MacRumors

Mobile chat platform WhatsApp could be set to roll out peer-to-peer payments in India, which is home to its largest market with over 200 million users (via TechCrunch).

According to India-based media company The Ken, WhatsApp plans to use a cross-bank payment system called UPI, which is backed by the government, to enable payments between users within the next six months.

WhatsApp has neither confirmed nor denied the claim, but there are precedents for the messaging service to move into mobile payments. During a visit to the country in February, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton met with India's IT minister and said the company was "in the early stages" of exploring how it might incorporate payment systems into the platform.

Last week, Swedish-based phone number lookup service Trucaller introduced user-to-user payments in India via a tie-in with ICICI Bank, which makes use of the same UPI system WhatsApp is said to be integrating.

Facebook has had a payments system in its Messenger app for some time in the U.S., but WhatsApp is far more popular in India and is already being used there as an e-commerce portal despite not yet offering any features that explicitly support the practice.

Samsung launched Samsung Pay in India for select Samsung Galaxy series devices last month, after it partnered up with Axis, HDFC, ICIC, SBI and Standard Chartered banks, and embraced the UPI standard. Apple spoke with the Indian government about introducing Apple Pay back in 2015, while talks with several banks in the country about incorporating the system are said to be ongoing.

Apple today updated its investor relations page to announce that it will share its earnings for the second fiscal quarter (first calendar quarter) of 2017 on Tuesday, May 2.

The earnings release will provide a look at sales of the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus following Apple's record earnings results during the first quarter of 2017. It will also provide some insight into sales of the new MacBook Pro, which came out in October.

Apple's guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 includes expected revenue of $51.5 to $53.5 billion and gross margin between 38 and 39 percent.

The quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on May 2.

Apple today began sending out emails to customers who purchased popular automation app Workflow in the last few weeks, letting them know that they'll be receiving a refund for the purchase price of the app.

Apple is handing out refunds because following its recent acquisition of the Workflow app and team, it made the Workflow app free to download and removed some key functionality.

A MacRumors reader shared his refund email with us, and we've also seen several reports of Workflow refunds from Twitter.

Dear iTunes Customer,
Thank you for purchasing Workflow by DeskConnect, Inc. Workflow is now available for free in the App Store. Since you recently purchased this app, we have issued you a full refund in the amount of $3.23. These funds will be applied to your original payment method and may take up to five business days from the issue date to post to your account.

Regards,

iTunes Support Team
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

For those unfamiliar with Workflow, which is now owned by Apple, it's an automation tool that allows users to create a variety of workflows to automate tasks like creating GIFs from a series of photos, translating an article, posting photos to multiple social networks at once, calculating a tip, and tons more.

Following Apple's acquisition of Workflow, there was an update to remove certain features, including workflow functionality that involved Google Chrome, Pocket, LINE, Telegram, and Uber, likely for legal reasons.

Apple plans to keep Workflow available in the App Store, and it is now a free download. [Direct Link]

Apple today debuted a new promotion for some of its older Beats products, dropping prices by as much as $50 depending on the item.

The Beats Solo2 On-Ear Headphones in the Luxe line of colors are available for $149.95, a $50 discount off of the regular $199.95 price. Beats Solo2 Headphones are the previous-generation model without wireless connectivity and Apple's new W1 chip. All Luxe colors are discounted, including Red, Silver, Blue, and Black, but other Solo2 models are not available for a lower price.

Apple's lower-priced Beats EP On-Ear Headphones are available for $99.95, $30 off the regular price of $129.95. Also available in Red, Blue, White, and Black, the Beats EP are a newer budget product line that was unveiled in September.

Along with the two sets of headphones, Apple is also discounting its Beats Pill+ Portable Speaker, dropping the price from $229.95 to $199.95. The Pill+ is available in Red, Black, and White.

Apple does not say how long the discounts on its Beats products will last, so customers hoping to get a deal on a speaker or a set of headphones should purchase right away. Discounts are also available in Apple's retail stores.

Amazon today announced a new way for its users to add funds to their Amazon accounts, called Amazon Cash. By visiting a participating retailer, Amazon users will be able to show a barcode to a cashier, choose an amount between $15 and $500, and pay the amount in cash to see it transferred digitally and able to be spent on Amazon.com.

As TechCrunch reported, Amazon Cash is aimed at "cash customers" who don't shop online as consistently as everyone else, including people who are paid in cash, who don’t have a bank account or debit card, and who don’t use credit cards. The entire process doesn't require any sort of fee to be paid by the user.

This "cash customer" (the unbanked or "underbanked") accounts for around 27 percent of consumers, said a 2015 report from the FDIC.

While they may have money to spend online at times, there isn’t an easy way to do so. Until today, they would have to buy an Amazon Gift Card in a designated amount or add cash to prepaid payment cards, to be used at checkout.

More broadly, the service could appeal to anyone who just wants to deposit some cash in their Amazon.com account, without hassle.

These customers will be able to use the Amazon iOS and Android app to bring up their unique Amazon Cash barcode, which will be reused any time they want to add more money to their account. After telling the cashier how much they want added and scanning the barcode, the customer pays at the register with cash and the amount instantly appears in their Amazon account. Confirmation of the money's arrival will be sent to users via email, text, or push notification.

Amazon Cash will even let users print out their unique barcode at home and bring it into the store in lieu of using a smartphone. Those who have a smartphone with a cracked screen are also recommended to print out the barcode instead of using their phone.

Participating U.S. stores at launch include: CVS Pharmacy, Speedway, Kum & Go, D&W Fresh Market, Sheetz, Family Fare Supermarkets, and VG’s Grocery, with more coming soon. The service is launching now across the U.S.

ESPN today announced a redesign of its Apple TV app that brings live streaming auto-play and ESPN Video On Demand to Apple's fourth-generation set-top box. In addition, the app has been rebranded from WatchESPN to simply "the ESPN app."

With live streaming auto-play, users will be able to jump right into the network's stream of sports content with a live video playing immediately when authenticated users launch the app. The new Video On Demand feature will stockpile a collection of user-specific, curated videos that can be browsed and watched at any time, including content from World Series of Poker, X Games, Outside the Lines, and more.

• Live Streaming Auto-Play: Upon launching the app, a live stream of one of ESPN’s networks will now automatically play for authenticated users.
• ESPN Video On Demand: A new collection of curated on-demand videos including hundreds of hours of additional content from 30 for 30, E:60, Outside the Lines, SC Featured, World Series of Poker, X Games and more.
• Sleeker, Simpler User Interface: In addition to visual graphic enhancements to Featured content, users can also browse videos by Sports & Events or Channels.

All of the new features are housed in a new UI that boasts "graphic enhancements" to the app's featured content, as well as tweaks to the way videos can be browsed, including search by sport, event, or channel.

“From replays to full episodes of on-demand content prior to their telecast premieres, ESPN’s tvOS app is now so much more than our live streaming networks,” said Ryan Spoon, senior vice president of digital product, design and audience development, ESPN. “With this latest update, authenticated users now have the full benefit of engaging with a wide range of live and on-demand video content from the very first click into what is now the ESPN App on Apple TV.”

ESPN is launching the new app today, ahead of the premiere of its new multiplatform original series "We the Fans." On April 9, four episodes of the eight-episode show will stream exclusively on ESPN's suite of mobile and tv-based apps two days before premiering on cable.

Danish hearing aid company GN Hearing today announced the newest iteration of its IoT hearing aid solution, called the ReSound LiNX 3D, as well as new apps for the iPhone and Apple Watch.

The major update to GN's new hearing care solution is a way for users to get their hearing aids remotely fine-tuned by their audiologist after an initial fitting at their local clinic, through a cloud-based infrastructure called ReSound Smart Fit. The original ReSound LiNX allowed users to adjust their own settings on the fly, but now they can request assistance wherever they are directly from the mobile app, and their doctor can make all the adjustments necessary "to provide a better hearing experience for the user."

ReSound LiNX 3D is the only device with complete remote fine-tuning capabilities that allows users to stay in touch with their hearing care professional wherever they are, receiving hearing care and getting new settings via the cloud without having to schedule and travel for a clinic appointment. The unique cloud integration enables hearing care professionals to stay connected with users no matter where they are.

Users will be able to share feedback about any hearing difficulty as the situation occurs, rather than trying to remember how to describe it during an adjustment visit to the clinic. Hearing care professionals will have the freedom to offer follow-up services remotely – saving time for both hearing care professionals and users, and creating opportunities for even higher user satisfaction.

The ReSound LiNX 3D includes GN Hearing's 5th generation 2.4 GHz wireless technology and 3rd generation binaural directionality, providing users with "clear, natural sound, exceptional speech understanding and the best sense of where sounds are coming from." The company said that the hearing aid's advantages lie in both quiet and speech-only situations, as well as times when surrounding sounds are loud and the aid optimizes audibility of speaking voices.

The original ReSound LiNX launched with a unique 2.4 GHz protocol as well, developed in careful conjunction with Apple as a way to create a specific link between the hearing aid and iPhone devices. This technology enabled the first LiNX -- and now the new LiNX 3D -- to support a smarter system that could turn off and on quickly to save battery life, as well as geofencing abilities to intelligently detect where a user is and adapt to the corresponding new environment change with no intervention from the user.

When connected to the new apps on iPhone and Apple Watch, users will be able to access custom control features for the hearing aid, built-in guidance steps to understand the hardware and software, and coaching assistance to get the most out of the system. When compared to competitors, the company said that the ReSound LiNX 3D and companion app are up to 50 percent better at identifying speech across various environments, enable users to hear up to 80 percent more of the sounds around them, and enable users to understand up to 40 percent more speech in noise.

GN Hearing will launch the ReSound LiNX 3D, as well as a hearing aid with similar features under its sister brand Beltone, around the world later in 2017. No more information was given in today's announcement, but the company encouraged anyone interested to keep track of announcements surrounding the ReSound LiNX 3D by visiting its website.

Signs of Facebook's silent testing of new features for its mobile app appear to be continuing apace, after some users noticed a rocket ship-shaped icon appearing at the bottom of their news feed.

The icon has been appearing from time to time at the bottom of the iOS app's main news feed icon and displays a different type of feed made up of posts, articles, photos, and videos from sources users haven't followed, like Facebook Pages or posts from news media organizations, for example.

A lot of the content that shows up in the rocket feed appears to be sourced locally, suggesting the feature may rely on live location information. Some posts have been spotted that are directly relevant to users' interests, such as content from pages that are similar to those users have liked, so it's possible the content stream is being selectively weighted by algorithms based on likes, friends, and groups.

It's unclear if the feature will ever get an official rollout to all mobile users – Facebook has a habit of trialing features just to see if they prove popular among a select few. Last month, the company began testing "Facebook Stories", a Snapchat feature clone that lets users post a time-limited photo or video at the top of the Facebook app.

SoundCloud has added support for Google Chromecast in the latest update to its iOS app, almost two years after support for the feature arrived on the Android version.

After updating the SoundCloud app, users of the music streaming service will also be able to cast songs from SoundCloud Go+, the company's paid subscription plan, to their TV and speakers.

Now users with a SoundCloud Go+ subscription can stream their complete catalog through Google Chromecast. We also enabled shared playback, so multiple users can control what’s playing. Finally, we upgraded both of the mobile apps and the receiver to provide a consistent and streamlined experience.

Whenever a song is played over Chromecast, SoundCloud offers up song and album suggestions for adding to the currently streamed track list.

A SoundCloud Go budget tier costs $4.99 per month, and includes access to over 120 million tracks, offline listening and no ads. SoundCloud+ costs $9.99, and includes access to a wider selection of 150 million songs and excludes previews from the library. Non-paying listeners can still listen to tracks with ads, but can't download songs for offline listening.

The SoundCloud app is a free download for iPhone and iPad available from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple, Amazon, and Google are actively engaged in the bidding war to acquire Toshiba's NAND memory unit, according to a report by Yomiuri Shimbun Daily on Saturday (via Korean Herald).

According to the Japanese newspaper, there are now 10 bidders looking to buy Toshiba's lucrative semiconductor operation, which accounts for 20 percent of the NAND market. Nikkei reported on Friday that U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake and U.S. chipmaker Broadcom offered Toshiba about 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) for the unit. Other bidders include frontrunner and world's largest NAND flash maker, Western Digital, with Apple suppliers Foxconn and TSMC having been named early on as potential suitors.

"The US tech firms -- Apple, Google and Amazon -- have become the next attractive bidders following Western Digital as Toshiba can have stable supply chains (for smartphones or data servers) from them," an industry source told The Korea Herald.

On Thursday, Toshiba shareholders agreed to split off the NAND flash unit and sell it, in order to raise at least $9 billion to cover U.S. nuclear unit charges that threaten the conglomerate's future. Both Apple and Samsung are major clients of the unit, while Google and Amazon want to buy the NAND maker to supply their own data servers, rather than having to rely on chipmakers.

Prices on the flash memory market remain high, while Apple's interest in acquiring the unit has only increased as it continues to boost the storage capacity of its iPhones and iPads. Buying the unit would not only provide Apple with the ability to design and make its own flash memory, but it would also mean Samsung losing its main client. How much Apple's offer amounts to remains unknown, however.