MacRumors

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming iOS 12.4 update to developers, two weeks after seeding the third iOS 12.4 beta, and a month after releasing iOS 12.3, a major update that introduced a revamped TV app.

Registered developers can download the new iOS 12.4 beta from Apple's Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.

There were no new features discovered in the first three iOS 12.4 betas, so it's not entirely clear what's coming in the update. As a more significant 12.x update, it's possible that the update is focusing on a feature that's not yet available -- the Apple Card.

Apple is planning to release the ‌Apple Card‌ in the summer, so iOS 12.4 could be the update that prepares the iOS operating system for that launch, adding hidden features that will be unlocked when the update becomes available to the public.

If we find new features in the fourth beta of iOS 12.4, we'll update this post.

iOS 12.4 may be one of the last updates to the iOS 12 operating system as Apple transitions to iOS 13, set to launch this September.

Apple surpassed Google but Amazon usurped both tech giants to become the world's most valuable brand in market research firm Kantar's annual BrandZ brand value report.

According to the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand ranking 2019 [PDF], the ecommerce giant saw its brand value rise to $315.5 billion, beating second-placed Apple's $309.5 billion evaluation and Google's $309 billion in third. Apple's brand value saw a 3 percent rise over last year, while Google saw a 2 percent rise, but Amazon outshone both with a whopping 52 percent gain.

Amazon's rise to the top spot ends a Google-Apple duopoly that began in 2007 when Google surpassed Microsoft to capture the No. 1 rank. Apple and Google had since jostled amongst each other for the position, but Google took the top spot from Apple in 2018.

Doreen Wang, Kantar’s global head of BrandZ, told CNBC that Amazon's jump was due to it selling a variety of services.

"Amazon’s phenomenal brand value growth of almost $108 billion in the last year demonstrates how brands are now less anchored to individual categories and regions. The boundaries are blurring as technology fluency allow brands, such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba, to offer a range of services across multiple consumer touchpoints."

The top ten most valuable global brands in the report is made up almost entirely of technology and telecom companies, with Microsoft, Visa, Facebook, Alibaba Group, Tencent, McDonald's, and AT&T rounding off the top ten after Amazon, Apple, and Google.

To qualify for the ranking, brands must be publicly traded, or publish their financial results. BrandZ’s list uses measures of brand equity based on interviews with over 3 million consumers about thousands of brands, with analysis of each company and financial performance, using data from Kantar Worldpanel.

Brandz is one of several brand rankings released each year, with others including Forbes and Interbrand. Apple has consistently performed well in these studies over the past decade as its revenue has ballooned on the strength of iPhone sales, but the company is increasingly looking to subscription services, original content, and other untapped markets to prop up its business in the face of the recent downturn in the global smartphone market.

Apple Pay officially went live in The Netherlands today, with Dutch bank ING leading the charge to bring Apple's digital payment system to debit and credit card users in the country.

With ‌Apple Pay‌ on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac, ING bank customers with Maestro debit cards in The Netherlands can make purchases with their digital wallet in stores, in apps and on websites.

ING customers can activate ‌Apple Pay‌ in the ING Mobile Banking App and add their debit card to the Wallet. ‌Apple Pay‌ works wherever it is possible to make contactless payments, in web shops and in apps.

According to Apple's regional ‌Apple Pay‌ web page, ‌Apple Pay‌ can be used in The Netherlands with several online and high street retailers including Adidas, ALDI, Amac, ARKET, BCC, Burger King, Capi, cool blue, COS, Decathlon, Douglas, H&M, Jumbo, Lidl, McDonalds, Starbucks, and others.

‌Apple Pay‌ has been gradually expanding across Europe and the Middle East, launching in Poland, Norway, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, Austria, and Iceland over the last year. Up until today, The Netherlands was one of the most populous countries in Europe that was still awaiting ‌Apple Pay‌.

(Thanks, Melvin!)

Rumors about the iPhones coming in 2019 have been circulating since before the 2018 iPhones even launched, and at this point, we've heard quite a few details on what to expect.

For our most recent YouTube video, we got our hands on some cases created for the 2019 iPhones, with designs based on current rumors suggesting a triple-lens camera setup for the next-generation iPhone XS and XS Max, and a dual-lens camera for the next-generation ‌iPhone‌ XR.

Many of the renderings and part leaks that we see for new iPhones, the 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup included, come from case makers who pay people in Apple's supply chain for design information in order to create early versions of cases. More often than not, these super early cases are spot on, but there have been some major misses in the past.

This year, Apple is said to be launching three iPhones: an ‌iPhone‌ XS successor, an ‌iPhone‌ XS Max successor, and an ‌iPhone‌ XR successor. These three phones will be available in the same sizes as current iPhones, 5.8 inches, 6.5 inches, and 6.1 inches, respectively.

The 5.8 and 6.5-inch models will continue to offer OLED displays and will be positioned as the higher-end iPhones in the lineup, while the 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌ is expected to continue to offer an LCD display and a lower price tag.

As you can see in the 5.8 and 6.5-inch cases, the next-generation ‌iPhone‌ XS and XS Max are rumored to include a triple-lens camera setup arranged in a triangular shape with an adjacent flash. This design requires a large square-shaped camera cutout for the cases, which looks quite obtrusive when seen in case form.

Apple's going to do what it can to minimize the look of the rear camera, which will still protrude, with rumors suggesting the rear panel will be made from a single pane of glass. This should make the camera bump blend in a bit better, so we can expect Apple's version to look better than renderings we've seen.

The triple-lens camera setup could include a 12-megapixel telephoto lens, a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens, and a 12-megapixel super wide-angle lens with a wider field of view for landscape shots.

It's not really clear what capabilities Apple will add into a triple-lens camera, but at a minimum, we can expect a wider zoom range, better low light performance, more pixels captured, and a larger field of view. Given some of the highly touted camera features from Android phones, like the Night Sight mode on the recent Pixel devices, we can likely expect some similar features from Apple.

There could perhaps be a mode for significantly brightening up darker scenes, and Bloomberg has suggested Apple is working on a feature that will use extra pixel data to offer up tools for doing things like fitting in a subject that may have been cut off from an initial shot.

All of these cases have a large square camera cutout, but the successor to the ‌iPhone‌ XR isn't expected to have the same triple-lens camera setup. Instead, it's rumored to have a dual-lens camera, which is still an upgrade from the single-lens camera in the current ‌iPhone‌ XR.

In our testing, these cases fit the current iPhones perfectly with the exception of the new camera cutouts, as beyond camera tweaks, we're not expecting any major design changes. The 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup will look quite a lot like the 2018 ‌iPhone‌ lineup, but in addition to camera changes, Apple may also be planning a new frosted glass design for its OLED devices and new colors for the ‌iPhone‌ XR successor.

Rumors have suggested the new iPhones could be a tad bit thicker than the current models, but that's not noticeable with the cases and is such a small change that it may be imperceptible in real life. There are also some adjustments to button placement, so the buttons could be moved a bit.

There have been rumors that Apple's 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup will use a round iPad-style mute switch in a pill-shaped cutout instead of a traditional bar mute switch, which could account for some of the button differences.

Other rumors have indicated the 2019 iPhones will feature bilateral wireless charging (so you can charge your AirPods or other wireless devices), larger batteries, Lightning connectors, WiFi 6 for faster WiFi speeds, and an 18W power adapter for faster charging right out of the box.

What do you think of the design of the 2019 iPhones? Let us know in the comments.

(Thanks to Sonny Dickson for helping us get our hands on these cases!)

Paciolan, a ticketing service provider for college athletics, today announced plans to allow customers to add contactless tickets for sporting events to their Apple Wallets.

The contactless tickets available in Apple Wallet will allow event attendees to enter stadiums with just their iPhone and Apple Watch using NFC. Apple Pay chief Jennifer Bailey said that students and fans will love having their tickets right on their Apple devices.

"iPhone and Apple Watch make going to college sports games easier than ever," said Jennifer Bailey, Apple's vice president of Internet Services. "We've said our goal is to replace the physical wallet and students and fans will love the convenience and security of having their tickets right on the Apple devices they carry with them every day."

iPhone and Apple Watch users will receive purchased tickets via the Messages app and can add them into the Wallet app by tapping on a link. When at a stadium, the tickets will pop up on the ‌iPhone‌ or Apple Watch's display.

Paciolan says that NFC-based tickets will help cut down on fraud at the gate and will allow colleges to better understand who is attending games.

Contactless tickets will be available starting in the fall 2019 football season for games at Baylor University, Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, University of Mississippi, Georgia Tech, and Rutgers University.

Establishing a billion dollar search engine deal with Google took Apple more than four months, according to new details shared today by former Apple lawyer Bruce Sewell.

Sewell recently did an interview with a Columbia law student, which was noticed this afternoon by CNBC, and in the interview, he shared details on his time at Apple and some of the negotiations he handled for the company.

And then with myself and either Tim [Cook] or Eddy Cue who was my counterpart on that deal. They'd be at Google or we'd be at Apple almost every day, it's just one example there are a lot of those kinds of negotiations or lawsuits that just completely suck up all your time.

Sewell did not go into detail about the amount of money that Google pays Apple to be the primary search engine on Apple devices, but in the past, Google has been rumored to be paying billions for the privilege.

Sewell says that in his time at Apple, he had 900 people working under him. 600 of those were in the law group and included lawyers and paralegals.

In just one of the Samsung lawsuits, Apple had 350 people billing time on that case at any given moment, most of which were outside counsel because it's impossible for Apple to handle cases of that magnitude with an internal team. "And this was just one of them. There were seven of them going on," said Sewell.

There were seven or eight billion documents to review, and collectively, law firms billed Apple 280,000 hours. Sewell says his budget was "just shy of a billion dollars a year."

Sewell says that he steered Apple in the wrong direction on its iBooks negotiations, leading to the ‌iBooks‌ snafu with the U.S. government that cost Apple a lot of money because he didn't know about deals publishers made among themselves. Cook, though, was forgiving and said he'd made the right choices.

But that was an example of sailing as close to the wind because it was so important to Apple. But in the end, I got it wrong and Apple ended up having to pay a large fine. The reaction from Tim was "That's the right choice. You made the best choice that you could with the information you had. You didn't know about these other things. Don't let that scare you. I don't want you to stop pushing the envelope because that's why legal is an important function at the company."

During the interview, Sewell also shared a few tidbits about Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌, who he said would send him emails in the very early morning due to Cook's "crazy" work schedule.

From 4:00 a.m. to 5 a.m., there's a there's a lot of activity, so my first thing when I got up around 6:30 a.m. would be to check my email and see all the stuff that Tim had left for me, the little cookies he's left for me.

Sewell had other thoughts to share on working as a traditional lawyer vs. working for a major company as legal counsel, and his shift from Intel to Apple, which he likened to going to kindergarten from university given Apple's focus on creativity. The full interview can be watched in the video up above.

From 2009 to 2017, Bruce Sewell served as Apple's general counsel before retiring at the end of 2017. Sewell has since been replaced by Katherine Adams.

Apple this afternoon shared a new video in its ongoing "Shot on iPhone" series, this time showcasing the work of photojournalist Christopher Anderson, who Apple says is known for "magnetic portraiture."

In the video, which is in portrait orientation and meant to be watched on an ‌iPhone‌, Anderson provides some tips on what he pays attention to when creating a portrait of a person.

To add color and intrigue, he plays with props or an object that can create shadows of reflections to define subjects and obscure parts of the image that might be distracting. He uses things like keys, glasses, bottles and mirrors to experiment with different looks.

Post processing is also important, and be says that he uses a lot of Apple's built-in tools for adjusting contrast and lighting.

Apple has shared multiple videos in its Shot on ‌iPhone‌ series, including several longer-form videos created by various artists, including the recent Maldives video and a series of nature scenes called "Don't Mess With Mother."

Apple today released iOS 12.3.2, a minor update to the iOS 12 operating system that runs on the iPhone and the iPad. iOS 12.3.2 comes a month after the release of iOS 12.3, the last major update, and two weeks after the release of iOS 12.3.1, another bug fix update.

The iOS 12.3.2 update is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the update, go to Settings > General > Software Update. As with all iOS updates, iOS 12.3.2 is free to download, but it may take some time for iOS 12.3.2 to propagate to all iOS users. Today's update is limited to the ‌iPhone‌ 8 Plus and it is not available on other devices.

According to Apple's release notes, the iOS 12.3.2 update addresses an issue that caused the Camera app to capture Portrait mode photos without a depth effect on the ‌iPhone‌ 8 Plus.

Apple is also working on an iOS 12.4 update that's set to be released in the near future, as well as iOS 13, which will come out this September.