MacRumors

Ahead of the September 25 launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the new devices are beginning to show up in shipping warehouses as Apple prepares to deliver them to pre-order customers around the world. With more people having access to the devices before launch, there are bound to be a few image leaks, and today, some photos of both the outer packaging of the iPhone 6s and the rose gold iPhone have surfaced.

Spanish site iPhoneros [Google Translate] says its photos of the packaging came from a source in China. In one of the images, the packaging for all four iPhone 6s colors is depicted, each with a different siamese fighting fish, matching previous leaked packaging photos. The side of the box has the iPhone 6s name, and there's an Apple logo at the top.

The Rose Gold iPhone 6s box appears to have an orange fish, while the Silver iPhone 6s has a blue fish. The fish on the Gold iPhone 6s box is blue and gold, while the Space Gray iPhone 6s packaging has a red fish.

Chinese site Feng [Google Translate] has also shared a series of photos depicting both the packaging and the Rose Gold iPhone 6s. Of note on the Rose Gold iPhone is the small "S" on the back of the device, a marker that has not been seen on previous S generation phones. This was clearly depicted in press images of the device taken at the September 9 media event, but may have gone unnoticed by some.

With the S identifier at the back of the phone, it will be easier to distinguish one of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus devices from the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.

The fish that are depicted on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus packaging will be available as motion-based wallpapers on the new devices, along with motion wallpapers depicting different colored smoke. The new dynamic wallpapers are exclusive to the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus and are unavailable on older devices.

Apple's iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will be available beginning on September 25, and some customers who pre-ordered have already begun having their cards charged and are seeing their order statuses shift from "Processing" to "Preparing for shipment." Earlier this week, order status changes were limited to customers outside of the U.S., but in the last day, even customers in the United States have begun seeing some movement.

Apple continues to move toward retiring its One to One training program aimed at Mac customers, with the company's online store checkout process no longer offering the program as an add-on option for Mac purchases as of today.

Today's change comes a few weeks after MacRumors initially reported rumors of One to One's impending demise and later confirmed meetings with retail staff to announce the change. The program will officially be discontinued on September 28, although with today's change it's clear the company is looking to halt new signups as much as possible ahead of that date.

Priced at $99 per year and valid for up to three years following the purchase of a new Mac, Apple's One to One program offered to teach customers unfamiliar with the company's products everything from basic setup to more specialized sessions on apps like GarageBand and Final Cut Pro.

Apple will continue to offer free workshops and training in its stores, but with the more advanced paid One to One option being discontinued, it could offer an opportunity for resellers to promote their own similar programs.

Apple News launched on iOS 9 this week in the U.S., delivering the latest stories from large publications and independent blogs alike in one mobile-friendly format on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Apple has set attractive monetization terms for Apple News, allowing publishers to collect 100% of revenue earned from ads they sell and 70% of revenue from iAds inventory sold by Apple.

In return, publishers appear ready to give Apple News a chance. In addition to several high-profile publications that have signed on for the service, including Bloomberg, CNN, ESPN and The New York Times, at least one has decided to offer exclusive early access to select content through the app.

Re/code editor Peter Kafka recently tweeted that an upcoming Wired feature about "starchitect Bjarke Ingels" will be available exclusively on Apple News at 3 PM Eastern today, with expanded availability on the web next Tuesday -- a four-day exclusive window on Apple News.

Wired parent company Conde Nast, which also publishes Vanity Fair, GQ, Epicurious, Teen Vogue and Conde Nast Traveler, will be pushing sponsorship opportunities to advertisers, which is perhaps a more viable monetization strategy with the emergence of content blockers on iOS 9. It has already signed up Burberry, Ford, Campbell Soup and Reynolds to flat-rate deals.

Apple News has the potential to command a large audience due to widespread adoption of iPhones and iPads, but it remains to be seen how popular the app will be with Facebook, Twitter and other platforms for consuming digital content vying for reader attention. News Corporation shut down its iPad newspaper The Daily in 2012, while Conde Nast has attempted exclusive iPad content in the past with little fanfare.

The full potential of Apple News should become clearer as iOS 9 adoption rises and Apple News Format becomes widely available for publishers to create custom editorial layouts geared towards their individual brands.

Apple has added a banner to its U.S. website that allows customers to donate to the American Red Cross through the iTunes Store to support the refugee and migration crisis across the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. The donation tiers available include $5, $10, $25, $50, $100 and $200.

All of the proceeds from donations, which are processed as regular iTunes Store transactions, are sent to the American Red Cross. Apple has run American Red Cross donation campaigns several times in the past for crises such as the 2015 Nepal earthquake, 2013 Philippines typhoon, 2012 Hurricane Sandy, 2011 Japan tsunami and 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Update: Apple will also make a "substantial donation" itself and match employee donations by 2-to-1, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

“Apple is dedicated to advancing human rights around the world,” Cook wrote in the message, seen by Reuters. “We hope the actions we’re taking will help make the situation less desperate for some, and ease the hardship so many are enduring.”

Note: Due to the 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 senior legal counsel Mike Maletic held an hour-long meeting with the California Department of Motor Vehicles last month to review "autonomous vehicle regulations," according to internal documents obtained by The Guardian. The revelation comes amid widespread rumors that Apple has hired hundreds of employees to develop an electric vehicle over the past several months.

Maletic reportedly met with a trio of DMV executives familiar with self-driving cars, including deputy director Bernard Soriano and chief of strategic planning Stephanie Dougherty, who are co-sponsors of California's autonomous vehicle regulation project. Brian Soublet, the department’s deputy director and chief counsel, was also in the meeting, according to the report.

California’s DMV is developing regulations for the eventual deployment and public operation of autonomous vehicles. These rules will establish requirements that manufacturers must meet to certify that their driverless vehicles have been successfully tested, meet safety criteria, and are ready for consumers to operate on public roads.

Apple would be required to obtain an Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit from the California DMV to test autonomous vehicles on public roads, which Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Tesla Motors, Nissan, BMW, Honda and others have already done. Given the Cupertino-based company's culture of secrecy, however, that is an unlikely scenario.

If Apple does seek a testing permit for its Project Titan self-driving car, it will have to sacrifice much of its legendary preference for secrecy. Manufacturers applying for a permit have to detail the make, model and vehicle identification number (VIN) of cars they want to test, share details of autonomous features and capabilities, and identify test drivers by name.

If rumors about Apple testing an electric vehicle are true, it is more likely that the iPhone maker will use a private testing facility such as GoMentum Station, a 2,100-acre former naval base in the San Francisco Bay Area run by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority. Apple could also use its own property to test vehicles with complete privacy, something it may already be doing.

The report suggests the so-called "Apple Car" could be "almost ready for public view":

According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Apple has appointed an engineering program manager (EPM) to Project Titan. EPMs generally arrive on an Apple project once a product is ready to leave the lab, and coordinate the work of teams of hardware and software engineers.

Apple's rumored "Project Titan" electric vehicle research and development could be based at a top-secret office complex in Sunnyvale codenamed SG05, the report corroborates. Bloomberg reported in February that Apple aims to begin electric car production as early as 2020, but the company's roadmap is not entirely clear due to the highly secretive nature of the project.

Update: Representatives from the California DMV that spoke to Re/code have confirmed that Apple did meet with the DMV to discuss California's autonomous vehicle regulations.

"The meeting with representatives from Apple focused on a discussion of the autonomous vehicle testing regulations that went into effect in September of 2014," DMV spokesman Armando Botello said in an emailed statement.

Alongside the launch of iOS 9 yesterday, Apple debuted a new Android app called "Move to iOS." The app is designed to help Android users transfer their content from an Android device to an iOS device. According to Phandroid, the app may not be developed by Apple and instead be a rebranded version of an existing app.

The app in question is Media Mushroom's Copy My Data, one of two Media Mushroom apps that specialize in transferring data between devices. The other app is Device Switch, and both are available in the App Store and Google Play. Phandroid took a look at the code of Move to iOS and noticed that it included references to Media Mushroom's Copy My Data app, like the tag android:name="com.mediamushroom.copymydata".

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The two applications share a vast majority of code and functionality. In fact, all of the com.mediamushroom.copymydata strings were left inside Apple’s rebranded version. Essentially, the only differences between the two apps are Apple’s artwork being added, the inclusion of Apple’s licensing agreements, and Media Mushroom’s UI elements being removed. That’s really it.

As noted by Phandroid, it's likely Apple licensed the rights to use and rebrand Media Mushroom's app. Move to iOS is Apple's first Android app, and the app has gained numerous negative reviews in the Google Play Store. Of its 15,230 reviews, 12,184 are one-star reviews. Criticisms in the negative reviews include complaints about iOS, Apple, and that the app uses Apple's design philosophy rather than Google's Material Design. Apple's second Android app will be Apple Music.

At its "Hey Siri" event, Apple announced an updated iPad mini 4 but largely glossed over any details, focusing its time on the iPhones 6s and 6s Plus, the new Apple TV and the iPad Pro. Today, iFixit completed its teardown for the device, confirming that it comes with a smaller battery than the previous iPad mini as well as 2 GB of RAM.

While iFixit's teardown physically confirms that the iPad mini 4 has 2 GB of RAM, Ars Technica ran a GeekBench 3 test a couple days ago on the device, confirming that it runs a 1.5 GHz Apple A8 with 2 GB of RAM. This makes the iPad mini 4 faster than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which run a 1.4 GHz A8, and both the iPad mini 2 and 3, which run 1.3 GHz A7's.

iFixit's teardown also confirmed that the device comes with a smaller, thinner single-cell battery. The iPad mini 4's battery is 5,124 mAh while the iPad mini 3's battery is 6,471 mAh. While the new battery is smaller, Apple claims the new iPad mini 4 retains the same battery life as the iPad mini 3.

Finally, Apple has also refined, slimmed down and moved around many of the new iPad mini 4's parts due to shrinking the device's thickness from 7.5 mm (iPad mini 3) to 6.1 mm (iPad mini 4). For instance, the FaceTime camera has slimmed down, the battery has shrunk, the LCD and front panel glass are fused together and antennas have been moved both to the top and bottom of the device. iFixit's full teardown provides additional details on all the nips and tucks in the device.

Earlier this week, Apple began allowing developers who won the lottery for an Apple TV Developer Kit to place orders for the devices, and shortly after, Apple began shipping Apple TVs out around the world. As of today, a large number of developers have begun receiving the Apple TVs according to reports on Twitter and images shared with MacRumors.

Developers were selected to receive an Apple TV using a lottery process that started shortly after the Apple TV was introduced on September 9, which has now wrapped up. Developers who won were able to obtain Apple TV Developer Kits at no cost, with a $1 fee being charged to verify billing and shipping addresses.

With Apple TVs in the hands of hundreds of developers, we may be able to learn a lot more about the device and how it works ahead of its official late October launch date, and we'll be able to get a closer look at what kind of apps we can expect on it. Last week, there was an unboxing of the Apple TV, which gave us a first glimpse at the new set-top box and the touch-based remote out in the wild.

The new Apple TV includes a powerful A8 processor, 2GB RAM, and a new operating system, tvOS, which supports Siri voice control and a full App Store, allowing games and apps to be played on the device.

(Thanks, Tom!)

iOS users are installing Apple's latest operating system at roughly the same pace iOS 8 was installed last year, according to multiple analytics companies that are tracking iOS 9 adoption rates. iOS 9 has now been available for download for just over 24 hours.

Mixpanel's live iOS 9 tracking site suggests iOS 9 is now installed on approximately 12.60 percent of devices, which is in line with iOS 8 adoption rates in 2014.

"iOS 9 has received 12% adoption in the last 24 hours and is being adopted similar to iOS 8 last year. This kind of adoption took Android's latest operating system, Lollipop, in comparison 5 months to achieve. One huge advantage Apple got right this year over last year was that the update is much smaller than last year (3.5x smaller) < Apple has empathy for its users who have nearly maxed out the space on their phones. However, one issue for it being substantially slow compared to iOS 7 is that servers are having trouble keeping up right now as people update."

Because each analytics site tracks a different selection of iOS users based on app installs, iOS 9 installation numbers vary quite a bit across platforms. All of the sites tracking iOS 9 adoption agree that it is on pace with adoption numbers seen after iOS 8 was released last year, however. Tapjoy is seeing adoption rates spanning from 4 percent to 7 percent, based on device, while Fiksu is seeing 6 percent of its users running iOS 9.

According to GoSquared, iOS 9 users now represent 12 percent of total iOS traffic, a number that's on par with both Mixpanel's count and an 11.84 percent measurement from analytics company Paddle.

Two years ago, iOS 7 saw much quicker adoption rates than we're seeing with iOS 9, but that is not surprising as iOS 7 marked the last major design update to the operating system. iOS 8 and iOS 9 brought many new features, but few visual changes.

What is surprising is that iOS 9 adoption is not outpacing iOS 8 adoption because iOS 9 has a much smaller installation size. While iOS 8 required 4.58 GB to install, iOS 9 only requires 1.3 GB, making it much more accessible to users who have little space open on their devices.

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming OS X El Capitan update to developers, two weeks before OS X El Capitan will be released to the public on September 30.

The new beta, build 15B17c, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center.

It is not clear what improvements the first update to OS X El Capitan will bring, but it's likely to include bug fixes and performance improvements for issues that have been encountered following the operating system's official release.

Update: OS X 10.11.1 includes support for Unicode 8 and a range of new emoji like taco, burrito, cheese wedge, hot dog, middle finger, and unicorn head. The emoji are also included in iOS 9.1, which is currently in testing as well.

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that Apple was entitled to an injunction on multiple Samsung products that a lower court ruled to be infringing on the iPhone maker's patented technologies in an early 2014 trial.

As noted by Bloomberg, the ruling sets an important precedent, since it could have an impact on how damages are awarded in future trials involving patented inventions from large technology companies such as Apple, Samsung and Google.

The decision could have far-reaching consequences in how disputes are resolved when it comes to complex devices. The ability to block use of an invention is a powerful tool that increases the price tag when negotiating settlements.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington echoed that in its ruling:

“The right to exclude competitors from using one’s property rights is important,” the Federal Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision. “And the right to maintain exclusivity -- a hallmark and crucial guarantee of patent rights deriving from the Constitution itself -— is likewise important.”

In May 2014, a jury in the lower court Apple vs. Samsung trial found that Samsung willfully infringed on three of the five patents involved in the lawsuit, related to technologies including slide to unlock and data syncing. Samsung was ordered to pay Apple a settlement of $119.6 million.

Samsung informed the appeals court in March that only one of its products currently for sale infringes upon a single Apple patent, so any potential injunction would not have much of an impact on the South Korean company's bottom line. Nevertheless, Samsung is in the process of appealing the lower court decision before the U.S. Federal Circuit.

Universal today launched the second official trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs movie, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender (via Coming Soon). Set backstage at three of Jobs' biggest product launches, the movie aims to showcase the personality of the former Apple CEO through some of the most intense and public moments of his life.

The film also stars Seth Rogen, Kate Winslet, and Jeff Daniels as Steve Wozniak, Joanna Hoffman, and John Sculley, respectively. Since initial rumors began on the movie's production four years ago, it's faced multiple changes in directors and lead actors for the role of Steve Jobs.

The movie debuted last week at the Telluride Film Festival to nearly-universal positive acclaim, with some calling it "thrilling" and Steve Wozniak himself noting its accuracy to real life events. The movie will next make its premiere as the Centerpiece for the New York Film Festival before debuting in limited release on October 9, and going wide on October 16.

Best Buy has accepted Apple Pay for in-app payments since April, and now the U.S. electronics retailer has begun rolling out the iPhone-based mobile payments service in stores.

A new YouTube video and Reddit thread confirm customers making successful debit and credit card purchases using both Apple Pay and Android Pay at separate Best Buy stores in California.

Best Buy is now permitted to support Apple Pay, Android Pay and other NFC payment services after its three-year exclusivity period with payment consortium Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) expired in August. MCX has developed its own mobile payments service called CurrentC, which some retailers began testing in August but may not see a broad launch until 2016.

Best Buy has not officially announced Apple Pay availability at its U.S. retail chain, but the company did confirm in April that it would roll out in-store support later in 2015. Best Buy joins Rite Aid, Meijer and other retailers as MCX members that now accept Apple Pay, but others such as Walmart have no plans to support the service.

(Thanks, Jarod!)