MacRumors

Chinese website cnBeta [Google Translate] is the latest source to claim Apple will release a new 4-inch iPhone early this year. The blog, citing Foxconn sources, shared many new details about the so-called "iPhone 5e" that we have broken down for comparison against previous 4-inch iPhone rumors below.

cnBeta accurately reported on the iPhone 6s Plus's packaging and smaller battery, but also incorrectly claimed the A8 chip would top 2 GHz a few years ago.

Publishers who have been offering their content on Apple News have been receiving incorrect usage statistics from Apple due to an internal glitch that caused the company to miscalculate the number of people using the service, Eddy Cue told The Wall Street Journal in a statement this evening.

According to Cue, Apple has been underestimating the number of readers using the News app since it launched alongside iOS 9 in September. The problem went under the radar because Apple was busy working on improving other aspects of the service. Apple doesn't know how exactly many people are using the News app, but the company is working to fix the problem.

"We're in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality," [Cue] said. "We don't know what the right number is," but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.

In October, during Apple's fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple News had approximately 40 million users, but he did not specify whether that number represented people who use the Apple News app on a regular basis or if it was a number reflecting the number of people who accessed the app at one point or another. Cue echoed that number in his comments to The Wall Street Journal, but it is not clear if that is an accurate figure given Apple's current inability to calculate exact usage.

Despite not knowing how many people are using Apple News at the current time, Cue says that Apple News usage has "scaled very fast," and that the company is happy with the Apple News product's progress thus far. After launching in the United States in September, Apple News expanded to the U.K. and Australia in October with the launch of iOS 9.1.

As The Wall Street Journal points out, accurate readership numbers are important to publishers because the figures impact advertising. Publishers who share content on Apple News are able to keep 100 percent of proceeds from ads sold on their own, or 70 percent from ads sold through the Apple iAd service. According to Cue, iAd has been popular enough with publishers that Apple will be expanding the platform with a self-service ad-buying feature in the next two months.

Apple has partnered more than a hundred publications for Apple News, including The New York Times, CNN, ESPN, The Atlantic, The Daily Mail, Slate, and more. MacRumors is also on Apple News and can be subscribed to by clicking this link on an iOS device.

Apple Music has surpassed 10 million subscribers across iOS, Mac, PC, Android and Apple TV in just six months, a milestone that took its largest rival Spotify around six years to accomplish, Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Apple Music, which launched in over 100 countries on June 30, 2015, has cemented its position as the world's second largest streaming music service behind Spotify, which last announced reaching over 20 million paying subscribers and more than 75 million active users three weeks before Apple's streaming service became available.

Spotify was an early entrant in the streaming music market when it launched in Europe in October 2008. The service did not expand to the U.S. until July 2011 due to lengthy negotiations with major record label companies, and it has since launched in nearly 100 countries and territories worldwide. Unlike Apple Music, Spotify also offers a free ad-supported tier with limited features on desktop and mobile.

Music industry analyst Mark Mulligan predicted last month that Apple Music would have 8 million subscribers by the end of 2015, and he expects the service to reach 20 million total users by the end of this year. At that pace, Apple Music could top Spotify as the largest streaming music service by number of subscribers in 2017, assuming that Spotify maintains around its current rate of growth.

Apple has reportedly internally set a goal of reaching 100 million Apple Music subscribers. Tim Cook confirmed 6.5 million paid subscribers last October.

Update: Spotify told Business Insider that it experienced its fastest subscriber growth ever in the second half of 2015, but did not provide an updated subscriber total.

Apple's upcoming iPhone 7 is rumored to feature a thinner body with no headphone jack, with Apple instead planning to rely on the Lightning port and Bluetooth as ways to connect headphones to the device.

It was not clear if Apple would continue to ship EarPods along with the iPhone 7, and whether those EarPods would use Lightning or Bluetooth, but a new report from 9to5Mac suggests Apple will indeed ship Lightning-connected EarPods with the iPhone 7. Apple is also working on a new set of wireless Bluetooth earphones that would be sold alongside the iPhone 7 as a premium accessory and alternative to the Lightning-connected EarPods.

While traditional Bluetooth headphones, including Apple's own PowerBeats, have a wire that connects the left and right ear pieces to each other, Apple is said to be designing earphones that do not include a connective cord. These earphones would be similar in design to the Bragi Dash, an upcoming set of earphones that features individual ear pieces for each ear. Charging would be done through a battery case.

The latest version of the new wireless Apple/Beats headphones in development do not include any ports for charging, in contrast to the mini-USB port on the current wireless Beats. Instead, the new headphones are likely to come with a carrying case that doubles as a rechargeable battery to juice up the headphones when they are not in use.

A recent rumor suggested Apple would use new audio technology in the iPhone 7 to improve noise-cancelation techniques for better sounding music and phone calls, and this appears to be technology that may also extend to Apple's prospective wireless earphones.

In October, trademark filings for an audio accessory by the name of "AirPods" were linked to Apple, so it's possible Apple's rumored wireless earphones will eventually be named "AirPods" and sold alongside the existing EarPods.

According to 9to5Mac, while the earphones are currently under development in preparation for a fall launch, there's a possibility the technology could be delayed due to battery life concerns. The earphones are said to have a battery life under four hours.

Today's report also suggests Apple is finalizing the design for the iPhone 7, testing three designs that range from a thinner model to a device that looks much like the iPhone 6s.

With just 12 months to go until Apple's second "spaceship" campus is scheduled to be completed, construction crews are hard at work on the main ring-shaped building and several auxiliary buildings, including the underground auditorium, a visitor's center, and a set of research and development buildings.

Drone pilot Duncan Sinfield today shared another monthly campus update video with MacRumors, giving us a look at how construction has progressed since December. Late last month and early this month, enough of the main building was completed that the unique, curved glass windows could start going up. In the video, you'll see the first window panels on the building, both at the exterior and the interior of the ring.

With construction growing closer to completion, work on the landscape may soon begin. Apple's second campus will feature 80 percent green space, a central garden with outdoor dining areas, and more than 300 species of trees, including a variety of fruit trees. Underground structures like parking facilities and the auditorium will be covered with greenery.

When finished, the campus will include the 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building, several parking structures, a 100,000 square foot fitness center, a 120,000 square foot auditorium, and a dedicated visitor's center with an observation deck, cafe, and Apple Store.

The National Football League is in talks with technology companies like Apple and Google as the NFL seeks out a partner for three London games that it plans to stream next season, reports Reuters. Apple is said to have expressed interest in purchasing the rights to conduct the stream, perhaps in an effort to secure the games for the Apple TV.

In December, news leaked suggesting Apple and other digital companies like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo had talked with the NFL about streaming "Thursday Night Football" games online on a non-exclusive basis. It is not yet known who secured those digital rights.

Over the past year or two, live-streaming has become important to technology companies who want to cater to sports enthusiasts and an ever growing number of cord cutters. In 2015, Yahoo partnered with the NFL to live-stream a London game for free to viewers, setting off a trend that is continuing this year.

The NFL believes last year's Sunday night streaming experiment was a success, with approximately 15.2 million viewers having tuned in as it was broadcast.

According to Reuters, it is not clear if the NFL plans to sell the rights to the three games as a package deal or split them up individually. The fee the NFL is seeking is also not known, but last year, Yahoo shelled out $15 million to stream a single game.

The three games that will be played in London include the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars on October 2, the New York Giants vs. the St. Louis Rams on October 23, and the Washington Redskins vs. the Cincinnati Bengals on October 30.

Apple has blocked German car maker Volkswagen from showcasing wireless CarPlay connectivity at CES in Las Vegas this year, according to a report from Car and Driver. Apple introduced the ability to connect an iPhone wirelessly to CarPlay in iOS 9, but there has yet to be a commercial release for an infotainment system that supports the function.

“We wanted to demonstrate wireless CarPlay and the owner of CarPlay technology didn’t allow us to,” Volkmar Tannerberger, head of electrical and electronic development at Volkswagen, told Car and Driver.

The current CarPlay setup requires users to connect an iPhone to a vehicle via USB port, and many have seen the wireless feature as a natural evolution of the in-car system. Although Tannerberger didn't divulge the specifics behind Apple's stonewalling, it is likely the Cupertino company wanted more control over all of the elements going into the public debut of the wireless feature.

In lieu of its inability to show off wireless CarPlay features, Volkswagen used its CES booth to demonstrate a new project that connects a smartphone to a car's infotainment system and mirrors its functions and controls. The car maker used an open-sourced standard called MirrorLink, unavailable on iPhones, to show off the technology, which would let users stream content from a smartphone and onto the in-car system. Volkswagen was said to "envision" the feature working in tandem with a wireless charging system to keep a phone topped off.

CarPlay news has been flowing out of CES this year, with companies like Kenwood, JVC, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and others announcing incoming support for Apple's in-car system. There are still a few opting out of the service, however, including Toyota, which decided to go with SmartDeviceLink over CarPlay and Android Auto earlier in the week.

Apple has registered a trio of auto-related top-level domain names, including apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto. Whois records updated on January 8 show that Apple registered the domains through sponsoring registrar MarkMonitor Inc. in December 2015, although the addresses are not yet active.

The domains could be related to CarPlay, but there will naturally be speculation about their possible relation to Apple's much-rumored electric vehicle plans. Multiple reports over the past year said Apple has a secretive team of hundreds working on an electric vehicle with a prospective 2019 or 2020 shipping date.

There is increasing evidence that Apple is at least exploring the auto industry, including the iPhone maker's discussions with a secure Bay Area testing facility for connected and autonomous vehicles and the company's August meeting with the California DMV to review self-driving vehicle regulations.

Apple has aggressively recruited engineers and other talent from Tesla, Ford, GM, Samsung, A123 Systems, Nvidia and elsewhere to work on the rumored "Apple Car" project, which has allegedly been called "Project Titan" internally. Electric motorcycle startup Mission Motors even ceased operations after losing employees to Apple.

Apple likely remains in the earlier stages of research and development of its rumored electric vehicle, and it remains possible the company's plans change over the next three to four years. Nevertheless, the trio of new domains provide yet another clue that Apple may one day compete with the likes of Tesla and Google.

Sprint will stop offering two-year phone contracts to customers who are activating a new account starting today, according to an internal document procured by AndroidCentral. While phones will not be available with subsidies on a two-year contract, tablets will.

As outlined by the document, two-year contracts will still be offered to select customers on a "reactive basis". The move makes Sprint the final carrier of the four major American carriers to end two-year contracts. New Sprint customers will be able to purchase their phones through Sprint programs like Easy Pay and iPhone Forever.

In 2013, T-Mobile began the trend by announcing its Un-carrier payment plans. Verizon followed suit in August 2015 and last month AT&T announced that they would drop two-year contracts. While AT&T's implementation takes away the ability for existing customers to sign up for two-year contracts, Verizon's does not, allowing existing Verizon customers to renew their two-year contracts.

Sprint has been planning to move away from two-year contracts for a while, first announcing the move in August 2015. However, the carrier had not announced when its implementation would take effect at the time.

Apple's iPhone 7 may feature wireless charging and a thinner waterproof body with no headphone jack, according to a new report from Fast Company that is in line with previous iPhone 7 rumors from the Asian supply chain.

Citing a source with "knowledge of the company's plans," Fast Company says the iPhone 7 will not include a headphone jack in an effort to make the device even thinner than the iPhone 6s. The device will also "very likely" be waterproof and support some form of wireless charging.

Apple is said to be working with Cirrus Logic to adapt the audio chipset in the iPhone to work with the Lightning port. With no 3.5mm headphone jack, the Lightning port, which is currently used for charging, will also be used to transmit sound to wired headphones. The chipset may also include new noise-canceling technology to remove background noise during music playback and phone calls.

According to Fast Company's source, Apple may not ship Lightning-connected EarPods alongside the iPhone 7, instead opting to sell noise-canceling Lightning-connected headphones separately under its Beats brand. It is not clear if that means the iPhone 7 will come with no EarPods or if Apple will ship standard EarPods with some kind of adapter.

Wireless charging is a feature that has been long rumored for potential inclusion in the iPhone and it's certainly technology that Apple has been exploring for many years, based on patents and earlier iPhone and Apple Watch rumors. A waterproof iPhone 7 body made from a new non-aluminum composite material is a rumor that first surfaced a few months ago. Further rumors have suggested the new material will also allow Apple to do away with the prominent antenna bands that were included on the iPhone 6s.

The removal of the headphone jack was first reported by Japanese site Mac Otakara and has since been backed up by a supply chain rumor, but Apple has been laying the groundwork for the elimination of the jack for several months. In 2014, the company introduced a new MFi program to allow third-party manufacturers to develop headphones that connect to iOS devices over Lightning, paving the way for Lightning-equipped headphones like the Philips Fidelio M2L.

Mark Sullivan, who penned today's rumor, has a bit of a mixed track record in the pieces he's written for Fast Company and VentureBeat. His sources accurately predicted some iPhone 6 features like the Qualcomm MDM9825 LTE chip, but he also reported that Apple was working with Swatch to develop the Apple Watch, a rumor that turned out to be untrue.

Apple's iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are expected to be released in September of 2016. Along with the above-mentioned rumored features, the device will also include an upgraded A-series processor and it could include features like an improved camera. Other rumors specific to the iPhone 7 Plus have suggested it could include a 256GB storage option, a 3,100 mAh battery, and 3GB RAM.