upcoming change in iOS 13 that limits data collection practices using VoIP APIs will impact apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, forcing them to be redesigned, reports The Information.

Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp allow users to make calls over the internet, and to listen for those calls, the apps run in the background of an iPhone or iPad so calls can connect quickly. While running in the background, the apps are also able to collect data, something that Apple is putting a stop to in iOS 13.

Background access for apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp will be restricted solely to internet calls going forward, with no background data collection available.

Sources that spoke to The Information said that this change will force Facebook to redesign its messaging apps, and that it could have a "particularly heavy impact" on WhatsApp. WhatsApp apparently uses the internet calling feature for multiple other functions, including its end-to-end encryption.

Other messaging app developers that have used the internet calling feature to keep apps running in the background on iOS devices will also need to rebuild their apps. This will include apps like Snapchat, WeChat, and more.

Facebook told The Information that Facebook was not collecting data through its calling feature.

"The changes to the upcoming iOS releases are not insignificant, but we are in conversations with Apple on how best to address," the spokesperson said. "To be clear--we are using the PushKit VoIP API to deliver a world-class, private messaging experience, not for the purpose of collecting data."

Facebook says that it is having conversations with Apple on how to address the coming changes in iOS 13. Apple is making the change in iOS 13, but developers will have until April 2020 to comply with the new rules.

Apple says that the change will better protect user privacy and will result in performance improvements for iOS devices as background app usage for this purpose can drain system resources and shorten battery life.

With the Apple Card now available in a preview capacity to some customers, Apple has released everything from tutorial videos to support documents, giving us more insight into how the card works.

We've had countless questions from people who use software and apps like Mint and Quicken about whether or not the ‌Apple Card‌ will support financial services, and the answer is no, not at this time.

In a support document on how the ‌Apple Card‌ works, Apple says exporting data from ‌Apple Card‌ is not a feature offered at this time. From the document: "Exporting data from ‌Apple Card‌ to a financial app like Mint is not currently supported."

As financial apps like Mint and software like Quicken are popular with many people, it's possible that Apple will add support for exporting data in the future. Right now, ‌Apple Card‌ data and transactions can be viewed and managed only on the iPhone and the iPad, with no web support available.

The support document also includes details about viewing spending activity, viewing your monthly balance, seeing total spending each week or month, reviewing transactions, and reporting issues. Apple also has a support doc covering applying for Apple Card.

For more on ‌Apple Card‌, make sure to check out our Apple Card guide, which we're in the process of updating with the new information that we've learned today.

‌Apple Card‌ is available in a beta capacity for some users and will see a wider rollout later this month.

Apple Card, Apple's credit card that began rolling out to some beta testers and members of the media this week, uses Mastercard for processing payments.

Since it uses Mastercard's network, the ‌Apple Card‌ is able to take advantage of benefits offered to Mastercard card holders, as pointed out by TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino, one of the early testers.

Mastercard's website offers a list of benefits available to ‌Apple Card‌ users, including fraud protection, identity theft protection, and a free ShopRunner membership that offers free two-day shipping from some websites.

Other benefits include Mastercard's travel discounts and upgrades, Mastercard's exclusive "special events," Mastercard golf offerings, and home rental discounts via Onefinestay, all of which are available to all Mastercard users.

Purchase protection and extended warranties offered by some credit cards as benefits are not available with the ‌Apple Card‌. ‌Apple Card‌'s main benefit is its Daily Cash program, which offers between 1 and 3 percent cash back on purchases, with money sent out each day shortly after a purchase is made.

Also of interest to potential ‌Apple Card‌ customers is a new base annual percentage rate (APR). When ‌Apple Card‌ was announced, Apple said that it would offer an APR between 13.24 percent and 24.24 percent based on credit score. Following the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates last Wednesday, the APR for Apple card has changed.

As noted by The Verge's Nilay Patel, the base APR for purchases is now 12.99%, while the maximum APR is 23.99%.

For those who are applying to ‌Apple Card‌ and who may have frozen their credit, Goldman Sachs handles card approvals and uses TransUnion for credit checks. You'll need to unfreeze your TransUnion credit to be approved for ‌Apple Card‌.

‌Apple Card‌ customers should be aware that the ‌Apple Card‌ must be managed using an iPhone or iPad as there is no web component to the card.

A random selection of people who signed up to be notified about ‌Apple Card‌ are being invited to sign up for the ‌Apple Card‌ today, with a full rollout coming later this month. For more on how ‌Apple Card‌ works, make sure to check out our Apple Card guide.

Apple's widely rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro will be powered by Intel's 9th-generation Coffee Lake Refresh processors, in line with the 15-inch MacBook Pro released in May, according to IHS Markit analyst Jeff Lin.

If accurate, this means the 16-inch MacBook Pro will be configurable with up to an 8-core Core i9 processor with a 2.4GHz base clock speed and a max Turbo Boost frequency of 5.0GHz. The lineup also includes 6-core Core i7 processors. All of the chips are 45W with integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630.

Notably, this would mean that Apple isn't yet ready to use Intel's latest 10th-generation Ice Lake processors. These chips might not have been powerful enough for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, as there are currently no 6-core or 8-core options, and they have low TDPs ranging between 9W and 15W.

Rumors suggest the 16-inch MacBook Pro will feature an all-new design with narrower bezels and a more reliable scissor mechanism keyboard. In a research note obtained by Forbes, Lin said the 16-inch display will have 227 pixels per inch, in line with a previously rumored 3,072×1,920 resolution.

Lin believes the 16-inch MacBook Pro will enter production in September, setting the stage for a fall release, but there is still some debate as to whether Apple will unveil the notebook in September or October. In the fall, Apple typically unveils new Macs in October, but it could always break with tradition.

There is some speculation that the 15-inch MacBook Pro may be discontinued shortly after the 16-inch model launches, but TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said the 15-inch model will be refreshed in 2020.

Apple Card got its first group of public test users today. A limited number of customers who signed up on Apple's website to be notified about the release of ‌Apple Card‌ are now able to apply for the card in their Wallet app as well as order a physical ‌Apple Card‌ (via TechCrunch).

Sign-up invites for ‌Apple Card‌ Preview are going out to a random selection of people who signed up to be notified about ‌Apple Card‌. Apple hasn't disclosed exactly how many people are part of its preview rollout, but a full rollout of ‌Apple Card‌ is expected later this month.

The ‌Apple Card‌ signup process on iPhone asks for your address, birthday, income level, and the last four digits of your Social Security number. This information is sent to Goldman Sachs, which approves or declines the application in less than a minute. Once the card is approved it shows up immediately in the Wallet app.

TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino, who has been using ‌Apple Card‌ for a few days, called the card's app interface "multiples better to use than most card apps," thanks to spending categories and clear transaction names (including logos in some cases).

The card on the screen has a clever mechanism that gives you a sort of live heat map of your spending categories. The color of the card will shift and blend according to the kinds of things you buy. Spend a lot at restaurants and the card will take on an orange hue. Shop for entertainment related items and the card shifts into a mix of orange and pink. It's a clever take on the chart based spending category features many other credit cards have built into their websites.

The Verge's Nilay Patel also received a physical titanium card early and had this to say about it.

"I got to hold the card itself and it is very nice, although it is fairly thick and felt a little bit heavier than the typical metal credit card. You can use the card without your phone nearby like any other card, but it doesn’t support contactless payments — Apple obviously wants you to use your phone or watch for that."

Apple Card is limited to the United States at the current time, but may expand to additional countries in the near future. Apple is already in talks with European regulators, and has trademarked ‌Apple Card‌ in Europe, Hong Kong, and Canada.

‌Apple Card‌ is a no fee credit card. There are no annual fees, international fees, fees for making a late payment, or fees for exceeding your credit limit, which means there are no penalty rates for missing a payment.

As part of its ‌Apple Card‌ Preview, Apple has also shared a series of videos via its YouTube channel explaining how to set up and use ‌Apple Card‌ on ‌iPhone‌.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said last Tuesday that the ‌Apple Card‌ will launch in August, so the full rollout could be coming any day now. Goldman Sachs last week made its Customer Agreement available providing more detail on the ‌Apple Card‌. For questions about how everything will work, make sure to check out our Apple Card guide.

Samsung smartphone users in the United States experience faster LTE data speeds on average than Apple iPhone users, according to a recent global study conducted by Opensignal.

The study looked at over 3 billion measurements from more than 23 million devices from April 1 to June 30, 2019, concluding that Samsung users in the U.S. experienced download speeds 8.2Mb/s faster than ‌iPhone‌ users on average.

Samsung users also saw faster download speeds than Apple users in 35 percent of countries, across 40 countries analyzed. Apple users saw faster speeds in just 17.5 percent of countries, and in the remaining 48 percent, neither Apple nor Samsung (nor Huawei) offered the fastest devices.

Apple's iPhones had the biggest edge over Samsung in Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates, where ‌iPhone‌ speeds were 8Mb/s faster than Samsung device speeds. Samsung had the biggest edge over Apple in Norway, where Samsung users saw mobile speeds that were 14Mb/s faster than those experienced by Apple users.

All in all, Apple's iPhones were faster than Samsung and Huawei (the third most popular worldwide smartphone) in Brazil, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and UAE.

Samsung won out in the United States, Australia, Chile, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, and Sweden.

Opensignal's testing split smartphone users into three groups (low, mid, and high-tier) based on each smartphone's mobile network capabilities, with the highest tier representing the newest smartphones with technology than Opensignal says is more sensitive to mobile network improvements.

Amid higher-tier smartphones, differences in speeds between the three largest smartphone brands (Apple, Samsung, and Huawei) were smaller. Higher-tier smartphones included the ‌iPhone‌ XS and XS Max, along with the Galaxy S8, S9, and S10, among others.

Higher-tier Samsung users saw faster speeds than Apple and Huawei users with global download speeds of 26.6Mb/s vs. 25.1Mb/s (Apple) vs. 24.4Mb/s (Huawei), but Apple users saw the fastest speeds of the three in the mid-tier category, which included the ‌iPhone‌ XR, X, and 8, along with the Samsung M40 and A80 and others.

Middle tier ‌iPhone‌ users, which make up the bulk of Apple users, saw speeds of 16.5Mb/s, compared to 16.3Mb/s for Huawei users and 14.4Mb/s for Samsung users. Samsung ultimately won out in the higher-tier smartphone category (aka the newest devices) and won the overall speed contest because most ‌iPhone‌ users have iPhones with slower modem hardware.

Samsung and Huawei have prioritized "Gigabit" LTE modems over the course of the last few years, while Apple's only devices with modems in that class are the ‌iPhone‌ XS and the XS Max. Even the ‌iPhone‌ XR, a 2018 device, doesn't have an LTE modem comparable to the modem chips Samsung has been using for the last couple of years.

Apple's challenge is that few of its current models are high-tier devices when we group iPhone models based on their mobile network experience capabilities. In our measurements, just 14% of Apple users are high tier. Instead, Apple has chosen to focus its handset designs on other capabilities such as facial recognition, camera innovation, long battery life, and extremely fast application processors and graphics using Apple's in-house silicon designs.

While all Samsung and Huawei flagship models for the last couple of years have featured so-called "gigabit" capable modem designs -- LTE Category 16 and above -- only the iPhone XS and XS Max have such capability. Even the current iPhone XR includes a less-capable LTE Category 12 modem, which we therefore class as a mid-tier smartphone on mobile network experience.

Apple's 2019 version of the ‌iPhone‌ XR is expected to feature faster LTE speeds that may eventually help Apple gain an edge over Samsung. The looming worldwide adoption of 5G will also shake things up, though Apple is not set to start debuting 5G capable devices until 2020, while Samsung already has 5G devices in 2019.

More detail from Opensignal's report can be found on the Opensignal website.

Apple is planning to give security researchers access to special iPhones that will make it easier for them to find security vulnerabilities and weaknesses, reports Forbes, citing sources with knowledge of Apple's plans.

Apple is going to announce the new program at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, which kicked off earlier this week and is continuing until Thursday.

The "special" iPhones will be similar to "dev devices," aka iPhones that are not as locked down and that will better allow security researchers to locate bugs.

What makes these iPhones special? One source with knowledge of the Apple announcement said they would essentially be "dev devices." Think of them as iPhones that allow the user to do a lot more than they could on a traditionally locked-down iPhone. For instance, it should be possible to probe pieces of the Apple operating system that aren't easily accessible on a commercial iPhone. In particular, the special devices could allow hackers to stop the processor and inspect memory for vulnerabilities. This would allow them to see what happens at the code level when they attempt an attack on iOS code.

The iPhones won't be identical to the developer iPhones that are provided to Apple's internal staff, as they won't be as open. They are described as "lite" versions of the developer devices by Forbes, with security researchers unlikely to be able to decrypt the iPhone's firmware.

‌iPhone‌ prototypes created for Apple's internal staff are popular with security researchers and hackers and can fetch quite a lot of money, as noted in a report earlier this year from Motherboard. Described as "pre-jailbroken devices," the iPhones are valuable because they can be used to find vulnerabilities both by those who have good intentions and those who have bad intentions.

Releasing a similar device to security researchers who participate in the bug bounty program will perhaps allow Apple to better locate serious bugs, leading to faster fixes.

Apple is also planning to announce a new macOS bounty program, which will provide rewards to people who find and report security vulnerabilities in macOS.

Apple's announcements could perhaps come on Thursday, which is when Ivan Krstić, Apple's head of security engineering, is set to offer a "Behind the Scenes" look at iOS and macOS.

Japan's Fair Trade Commission is investigating Apple to determine whether it pressured Japanese suppliers and abused its position of power, thereby violating antimonopoly rules, reports Reuters.

The FTC in Japan surveyed Japanese companies and found that Apple had signed contracts forcing its partners to provide free technology and know-how for parts manufacturing.

When one of the companies called Apple's contract an infringement of intellectual property rights and demanded a revision, Apple allegedly threatened to end the business relationship between the two companies.

Apple has not commented on the report, but this is just one of several antitrust investigations that have been launched in recent months.

In South Korea, Apple has been accused of offering local carriers unfair iPhone contracts that require them to pay advertising and repair costs, and in Europe, the European Union is investigating Apple's App Store policies following an accusation from Spotify that said Apple uses its ‌App Store‌ to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.

In the United States, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating the impact of Apple's sales agreement with Amazon on independent resellers, and the U.S. has also launched a broad antitrust review into major tech companies.