MacRumors

The latest data from research firm Strategy Analytics reveals that Apple Watch sales totaled an estimated 2.2 million in the first quarter.

Apple Watch remains the most popular smartwatch, but its market share declined to 52.4-percent compared to 63-percent in the previous quarter.

Strategy Analytics cites increasing competition from Android Wear rivals such as LG and Motorola as one reason for the Apple Watch ceding market share:

"We estimate Apple Watch shipped 2.2 million units and captured 52 percent smartwatch marketshare worldwide in Q1 2016, dipping from 63 percent share in Q4 2015," said Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics. "Samsung shipped 0.6 million smartwatches, capturing 14 percent marketshare worldwide for second position. Apple Watch and Samsung Gear models are expanding fast across dozens of countries, but competition from LG, Motorola and others is ramping up fast."

Nevertheless, Apple still maintains a comfortable lead in the smartwatch market, with its wrist-worn sales outpacing all other competitors combined. Samsung trailed in second place with only 600,000 shipments, for instance, while all other vendors shipped a combined 1.4 million units in the quarter.

Global smartwatch shipments grew 223-percent annually to reach 4.2 million units in the first quarter of 2016, up from 1.3 million in the year-ago quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Growth was driven by demand for Apple, Android Wear, and Tizen models across North America, Western Europe, and Asia.

Apple does not disclose Watch sales in its quarterly earning results, instead grouping the device under its Other Products category alongside iPods, Apple TVs, Beats Electronics, and accessories. Strategy Analytics estimates, however, place total Apple Watch sales at nearly 16 million since its April 2015 launch.

Strategy Analytics estimated that Apple Watch sales totaled 4 million during its launch quarter, allowing it to capture an impressive 75.5-percent market share, followed by estimated sales of 4.5 million in the third quarter. By the fourth quarter, encompassing the busy holiday shopping season, the firm said Apple Watch market share had dropped to 63-percent based on 5.1 million sales.

On April 24, the Apple Watch celebrated its one-year anniversary in the U.S. and other first wave launch countries. Many consumers are now anxiously anticipating the Apple Watch 2, which is expected to debut in the second half of 2016 and could feature a FaceTime camera, expanded Wi-Fi abilities, and cellular connectivity. New bands, finishes, and models are always a possibility as well.

Apple's new CareKit iOS framework goes live today, allowing app developers to create integrated software that helps patients and doctors to better track and manage medical conditions.

The open source platform was announced last month and aims to make it easer for developers to build health apps by offering a number of integrations, such as monitoring of medical symptoms, sending images of an injury, and keeping tabs on medication schedules. CareKit also offers two-way benefits, since it not only helps doctors monitor patients but also allows patients to observe their progress over time.

CareKit is made up of series of interactive modules. The Care Card can be configured to manage wellness tasks such as medication scheduling and exercise, while the Progress Card includes a Symptom and Measurement tracker for logging physical metrics like weight and heart-rate (with the potential for Apple Watch integration). The Connect module meanwhile lets users share their health data with medical professionals and family members, and can be viewed in tandem with Progress Card data in the Insight Dashboard module.

TechCrunch reports that the launch is limited to support for four iPhone apps at present: Glow Nurture fertility tracker, Glow Baby maternity app, diabetes monitor One Drop, and depression medication tracker Start. CareKit is compatible with existing healthcare record systems such as Epic and should be available on GitHub later today.

Apple's other open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes. The framework has led to some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients.

Apple today updated its Apple Pay website in Australia to note that Apple Pay now supports credit and debit cards from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (aka ANZ).

The ANZ website has also been updated with a new Apple Pay webpage and a report from Reuters confirms the partnership. ANZ card holders in Australia are able to add their cards to Apple Pay, which has been confirmed by a MacRumors reader.

According to the ANZ website, many Visa and American Express cards are supported, including the ANZ Rewards Platinum Card, the ANZ Access Advantage with Visa Debit, and the ANZ Business Advantage wth Visa Debit, but MasterCard, ANZ Access, and ANZ Corporate cards are not supported.

Prior to today, Apple Pay was only available in Australia through a partnership with American Express, limiting it to American Express cardholders. Apple Pay has been slow to roll out in the country as rumors have suggested Apple has had trouble negotiating fees with banks. Apple Pay also has to compete with the New Payments Platform being pushed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the country's central banking authority.

ANZ is one of the four major banks in Australia alongside Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Westpac (WBC), and National Australia Bank (NAB). According to Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey, Apple is still in talks with the remaining three banks about further expansion of Apple Pay in the country.

Apple Pay is available in the United States, the UK, China, Australia, Canada, and Singapore, with Apple Pay support being limited to American Express users in the latter two countries. Apple Pay will soon be expanding to Hong Kong and Spain under the American Express partnership, and in the near future, Apple will be introducing Apple Pay support for additional banks and credit cards in Singapore.

During yesterday's Q2 2016 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay is growing at a "tremendous rate" with transaction volume up 5X compared to a year ago. Apple Pay is gaining one million new users per week and is available at more than 10 million locations worldwide.

(Thanks, David!)

Schematics featuring the dual-camera 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus or "Pro" that's set to launch in the fall of 2016 have been published in the June issue of Japanese magazine MacFan, reiterating many of the design details that have been previously rumored for the device.

Japanese site Mac Otakara has shared images taken from MacFan, which seemingly confirm rumors that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will use largely the same design as the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

The schematic focuses solely on the 5.5-inch model, which MacFan says will measure in at 158.22mm x 77.94mm x 7.3mm, identical to the dimensions of the iPhone 6s Plus.

While this agrees with a previous Mac Otakara rumor suggesting the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will not be significantly thinner, it does disagree with other rumors (including one from Ming-Chi Kuo) that have pointed towards a thinner chassis that approaches the thinness of the 6.1mm iPod touch. While it is not yet clear which design rumor will prevail, the most recent rumors are converging around a thicker body.

Also depicted in the schematic is the dual camera setup that's rumored for the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, a Smart Connector, and the absence of a headphone jack. Apple is planning to remove the headphone jack in its 2016 devices, with headphones instead connecting via Lightning or Bluetooth. Though some rumors have suggested the iPhone 7 will include stereo speakers, the design drawing features a single speaker. No other significant details are included in the MacFan drawing.

In the past, MacFan has offered up accurate information about Apple's devices, sharing design details of the iPhone 6/6 Plus and 12.9-inch iPad Pro ahead of launch. While largely accurate because its schematics often focus on previously available rumors, MacFan does not always provide a reliable picture of exact dimensions, predicting a 12.2-inch size for the iPad Pro and a 6.7mm thickness for the iPhone 6 Plus, so some of the detail on thickness could be inaccurate.

Apple is expected to debut the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in the fall of 2016.

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan update to developers and public beta testers, one week after releasing the second OS X 10.11.5 beta and a month after releasing OS X 10.11.4, the fourth update to the OS X El Capitan operating system. OS X 10.11.5 has been in testing since April 6.

OS X 10.11.5 beta 3 has a build number of 15F28b and can be downloaded through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Apple Developer Center (for developers).

OS X 10.11.5, like prior OS X El Capitan updates, appears to focus on security enhancements, performance improvements, and bug fixes to address issues that have popped up since the release of OS X 10.11.4. No obvious outward-facing changes were discovered in the first two OS X 10.11.5 betas, but we'll update this post if any new features are found in the third beta.

Apple today released the third beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3.2 update to public beta testers, one day after seeding the third iOS 9.3.2 beta to developers. iOS 9.3.2 comes more than a month after the release of iOS 9.3, a major update that introduced Night Shift mode and other new features. iOS 9.3.2 has been in testing since April 6.

Beta testers who are taking part in Apple's best testing program will receive the iOS 9.3.2 update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on their iOS device.

Those who would like to participate in Apple's beta testing program can sign up through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and OS X betas.

As a minor 9.x.x update, iOS 9.3.2 appears to focus on performance improvements and under-the-hood bug fixes to address issues discovered following the release of iOS 9.3. We don't know all of the fixes that will be included in the update, but a significant Game Center bug appears to have been fixed.

iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 also re-introduced a much desired feature -- the ability to use Low Power Mode and Night Shift simultaneously for power saving features combined with blue light reduction.

No other outward-facing changes or immediately apparent bug fixes have been discovered in the first three developer betas.

The latest data from research firm IDC reveals that Apple's smartphone market share dropped to 15.3 percent in the March quarter as the worldwide smartphone market fell nearly flat during the first three months of 2016.

Apple yesterday reported iPhone sales of 51.2 million during the three-month period ending March 26, compared to 61.2 million units and 18.3 percent market share in the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, overall smartphone shipments totaled 334.9 million during the quarter, a year-over-year increase of only 500,000 units.

Despite the plethora of new features found on the newer "S" models, current iPhone 6/6 Plus owners may feel that a 6S upgrade may not be warranted at the moment. Apple also announced the new iPhone SE, which looks to challenge similarly priced Android options in numerous emerging markets where Apple has traditionally been seen as too expensive.

Samsung continued to lead the market with 81.9 million smartphones shipped for 24.5 percent market share, down only slightly from 24.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo rounded off the top five smartphone makers in the quarter as Chinese vendors continue to churn the top of the charts.

Huawei, which manufactures Google's popular Android-based Nexus 6P smartphone, shipped 27.5 million handsets during the quarter for 8.2 percent market share as it attempts to compete with Apple and Samsung in the U.S. market and other regions beyond China. Its market share was 5.2 percent one year ago.

OPPO and Vivo, meanwhile, pushed out Lenovo and Xiaomi respectively for the fourth and fifth spots on the top smartphone vendors list.