MacRumors

Apple-PayApple Pay is seeing a lukewarm reception in many countries outside of the United States and is making just a "small dent" in the global payments market, according to a new report from Reuters.

In 2015, Apple Pay usage totaled $10.9 billion, most of which came from the United States. That figure is perhaps unsurprising as Apple Pay has been available in the United States since 2014 and only began rolling out to additional countries in 2015. Apple Pay is now available in the United States, the UK, China, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.

Though Apple Pay is in the early stages of adoption outside of the United States, it seems to be struggling to gain a foothold in the countries where it's now available. In China, Apple Pay has to compete with established payment services Alibaba and Tencent, and according to research conducted by Reuters, Chinese users have complained that using Apple Pay is not as seamless as WeChat, Tencent's payment service.

In Britain and Australia, contactless payment cards are in wide use, so iPhone users need to go to the trouble of adding their cards to Apple Pay. Juniper Research analyst Windsor Holden told Reuters that the prevalence of contactless cards makes it more difficult to persuade people to adopt Apple Pay.

"You have over 86 million contactless cards in circulation, you have to persuade Britons to register their cards to the (Apple Pay) service when they can already use them to make a contactless payment," Holden said

Bendigo Bank in Australia says it is experiencing "some unforeseen technical issues" accepting Apple Pay payments at select merchant terminals, something Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey told Reuters was "not representative" of the Apple Pay experience.

Apple Vice President Jennifer Bailey said such experiences were premature and not representative. "Like any set of major technology changes, it takes time," she said. "We want to move as quickly as possible, we push it as quickly as possible."

In addition to a lukewarm reception in the countries where it is available, Apple Pay is seeing a slow global rollout due to the need to negotiate transaction fees with multiple partners. Apple makes approximately 15 cents for every $100 spent in the United States, but has had to negotiate lower fees in some countries. Apple has also faced resistance in locations like Australia, Canada, and the UK because banks in these countries are building their own competing payment products.

Apple Pay hasn't yet caught on globally, but Apple is "working rapidly" to expand Apple Pay to additional locations in Asia and Europe. Apple Pay is expected to debut in Hong Kong in the near future through a partnership with American Express, which will also bring the payments service to Spain later this year. Rumors and leaked documents also point towards negotiations to bring Apple Pay to France, Brazil, and Japan in the not-too-distant future.

In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Bailey said Apple considers a number of factors when deciding where to deploy Apple Pay, including the size of the Apple product market, credit and debit card penetration, and existing contactless payment coverage.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

swift.pngApple yesterday released the first preview build of Swift 3.0, a major update to Apple's open source Swift programming language. Swift 3.0's official release is expected to come in late 2016 after proposed changes are finalized.

The Swift 3.0 preview can be downloaded from the official Swift website. There are versions of Swift 3.0 available for Xcode 7.2, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 15.10.

Swift 3.0 is not source compatible with Swift 2.2 as it introduces source-breaking changes, but going forward, the goal is to make Swift 3.0 source compatible with future Swift language updates. To meet that goal, Swift 3.0 "focuses on getting the basics right for the long term."

Apple will likely show off Swift 3.0 at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, debuting it alongside iOS 10, OS X 10.12, and new versions of tvOS and watchOS.

Update 5/2: Apple tells iMore it did not release a preview of Swift 3.0, it was instead an automated build. The links have been removed.

Apple clarified for iMore that what we thought was a preview release of Swift 3.0 was, in fact, just an automated build. The computer-generated name caused some confusion, but it's meant as a place where outside developers can submit work in preparation for a preview release of Swift 3. There have been no new previews or releases, and the links have been removed. We've likewise updated this story.

Tag: Swift

Thunderbolt Display stock shortages at some Apple retail stores have begun sparking speculation that a refresh is coming in the near future, and with current machines unable to run a 5K display over a single-stream cable, discussion has turned towards other methods Apple could use to introduce a functional 5K display.

Stephen Foskett and Daring Fireball's John Gruber speculate that Apple could potentially introduce a refreshed Thunderbolt Display with a built-in graphics card, which would result in a display able to work with almost any Mac because it would be driven by an internal graphics card rather than the machine it's connected to.

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9to5Mac is floating a similar theory, claiming it's heard rumors Apple is indeed working on a 5120 x 2880 display that has an integrated GPU. Such a display would likely require the purchase of a newer machine with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3, but it would work with Apple's notebook lineup going forward.

A noted analyst doesn't believe Apple will go to the trouble of introducing a display with a built-in GPU, instead releasing a 5K display that will connect with newer Macs over Thunderbolt 3 by taking advantage of both DisplayPort 1.2 streams.

It's been believed Apple would wait to introduce a 5K display until DisplayPort 1.3 support is built into Intel processors as the standard will allow for plug-and-play support for 5K external displays, but by using both of the DisplayPort 1.2 streams, forthcoming machines that include Thunderbolt 3 ports will be able to drive a 5K display using Multi-Stream Transport without the need for an external GPU.

Multi-Stream Transport (MST) would stitch two halves of a display together to make a single seamless display, with each DisplayPort 1.2 connection driving half of the display, a technique Apple previously used in the first 5K iMac. The 5K iMac used the internal equivalent of a dual cable DisplayPort 1.2 MST setup.

Multi-Stream Transport is inferior to the Single-Stream Transport that would be possible with DisplayPort 1.3, but DisplayPort 1.3 support is not built into Skylake or its successor Kaby Lake, meaning it will be at least 18-24 months (the time until Intel's Cannonlake processors launch) before Apple can introduce machines powerful enough to drive a 5K display over a single-stream cable.

With the Thunderbolt Display having gone without an update since July of 2011, another two years is a long time to wait for a refreshed display.

There is no concrete word on when Apple will introduce a new Thunderbolt Display, but given the stock shortages and the rumblings that a successor is in the works, there is a possibility an announcement could be made at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Though the 2017 iPhone is more than a year away from launching, we're already hearing non-stop rumors about the device due to the major design changes Apple is expected to introduce. The latest rumor, coming from IHS analyst Kevin Wang, suggests the 2017 iPhone will include a dual-curve OLED display that covers the left and right edges of the device.

On Chinese social networking site Weibo (via PhoneArena), Wang said Apple will release a device with sloping edges similar to the Vivo XPlay 5 or the Galaxy S7 Edge.

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Kevin Wong's exact words are that after Vivo outed the Xplay 5 with its 5.4" OLED screen that slopes to the sides like on the S7 edge, there will be more manufacturers using this technique, including Apple with next year's iPhone.

Apple is already rumored to be using flexible OLED displays for the 2017 iPhone, which will be necessary for any kind of dramatically curved display. It is not clear from Wang's statement how far the display will extend to the edges of the device and whether it will be a subtle curve for design purposes or a functional wraparound display as Samsung uses in its Galaxy Edge devices. The Galaxy Edge's wraparound display features side buttons and alerts accessible when the phone is face down.

Wang does not offer details on where he is sourcing his information from, but it is presumably coming from the Asian supply chain and Apple's myriad manufacturing partners. Supply chain information can be difficult to interpret at times and Wang does not have a well-known track record, but he has shared some semi-accurate information on the release of the iPhone SE. Earlier this week, Wang said the iPhone 7 will have 32GB as minimum storage tier.

Apple has reportedly secured 5.8-inch OLED displays from Samsung, and a previous analyst prediction has suggested that a display of that size could perhaps be used to wrap around the edges of a 5.5-inch iPhone, speculation that agrees with Wang's prediction.

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Other rumors about the 2017 iPhone, which may be called the "iPhone 8" instead of the traditional "iPhone 7s" because of the changes expected, include an edge-to-edge bezel-free display with built-in Touch ID functionality, no home button, and a glass body.

An edge-to-edge display that extends upwards towards the top and bottom of the device, as has been rumored, does not seem to mesh with rumors of a wraparound display, leaving a lot of questions about the actual display we'll see in the 2017 iPhone. As the 2017 launch date creeps closer, we'll undoubtedly learn more about the device, giving us a clearer picture of the changes Apple is implementing.

Related Forum: iPhone

Apple is expected to wrap up construction on its second campus at the end of 2016, so there are six months of work to go. As the deadline approaches, work is continuing on, as seen in a new campus construction update shared by drone pilot Duncan Sinfield.

Over the course of the last month, Apple has continued adding more massive curved glass windows to the main ring-shaped building. Because the windows are so large, it's taking Apple several months to get them all in place. Additional window shades and solar panels are also going up, and it looks like it'll be a few months more before work on the main building wraps up.


Both the auditorium and the two massive parking garages are nearing completion, and solar panel installation is largely finished on the roof of the parking structures. The fitness center is still being worked on, and the Tantau research buildings are looking more polished.

Parking tunnels also look to be nearly done, and the two major dirt piles on site, which will be used for landscaping, are currently untouched.

Drone pilot Matthew Roberts has also shared a June campus update video, offering a closer look at the progress made on the roof of the main ring-shaped building and a wider view of the parking structures and auditorium. There's also a close look at some new buildings being constructed on Tantau Avenue, which will be used for research and development purposes.


Last month, Apple began taking down the green privacy fence surrounding the entire campus, replacing it with a shorter chain-link fence. The gates are often left open as well, allowing passersby to get a close-up look at the campus and the ongoing construction.

Apple plans to complete work on Apple Campus 2 at the end of 2016, with employees set to start occupying the facility at the beginning of 2017.

KFCKFC has announced that it now accepts Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and other mobile payment options at some of its U.S. restaurants, with nationwide adoption to be completed by the end of the summer.

"Ease of use and functionality were our first priorities," said Chris Caldwell, KFC U.S. Chief Information Officer. "When we factored in consumer concerns about security and privacy, we identified Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay as the best options for our guests."

In October 2015, Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey confirmed that KFC, Chili's, and Starbucks would launch Apple Pay in 2016.

Apple Pay is also supported at Canadian banks BMO, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust starting today. Apple is "working rapidly" to expand the service to additional regions, including Hong Kong and Spain, and possibly France, Brazil, Japan, and elsewhere, in partnership with American Express and MasterCard among others.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: KFC

wwdc2016Apple today invited members of the press to attend the keynote event for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, set to take place from June 13 to June 17. The keynote will be held on June 13 at 10:00 a.m., the standard start time for Apple's media events.

It will take place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, a venue able to hold more attendees than Moscone West, where the event has taken place in past years.

Apple is expected to launch new versions of iOS and OS X, along with new versions of tvOS and watchOS, its two newest operating systems. There's also a possibility we could see the debut of new hardware products, and much of the Mac line is in need of an update.

iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 will be the two major announcements at the event. iOS 10 is believed to include a redesigned Apple Music app, a Siri SDK for developers, and Apple Pay support for web browsers, allowing Apple Pay to be used to make purchases via Safari much like PayPal. OS X 10.12 is expected to bring Siri integration to the Mac for the first time, with a dedicated Siri button available through the menu bar and dock.

In past years, Apple has made a live stream of its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote available on the web and through the Apple TV, and it is likely to do so again this year. MacRumors will also provide live coverage of the event both through MacRumors.com and through our MacRumorsLive Twitter account.

Related Roundup: WWDC 2025

iphone6s-scene2Following a recent report claiming the iPhone 7 will ship with at least 32GB base storage, with Apple dropping the infamous 16GB model, research firm TrendForce adds that the mid-tier 64GB storage option may be replaced with 128GB alongside a new 256GB version at the high end of the lineup.

Apple is likely to make changes to the storage options for iPhone 7. The 64GB version, which has been the most popular option in previous generations, may be discontinued and replaced by the 128GB version, though this decision has yet to be finalized. On the other hand, Apple is certain to raise the maximum storage option to 256GB so that iPhone 7 will have the highest NAND Flash density of the entire series.

The new storage options would henceforth be 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB, although the report does not make it entirely clear if the 256GB version will be exclusive to the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus or also available for the 4.7-inch model. The current storage options for both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus include 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB.

Earlier this year, Chinese website MyDrivers said the iPhone 7 Plus may exclusively feature 256GB storage and a 12.7 percent larger 3,100 mAh battery. In terms of credibility, the website did accurately report on the iPhone SE's 1,624 mAh battery and 2GB of RAM before Apple launched the 4-inch smartphone.

The remainder of the report corroborates other well-known rumors, including a dual-lens camera and 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM being exclusive to the 5.5-inch model. The 4.7-inch model is expected to retain a single-lens camera and 2GB of RAM. No major display upgrades are expected until Apple switches to OLED in 2017.

Recent rumors suggest the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will share a design similar to the iPhone 6s series, sans a 3.5mm headphone jack, with more significant changes coming to the 2017 iPhone. This year's new features could include a faster A10 chip, waterproofing, repositioned antenna bands, faster LTE and Wi-Fi chips, and more.

Update: TrendForce has clarified for MacRumors that the 256 GB high-end capacity is only confirmed for the iPhone 7 Plus model. The storage capacity for the smaller iPhone 7 is yet to be determined.

Related Forum: iPhone

Apple continues to defend its proposed data center in Galway County, Ireland, during an oral hearing brought together from an appeal by independent planning body An Bord Pleanála. This time, those against the company's site in Derrydonnell Forest argued that it is planning to build in a location that's too close to a local nuclear power plant (via Business Insider).

Oscar Gonzalez, who works in data center site selection at Apple, defended the company's west coast of Ireland location, stating that it meets Apple's goal of being at least 320km from the nearest nuclear facility. According to a few witnesses present at the oral hearing, however, the Derrydonnell Forest location was so desired by Apple that the company manufactured the arbitrary 320km rule of thumb to eliminate areas of Ireland that are specially designated for data center construction.

Apple Data Center

"Brenda McGuane and Others" suggest that Apple adopted the 320km radius to eliminate more suitable plots of land in other parts of Ireland. They say: "the selection of sites greater than 320km from nuclear facilities is not a criteria adopted by Apple for its data centres in the US. The criteria has not been adopted by other international corporations."

The fact that the likes of Google and Microsoft have built data centres near Dublin shows that other large tech companies are willing to put their server farms less than 320km away from UK nuclear sites.

The nearest nuclear facility to the proposed site - called Wylfa Nuclear Power Station - is located in Wales and is approximately 280km away, but it's been closed down for a few years, so its use as a violation of Apple's own rules didn't hold much water during the oral hearings. The second farthest site that is currently operating, located in Sellafield in the United Kingdom, is about 370km from Derrydonnel Forest.

Gonzalez said that Apple first and foremost attempts to "minimize the risk" of site selection, referring to the 320km rule, but when it has to accept compromises it does so "reluctantly." Engineer Allan Daly pointed out that Apple's ruleset for picking and choosing data center locations remains largely nebulous on a plot-by-plot basis, suggesting the company "picks and chooses" when it decides to meet them. "The distances to nuclear facilities, military installation and fuel distribution centers are arbitrary, and can be increased or decreased," Daly wrote.

In response, Gonzalez stuck to Apple's reluctant compromise point, explaining that as time passes, potential data center sites are evaluated by different rules and perspective as Apple's "huge growth in demand" changes the need for such sites. Other protestors of the Derrydonnel Forest location have attempted to use its negative impact on the population of local bats and badgers, and poor water maintenance that could flood a local golf course, as their main points of contention against Apple.

Google has updated its eponymous voice-recognition search app with speed improvements the company claims will save users "a combined 6.5 million hours" this year.

"Each time you open the app or do a search, everything will load just a bit quicker," said Google VP Tamar Yehoshua in a blog post.

Google Search iOSNot only should the app feel faster overall, says Yehoshua, news articles that show up in searches should load almost immediately, thanks to wider adoption of the company's open source Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project.

Introduced in February, the project aimed to make pages using AMP load four times as fast and use 10 times less data than traditional web pages. AMP-optimized stories are indicated by a lightning bolt icon and show up in the top stories section of search results.

In addition, the app now includes video highlights in select Google Now cards for NBA and NHL games.

Google for iOS is a free download on the App Store for iPad and iPhone. [Direct Link]

Apple-BondsApple is set to issue bonds in Taiwan with the aim of raising $1 billion, according to Reuters.

The news signals the company's first attempt to sell bonds on the island where many of its supply chain partners operate, such as iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, contract chipmaker TSM, and camera lens producer Largan Precision.

The move would place Apple alongside a number of big global names that have already sold billions of dollars on Taiwan's debt market. In December, for example, Intel sold $915 million of 30-year bonds with yields of 4.7 percent. Sales of bonds by global brewer Anheuser Busch InBev with the same maturity shortly followed to the tune of $1.47 billion, yielding 4.9 percent for the company.

"Taiwan insurance companies don't have enough good (quality) fixed-income investment targets," an unnamed securities house official told Reuters. "But their funds continue to grow because in this low rate macro-environment, consumers prefer to buy financial products offered by insurance companies rather than park money in a bank deposit."

Apple appears ready to take advantage of the current liquidity of Taiwan's flush bond market, where long-term buyers of debt continue to seek creditworthy names in a race for higher yields. Cash-rich investors have reportedly made the island a haven for debt financing, and Apple's planned entrance into the market is likely to help the company secure solid partnership with its suppliers.

The U.S. dollar bonds will have a tenor of 30 years and be redeemable after the second year, sources told Reuters. Apple declined to comment, while the OTC exchange said it wasn't aware of any plan by Apple to issue bonds. However, bond issuers only need three days or less to notify the exchange before being listed.

Update: Apple will also be issuing bonds in Australia, and possibly Japan and Singapore, as part of broader plans to raise up to $4 billion in debt in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tag: Taiwan

BMO, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust, which make up three of the five largest banks in Canada, support Apple Pay starting today.

Apple-Pay-BMO-TD-Scotiabank-new
Apple Pay currently works with MasterCard and Interac at BMO, Visa and Interac at TD Canada Trust, and Visa, American Express, and Interac at Scotiabank. Eligible cards can be scanned or added manually to Apple Pay by tapping the "Add Credit or Debit Card" option in the Wallet app on iOS 8.1 or later.

All three banks are now listed as participating issuers on the Apple Pay website in Canada. Meanwhile, ATB Financial and Canadian Tire Bank have added support for in-app purchases with Apple Pay on compatible iPhone and iPad models, expanding upon their existing support for in-store payments.

Apple Pay is now available at all of Canada's "Big Five" banks, which collectively cover more than 90 percent of Canadian banking customers, after CIBC and RBC began supporting the iPhone-based mobile payments service three weeks ago. The banks serve over 50 million customers combined worldwide.

Scotiabank direct banking subsidiary Tangerine will also support Apple Pay in the near future, according to its Twitter account.

The next largest Canadian banks and credit unions that would be suitable Apple Pay candidates in the future include Desjardins and National Bank of Canada, the two largest financial institutions in Québec, along with Vancity and Meridian. None have been listed as "coming soon" on the Apple Canada website.

Apple-Pay-accepted copyApple Pay can be used virtually anywhere contactless payments are already accepted in Canada, including at Apple Stores, Canadian Tire, Chapters, Coles, Indigo, London Drugs, Mark's, McDonald's, On The Go, Petro-Canada, Pizza Hut, Staples, Tim Hortons, and hundreds of other merchants nationwide.

Apple Pay support is also coming soon to Air Canada, Aldo, Domino's, Pizza Pizza, Zulily, and the TTC transit system in Toronto. Additionally, the payments service can be used in apps such as Apple, Delta, Etsy, Fancy, Groupon, Kickstarter, Priceline, Starbucks, Ticketmaster, Uber, and Zara starting in June.

Apple Pay is compatible with iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone SE, in addition to the Apple Watch when paired with an iPhone 5 or later, for in-store payments, while the iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, and iPad mini 3 support Apple Pay for in-app purchases only.

Apple Pay has been available for non-bank-issued American Express cardholders in Canada since last November.

Apple Pay launched in the U.S. in October 2014 and expanded to the U.K. in July 2015. The service is also available in Australia, China, and Singapore. Apple is "working rapidly" to expand Apple Pay to additional regions, including Hong Kong and Spain and possibly France, Brazil, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia and Europe.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Last month, Google announced plans for its upcoming Amazon Echo rival, Google Home, a Wi-Fi enabled personal assistant that enables people to ask Google search queries, manage everyday tasks, enjoy music and entertainment, and more using hands-free "OK Google" voice commands.

Yesterday, a few more details emerged about Google Home, which will potentially go directly up against the smart device Apple is rumored to be working on.

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According to technology news site The Information, Google Home will share many of the hardware components of the company's popular internet-connected TV streaming device, Chromecast, relying on the same dual-core ARM-based microprocessor, 4GB of RAM, and a dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi chip.

The similarities are apparently so close between the two devices because the same team responsible for the Chromecast headed up development of the Google Home. As a result, it is being described as "dressed-up version" of the company's existing device, with the addition of a microphone, speaker, plastic top with LED lights, and a fabric or metal bottom. 

The Home is also expected to run the same Linux-based OS used on the Chromecast, though Google has discussed powering future versions with its Android mobile platform. 

The upshot of all this is that the device could be extremely inexpensive to produce, given that the Chromecast currently sells at $35. That would mean Google being able to significantly undercut the $179 Amazon Echo. Notably, the Chromecast is also one of Google's most successful hardware products, selling 3 million units in the past three years.

Apple's rumored smart home product is a Siri-based device that would include a speaker and microphone that could be used for features like listening to music, getting news headlines, and more. Apple is also planning to introduce an enhanced version of Siri, which the company will open up to outside developers to integrate with their own apps and services.

Apple has reportedly been working on its rival device since before the Amazon Echo debuted in November 2014. Google Home will be available later this year, but it is not known when Apple will be ready to debut its home accessory or how it will fit into the company's existing product lineup.

But given Apple's tendency to place its hardware products at premium price points, consumers are unlikely to see a device as inexpensive as Google appears to be readying for the home.

At Recode's Code Conference today, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was asked why the online retailer does not sell either the Apple TV or Google Chromecast. Bezos reiterated that Amazon chooses not to sell video streaming devices that do not include Prime Video capability and that the company wants "acceptable business terms" before bringing the the app to devices.

Apple-TV-Amazon-Prime-Video

We sell Roku, we sell Xbox, we sell PlayStation. We're happy to sell competitive products on Amazon and we do it all day. We sell Nest thermostats. When we sell those devices, we want our Prime Video player to be on the device and we want it to be on the device with acceptable business terms. We can always get the player on the device, the question is whether you can get it on with acceptable business terms. And if you can't, we don't want to sell it to our customers because they're going to be buying it thinking you can watch Prime Video and then they're going to be disappointed and then they're going to return it.

When pressed by The Verge's Nilay Patel on whether "acceptable business terms" meant paying Apple's 30 percent cut on in-app purchases and subscriptions, Bezos declined to answer, only stating that he wanted to keep private business discussions private.

Amazon ceased selling the Apple TV and Google Chromecast last October, saying that it was important for Prime Video to interact with streaming devices it sells to avoid customer confusion. In November, Amazon confirmed to engineer Dan Bostonweeks that a Prime Video app was in development, with the company saying that it hoped to launch the app by the end of 2015.


While the app didn't launch for Apple TV, Amazon did debut a standalone Prime Video streaming service for $8.99 a month, allowing users to subscribe to the service without signing up for the annual $99 Amazon Prime bundle, which includes free shipping from the company's retail store, unlimited streaming music and more.

Amazon Prime Video for iOS is available in the App Store for free and accessible by Amazon Prime members. The service is also available on Android, Fire OS, Amazon Fire TV, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, the web and select TVs and Blu-ray players from LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Vizio.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

facebook-messenger-logoFacebook is planning to introduce an optional end-to-end encryption mode for its Facebook Messenger chat platform, currently used by more than 900 million people, reports The Guardian.

Citing sources "close to the project," The Guardian says the encryption will be an opt-in feature because turning it on will impact some of the new machine learning features being built into the Messenger app like chat bots. Google's upcoming "Allo" messaging app also offers an opt-in end-to-end encryption option it calls "incognito mode."

Many major technology companies have taken a stronger stance on privacy, embracing end-to-end encryption following Apple's standoff with the FBI. Earlier this year, the FBI demanded Apple unlock the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook by bypassing Apple's own passcode security features.

Apple refused, and the FBI eventually found an alternate way to access the iPhone, but the dispute has scared technology companies into bolstering security. Dozens of major technology companies supported Apple during its fight with the FBI, all of whom were concerned about the precedent the FBI's demand could set.

Popular Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp enabled full end-to-end encryption in April, and in March, Swiss software developer Proton Technologies released ProtonMail, an email app offering end-to-end encryption. Apple is also rumored to be working on enhanced security measures for its software and hardware, and apps like Telegram Messenger have grown in popularity.

It is not clear exactly when Facebook might introduce new encryption options for Messenger, but the feature is said to be planned "in the coming months." Facebook declined to comment on the rumor, saying it does not respond to rumor and speculation.

Photos have leaked depicting alleged components destined for the rumored redesigned MacBook Pro, giving us a look at the thin body of the device, the space where a rumored OLED touch panel will be positioned, and its possible ports.

Shared by Cult of Mac, the photos came from an anonymous source who claimed to work for Apple's manufacturing partner in China.

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The images feature the body of what appears to be a MacBook Pro, which, based on size, seems to be the 13-inch model. The trackpad and the keys have not yet been put in place, but noticeably absent is a function row at the top of the keyboard, which rumors say will be replaced with an OLED touch panel.

Size wise, the MacBook model in the photos appears to be slightly thinner than existing MacBook Pros, and in pictures of the sides of the device, a total of four USB-C ports are available, with two on the left side and two on the right side. A headphone jack is also included, as are thin speaker grilles on either side of the keyboard.

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Rumors have suggested Apple is working on completely revamped 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models with a thinner and lighter form factor and a dedicated OLED display touch bar that replaces physical function keys. A dedicated Touch ID button is expected to be built into the bar, as is support for USB-C and Thunderbolt 3.

According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new MacBook Pros will feature the "most significant upgrade ever undertaken by Apple," with the machines set to be released during the fourth quarter of 2016. Many were hoping for a WWDC launch, which early rumors hinted at, but if Kuo's information is accurate, we will need to wait until the fall months to see the launch of the new devices.

Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Samsung today announced that mass production has begun on a new NVMe PCIe solid state drive in a ball grid array package, the first of its kind to be available in large quantities. The SSD, called the PM971-NVMe, is tiny, merging all SSD components into a package that's smaller than a standard U.S. postage stamp.

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Designed for next-generation PCs and ultra-slim notebooks, the PM971-NVMe measures in at 20mm x 16mm x 1.5mm and weighs approximately a gram. Its volume is about a hundredth of a 2.5-inch SSD or HDD, and it offers performance able to surpass a SATA 6Gb/s interface with sequential read/write speeds of up to 1500MB/s and 900MB/s, respectively.

According to Samsung, it takes 3 seconds to transfer a 5GB-equivalent full-HD movie and is up to 1500 times faster than a standard hard drive when it comes to random read/write input output operations per second (190K and 150K, respectively). Samsung plans to offer the SSD in 128, 256, and 512GB configurations.

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"Samsung's new BGA NVMe SSD triples the performance of a typical SATA SSD, in the smallest form factor available, with storage capacity reaching up to 512GB," said Jung-bae Lee, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering Team, Samsung Electronics. "The introduction of this small-scale SSD will help global PC companies to make timely launches of slimmer, more stylish computing devices, while offering consumers a more satisfactory computing environment."

Apple has used Samsung SSDs in its Mac machines in the past, and it stands to reason that the company could adopt Samsung's newest technology in the future. There's no guarantee that will happen, but Apple often likes to include cutting-edge technology in its products.

Apple has been using a faster NVM Express interface for the SSDs of its most recent machines, starting with the 12-inch Retina MacBook. Intel is also developing next-generation 3D Xpoint SSD technology that's set to launch in 2016 in its forthcoming Optane solid state drives, another hardware option that may be of interest to Apple.

Tag: Samsung

The Photos app for iOS allows users to zoom into images using pinch gestures, but the zooming capabilities are limited and don't let users to zoom all the way in to a photo. There is, however, a bug in iOS that allows zooming beyond the current limit, shared this morning by iDownloadBlog.

In the iOS Photos app, opening a photo and then using the "Edit" feature and the "Crop" tool to rotate the photo by 90 degrees appears to remove the zooming limit. After rotating the photo sideways, a second edit can be done to rotate it back to the correct angle, leaving the bug intact and allowing for further zooming.

ioszoomcapabilities

Max normal zoom in Photos on left, extra zoom through Photos bug on right

Unlimited zooming is only available on a photo that's been rotated through the Crop tool, and exiting the Photos app or switching over to another image resets the photo so the zoom bug no longer works. A video demonstration is below.


Zooming in beyond the current thresholds in the Photos app is of little practical use in most cases, because the image becomes extremely pixellated, but it could be useful to people who want to zoom into a specific area of an photo just a bit further.

The zooming bug works on iPads and iPhones running iOS 9.3.2 and the iOS 9.3.3 beta. It is not clear when it will be fixed as it's likely a bug that's not a main priority.