MacRumors

In a new interview with Wired, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin spoke freely on his job of being hired to pen the new Steve Jobs movie and all of the issues he had to face in writing about a person he didn't know much about. Sorkin's initial fear of tackling the film -- hesitant to use the term "biopic" -- was in adapting Walter Isaacson's comprehensive biography of Jobs into a traditional, three act structure, which he wasn't entirely comfortable with.

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When you’re doing a biopic, it’s very hard to shake the cradle-to-grave structure that audiences are so familiar with. People are going to come into the theater knowing that first we’re going to see a little boy with his father, and he’s looking into the window of the electronics store, and then we’re going to hit these famous signposts along the way in Steve Jobs’ life. Also, I’m not really a screenwriter; I’m a playwright who pretends to be a screenwriter. I’m most comfortable writing in claustrophobic pieces of geography and periods of time.

It was then that Sorkin emailed producer Scott Rudin, and pitched him the idea of taking some factual liberties with three of Jobs' biggest product launches, and identifying "five or six conflicts in Steve’s life and have those conflicts play themselves out in these scenes backstage—in places where they didn’t take place.” Sorkin also hopes that the fans who are pre-judging the movie give it a chance and see that it won't be "one big champagne toast to Steve Jobs."

The screenwriter decided to use Jobs' daughter Lisa as one of the doors into the former Apple CEO's life, finding his initial refusal to accept paternity of his daughter hard to get past, but noting its integral quality to the backbone of the movie. Wired also asked Sorkin about his apparent growing reputation in Hollywood as the "go-to guy for the binary system," thanks to his work on another technology-inspired true-life story The Social Network.

This isn’t an origin story or an invention story. It’s not about how the Mac was invented. And The Social Network wasn’t about the technology that went into creating Facebook. Nonetheless, I knew that there was going to be no way I could write this movie without a lot of tutors. There are lines that I wrote in the movie that I don’t understand.

Ultimately, as the movie grows closer to release, Sorkin knows that Steve Jobs may be a divisive experience for a lot of fans of Apple.

There are going to be people who say we were rough on him, and there are going to be people who say we weren’t rough enough on him. But I think we made a good movie, and I think that if you asked 10 writers to write 10 movies about Steve Jobs, you’d get 10 different movies that wouldn’t resemble one another.

There have been a handful of stories in the news about the soon-to-be-released film, including some new behind-the-scenes footage and cast interviews, a public dispute between Sorkin and Apple CEO Tim Cook, and even the first reactions to the film as it made its debut at film festivals across the country.

The full Wired interview goes more in-depth with Sorkin, touching on topics like the film's casting drama behind the scenes and even last year's Sony hack and the repercussions it had for Steve Jobs and its cast and crew.

james_bellApple today announced that former Boeing chief financial officer and corporate president James Bell has joined Apple's board of directors. Calling himself an "avid user of Apple products" with "tremendous respect" for Apple's ability to innovate, Bell brings nearly four decades of experience at Boeing to Apple's board.

“James brings a wealth of global, financial and industrial experience from his successful career at Boeing as corporate president and CFO,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “I am thrilled to welcome him to Apple’s board of directors and I look forward to working with him.”

“We look for outstanding individuals to strengthen our board’s breadth of talent and depth of knowledge, and we are very happy to have identified a fantastic person in James Bell,” said Art Levinson, Apple’s chairman. “I’m confident that he will make many important contributions to Apple.”

Bell becomes the eighth member of Apple's board of directors, joining CEO Tim Cook, board chairman and former Genentech executive Art Levinson, Al Gore, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger, Grameen president and CEO Andrea Jung, former Northrop Grumman chairman and CEO Ron Sugar, and BlackRock co-founder Sue Wagner.

(Photo courtesy of JPMorgan Chase)

Macphun, the company that makes several popular photo editing apps for Mac and iOS, today updated some of its Mac apps with support for OS X El Capitan and the new Photos extension. In OS X El Capitan, third-party photo editing apps from the Mac App Store are able to share their tools with Photos, making it possible to edit images with these apps without ever leaving the Photos app.


Third-party editing capabilities have been available in iOS for quite some time, but are new to El Capitan, which was released to the public yesterday. Four Macphun apps are now able to be used within the Photos app on OS X El Capitan, including Noiseless, Tonality, Intensify, and Snapheal.

Noiseless ($14.99) is an app that removes noise or graininess from photos, while Tonality ($17.99) can be used to turn images black and white. Intensify ($14.99) enhances detail within images by increasing the sharpness, and Snapheal ($9.99) is designed to remove unwanted objects from images. All of the apps are available from the Mac App Store, and customers who already own them will receive the updates for free.

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“So many people were left disappointed by the lack of editing tools in Photos for Mac. As photography enthusiasts ourselves, it made perfect sense to improve Photos’ weaknesses,” commented Alex Tsepko, COO of Macphun. “With Macphun’s photo editing extensions, Photos for Mac will finally offer the tools, features, speed and editing quality that its users were expecting. Many of the tools Macphun will bring to Photos are not present in Aperture, Lightroom, Affinity or Pixelmator. We’re confident this update will be an exciting element of Apple’s eagerly awaited El Capitan.”

To celebrate the launch of the El Capitan updates, Macphun has offered to give away copies of Noiseless, Tonality, Intensify, and Snapheal to three lucky MacRumors readers. Each winner will receive one Mac App Store promo code for each of the four apps.

To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes.

You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter.

The contest will run from today (October 1) at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time on October 5. The winners will be chosen randomly on October 5 and will be contacted by email. The winners have 48 hours to respond before new winners are chosen.

Prior to the release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Eddy Cue sat down with Evening Standard to discuss a handful of topics, including the launch of the new smartphones, the impending end of the first wave of free trial users for Apple Music, and the issue of roaming charges on iPhone users traveling abroad.

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Cue also addressed the topic of the Apple Music Festival, which ended its ten day run this week in London, calling the acts nabbed by Apple for the event "the best of the best" and pointing toward the "global" feel of the UK-based festival that would perhaps be lost in another city like New York or Los Angeles. When asked about his worry for the end of Apple Music's first set of three-month free trial users -- which were charged their $9.99 subscription fee on September 30 if choosing to stick around -- Cue remained expectedly optimistic.

However, with the first batch of free three-month trials expiring this week, is he worried about subscribers drastically falling? “Ultimately, you never know until it happens,” he reasons. “But we’re pleased with the number of people who have tried. Everybody gets fixated on the short term but we’re in this for the long haul.”

Although not allowed to discuss the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus in full detail during the pre-launch interview, Cue still walked Evening Standard through a few of the smartphone's new features, including the revamped version of Siri. Eventually, the Apple executive remarked on the topic of roaming data charges when traveling abroad, an issue rumored to be worked on by the company -- and later denied -- by launching its own mobile virtual network operator service in the United States and Europe.

He taps his phone and makes an offhand comment about “trying not to get roaming charges” while in London which, I note, proves how insanely expensive phone calls and data can be abroad. “It’s sad, it’s another problem,” says Cue. “We’re trying to fix it and we’re making a little bit of progress but you’ve got to convince a lot of people.” It sounds like an impossible task. But that, you would imagine, is where the famous flair will come in.

In the full interview, Cue also talks about new features of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus like Live Photos and 3D Touch, also commenting on the topic of customers wanting to delete stock iOS apps, which CEO Tim Cook himself touched on in September. You can check out the full Evening Standard interview with Eddy Cue here.

With OS X El Capitan available today to the public, some have begun discovering interesting tidbits and changes the new operating system has to offer. Twocanoes (via The Loop) has discovered that Boot Camp has gained the ability to install a Windows partition without a USB drive.

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Image via Twocanoes

Boot Camp comes with a modified interface that places the ISO image selector and partitioning on a single screen, allowing a user to easily select an ISO image and partition their hard drive before installing Windows. Once Boot Camp Assistant completes its tasks, the computer restarts with the normal Windows installation processes.

The change comes from Apple reworking how many partitions Boot Camp Assistant creates, according to Twocanoes.

Boot Camp Assistant doesn’t just create a Boot Camp partition, but also creates an additional partition called “OSXRESERVED” that is FAT32 formatted.  It places this partition right after the recovery partition, and before the Boot Camp partition...

The "OSXRESERVED" partition includes all the installer files, Boot Camp drivers and EFI files required for to create and boot the Windows partition. Once Windows is installed and the user boots back into OS X, the "OSXRESERVED" partition is removed and the space reserved for that partition is added back to the OS X partition.

The only El Capitan-running Macs that support the new USB drive-less Windows installation are the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air, the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro.

Related Forum: OS X El Capitan

Logitech today announced its entry into the home security and monitoring market with the Circle Portable Home Connection Camera, which is debuting under its new Logi brand. The palm-sized Circle is a connected camera that's designed to let users monitor and interact with pets, children, and people at home while away.

Through a companion app, the Logi Circle streams HD video to an iPhone or iPad. It includes a two-way talk and listen feature that works using Wi-Fi, letting it go beyond simple monitoring. According to Logitech, the Circle includes "Scene Intuition" technology that sets it apart from other similar home camera systems. With Scene Intuition, the Logi Circle is able to learn home life patterns to send alerts only when interesting activity occurs to save people from having to sort through hours and hours of footage.

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The app also offers a "Day Briefs" feature, which is an automatically generated 30-second video that sums up the highlights of each day.

"There's a new movement in home monitoring," said Vincent Borel, director of new ventures at Logitech. "The nature of today's connected world is changing the way people interact with cameras in the home. Video surveillance is no longer just about security, it's about staying connected with our homes and loved ones. Planned or unplanned, magic moments happen in our homes every day and we designed the Logi Circle as your destination for capturing and discovering them no matter where you are or what you're doing. Now you can watch your kids playing or catch your dog chasing its tail even if you're running errands, traveling for business or at the office."

The Logi Circle has an unobtrusive design that lets it fit quietly into any room, and it's both portable and rechargeable. It can be moved from room to room and charged as needed with an included charging ring, with each charge providing three hours of streaming or 12 hours of standby time.


The camera inside the Logi Circle offers a 135 degree wide angle view and an 8x zoom ability. A light on the device blinks white when someone is watching through the app, and the light also doubles as a battery indicator, blinking red when the battery is low. The Logi Circle will store 24 hours of video at no cost, and Logitech plans to offer subscription options for longer storage times.

The Logi Circle Home Connection Camera is available for pre-order beginning today from the Logitech website. It's priced at $199.99.

ios_8_iconApple today stopped signing iOS 8.4.1 and the first version of iOS 9 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, meaning users can no longer upgrade or downgrade to those versions of iOS using iTunes. Apple is now signing iOS 9.0.1 and iOS 9.0.2 only.

Users who have upgraded to iOS 9 are now unable to downgrade back to the last version of iOS 8, iOS 8.4.1. Released in August, iOS 8.4.1 was a minor update that included bug fixes and Apple Music improvements. iOS 8.4.1 also broke the iOS 8.4 untethered jailbreak.

iOS 9 was first released to the public on September 16, and there have been two additional updates since that time. iOS 9.0.1 was released on September 23 and iOS 9.0.2 was released on September 30.

After the new fourth-generation Apple TV was announced on September 9, Apple provided developers with Apple TV Dev Kits to be used to create tvOS apps for the device. Teardown site iFixit took apart one of those Apple TV units meant for developers and has now run into some repercussions for doing so.

According to a post on the iFixit blog, the teardown, which unveiled all of the internal components of the new Apple TV, violated Apple's terms and conditions. As a result, iFixit's developer account was banned, leading to the removal of the iFixit app from the App Store.

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iFixit's Apple TV unit was sent directly from Apple with the same restrictions placed on Apple TV units sent to other developers, but iFixit ignored the fine print. "We weighed the risks, blithely tossed those risks over our shoulder, and tore down the Apple TV anyway," reads the blog post.

A few days later, we got an email from Apple informing us that we violated their terms and conditions--and the offending developer account had been banned. Unfortunately, iFixit's app was tied to that same account, so Apple pulled the app as well. Their justification was that we had taken "actions that may hinder the performance or intended use of the App Store, B2B Program, or the Program."

Live and learn.

With the iFixit app removed from the Apple Store, iFixit is instead planning to revamp its mobile website and does not have plans to rewrite the app. The decision to focus on the iFixit mobile site came before the app was pulled by Apple, so it was not a huge loss to iFixit. The site says the app was outdated and riddled with bugs caused by iOS 9.

Following the release of Apple TV Developer Kits, many other developers shared photos, unboxings, and feature tidbits about the device. It is unknown if Apple has also contacted these developers about non-disclosure violations.

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

Six months after the Apple Watch launched, there are dozens if not hundreds of different third-party band options on the market, allowing users to customize their watches with looks beyond what Apple offers. Xistwear has created a line of stretchy stainless steel Apple Watch bands in a range of colors that look great with the Apple Watch and can be purchased for less than Apple's own metal bands, plus it offers matching bracelets.

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The Xistwear Apple Watch has a neutral look that's neither overly feminine or overly masculine, making it suitable for all wearers. Aesthetically, this is a simple but classic-looking link-style band that is understated enough to match well with a range of different outfits. All of the bands are stainless steel, but some have a colored plating. The following color options are available:

38mm - Black, Rose Gold, Silver, Yellow Gold

42mm - Gunmetal, Navy, Silver, Yellow Gold

Bands for the 42mm Apple Watch are 24mm wide, while bands designed for the smaller 38mm Apple Watch are 22mm wide. The 42mm bands are available in Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large, able to fit wrists from 146mm to 210mm.

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38mm bands are available in Extra Small, Small, Medium, and Large, to fit wrists from 130mm to 190mm. I have a wrist that's about 135mm, so I ordered the extra small, and it fits very well. All of the bands are actually elastic stretch bands, allowing them some wiggle room to fit on different-sized wrists. My band is snug on my wrist, but slips on easily and stretches if my wrist swells slightly during the day due to heat or exercise.

➜ Click here to read more...

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)

Apple today released OS X 10.11 El Capitan to the public, making the newest Mac operating system available for free to Mac users around the world. OS X El Capitan went through eight developer betas before the golden master version of the software was released on September 9.

OS X El Capitan is still rolling out to users, but it can be downloaded using the Software Update function in the Mac App Store, and it will run on all Macs capable of running OS X Yosemite. Here is a direct link for the update: OS X El Capitan.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

As an update complementary to OS X Yosemite, as the OS X El Capitan name suggests, the new operating system builds on the features introduced last year. OS X El Capitan focuses on improving user experience and performance.

OS X El Capitan looks like OS X Yosemite, but it includes a new systemwide font, San Francisco, and it introduces a new Split View option for Mission Control, allowing two full-screen apps to be used side-by-side. El Capitan includes an improved Spotlight Search and several new app features. Safari, for example, has gained Pinned Sites and a universal mute button, while Mail has new iOS-style smart suggestions.

Photos in OS X El Capitan supports third-party photo editing extensions from Mac App Store apps, Notes has new features, and Maps includes Transit directions. Under-the-hood improvements in El Capitan also make a number of apps and processes on the Mac faster, and the introduction of Metal makes system-level graphics rendering 40 percent more efficient.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

More information on OS X El Capitan can be found in our El Capitan roundup, which includes details on major features and some little tweaks that were added throughout the beta testing period. Discussion of El Capitan's new features is also taking place in our OS X El Capitan forum, and we encourage all of our readers to join in with questions and new discoveries.

Related Forum: OS X El Capitan

safariiconAhead of the official launch of OS X El Capitan, Apple's newest operating system, Apple today released Safari 9.0 for OS X Yosemite users. According to Apple, today's update is recommended for all people running OS X Yosemite and includes improvements to privacy, compatibility, and security.

The update adds El Capitan-centric features including a new mute audio feature for Safari tabs and additional viewing options for Safari Reader. Pinned Sites, a major Safari addition in OS X El Capitan, is not included.

This update:

- Adds controls to mute audio in Safari tabs
- Adds additional viewing options for Safari Reader
- Improves website AutoFill compatibility

Many OS X Yosemite users will be upgrading to OS X El Capitan in the next few hours, following its official public release. It is not clear when Apple plans to debut the software, but the company has promised that it's coming on September 30.

Tag: Safari
Related Forum: OS X Yosemite

ios_9_iconApple today released iOS 9.0.2, a minor update that introduces bug fixes and performance improvements to iOS 9. The iOS 9.0.2 update comes one week after the release of iOS 9.0.1, the first update to iOS 9, and two weeks after iOS 9 was released to the public on September 16.

iOS 9.0.2 is available immediately to all iOS 9 users as an over-the-air update.

Like iOS 9.0.1, iOS 9.0.2 is a minor update that focuses on introducing some much-needed bug fixes and performance enhancements to Apple's newest operating system.

This update contains bug fixes and improvements including:

- Fixes an issue with the setting to turn on or off app cellular data usage
- Resolves an issue that prevented iMessage activation for some users
- Resolves an issue where an iCloud backup could be interrupted after starting a manual backup
- Fixes an issue where the screen could incorrectly rotate when receiving notifications
- Improves the stability of Podcasts

iOS 9 has been available since September and focuses on proactivity and intelligence with some major updates to Siri and Search. iOS 9 also includes updates to several Apple-branded apps and it includes a split-screen multitasking feature for the iPad.

Today's iOS 9.0.2 update precedes iOS 9.1, which will be the first significant update to iOS 9. iOS 9.1 includes new emoji and an option to disable contact photos in Messages. It also focuses on introducing compatibility for upcoming Apple products like the iPad Pro and the Apple TV.

Update: According to the security notes for iOS 9.0.2, the update fixes a Lock Screen vulnerability that allowed Siri to be used to bypass the lock screen to access photos and contacts on a locked device.

Related Forum: iOS 9

Apple today seeded the third beta of iOS 9.1 to registered developers for testing purposes, three weeks after seeding the first iOS 9.1 beta following its fall "Hey Siri" event and one week after releasing iOS 9.0.1, the first minor update to iOS 9. Apple has also just released iOS 9.0.2, another minor update to iOS.

The new beta of iOS 9.1, build 13B5130b, is available as an over-the-air update and through the Apple Developer Center.

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iOS 9.1 includes new features for the iPad Pro, adding support for accessories like the Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, both of which are deeply integrated into the operating system. It also includes features that will allow the iPhone to interact with the new Apple TV.

iOS 9.1 also includes Unicode 8, adding support for emoji like the taco, burrito, cheese wedge, middle finger, unicorn head, and more, plus a new Messages option in the Settings app, allowing users to disable photos for their contacts.

It is not clear when iOS 9.1 will be released to the public, but it's likely it will come in late October, coinciding with the launch of the new Apple TV.

Update: Apple has also released a third iOS 9.1 beta for public beta testers.

Tag: iOS 9.1
Related Forum: iOS 9

Apple introduced Gatekeeper in 2012, creating it as a method of protection for users against malicious threats by adding various layers of security during installation of Mac apps. The feature is intended to ensure that apps users try to install on their Macs are legitimate and signed by a registered developer, minimizing the threat of malware. But now, a security researcher has discovered a simple method of bypassing Gatekeeper using a binary file already trusted by Apple to attack a user's computer (via Ars Technica).

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Gatekeeper is meant solely to check the initial digital certificate when an app is downloaded on a Mac, ensuring that the program has been signed by an Apple-approved developer or at least comes from the Mac App Store itself before allowing the installation to proceed.

"If the application is valid—so it was signed by a developer ID or was (downloaded) from the Mac App Store—Gatekeeper basically says 'OK, I'm going to let this run,' and then Gatekeeper essentially exits," Patrick Wardle, director of research of security firm Synack, told Ars. "It doesn't monitor what that application is doing. If that application turns around and either loads or executes other content from the same directory... Gatekeeper does not examine those files."

Even if Gatekeeper is enhanced to its highest level of security settings, the new exploit can take advantage of a computer. Once the trusted file makes its way past the security program, it can then execute a handful of other malicious programs attached with the rest of the installation and gains the ability to install malicious software such as password-stealing programs, apps that can capture audio and video from a Mac's camera, and botnet software.

The researcher who discovered the exploit sent news of it to Apple about 60 days ago and "believes they are working on a way to fix the underlying cause or at least lessen the damage it can do to end users." Since then, an Apple spokesperson has confirmed the company is working on a patch for the issue and has asked that the identities of the specific files used in the exploit not be disclosed. Wardle plans to showcase his research on the Gatekeeper exploit at the Virus Bulletin Conference on Thursday in Prague.

iFixit began its teardown of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus after the new smartphones became available last Friday, discovering the specifics of the smaller batteries, Taptic Engine, and 3D Touch display. After a few iPhone fans began extensive water resistance testing over the weekend, iFixit decided to revisit its teardown of the new devices with a renewed focus on components placed by Apple that could point to the company's interest in a more liquid-proof smartphone.

The site closely inspected a strip of glue that acts as a gasket surrounding the entire inside edge of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, accounting in total for a slight 0.3mm increase in width when in comparison to last year's models. Described as "a string of sticky goop," iFixit theorizes that if Apple hadn't placed the gasket there to hold components in, perhaps "it was designed to keep liquids out."

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First, Apple takes this gasket business pretty seriously: they didn’t just run a strip of glue around the existing display like they were caulking a bathtub. Instead, it appears the iPhone’s frame has been subtly reworked to accommodate the new gasket. We noted a slight, but measurable, increase in the width of the lip running along the perimeter of the frame—it’s about 0.3 mm wider than on the iPhone 6, making it just wide enough for that little gasket to land on.

One-third of a millimeter may not seem like much, but given how tight the iPhone’s tolerances are nowadays, the change is big enough to see with the naked eye. And it’s almost certainly enough of a change that other components had to be subtly tweaked to match. Make no mistake, Apple gave this careful thought.

Even the logic boards of the new iPhones appear to be updated to at least partially protect against liquid intrusion, with all cable connectors on the logic board -- "from the battery and display, to the Lightning port and buttons" -- surrounded and reinforced with a small silicone barrier. As iFixit points out, the logic board's various connectors are the most vulnerable to water within the iPhone's body, so the fact that Apple has appeared to safeguard them against liquid damage is definitely notable.

Otherwise, the rest of the internal components of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus -- like the headphone jack, speaker, power, and volume buttons -- didn't showcase any forms of waterproofing by the Cupertino-based company. Today's news follows a few days of water resistance talk about the new iPhones thanks to a handful of video tests created by various YouTubers, along with a new rumor pointing to the "iPhone 7" adopting a fully-waterproof body when it debuts next year.

Tag: iFixit
Related Forum: iPhone

IHS iSuppli has once again taken apart the newest set of iPhones in an attempt to come as close as possible to estimating the actual component cost of the new devices. According to IHS iSuppli's teardown of the iPhone 6s Plus, the bill of materials for a 16 GB version comes to $231.50, with manufacturing costs and other minor items raising the overall price slightly to $236.

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One of the biggest areas of increased cost is related to 3D Touch, which adds about $10 to the overall component cost of the iPhone 6s Plus when combined with Apple's Taptic Engine used to fuel the new feature. It's these improvements that have boosted the new iPhone 6s Plus to cost around $16 more to manufacture than last year's iPhone 6 Plus, according to IHS Technology senior director of cost benchmarking services, Andrew Rassweiler.

“3D Touch and Apple’s Taptic engine are among the more notable feature upgrades found in this latest round of iPhones,” said Rassweiler. “With each generation the company makes measured, incremental technology improvements to its iPhone line, and this time around those changes are increasing Apple’s per-unit material cost.”

Overall, the most expensive aspect of the new iPhone 6s Plus is its display, with the addition of 3D Touch slightly increasing the component cost to $52.50 this year. Other high-cost components include the iPhone's new 12-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front-facing camera that together are estimated to cost $22.50, and the A9 chip at $22.00. IHS also points out the incremental cost differences between each step-up in memory capacity, which sees a small component cost difference when in comparison to Apple's $100 jump between capacities like 16 GB and 64 GB, for example.

“NAND Flash is now so cheap it’s almost irrelevant, but Apple monetizes this difference with consumers, to the tune of $100 for each additional step up in memory capacity,” Rassweiler said. “For example, a 64 GB iPhone now costs Apple about $17 more to make than a 16 GB iPhone, but Apple charges iPhone buyers $100 more for the increased memory. This is part of Apple’s ongoing strategy to improve profits by selling a product mix that is heavier in the higher-end iPhones.”

Overall, IHS iSuppli's teardown concluded that the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus see most of their value additions in the form of overall durability for the new devices. This is thanks to new components like the 7000 Series aluminum case, an upgraded Gorilla Glass 4 cover, as well as "additional gaskets and seals" that IHS says improves the water resistance of the new iPhones, which has been studied in the days since release.

Earlier in the year, Apple CEO Tim Cook went on the record during one of the company's annual earnings calls, denouncing component cost teardowns like IHS iSuppli's of the iPhone 6s Plus. "I've never seen one that is anywhere close to being accurate," Cook said.

Such estimates do not take into account an array of costs, including research and development, software, and licensing costs, making profit margins appear much larger than they actually are. And given the proprietary nature of many of the components, cost estimates can be rough. The estimates can, however, be somewhat useful in comparing differences between generations to get a general idea of the potential cost impact of hardware changes.

Related Forum: iPhone

newitunes122logoApple today announced that it would be bringing three of its entertainment services -- Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks -- to customers in China today. This marks the first time customers in China will have access to Apple's entertainment ecosystem.

“Customers in China love the App Store and have made it our largest market in the world for app downloads,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “One of the top requests has been more great content and we’re thrilled to bring music, movies and books to China, curated by a local team of experts.”

Customers in China will be able to sign up for the three-month free trial of Apple Music starting on September 30. The service will include music from Chinese artists like Eason Chan and JJ Lin in addition to international artists like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. Likewise, iTunes Movies will include movies from Chinese film studios in addition to Hollywood blockbusters like Jurassic World and Avengers: Age of Ultron. iBooks will include free and paid Chinese language books.

Apple says that as a token of appreciation, the recent Chinese hit film The Taking of Tiger Mountain will be available for free to all customers in China for a limited time.

China has become increasingly important to Apple in recent years. Recently, the Cupertino company included China in the first wave of countries to be able to purchase the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

Google today updated its Google Maps app for iOS to version 4.11.0, adding support for the Apple Watch. As of today, there's a Google Maps app that delivers directions on Apple's wrist-worn device.

Along with a new Apple Watch app, today's update also includes a tool for comparing estimated travel times across driving, transit, walking and biking directions, and it adds a feature for calling businesses and getting directions from a list of places. As with most updates, there are also unspecified bug fixes.

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What's New
- Easily compare ETAs across driving, transit, walking & biking
- Call business & get directions directly from a list of places
- Get directions to places now on your Apple Watch
- Bug fixes

This isn't Google's first app for the Apple Watch, but it will arguably be the most useful as there are many iOS users who still prefer to use Google Maps over Apple Maps.

Google Maps can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]