MacRumors

During the second quarter of 2016, sales of Apple iPads, iPhones, and other devices fell 20 percent at popular retailer Target. Target CEO Brian Cornell highlighted the sales drop during an earnings call where he suggested the decline was due to a lack of "newness" and "innovation" and blamed poor Apple sales for Target's disappointing Q2 earnings results.

According to Cornell, electronics sales decreased by double digits, with Apple product sales responsible for a third of the overall drop.

"Our guests come to us looking for those products," Cornell said on a conference call to discuss earnings. "They're looking for the newness and the innovation. We're putting together plans with Apple and our merchandising teams to make sure we're ready to take advantage of that in the back half of the year."

In the first calendar quarter of 2016, Apple reported its first year-over-year revenue decline since 2003 and its first ever drop in iPhone sales, sending its stock into a downward spiral. The negative trend continued into the second quarter with another year-over-year revenue drop, and based on Apple's forecast for the third quarter of 2016, a third consecutive decline in revenue is expected.

Apple expects to see revenue of $45.5 billion to $47.5 billion in the third calendar quarter of 2016, up to 12 percent lower than the $51.5 billion in revenue it saw in the third calendar quarter of 2015.

Device sales could turn around for Apple following the upcoming release of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, but as rumors suggest the changes being introduced in the two new devices are moderate, Apple's downward trend could potentially continue into 2017. Apple does, however, have some impressive products on the horizon, including the 2017 iPhone, which has caused stock to rise more than 20 percent over the course of the last three months.

The 2017 iPhone will mark the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone and to celebrate, Apple is rumored to be introducing some of its most significant iPhone changes ever like a dual curved edge-to-edge OLED display with a built-in Touch ID sensor, wireless charging, a glass body, and more.

AT&T has introduced new Mobile Share Advantage plans that eliminate data overage charges. Instead, after customers use all of their high-speed data amounts, all data usage will be reduced to a maximum of 128 kbps for the rest of their bill cycle, akin to what T-Mobile has offered for several years.

40GB, 50GB, 60GB, 80GB, and 100GB data tiers are also available, while business customers can choose plans with between 25GB and 200GB of data shared across up to 25 lines. The new plans continue to include unlimited U.S. talk and text, rollover data, sharable data, and Mobile Hotspot tethering.

AT&T charges an additional $20 access charge per smartphone per month for each plan. The carrier previously charged $25 per month for 5GB or lower plans and $15 per month for 15GB and above plans. Overage charges, meanwhile, were previously $15/GB or $20 per 300MB for customers on the now-eliminated 300MB plan.

AT&T boasts that many of its new plans include more data at a lower cost per megabyte than some plans it offers today.

If you have 2 smartphone lines on a current Mobile Share Value 5GB plan for $100 per month, you can now get the new Mobile Share Advantage 6GB plan – 1 additional GB of data for the same price, plus no overages. If you need more data, for $20 more a month, you can get 10GB of data.

We’ve also revised our 25GB and higher plans. We now offer a new 25GB plan for $190 per month for 4 smartphone lines (previously $235 per month) and our 30GB plan is now $215 per month for 4 smartphone lines (previously $285 per month). Customers can add up to 10 lines on both plans.

The new Mobile Share Advantage plans are available August 21. Existing AT&T customers will not be automatically migrated to the new plans, so those interested in switching should inquire with the carrier next week.

AT&T follows in the footsteps of Verizon's new data plans introduced last month.

iPhone users that elect not to use iCloud storage will be pleased to learn that another source has thrown its weight behind at least one iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus model having 256GB of flash storage.

DigiTimes, citing industry sources, is the latest to claim the iPhone 7 will feature up to 256GB of storage, corroborating previous reports from Chinese website MyDrivers and Taiwanese research firm TrendForce.

NAND flash vendors have increased chip prices citing strong demand for new smartphones particularly the iPhone 7 featuring up to 256GB of storage, according to industry sources. Prices will keep soaring until the fourth quarter of 2016.

In July, The Wall Street Journal confirmed the iPhone 7 will start with 32GB of storage, replacing the infamous 16GB base tier offered since the iPhone 3GS. Accordingly, the new storage options for the iPhone 7 could be 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB, but it remains unclear if the 256GB tier will be exclusive to the larger 5.5-inch model as some sources have indicated.

The current storage options for both the iPhone 6/6 Plus and iPhone 6s/6s Plus series include 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB, with the 16GB base model in particular drawing the ire of some customers who have long hoped for a larger capacity at the entry-level price point. This year, it appears that Apple has finally acknowledged the desire for larger storage tiers at both the top and bottom of its iPhone lineup.

While the consensus is that Apple will remove the 3.5mm headphone jack on new iPhones unveiled next month, in favor of an all-in-one Lightning connector for audio output, charging, and accessory connectivity, Intel continues to position USB-C as the open standard of the future for digital audio.

At IDF 2016 this week, CNET reports that Intel architect Brad Saunders addressed the USB Type-C Digital Audio specification due this quarter, noting that its improved power management for USB headphones and other new features "will really make USB Type-C the right connector for audio."

Apple has adopted USB-C on the 12-inch MacBook, but new iPhones are expected to retain the proprietary Lightning connector in lieu of the open standard. USB-C, meanwhile, continues to see wider adoption in popular Android-based smartphones like Google's Nexus 6P and Samsung's Galaxy Note 7.

Apple has equipped its mobile devices with proprietary connectors for over a decade, including the 30-pin dock connector used for iPhone, iPad, and iPod models between 2003 and 2012. Apple's notebooks, beyond the 12-inch MacBook, are also equipped with a proprietary MagSafe connector for charging.

For that reason, it is likely that Apple will continue to favor Lightning over USB-C for at least the foreseeable future.

The assumed names of this year's iPhone lineup -- "iPhone 7" and "iPhone 7 Plus" -- have been confirmed by "reliable sources" speaking with Japanese site Mac Otakara. The sources said that Apple is following this name scheme to avoid confusion of having back-to-back iPhones with "S" in the name, even though the iPhone 7 will largely be a minor update over the iPhone 6s.

The new report nixes the chance for an additional third tier "iPhone 7 Pro," which was a rumored dual-lens alternative to the single-lens "iPhone 7 Plus" early in the rumor cycle. The less-powerful camera option was said to be created by Apple as a fallback in case the dual-lens technology didn't pan out. Now that everything seems to be going well for the company in this area, and mockups have repeatedly shown a dual-lens camera enclosure, it makes sense for Apple to revert to the well-known "Plus" moniker for its next-generation 5.5-inch dual-lens iPhone, and drop any reference to "Pro" altogether.

Otherwise, Mac Otakara reiterates on the expected rumors of the iPhone 7: there won't be a 3.5 mm headphone jack, it will house an A10 chip, and it will introduce a new flush, capacitive Home Button in lieu of the traditional physical switch. That last aspect of the new iPhone has been a bit more up in the air in the weeks ahead of the September launch, since it's hard to fully decipher whether recent image mockups confirm one way or the other if the Home Button is pressure-sensitive or not.

It's believed that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be revealed at an Apple event on September 7, with pre-orders beginning two days later on September 9. A recent leak from AT&T has pushed back the reported launch of the new iPhone, however, suggesting that Apple could be preparing a wide release on September 23, although the original rumor of September 16 is also still a viable option.

Earlier this month, Apple's head of security engineering Ivan Krstic gave a talk at the Black Hat Conference, an annual event designed for the global InfoSec community. During the event, Krstic spoke about Apple security and unveiled the company's new bug bounty program.

Krstic's briefing is now available in full on YouTube, shared this morning on the Black Hat YouTube channel in a video entitled "Behind the Scenes of iOS Security."

HomeKit, Auto Unlock and iCloud Keychain are three Apple technologies that handle exceptionally sensitive user data - controlling devices (including locks) in the user's home, the ability to unlock a user's Mac from an Apple Watch, and the user's passwords and credit card information, respectively. We will discuss the cryptographic design and implementation of our novel secure synchronization fabric which moves confidential data between devices without exposing it to Apple, while affording the user the ability to recover data in case of device loss.

Data Protection is the cryptographic system protecting user data on all iOS devices. We will discuss the Secure Enclave Processor present in iPhone 5S and later devices and explain how it enabled a new approach to Data Protection key derivation and brute force rate limiting within a small TCB, making no intermediate or derived keys available to the normal Application Processor.

Traditional browser-based vulnerabilities are becoming harder to exploit due to increasingly sophisticated mitigation techniques. We will discuss a unique JIT hardening mechanism in iOS 10 that makes the iOS Safari JIT a more difficult target.

The most notable moment of Krstic's briefing features the unveiling of Apple's first ever bug bounty program, which will see the company paying out up to $200,000 to researchers who discover vulnerabilities in Apple software. Apple's bug bounty program, initially limited to a few dozen researchers, launches this September.

Apple has signed some kind of music agreement with Cash Money Records and its co-founder rapper Birdman, marking its first exclusivity deal with a full record label instead of individual artists, reports MusicBusinessWorldwide.

Apple Music head of content Larry Jackson and Birdman himself both confirmed the deal through Instagram posts, with Jackson calling Birdman a "tough negotiator." Details on the deal were not provided, so it is unclear what exactly it might entail.

Cash Money Records represents popular, well-known artists that include Drake, Young Money, Lil Wayne, and Nicki Minaj, suggesting the deal could result in future agreements that will see content from artists signed under Cash Money Records available exclusively on Apple Music. MusicBusinessWorldwide speculates that the deal could involve exclusive releases or co-created content.

Apple may well have stumped up a big cheque to make it happen, potentially alongside some promotional guarantees regarding both iTunes and Apple Music itself.

One possible option: Apple paid out a weighty advance to Cash Money, at least some of which will be recouped from the label's future Apple Music/iTunes income.

Another: the two parties are co-creating content, whether music or video, which will remain exclusive to Apple.

Apple has worked with closely with Cash Money Records artist Drake in the past, and his latest album, "Views," was an Apple Music exclusive for a week when it launched in April. Drake also appeared at the Worldwide Developers Conference where Apple Music was introduced, and Apple produced the music video for "Energy" using its in-house production team.

Apple executives see exclusive and original content as a way to drive subscribers to Apple Music and they have worked hard to establish deals with artists like Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry over the course of the last few months. Since its launch in June of 2015, Apple Music has seen steady growth, and as of June 2016, the service has more than 15 million paying subscribers.

Update: According to Bloomberg, Apple's deal with Cash Money Records was about a future documentary rather than exclusivity agreements. Apple and Cash Money Records will team up to make a documentary, which will likely be used to promote Apple Music.

Details on what the documentary might be about are not yet available.