MacRumors

Despite being announced just over two years ago, CarPlay is only now becoming a built-in option in select new 2015 and 2016 vehicles by Chevrolet, Honda, Volkswagen and other car manufacturers. The in-dash system enables drivers to use Siri for hands-free access to Maps, Phone, Messages, Music, Podcasts and third-party apps such as Spotify, Rdio, iHeartRadio and MLB At Bat.

With CarPlay starting to become a feature car buyers will be considering, Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal has published a timely review of CarPlay after testing the dashboard software inside a 2016 Corvette Stingray on a New York City road trip between midtown Manhattan and Rockaway Beach in Queens. Overall, she offered praise for CarPlay, but noted the service "isn’t a complete joyride" and lacks the useful functionality of some Google services.

Stern first noted a positive experience using Siri to control Apple Music and make requests:

But DJ Siri to the rescue! All week she has accurately taken my requests, playing them via Apple Music (but not Spotify or any other third-party apps). “Siri, Play ‘Little Red Corvette.’ ” “Siri, play me Madonna’s top songs.” “Siri, who sings this song?” She does it all—though I wouldn’t object if she were a tad faster.

She also gave high marks to CarPlay's messaging capabilities and Siri's accuracy at transcribing words:

Text-message integration is where CarPlay feels miles ahead of any competition from car makers or even Google. […] Siri was, surprisingly, better at helping me respond than Google’s built-in voice assistant. Siri accurately transcribed my words nearly every time. (She forgivably struggled a bit when I was driving with the roof down.)

On the contrary, Stern found Apple Maps to be inferior to Google Maps at providing routing based on traffic conditions:

When I got in the car to go to my friend’s baby naming, Apple Maps routed me through midtown Manhattan, showing a blissfully traffic-ignorant blue line all the way to the destination. Google Maps, however, knew that Park Avenue was closed. It routed me to the FDR Drive, on Manhattan’s east side. Ignoring Apple, and choosing Google’s route, I got there on time.

The review concluded that Apple's services are "stuck in the slow lane" compared to Google Maps and Google Now:

Siri also struggles when it comes to finding businesses. Sure, she can identify the closest gas stations, and she knows mega-retailers like Starbucks and Target. But when I told her to go to my favorite coffee shop in my New Jersey hometown, she found it… in Limerick, Ireland. Google knew what I was talking about right away.

Google Now might have even guessed I wanted to go there, even before I searched. Culling information from your email, calendar and Web searches, Google’s prediction-based assistant swings into action when you plug your Android phone into an Android Auto-equipped car. In addition to displaying core information like weather and reminders, it anticipates your next destination.

Nevertheless, Stern described CarPlay as the future of in-car technology and said that, if she were in the market for a car right now, she would add Apple's in-car software to her want list. The full-length review is a worthwhile read and provides a side-by-side comparison of CarPlay's maps, messaging, music, voice control and home screen features with Google's rival in-dash system Android Auto.

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of OS X El Capitan to public beta testers, two weeks after seeding the fourth beta and a month after providing the first OS X El Capitan beta to the public for testing purposes.

Today's beta has a build number of 15A262c. It is not clear what is included in the fifth public beta as Apple has not released a new seventh OS X El Capitan developer beta, breaking its pattern of seeding betas to developers ahead of public testers. Past betas have featured no outward-facing changes, so it's likely this beta also focuses on internal performance improvements and bug fixes to get the operating system ready for its public launch.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program and already have the public beta installed can update through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

OS X El Capitan is expected to be released to the public in the fall after the beta testing process is complete.

What's new in public beta 5:

Safari welcome screen - When opening Safari for the first time after installing the new public beta, users are seeing a new Safari welcome screen that highlights features in Safari like pinned sites, sharing links, and Smart Search for finding favorite websites.

About This Mac - The About This Mac screen has been updated with a new OS X El Capitan logo that is in color. Previously, the logo was gray.

Shake to locate mouse - In the System Preferences, there's a new Accessibility setting that lets the "Shake mouse pointer to locate" feature be disabled. This feature makes the mouse pointer bigger so it's easier to locate on the screen.

Update: It appears Apple may have pulled the beta update as many MacRumors readers are no longer able to download it.

A new study by consumer research firm MusicWatch finds that 77% of iOS users in the United States are aware of Apple Music, with 11% currently using the streaming music service. Additionally, among those that signed up for Apple Music's three-month trial, 48% said they are no longer using the service and 61% reported they have turned off the auto-renewal subscription option in iTunes.

Apple Music has attracted more users from Spotify Premium than ad-supported services such as Spotify Free and Pandora:

More than one quarter (28 percent) of Spotify Premium customers also use Apple Music, but the draw from popular ad-supported services is more modest: Just 11 percent of Spotify Free users, and 6 percent of Pandora users, now use Apple’s offering.

“In terms of benchmarking Apple Music, 40 percent of iOS users are buying digital downloads from iTunes, suggesting trial of Apple Music could be higher,” said Russ Crupnick, managing partner of MusicWatch. “That’s the disadvantage of not being the first mover in a market where very good services currently exist.”

While nearly half of iOS users that have tried Apple Music are no longer using the service, with some maintaining their loyalty to Spotify, Pandora and other rivals, the study finds that 64% of current users said they were "extremely" or "very likely" to pay for an Apple Music subscription following the free trial period, which concludes on September 30 for those that signed up on launch day.

The research study also claims that 30% of Apple Music users listen to Beats 1, while 27% use Apple Music Connect. MusicWatch's data is based on an August 2015 survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers age 13 and older, and the results were weighted to the U.S. population. The research firm has been cited by publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune.

Update: In a statement to The Verge regarding this survey, Apple said 79 percent of people who signed up for the Apple Music free trial are still using Apple Music.

Apple Pay on iPhone is a convenient and secure way to make payments without taking a debit or credit card out of your wallet, but you still need to take the smartphone out of your pocket to make a purchase. For that reason, Apple Pay has proven more transformative on Apple Watch, since the device is worn on the wrist and readily available for contactless payments.

The latest data from research firm Wristly supports that notion, with 80% of the over 1,000 respondents surveyed in the U.S. and U.K. claiming they have used Apple Pay on an Apple Watch at least once. The remaining 20% of respondents indicated they "do not perceive a benefit" to Apple Pay, have security concerns or believe their payment needs are already being met.

Just over half (51%) of respondents described using Apple Pay on the Apple Watch as "magical," an adjective often used by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, while 42% indicated that the service is "convenient." An additional 3% of respondents said Apple Pay is "good," but with some areas of concern, and the remaining 4% of users found Apple Pay "not that useful."

Given the choice, 79% of respondents preferred to use Apple Pay on the Apple Watch and 9% preferred to use the mobile payments service on an iPhone. The survey panel most commonly used Apple Pay for everyday shopping (81%), in addition to recurring services such as Starbucks (60%), bigger purchases (35%), in-app purchases (29%) and other purchases (11%)…

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Apple today announced its 2015 Apple Music Festival lineup for next month, a free concert series that will bring Pharrell, One Direction, Florence + The Machine, and more to London's Roundhouse. A revamped version of the previous iTunes Festival, the 2015 version will see a scaled-down lineup with ten dates from September 19–28, down from the usual 30 nights extending throughout the month.

Apple will broadcast performances to music fans around the world for free, which can be viewed live and on-demand on Apple Music. The Apple Music Festival lets fans get even closer to their favorite performers with coverage on Beats 1℠ alongside backstage news and footage straight from the artists on Apple Music Connect.

“We wanted to do something really special for music fans this year,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The Apple Music Festival is a greatest hits set of ten unbelievable nights featuring some of the best performers on the planet appearing live and interacting directly with their fans on Connect and Beats 1.”

With only a handful of artists announced so far, the remainder of the concert schedule will be filled out in the coming weeks. MacRumors has heard Take That will be part of the lineup, but Apple did not include the band in its initial round of announcements.

Admission for all concerts is free, but only UK residents can apply to win tickets with additional passes being made available through media partner giveaways.

FOSS Patents reported tonight that the Central Reexamination Division of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has reexamined one of the key iPhone design patents in the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit. The validity of one of the patents (618,677) has received a non-final rejection:

The problem the D'677 patent faces here is that the USPTO has determined (for now) that this patent "is not entitled to benefit of the filing date" of two previous Apple design patent applications because the design at issue was not disclosed in those earlier applications. As a result, certain prior art is eligible now, and against the background of that additional prior art, the USPTO believes the patent shouldn't have been granted.

Apple was originally awarded over $1 billion from the original lawsuit, but that amount has been reduced substantially to about $548 million in damages. Aside from this particular design patent, Apple still has other claims that have not been reduced or invalidated from the previous decision.

Samsung was most recently denied their latest appeal attempt, leaving them with the only option of turning to the U.S. Supreme Court. It appears this invalidation has no direct impact on the current standing of the lawsuit, but may help Samsung in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Even as we await the public launch of iOS 9 in September, Apple is already looking ahead to iOS 9.1. During a two week span in July, Apple engineers appear to have focused their attention on developing the first major update to iOS 9, as seen in the MacRumors visitor logs from Apple IPs.

Beginning on July 21, we started seeing a small number of hits from devices running iOS 9.1. Visits picked up on July 22 and peaked in the dozens on July 28, before dying down as August approached. The majority of hits we received came from an iPad or iPad mini-sized device, while the rest came from a device the same size as the iPhone 6 Plus. It is not clear if the visits came from existing iOS devices or from new devices that are in testing, including the iPhone 6s Plus and the iPad mini 3.

Visits from iOS 9.1 devices have since tapered off, suggesting Apple's iOS team is once again working on getting iOS 9 ready for launch. It is not known why a two week period was spent on iOS 9.1, but it's possibly related to testing on the iPad Pro or iPad mini 4, both of which may already be in production or entering production soon.

We don't know what features will be introduced in iOS 9.1, but logic dictates it may be an update that's designed to launch alongside the larger-screened 12.9-inch "iPad Pro," which has been rumored to be coming in October or November. We did not, however, see visits from a device that corresponds to the rumored 2732 x 2048 display size of the iPad Pro.

For the past several years, Apple's iPads have debuted during the fall, launching in October or November at an event separate from the annual iPhone event. This year, there's been a rumor suggesting the next-generation iPads, namely the iPad mini 4, could debut in September alongside the iPhones, but it is not yet clear if this is Apple's plan.

BuzzFeed's John Paczkowski, who shared the event date for the 2015 iPhone 6 launch, believes new iPads are a possibility, but called the iPad Pro a "wildcard" for the event. Given how little we've heard about the device in recent weeks and the lack of part leaks, it seems unlikely the iPad Pro is ready for a September debut.

A standalone October or November launch date for the device seems more likely, and that launch could correspond to the iOS 9.1 update that is in the works. The iPad Pro may include several new features that will require a dedicated update, such as a pressure sensitive Force Touch display, a stylus, and a USB-C port that could support peripheral devices.

Two of the three major mobile providers in Germany are said to be preparing for an iPhone 6s launch on Friday, September 18, reports German Apple news site Macerkopf [Google Translate]. Carriers expect the iPhone 6s to be available for purchase beginning on that date, which is in line with previous rumors and past launch timelines.

Earlier this month, BuzzFeed's John Packzkowski, who has reliably predicted several Apple event dates in the past, said Apple would hold its iPhone 6s launch event on Wednesday, September 9. After launch events, Apple typically accepts pre-orders on the Friday of the event week, before starting to ship orders on the following week.

If Apple accepts iPhone 6s pre-orders, we can expect them to become available beginning on September 11, with the iPhone then shipping out to customers on September 18, as cited by German carriers. It is not yet clear if Apple will be allowing pre-orders for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

For the iPhone 6, Apple introduced the device on Tuesday, September 9, began accepting pre-orders on Friday, September 12, and then launched the device on Friday, September 19. It appears the iPhone 6s will follow a very similar launch timeline.

As for iOS 9, Apple often releases the operating system a few days before the iPhone becomes available, suggesting we could see a public launch on Wednesday, September 16.

Apple's iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are expected to include an A9 processor, 2GB RAM, Force Touch capabilities, and an improved camera. While the devices will be the same size as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, there may be a small increase in thickness and height to accommodate Force Touch and internal material and structural changes designed to make the devices less prone to bending.

Best Buy will begin offering AppleCare and AppleCare+ extended warranty plans for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and other eligible Apple products across its U.S. stores starting September 13, according to an internal training video obtained by MacRumors. The news was first reported by 9to5Mac.

AppleCare+ purchased through Best Buy will include accidental damage coverage for the same service fees charged by Apple. Both protection plans will also cover the accessories in the box and most other products on the same transaction, such as an Apple Display or AirPort Express purchased alongside an iMac.

Customers that purchase AppleCare or AppleCare+ can receive service at Best Buy or take their product directly to Apple. Best Buy will continue to offer revamped Geek Squad warranty plans for non-Apple products, including Geek Squad Protect & Support, Protect & Support Plus, 24/7 Support and Product Replacement.

Apple is expected to announce the next-generation "iPhone 6s" and "iPhone 6s Plus" within the first two weeks of September, with in-store availability usually occurring around one week later, so AppleCare and AppleCare+ should be available at Best Buy in time for the launch of those smartphones.