Spotify this afternoon announced that it has hit a new milestone, reaching a total of 50 million paying subscribers. That's up from 40 million in September, suggesting Spotify is growing at a rapid pace despite the surging popularity of Apple Music.
Spotify is Apple Music's staunchest rival and over the course of the last year, the two music services have clashed several times due to Apple Music's tactic using exclusives to lure new customers. Spotify in August made headlines when it allegedly started punishing artists who agreed to Apple Music exclusives, displaying their content less prominently and offering fewer promotional opportunities.
Spotify denied the claims, but the relationship between the two has grown increasingly heated as Apple Music's popularity grows. Both services are now testing new features and subscription models to attract new users.
Going forward, Apple plans to use original television programming to entice subscribers, debuting shows like Carpool Karaoke on Apple Music. Spotify, meanwhile, has recently started testing a lossless version of its streaming service to attract audiophiles.
Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 have proven to be a "magnificent success" for Apple, which recorded its "best quarter ever" in the wearables market, according to the latest data from research firm IDC.
Fourth quarter shipments reflected in millions (Source: IDC)
Apple shipped an estimated 4.6 million Apple Watch units in the fourth quarter of 2016, up from an estimated 4.1 million in the year-ago quarter, according to IDC. Its share of the wearables market, which includes basic fitness trackers, was an estimated 13.6%, down slightly from 14.1% in the year-ago quarter.
Apple closed the gap with wearables market leader Fitbit, which experienced one of its "largest declines ever" in the fourth quarter. Fitbit shipped an estimated 6.5 million fitness trackers in the quarter, down from 8.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Fitbit's market share dropped from 29% to 19.2%, said IDC.
Apple has been heavily marketing the Apple Watch's fitness capabilities as of late, rather than positioning it as a fashion accessory, and this shift in focus has allowed it to grow its presence in the wearables market, according to IDC:
Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 proved to be a magnificent success for the company as it was the company's best quarter ever in the wearables market. The lower entry price point and the inclusion of GPS on the Series 2 along with a completely revamped user interface have helped the company grow its presence. Apple is one of the few companies that has been able to quickly refocus its watch to gain traction in the consumer market and has also been leading the charge on introducing the smartwatch category to the commercial segment.
Xiaomi finished second, between Fitbit and Apple, as its Mi Bands are priced well below most competing wearables, allowing the Chinese company to capture 15.2% market share based on an estimated 5.2 million shipments in the quarter. Xiaomi's market share rose considerably from 9.1% in the year-ago quarter.
Samsung was the fifth largest wearables vendor in the fourth quarter with an estimated 1.9 million shipments and 5.6% market share.
IDC estimates that Apple Watch shipments totaled 10.7 million in 2016 for an estimated 10.5% market share, down from an estimated 11.6 million shipments and 14.2% market share in 2015. The annual data has the same top five rankings as the quarterly data: Fitbit, Xiaomi, Apple, Garmin, and Samsung.
Annual shipments reflected in millions (Source: IDC)
It is important to acknowledge that these are estimated figures, and that shipments do not necessarily reflect sales. Strategy Analytics said Apple Watch shipments totaled 5.2 million last quarter, which is roughly 600,000 units higher than IDC's estimate, so there is clearly variation between datasets.
Apple does not officially disclose Apple Watch sales, instead grouping the device under its "Other Products" category in earnings results.
Apple only elected to share that the Apple Watch set all time sales records during the first quarter of its 2017 fiscal year, with CEO Tim Cook noting holiday demand was "so strong" that Apple "couldn't make enough."
The Nintendo Switch launches worldwide tomorrow, March 3, and as journalists and reviewers have had their hands on the console for the past week, news of its hardware and software features have been shared online.
This week, Quartz technology reporter Mike Murphy discovered that when plugging the Nintendo Switch into a MacBook Pro through a dual USB-C cable, the Switch inexplicably acts as an external battery pack for the Apple laptop, providing charge to the MacBook instead of being charged itself. In the image, it appears that a third party USB-C cable is being used to connect the two devices (in the box, Switch only comes with a USB-C to AC adapter cable).
Lol if you plug a Nintendo Switch into a new MacBook Pro, the Switch charges the laptop, not the other way around pic.twitter.com/YJhMct6fKO
— Mike Murphy (@mcwm) March 1, 2017
Nintendo confirmed on its website that the Switch has a non-removable 4310mAh, 3.7V Lithium-ion battery, and early FCC filings -- as well as recent pictures -- of the included AC adapter confirmed that the console draws power up to 15.0V/2.6A, equating to 39W. The non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro has a 54.5-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery and can draw up to 61W from a power adapter.
Since much of Nintendo Switch's battery-related questionsare still up in the air in the time before launch, it remains unclear why the console would not automatically leech charge off the larger MacBook Pro. As game designer Bennett Foddy pointed out on Twitter, the connection between the Switch and MacBook Pro isn't inherently buggy or wrong, but it's easy to think that the MacBook Pro (battery life ~10 hours) would naturally provide power to the Switch (battery life 2.5-6.5 hours), like it does to iPhones and iPads.
In related Nintendo Switch and Apple news, Nintendo today launched its Nintendo Switch Parental Control app for iOS devices on the App Store [Direct Link]. The app will let parents remotely control the content of the games their kids play, as well as for how long, and even be able to restrict certain ESRB ratings and online features.
All three iPhones rumored to be launched in 2017 will retain Lightning connectors with the addition of USB-C Power Delivery for faster charging, including an all-new OLED model with a larger L-shaped battery and updated 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
An excerpt from his latest research note obtained by MacRumors:
New 2H17 models may all support fast charging. We believe all three new iPhones launching in 2H17 will support fast charging by the adoption of Type-C Power Delivery technology (while still retaining the Lightning port). A key technical challenge lies with ensuring product safety and stable data transmission during a fast charge. In order to achieve that goal, we think Apple will adopt TI's power management and Cypress's Power Delivery chip solutions for the new iPhone models. We note the OLED version may have a faster charging speed thanks to a 2-cell L shaped battery pack design.
Kuo expects Apple to retain the Lightning port given it has a slightly slimmer design compared to a USB-C port, to sustain MFi Program licensing income from Lightning accessories, and because he believes USB-C's high-speed data transmission is "still a niche application" for iPhone.
Kuo's prediction comes just two days after The Wall Street Journal seemingly reported that at least one upcoming iPhone model would have a USB-C port instead of a Lightning connector. However, the report's wording was somewhat vague and sparked a lot of confusingreaction among the Apple community.
Apple's latest MacBook Pro models are equipped with Thunderbolt 3 ports, which share the same connector design as USB-C, while the 12-inch MacBook also has a USB-C port. Apple could still bundle a Lightning to USB-C cable with its next iPhones to allow for connectivity with those notebooks out of the box.
Apple and 52 other major companies have signed a Supreme Court brief in support of seventeen-year-old Gavin Grimm, a young transgender man who's fighting with his local school district for the right to use the bathroom of his corresponding gender identity (via The New York Times).
Other than Apple, the tech companies include Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, eBay, Airbnb, and more. There are also a few companies not in the tech field that have signed the brief, among them including GAP, Warby Parker, Williams-Sonoma, and MAC Cosmetics.
All of the companies signed a brief that will be filed today by gay rights organization the Human Rights Campaign, who is urging the Supreme Court to rule in Grimm's favor. Grimm is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in his fight against the Gloucester County School Board in his home state of Virginia. The case dates back to 2015 and the Supreme Court agreed to rule on it back in October of 2016.
“These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender children and their families that America’s leading businesses have their backs,” Chad Griffin, the Human Rights Campaign’s president, said in a statement announcing the support.
Grimm's case is heating up in the face of President Donald Trump's decision to remove guidelines put in place by the Obama administration, specifically covering the use of public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms by transgender students. The previous rules allowed transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their corresponding gender identity, but now it's up to the states to decide whether or not to support the guidelines or put in place a more restrictive system.
Last week, when Trump's decision was announced, Apple spoke out against the move and reiterated on its belief that "everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination." The Cupertino company also vocally disagreed with Trump's immigration executive order, joining another legal brief supported by nearly 100 U.S. companies in opposition to that immigration policy.
Apple has long supported and fought for the rights of LGBTQ individuals, marching in the annual San Francisco pride parade each summer and condemning legislation that would freely allow businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers -- which was signed into law by Mike Pence in Indiana two years ago. A subsequent amendment to the religious freedom legislation was passed in the weeks after the initial law was signed, granting more protection to LGBTQ customers in the state of Indiana.
For the new case regarding Gavin Grimm, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments from both sides at the end of March.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Google has ended production of its Pixel laptop, which originally aimed to compete with Apple's MacBook Air.
During a small meeting with journalists today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google's senior vice president for hardware Rick Osterlohthe responded to a question about future Pixel notebooks, saying the company has "no plans to do one right now".
According to TechCrunch, he added that versions already on the market have totally sold out and there are no plans to make any more of them. However, Osterlohthe was quick to clarify that he was not referring to the notebooks' operating system, ChromeOS.
"Chrome OS is a huge initiative in the company," Osterloh said. "Google hasn't backed away from laptops. We have the number two market share in the U.S. and U.K. — but we have no plans for Google-branded laptops."
Google's Chromebook was the first device to carry the Pixel name, which has since been adopted by the tech giant's latest range of branded smartphones. The original Pixel laptops were launched in 2013 and were notable for their integrated hardware – which included a touchscreen – and their premium design appeal, but the web-only operating system only ran Chrome browser and a handful of other cloud-based apps, and prices started at $1,299.
The second version of the Pixel Chromebook launched in 2015 and cost $999. It was one of the first laptops to feature USB-C along with Apple's 12-inch Retina MacBook, but saw limited uptake due to the restrictive OS and prohibitive cost. Other third-party Chromebooks sell for as little as $250.
There's no cast-iron guarantee that Google won't launch any more branded laptops, but it seems the company wants to keep the Pixel name for its phones going forward, the only caveat being Google's Pixel C tablet, which it still sells.
Popular photo filter app Prisma has been updated with an in-app store for users to download additional filters for free.
The photo app uses the predictive analyses of neural network technology to achieve its stylistic interpretations, which typically makes them more unique than standard photo filters.
Prisma says the new store will bring even more originality to users' pictures, with the promise of new styles being added to the store every week, and possibly every day further down the line.
Users will also be able to rate and share individual filter styles in the near future, according to Prisma. In addition, users can now delete filters they don't like from the 44 styles that come with the app.
According to The Next Web, Prisma has also developed a desktop app that allows users to create their own unique styles by adjusting a series of parameters. The company is still refining the tool, which takes a while to process images and doesn't yet say what each slider control adjusts, but a preview is offered before the image is uploaded and processed.
Currently the filter creator is only available to the most active users, but Prisma plans on bringing it to mobile and more users soon.
Prisma is a free download on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]
Spotify is prepping the launch of a lossless audio version of its streaming service, according to The Verge. The new subscription tier is said to be called Spotify Hi-Fi and will offer higher bandwidth lossless audio quality to members.
Currently, Tidal is the only major music streaming service to offer an optional "lossless" audio tier, although other, lesser known lossless services do exist.
Tidal says tracks heard through its "CD quality" lossless service aren't compressed, so users are said to hear the music the way the artists intended – though whether one can tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed tracks can depend on the listener. What Spotify defines as lossless remains to be seen.
Spotify began testing the service with a small group of users on Tuesday, according to reports, offering the tier for $5 to $10 above the $10 per month price of a standard Spotify subscription.
However, users who received the invitation to sign up for the Hi-Fi service either got an error message or were told the service was unavailable in their area at the time.
A Tidal HiFi subscription costs $19.99. Apple Music streams at a bitrate of 256Kbps, while Spotify's current Premium tier streams at a maximum 320Kbps.
Apple tonight debuted an ad for its Home app on the Home app webpage on its site, showing off what users can with the HomeKit ecosystem. The ad is not yet on Apple's YouTube page, and is only available on Apple's website.
The ad depicts a woman who uses the Home app to get through the day. When she wakes up, she tells Siri good morning, prompting Siri to tell the woman that her home is ready for the day, turning on the lights and opening the window shades. She then opens the Home app and clicks on the "Breakfast Time" scene, which turns on her coffee maker via an iHome SmartPlug and adjusts the temperature via a Honeywell smart thermostat.
Once she's ready for the day, she leaves home and clicks the "Lock Up" scene in the Home app, which turns everything in her house off and locks the door. Hours later, she returns home and clicks the "I'm Home" scene, which turns everything back on and unlocks the door. She heads to her Apple TV and uses the Siri Remote to declare that it's "movie time," which prompts the Home app to dim the lights and close the window shades.
Finally, she clicks the "Lights Out" scene, which turns everything off other than a small lamp next to her bed so that she can read a book on her iPad. Eventually, she clicks the "Good Night" scene to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.
In addition to the new ad, Apple has refreshed its Home webpage with new verbiage. The new copy appears to be less flowery and more direct and focused on app functionality. For instance, the accessories section of the webpage is now titled "One app for all your home accessories" rather than "So many accessories. One easy way to control them." Some lines in the descriptions have also been removed.
Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell recently sat down with TechCrunch for an interview discussing the future of the Oculus Rift, where he said that while Mac support is something the company would like to implement, it's not currently in the works.
According to Mitchell, while Mac support is "near-and-dear" to his heart, Oculus is "just not quite there yet." Mac integration is, in fact, so far off that it's not even on the Oculus roadmap for the next six months.
"We do want to do OS X (macOS) support for Rift, it's not something that's currently on the roadmap for-- I can even say-- the next six months," Mitchell tells me. "We will continue to revisit it, the real challenge for us is just how much we invest into that space because it does require a lot of our time and energy to get it right and to deliver a great experience."
Early versions of the Oculus Rift did work with some higher-end Mac machines, but during the product's development period, Oculus was forced to drop Mac support. Mac development was put on hold in order to focus on "delivering a high quality consumer-level VR experience," on Windows machines with more robust hardware.
Last year, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey made headlines when he said the Oculus Rift wouldn't offer Mac support until Apple releases a "good computer." He said Oculus Rift support was ultimately "up to Apple," and that the company needed to "prioritize higher-end GPUs."
Hardware requirements for the Rift became less stringent in October thanks to software advancements and will now run on any machine equipped with an Nvidia 960 or greater, an Intel i3-6100 or greater, or an AMD FX4350 or greater. With the changes, some Macs, including the latest MacBook Pro, could potentially work with the Rift, but Oculus isn't yet prepared to delve into Mac development.
Starting today, Oculus is dropping the price of the Rift and Touch controllers by $100, dropping the price to $598 for both products, a much more affordable price point. Individually, the Rift is now priced at $499 and the Touch controllers are now priced at $99.
Apple today updated its official list of vintage and obsolete products to add the second-generation Apple TV, originally released in 2010.
The second-generation Apple TV was the first Apple TV that featured a black body and an aluminum Apple Remote, an updated look compared to the silver and white Apple TV that was originally released in 2007.
Apple sold the second-generation Apple TV from September of 2010 until 2012, which is when the company released the third-generation Apple TV with an A5 chip and support for 1080p content.
The second-generation Apple TV is now classified as "vintage" in the United States and Turkey and "obsolete" in the rest of the world. Vintage products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years ago, while obsolete products are those that were discontinued more than 7 years ago.
Both classifications essentially mean Apple is no longer providing hardware service for the device except in Turkey and California, where local statutes require that Apple continue to provide service and parts for a longer period of time.
Camera-focused company Snap is said to have worked on a drone that would connect to the iOS and Android Snapchat app and let users take photos and videos from aerial angles, according to sources speaking with The New York Times. Details about the drone and any of its other capabilities remain under wraps, but the work is said to help Snap "bolster" its repositioning and rebranding as a modern-day camera company.
In a separate report by TechCrunch, Snap is believed to also have investigated and built a 360-degree camera, going so far as to bring in a camera developer with expertise in the field to hone in on the best hardware options for such a product. The 360-degree camera project is said to be in the "early phases." For both projects, sources mentioned that it remains unclear if consumer-ready versions will ever hit the market, or how much they might cost.
The question driving Snap’s hardware ambitions is: What can’t your phone camera do? It can’t take first-person, hands-free video, so Snap built Spectacles. It can’t fly. And it can’t capture what’s around you in all directions at once. People often stick their camera phones in the air and do a slow pan to show off where they are. A 360 camera could do a much better job of making friends feel like they’re there with you.
The company is said to have a specific strategy for mergers and acquisitions that uses new startups to "gather information" about technologies it lacks expertise in, sometimes acquiring the companies and sometimes not. An example is given describing when Snap met with drone startup Lily before the latter company eventually shut down, and now rumors suggesting Snap's entry into the drone market have begun circling.
Snap has previously met with startups with the implication that it might acquire them, when in reality it’s goal has been to gather information about new markets and technologies where it could compete, according to one source familiar with Snap’s M&A procedures.
In some cases, it has made acquisitions after these meetings. But in other cases, “they talked to a bunch of people and got them to tell them a bunch of stuff. Snap shows a little bit of leg and tries to be flirty to see what they can get” the source said.
Additionally, it was reported that Snap has "preliminarily discussed" other consumer products that would enhance its mobile app, including a durable GoPro-like camera, and another that would let users take 3D images.
The reports of new products from Snap follow the launch of its Spectacles sunglasses, which let users take 10-second videos from a camera mounted within a pair of glasses, providing freedom of movement with their hands. According to TechCrunch's sources, the company is pursuing work on a second version of Spectacles, but the lack of "meaningful revenue" from the first iteration may pause those plans.
Market watchers are paying close attention to Snap today, as the company gets ready for the debut of its initial public offering on the U.S. stock market later in the afternoon.
Apple has enabled carrier billing in Austria for Drei customers, Italy for Three customers, and Singapore for M1 Limited customers, expanding upon the feature's existing availability among select carriers in Belgium, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The payment method enables customers to pay for iTunes content, App Store apps, iBooks, and Apple Music subscriptions without needing a credit or debit card, or even a bank account. Instead, purchases are added to a customer's mobile phone bill and paid off at the end of the month.
Twitter today announced a list of new features for the web and mobile that plan to leverage the company's learning technology to drastically reduce harassment on the service.
The updates will place more tools in the hands of the users to "control your experience," and overall Twitter said it intends to be more vocal and "communicate more clearly" about the actions it takes in the realm of online safety.
The company's first step is an overall boost to its learning algorithms that it says can detect when accounts are violating the Twitter Rules repeatedly, or otherwise engaging in abusive behavior, and take actions prior to even getting a digital abuse report from other Twitter users. Abusive accounts will then face repercussions, "such as allowing only their followers to see their Tweets."
Our platform supports the freedom to share any viewpoint, but if an account continues to repeatedly violate the Twitter Rules, we will consider taking further action.
We aim to only act on accounts when we’re confident, based on our algorithms, that their behavior is abusive. Since these tools are new we will sometimes make mistakes, but know that we are actively working to improve and iterate on them everyday.
In terms of tools, users will now have even more filtering options for notifications so that basic "egg" accounts with a profile photo, and those with an unverified email address or phone number, can all be filtered out completely. Expanding on the mute feature implemented last November, users will be able to more easily gain access to mute words or entire conversations right from the Twitter timeline. A length of time can now be selected as well, so content can be muted for one day, one week, one month, or indefinitely.
After negative press surrounded Twitter for its inaction towards anti-harassment measures on the site, the company noted in its blog post that a big point moving forward will be "continuing to improve the transparency and openness of our reporting process." So on a big scale the company plans to be more consistent with its safety feature rollouts, and on a small scale it said that users will be notified more often about Tweets and accounts they've reported, from the moment the report comes in to the measures Twitter takes in dealing with the situation.
The report updates will be visible in the Notifications tab on Twitter.com and the Twitter iOS app. The company admitted that the process towards a more widespread sense of safety on the social network isn't easy, and referenced the mistakes it's made in the past, like when it decided to turn off notifications every time users are added to a list. At the time, users pointed out how oddly anti-safe that move was, which placed them even more in the dark about who was interacting with their Twitter profile.
We’re learning a lot as we continue our work to make Twitter safer – not just from the changes we ship but also from the mistakes we make, and of course, from feedback you share.
Online safety has become a big concern for many social networks. Besides Twitter, Instagram has updated its app to let users moderate keywords that appear in the comments of their posts, as well as turn comments off completely. Facebook today also announced a suite of new suicide prevention tools aimed at leveraging AI systems and contacting at-risk users based on their actions within comments, posts, and Facebook Live videos.
Today's updates follow safety tweaks introduced by Twitter in February where it updated how users report abusive Tweets, prevented the creation of new abusive accounts, created safer search results, collapsed "low-quality" Tweets in conversations, and reduced notifications from conversations initiated by blocked or muted users. The new updates will be rolling out globally in the coming days and weeks.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Target this week instructed its stores to return a number of iPhone SE models to Apple by today, March 1, according to a company memo obtained by MacRumors.
iPhone SE devices that are to be returned include six unlocked 16GB and 64GB models in Gold, Silver, Rose Gold, and Space Gray, and two Sprint models.
An anonymous employee informed us that her Target store had not received iPhone SE stock since before the iPhone 7 was announced in September 2016.
While there are many possible reasons for Target to send back iPhone SE stock, such as poor sales of select models, the move comes just days or weeks before Apple's rumored March event, where a 128GB iPhone SE may be announced. However, no other hardware changes have been rumored.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said an iPhone SE refresh is unlikely in the first half of this year, so fans of Apple's lower-priced smartphone shouldn't set their hopes too high about a second-generation model yet. The original iPhone SE, which starts at $399, was introduced in March 2016.
Even without a full refresh, one possible scenario is that Apple could begin selling the iPhone SE in 32GB and 128GB capacities, doubling the storage space of the current 16GB and 64GB models, going forward.
Google has integrated Google Keep notes into Google Docs, allowing users of the Google Keep iOS app to drag-and-drop their notes directly into online documents.
With Google Keep for iOS, users can input notes, lists, photos, and voice memos, set reminders about notes, and organize their note collections with labels and colors.
While in Docs on the web, users can now access the Keep notepad via the Tools menu. The new integration means users can copy their Keep notes into Docs and create new Keep notes right from inside Docs (accessed via the web, not through the Docs app), after which they will sync back to the Keep iOS app.
Google has offered some tips on making the most of the new feature:
Here are a few ways you can now work better with the integration between Keep and Docs:
Drag your notes from Keep directly into your work documents
Easily search your notes in Keep while in Docs to find the information you need to complete your project
Add a new note in the Keep notepad or select text from inside of your document and easily add it to a new note (just right click and select “Save to Keep notepad”). When you open that note in Keep, we’ll include a link back to the source document so you can always refer back to it.
Google Keep is a free download for iPhone and iPad available from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Apple today posted a limited-time promotion on its Japanese site for its "New Life" campaign, which allows customers using certain company-issued credit cards to receive cashback and other benefits on Apple Pay purchases and store rewards.
As noted by Japanese blog Ata Distance, the Apple Pay promotion runs between March 1 and April 30 and takes in app purchases and online services including Japan Taxi, Toho Cinemas, Demae-Can, Jalan, Minne, Base, and Giftee. The available online rewards range from coupons to free shipping on orders, while purchases from brick-and-mortar convenience stores are also touting similar benefits.
As part of its "New Life" campaign, Apple has added more firms to its list of participating card issuers: APLUS, EPOS, JACCS, Cedyna, POCKETCARD and Life all now offer some sort of reward as part of the promotion. UCS integration has also been confirmed but a timeline for activation has not been announced.
Apple Pay debuted in the Japanese market last October following the release of iOS 10.1, making it available for use at all locations that accept the Suica prepaid money card, QuicPay, or iD. Apple Pay in Japan also works with credit and debit cards issued by American Express, JCB, Mastercard, Aeon Financial, Orico, Credit Saison, SoftBank, d Card, View Card, MUFG Card, and more.
Reliable mobile phone leaker Evan Blass this morning posted what looks like an official press image of the Galaxy S8, Samsung's first flagship phone of 2017.
Coming on the back of last year's Note7 debacle, the S8 represents a hopeful comeback for Samsung's smartphone business and is likely to be the biggest rival to Apple's radically redesigned "iPhone 8" expected to launch later this year.
The single rendered image appears to confirm the expected new minimal-bezel design and the absence of a home button on the front of the handset, with the larger edge-to-edge curved OLED display showing launch icons in the bottom corners of the screen.
On the right side of the handset is a power button, with those on the left side likely to be volume controls and a separate button to activate Bixby, Samsung's new virtual assistant, developed by the original creators of Siri.
It's unclear from the picture which model is shown, but the available display sizes of its Quad HD+ Super AMOLED panel will reportedly be 5.8 inches and 6.2 inches (the latter being for the S8 "Plus", according to Blass). The screen also teases the Galaxy S8 launch date of March 29, as confirmed by Samsung during its relatively low-profile appearance at the Mobile World Congress.
Further spec details have yet to be officially confirmed, but the S8 is expected to feature the Exynos 9 Series 8895 processor, Samsung's first chip built on 10-nanometer FinFET process technology, along with USB-C, wireless charging, iris scanning, a fingerprint sensor on the back, 4GB of RAM and at least 64GB of internal storage, with a 12 megapixel rear camera and an 8 megapixel front camera also in the offing.
Apple is widely expected to use Samsung-made AMOLED display technology in at least one of three possible iPhones to be released this year. Compared to LCD screens, OLED displays are thinner, lighter, and offer more flexibility, making modifications to a phone's form factor and geometry easier to undertake.
Added to these advantages are several performance gains over LCD panels, due to the fact that each sub-pixel in an OLED display is individually directly powered, which typically results in better color accuracy, image contrast accuracy, and screen uniformity.
With an edge-to-edge design, the "iPhone 8" is said to be similar in size to the 4.7-inch iPhone, but with a display the size of the 5.5-inch iPhone. Rumors suggest it will feature a 5.8-inch display with 5.15 inches of usable area, with the rest given over to a "function area" for virtual buttons. Other rumored features include a glass body, iris scanning and some form of wireless charging. Apple is expected to release its new iPhone line-up in the fall.
Update 3/2:BGR has posted images of a S8 handset powered on, calling the glass-backed device "a wonderfully sleek design" despite the fact that it retains a headphone jack.
Apple today updated its official list of 
Twitter today 
Target this week instructed its stores to return a number of iPhone SE models to Apple by today, March 1, according to a company memo obtained by MacRumors.
