MacRumors

Apple has announced that it will once again be participating in "Hour of Code" this Computer Science Education Week on December 7-13, hosting free workshops and special events for kids ages six and up at Apple Retail Stores throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Apple will be hosting an "Hour of Code" free one-hour introduction to the basics of computer programming on December 10, supporting Code.org's initiative for the third consecutive year. Additional "Hour of Code" partners include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and many others.

Apple has also featured six global special events to be hosted by Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi, and other developers and organizations, in Brussels, Chicago, New York City, Tokyo, San Francisco and Sydney. Each will have a focus on app development or computer science education.

"Hour of Code" is an initiative sponsored by non-profit website Code.org, which hosts a variety of tools for learning and teaching programming. Each year, the site hosts a global movement aimed at reaching millions of students through a free workshop that teaches basic programming techniques.

Registration is now open for the workshops and special events on Apple's website.

Most carmakers in the U.S. are now clearing out 2015 models to make way for new 2016 vehicles, a growing number of which feature CarPlay for the first time since Apple introduced the software platform at WWDC in 2013.

Apple's in-dash software provides hands-free or eyes-free access to Maps, Phone, Messages, Music, Podcasts and third-party apps including Spotify, Rdio, iHeartRadio, CBS Radio and MLB At Bat.

CarPlay will be available in a wide range of 2016 vehicles from over a dozen carmakers -- many are available now, and others will launch in the coming weeks. The feature is standard for most U.S. models listed, but some carmakers have made the feature an upgrade by itself or as part of an entertainment package.

2016 U.S. CarPlay Vehicles

Other Carmakers

Apple lists several other CarPlay partners on its website, but some remain committed to their own infotainment systems in current U.S. vehicles. Select carmakers have disclosed their plans to support CarPlay in the future.

- Acura has not announced CarPlay support, but its parent company Honda has launched CarPlay in the 2016 Accord and 2016 Civic. Given that Acura is Honda's luxury brand, its vehicles should eventually support CarPlay.

- Audi, beyond the 2017 Q7, says CarPlay will be "available on some all-new Audi models arriving in U.S. showrooms by 2016," possibly including the 2017 Audi A4 in late 2016. Select Audi models in Europe already feature CarPlay.

- BMW confirmed in a November 2015 earnings call that it remains committed to supporting CarPlay on future models, but did not specify a model year -- the 2017 model year or later is probable.

- Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda and Subaru have not announced CarPlay support for their 2016 vehicle lineups.

- Nissan has plans to support CarPlay for its 2016 vehicle lineup, but the 2016 Altima will not be one of those vehicles and support for other upcoming models remains unclear. It has not announced a specific roadmap for 2016.

- Toyota appears to have put its CarPlay commitment on hold. The world's largest automaker instead reached a partnership with Ford and in January 2016 to use its open source SmartDeviceLink technology for its in-dash systems.

Aftermarket Systems

Alpine, Kenwood and Pioneer each sell aftermarket CarPlay systems for installation in vehicles that do not come standard with the feature. The aftermarket systems generally retail for between $600 and $1,400 depending on the model, and can usually be retrofitted into older vehicles for relatively minimal costs.

Pioneer's NEX systems are available at various resellers across the U.S., ranging in price between $700 and $1,400 depending on the model. Kenwood's DDX9702S and Excelon DDX9902S retail for $900 to $950 each and allow seamless switching between CarPlay and Android Auto. Alpine's system sells for as low as $600.

CarPlay is compatible with the iPhone 5 or later running iOS 8 or newer.

Apple tonight shared two new iPhone 6s ads on its YouTube channel, highlighting the Hey Siri feature and the speed of the device at tasks like opening messages, browsing Safari, using Messages, playing games, and using the camera.

The first video, "Ridiculously Powerful," focuses on the speed of the iPhone's A9 processor and shows it being used for Apple Pay, games, taking photos and video, and more. "Not much has changed, except it's ridiculously powerful, which makes everything faster," says the opening narration.

The second video, "Hey Siri," focuses on the always-on Hey Siri feature of the iPhone 6s. With older iPhones, Hey Siri could only be activated when the iPhone was plugged in, but with the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus, hands-free Siri voice activation is available at all times.

These two latest videos are part of Apple's iPhone 6s "The only thing that's changed is everything" campaign, a tagline and concept Apple CEO Tim Cook first introduced when the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus debuted in September to highlight their revamped internals. Apple has released several advertisements using the wording, focusing on the iPhone's camera, Siri, and 3D Touch.

As part of its round of November Creative Cloud updates, Adobe announced plans to rebrand its Flash Professional CC software as Animate CC to acknowledge a growing shift away from Flash.

In a blog post on its website, Adobe explains that more than a third of content created in Flash Pro CC uses HTML5, leading the company to rename the software to "accurately represent its position as the premier animation tool for the web and beyond."

Along with changing the name of Flash Professional CC, Adobe is working on major feature updates for the software, including improved drawing, illustration, and authoring support and integration with Adobe Stock and Creative Cloud Libraries.

While Adobe is rebranding to better focus on HTML5, it says the new Animate CC will continue to support Flash (SWF) and Air formats as "first-class citizens," with work already underway on Flash Player 12.

The new Adobe Animate CC app will be available starting in January. Previous versions of Flash Professional will continue to be available.

Flash has been on its way out for several years now. Apple's refusal to support flash on its iOS devices was a major blow to Adobe and declining use led Adobe to eliminate its Flash player for mobile devices in 2011. Major websites have largely transitioned from Flash due to never ending security vulnerabilities, with Amazon no longer accepting Flash ads and Facebook's lead security engineer calling for the death of Flash.

Bohemian Coding has announced that its popular design app Sketch is no longer available in the Mac App Store because, after a lengthy decision making process, the developers felt that directly licensing the software outside of Apple's storefront will provide customers with a better experience.

In a blog post on its website, the Sketch team highlighted some of the Mac App Store's limitations, including a lengthy app review process, sandboxing and no upgrade pricing. Sketch stresses this was not a knee-jerk reaction to the Mac App Store's recent expired certificate problem, but that issue did compound the situation.

Sketch said the Mac App Store's customer experience has not progressed like its iOS counterpart:

We’ve been considering our options for some time. Over the last year, as we’ve made great progress with Sketch, the customer experience on the Mac App Store hasn’t evolved like its iOS counterpart. We want to continue to be a responsive, approachable, and easily-reached company, and selling Sketch directly allows us to give you a better experience.

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying: App Review continues to take at least a week, there are technical limitations imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines (sandboxing and so on) that limit some of the features we want to bring to Sketch, and upgrade pricing remains unavailable.

Sketch is among a growing number of apps that are no longer sold in the Mac App Store, including professional HTML and text editor BBEdit and web development tool Coda. By selling their apps directly, developers not only get around the Mac App Store's technical limitations, but also do not have to split 30% of sales revenue with Apple.

Bohemian Coding has provided instructions for Mac App Store users to migrate to the directly licensed version of the app in a FAQ on its website, which is required for future software updates. The development team does not rule out a possible return to the Mac App Store "in the longer term" if the necessary changes have been made.

Moving to a direct version of Sketch does not require a re-purchase. Simply download the latest copy of Sketch here, replace the old version in your Applications folder, and we will issue you a license for Sketch absolutely free of charge. Just follow the steps in-app to complete the transfer. We will also migrate your presets and templates across, so you won’t lose any data in the process. We’ve made it as simple and painless as we possibly can.

Sketch is a professional design app for Mac for creating user interfaces, websites, icons and more. The software received an Apple Design Award in 2012 and was consistently a top ranked app on the Mac App Store. Sketch continues to sell for its regular price of $99 with a free trial available.

Continuing a tradition begun four years ago, Apple today has joined in recognizing World AIDS Day by coloring Apple logos on its retail stores around the world bright red. The worldwide event was established to represent the global fight in preventing HIV and AIDS, as well as promoting healthy education of the diseases, a cause Apple has helped forward with its line of (PRODUCT)RED accessories.

As in years past, the company has taken to promoting the World AIDS Day events not only in retail locations but on its online storefront, as well. The home page of Apple.com today encourages visitors to shop the company's (PRODUCT)RED line of Mac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, and Beats accessories to help promote and fund AIDS defense and awareness.

Apple Stores known to be participating in the event include the Bondi Junction location near Sydney, Australia, the Brussels, Belgium store, and Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue spot in New York City. The company quietly launched a (PRODUCT)RED leather case for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus yesterday in time for the December 1 event, and teamed up with iOS developer Supercell in an exclusive promotional event that will let players purchase rare in-game items with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Global Fund to fight AIDS.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple today expanded its Personal Pickup in-store pickup service to France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The launch of Personal Pickup in Germany was first noted by Macerkopf, and MacRumors subsequently confirmed the wider European expansion of the service.

Personal Pickup allows customers to place an order on the Apple Online Store or Apple Store app and pick it up at a nearby Apple Retail Store, generally within an hour. The service is offered for several Apple products, including Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs and the Apple Watch.

Apple notifies customers via email or text message when an order is available for in-store pickup with a valid photo ID.

Personal Pickup launched in the U.S. in 2011, but was unavailable elsewhere until last month. The service first expanded to Australia and Canada on November 17 before going live in the United Kingdom three days later.

Personal Pickup has yet to launch in other countries and regions with an Apple retail store presence, including Belgium, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

MacRumors broke the news in early November that Apple was planning an international expansion of Personal Pickup in Australia, France, United Kingdom and other countries, and the service is now live in all of those countries.

(Thanks, Andre!)

AT&T will raise the price of its grandfathered unlimited data plans from $30 to $35 in February of 2016, reports CNBC. The upcoming rate change is detailed on a page on AT&T's website and is the first price hike the unlimited plan has seen in seven years.

Though AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans to customers, a small number of customers continue to hold unlimited data plans that were purchased before AT&T discontinued them in 2010. AT&T's current $30 unlimited data plan allows customers to use an unlimited amount of data, but AT&T does throttle with excessive data usage.

As of February 16, the $30 price tag, which is in addition to voice costs, will rise to $35. The price hike comes just a couple of months after AT&T announced changes to its throttling practices. AT&T previously throttled customers on congested networks after 5GB of LTE data usage, but that cap was increased to 22GB in September, making unlimited plans more valuable.

AT&T plans to notify customers who will be impacted by the price increase. Customers who wish to cancel their wireless service because of the pricing increase will have early termination fees waived for affected lines. Price changes will take effect during each customer's February billing period.

As of December 15, Apple Music will be available on Sonos, allowing those who own Sonos speakers to use them with the Apple Music service for the first time since it launched in June. Sonos and Apple today announced a new Sonos Apple Music public beta that will go live to all Sonos users in approximately two weeks.

Sonos users will be able to access Apple Music on their Sonos speakers, streaming songs from For You, New, Radio, and My Music. The beta will allow users to access the Apple Music features through their dedicated Sonos apps on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC, with full support set to roll out in 2016.

"Many of our members love Sonos and want to enjoy our service throughout their homes," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We're thrilled to be working with Sonos to provide the Apple Music experience in even more places fans enjoy music."

Since Apple Music launched, Sonos has been working on support for the service, with a promise to have the feature ready to roll out by the end of the year. Beats Music, which did work with Sonos, is shutting down as of today. Sonos has recommended its users move their Beats Music accounts to Apple Music to save their playlists ahead of the rollout of the Apple Music for Sonos beta.

JCPenney has started testing its store credit cards with Apple's Apple Pay payments service, allowing customers at one location in Texas to add their JCPenney charge cards to Apple Pay. Customers in the Dallas–Fort Worth area visiting the JCPenney store at The Village at Fairview are able to participate in the Apple Pay pilot program, which is set to roll out to stores nationwide in the spring of 2016.

Customers with a JCPenney charge card receive a notice about the Texas pilot program when attempting to add a JCPenney card to Apple Pay using the Wallet app. The notification also includes details about the full launch of the JCPenney Apple Pay service.

Apple Pay support for store credit cards is a new feature, introduced alongside iOS 9 but announced at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Thus far, Kohl's is the only major retailer that currently allows its store cards to be added to Apple Pay, but both Kohl's and JCPenney have been touted as the two major partners for the feature.

iOS 9 also brought Apple Pay support for in-store loyalty cards, allowing customers to add their rewards cards to the Wallet app to further cut down on the number of physical cards that must be carried. Walgreens is the first retailer to support the Apple Pay rewards program.

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.2 El Capitan update to developers and public beta testers, two weeks after seeding the fourth beta and more than a month after releasing OS X 10.11.1, the first OS X El Capitan update, to the public.

The fifth beta, build 15C48a, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center. Public beta testers can download the beta through the Mac App Store.

OS X 10.11.2 appears to be an under-the-hood update as the four previous betas have not included any apparent outward-facing changes. OS X 10.11.2 is likely to include bug fixes, security enhancements, and performance improvements to address problems that have popped up since the release of OS X 10.11.1.

Apple's release notes for OS X 10.11.2 have asked developers to focus on Networking, Graphics, Mail, Wi-Fi, Calendar, USB, Notes, Photos, and Spotlight.

Apple is gearing up for its annual World Aids Day campaign and has partnered with popular iOS app developer Supercell for a (SUPERCELL)RED promotion that will see the developer offering a special in-game decorative item for purchase, with 100 percent of proceeds going towards the Global Fund to fight AIDS.

Supercell is the developer behind some of the most profitable apps in the App Store, with Clash of Clans currently ranked as the number three most profitable app and Boom Beach ranked as number 10. From now until December 4 at 8:00 a.m., players who purchase a (Pile of Gems)RED pack in Clash of Clans, a (Pile of Diamonds)RED in Boom Beach, or a (Bag of Diamonds)RED in Hay Day can contribute to the fight against AIDS.

Apple has a long history of working with (PRODUCT)RED to fund AIDS research and charity work, and the company has run a World AIDS Day campaign for the last several years. Each year, Apple highlights World AIDS day on its website and decorates its retail stores with red Apple logos. With World AIDS day taking place tomorrow, December 1, Apple retail stores are expected to see decorations going up this afternoon and this evening.

Apple has also released an official (PRODUCT)RED leather case for the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus, which joins the (PRODUCT)RED silicone case that was released alongside the new iPhones in September.

For those that missed out on Black Friday deals, or remain on the lookout for a few more gift ideas, Cyber Monday offers several online and in-store discounts on a wide range of Apple-related products and accessories. Most deals will remain available through the end of day on Monday, November 30.

Best Buy

Best Buy is offering deals on select Apple products and other electronics online and in stores on Cyber Monday, with free shipping on all orders.

- iPhone 6 (16GB) for $1 with activation and Verizon two-year contract
- Up to $150 off select MacBook Air and Retina MacBook models
- Up to $249 off various original iPad Air models
- $70 off Beats Pill 2.0 Bluetooth speakers in various colors
- $40 off urBeats earphones and $100 off Beats Studio over-ear headphones
- $100 off iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models with activation and two-year contract

Target

Target is offering 15% off site-wide, with some limitations, using promo code CYBER15 at checkout. The offer is valid on most Apple products, including the Apple Watch, iPad, iPod, Beats headphones, Apple TV and more.

Staples

Staples is offering 20% off iTunes gift cards in the U.S. for $25, $50 and $100 amounts.

- $25 iTunes gift card - $20
- $50 iTunes gift card - $40
- $100 iTunes gift card - $80

The deal expires Saturday, December 5 and includes free shipping to U.S. addresses.

MacMall

For those that missed MacMall's 60-hour Black Friday sale, the authorized reseller continues to offer Cyber Monday discounts on a huge selection of Macs and iPads.

- Retina MacBook is available for up to $100 off
- Retina MacBook Pro is available for up to $259 off
- MacBook Air is available for up to $100 off
- 21.5-inch iMac is available for up to $100 off
- 27-inch iMac is available for up to $200 off
- Mac mini is available for up to $70 off
- iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi only models are between $21 and $40 off

Twelve South

Twelve South is offering 50% off multiple Mac and iPad accessories with promo code MACMONDAY2015 at checkout, plus a $5 discount on its HiRise for iPhone/Apple Watch Bundle. The offers are valid until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, November 30 while supplies last.

- MagicWand - $14.99 (regular $29.99)
- BookArc möd for MacBook - $29.99 (regular $59.99)
- HoverBar for iPad - $29.99 (regular $59.99)
- HiRise for iMac - $39.99 (regular $79.99)
- HiRise for iPhone / Apple Watch Bundle - $79.99 (regular $84.99)

Lots more Cyber Monday deals ahead…

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