MacRumors

Drone and headphone manufacturer Parrot has unveiled its new RNB6 in-dash car entertainment system at CES 2015, which features a 7-inch, 720p touchscreen with built-in support for Apple CarPlay and Siri Eyes Free as well as Android Auto and Android Auto Voice.

Parrot's RNB6 system also boasts a number of internal specs and features including Bluetooth 4.0 and configurable 5GHz Wi-Fi, as well as rear ports for GPS, HDMI, microphone input, ethernet, onboard diagnostics and USB devices. The in-dash system features a built-in dash camera with a wide-angle lens and full HD support, and also supports steering wheel control for UI navigation.

Parrot did not give a suggested price for the RNB6, but noted that it would be shipping during the latter half of 2015.

A new internal sketch of Apple's larger-screened iPad Pro has surfaced by way of a Foxconn worker (via Nowhereelse.fr, Google Translate), showing what may be our first look at the large tablet and its physical features.

The employee who captured the sketch notes that initial testing phases for the larger iPad were halted last summer after Apple received new prototypes, but adds that mass production on the device will begin soon. The source also notes that the tablet will be between 6.9 and 7.5mm thick, and feature four integrated speakers with two on the top and two on the bottom.

Previous rumors have suggested that the iPad Pro is expected to feature a screen size between 12.2 and 12.9 inches along with an A8X processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Most recently, Japanese magazine Mac Fan published possible schematics of the upcoming device, which suggested that the tablet would carry a 12.2-inch LCD display and carry the name "iPad Air Plus".

It is currently unknown as to when Apple would launch its larger-screened iPad, with reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggesting that the tablet would not enter production until the second quarter of 2015 due to increased attention on iPhone 6 Plus production. However, with the supply of its larger phone greatly improving as of late, it is possible that Apple is now ready to put its full production efforts towards its larger iPad for a launch later this year.

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, tech companies often take the opportunity to unveil new products. Well-known data storage company Seagate is no exception, and is introducing three impressive new products at the show.

The new 500GB Seagate Wireless portable hard drive is the company's latest HD designed specifically for use with tablets and smartphones like Apple's iPad and iPhone, introducing additional storage at affordable price. Available in five bright colors (lime green, cool blue, slate gray, fire-engine red, and white), the hard drive offers a nine hour battery life and the ability to store media like photos and videos, which can be streamed directly to an iOS device through the Seagate Media app.

It includes a new auto backup feature for making a secondary copy of photos and videos, and it can be used for storing documents and other file types. Because it has built-in Wi-Fi, the Seagate Wireless does not need an existing network connection. The Seagate Wireless will be available in January for $129.99 from the Seagate website and through retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.

Seagate's second product, the Seagate Personal Cloud, is designed to offer an alternative to traditional server side cloud-based storage. The Personal Cloud allows users to backup their computers (with the Seagate Mobile Backup app) and store content securely on a dedicated hard drive that's located within the home rather than on a server.

Content can be accessed outside of the home much like any other cloud-based storage option through the Seagate Media app, and as a home media storage option, it can stream video and play full HD content with no buffering or lag.

Seagate Personal Cloud demystifies the often frustrating process of finding, accessing and enjoying photos, videos and music on the device of your choice. Once connected to a wireless router and after a free download of the Seagate Media app, users will be treated to an intuitive, media-rich browsing experience that makes playback of content an effortless and enjoyable experience.

The Seagate Personal Cloud can be used with any device that's supported by Seagate Media apps, including Smart TVs from Samsung and LG, many consoles, streaming media players like the Chromecast and Apple TV, and smartphones and tablets like Apple's iPad and iPhone.

The Seagate Personal Cloud can also be set up with a secondary backup to other popular cloud services, like Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more for additional offsite protection. There's also a Seagate Personal Cloud 2-Bay option available with two internal drives for duplicate storage.

Seagate's Personal Cloud will begin shipping to retailers in January, in 3TB, 4TB, and 5TB capacities with pricing starting at $169. The Personal Cloud 2-Bay will be available in 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB capacities as well.

Seagate's most notable product this year is the Seagate Seven, which the company is calling the world's thinnest 500GB portable hard drive. At just 7mm thick, it uses Seagate's latest mobile hard drive technology and is aimed at tech enthusiasts who want the thinnest devices. With a steel finish, the hard drive is ultra portable and is, according to Seagate, the culmination of 35 years of experience.

The Seagate Seven will be available at the end of January for $99.99 from the Seagate website and from retailers like Amazon.

Seagate is also debuting several new LaCie products, including the designer LaCie Mirror hard drive and the LaCie Rugged RAID thunderbolt hard drive.

Paid music downloads, which have dominated the digital music market for years thanks in large part to Apple's iTunes Store, showed accelerating weakness in the United States last year as music streaming services like Spotify and a resurgence of vinyl record sales exploded in popularity.

According to Nielsen SoundScan (via The Wall Street Journal), streaming music grew a remarkable 54 percent in 2014, moving from 106 billion songs in 2013 to 164 billion in 2014. That growth contrasts with traditional song downloads that dropped off significantly from 2013. Paid downloads for full music albums declined 9 percent in 2014, with individual song downloads seeing an even larger 12 percent drop-off. Overall, according to SoundScan, Americans bought 257 million albums in 2014, 106.5 million of which were downloaded digitally.

Amid the digital shift from individual downloads to streaming, an older technology also saw a resurgence in 2014 with vinyl record sales at their highest levels since SoundScan began tracking music sales in 1991. Nielsen's tracking shows 9.2 million vinyl records sold, representing a 52 percent overall increase in sales from 2013.

With lackluster overall digital music downloads mirroring a similar drop in iTunes Store sales, Apple has been looking at ways to improve its positioning in the music market. Apple's initial effort with iTunes Radio to offer a Pandora-like experience that also seeks to drive iTunes Store purchases has had a less-than-stellar reception with availability in only the United States and Australia. That weak entry likely spurred Apple to pursue last year's acquisition of Beats Music for a full-fledged subscription streaming service.

Recent reports have indicated that Apple will be pursuing a major revamp of Beats early this year that may see prominent integration of the paid streaming service into iOS and iTunes, perhaps including a rebranding under the iTunes name.

With luxury watchmakers turning their attention to the smartwatch market ahead of the Apple Watch launch later this year, Montblanc is one of the first to announce specific plans. As noted by aBlogtoWatch, Montblanc's initial foray is an "e-Strap" accessory band for traditional watches that connects wirelessly to a smartphone.

The Montblanc e-Strap incorporates a small 0.9-inch wide screen into a high-quality leather band that attaches to a traditional analog watch. The screen lays flat against the underside of the wrist, allowing users to receive notifications, count steps, and control music playback on a connected smartphone. The band connects to an iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth and offers up to five days of battery life.

How impressive as a connected wearable device will the e-Strap's electronic module be? It will have a 0.9 inch monochromatic OLED touchscreen display with a 128x36 pixel resolution. That isn't exactly industry changing, but this is more than just a mere notification device. Montblanc has made it clear that in addition to basic calls, texts, e-mails, calendars, social media, and reminder notifications, the e-Strap will function as an activity monitor/tracker with a pedometer and accelerometer to measure data that feeds into an included iPhone or Android phone app.

The e-Strap will reportedly sell separately for 250 Euros and will also be available initially as an option with select Timewalker Urban Speed watches. The band will, however, apparently be compatible with all 42-mm or 43-mm wide Timewalker watches.

Montblanc is one of several luxury watchmakers adding smartwatch-inspired products to their 2015 portfolios. Timex and Fossil reportedly are partnering with Qualcomm and Intel, respectively, on upcoming smartwatches, while Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is exploring partnerships and acquisitions in order to jumpstart its own smartwatch projects.

With the new year, Apple has made a few price adjustments to its products and services, led by an increased yearly fee for the company's developer programs in a number of European countries, as first noticed by German blog Apfelpage [Google Translate].

The Apple-focused blog reports that German developers are now facing a €99 ($119) per year subscription charge for Apple's various developer programs, up from a previous €80 ($96) subscription fee. The price changes presumably affect all EU markets, as Apple typically has consistent pricing across member countries except for occasional differences due to variations in tax rates. Apple's developer programs are priced at $99 per year in the United States.

The price increase is also in effect for the UK, where the price has been adjusted from £60 ($92) a year to £79 ($121) as noted by 9to5Mac. Across the board, the European developer program has been about on par with or slightly above the cost in the U.S. when adjusted for currency rates. Following the weakening of many world currencies compared to the U.S. dollar in recent months, however, Apple's price increases in those countries will help reset the company's desired pricing matrix but increase costs somewhat for developers overseas.

Elsewhere, the prices of Apple physical products are seeing slight hikes in a few countries. Apple Toolbox reports Apple has increased the price of products like the Mac, iPhone, and iPod in Turkey, a country where the company's products are already among the highest priced in the world. And the increase in prices may not stop there, as the Turkish Minister of Economy recently announced a plan to gain favor for products made in Turkey by introducing taxes on imported smartphones, computers, and tablets.

A MacRumors reader has also pointed out that the Norwegian people will be facing higher prices for Apple products, with the new iMac with Retina 5K Display and iPhone 6 seeing 8.3 and 12 percent increases respectively. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display received the biggest price jump, going from 10,790 kr to 12,590 kr, roughly a 14 percent increase in the cost of the device.

Apple has been known to adjust the price of its products alongside fluctuating currency values, most drastically just last month when the Russian ruble saw a sharp drop in value, causing the company to temporarily shut down its Russian online store and return with significant price hikes days later.

Though far less dramatic, these price inflations seen in other parts of the world appear due to the weakening of the Turkish lira and Norwegian krone in recent months. Even so, it's not entirely clear why the company instituted the price change to these select few foreign markets, and whether or not other countries could see a similar price hike in the future, as many other currencies have also been weakening against the U.S. dollar.

Apple's retail locations in Japan have begun sales of the "Fukubukuro", also known as a "lucky bag", which offer an assortment of products at a steep discount. Japanese blog Mac Otakara (Google Translate) was present at the Apple Store in Nagoya to discover the exact content of the various bags among customers, with some shoppers receiving big-ticket items like iPads and MacBooks.

This year's lucky bags sell for 36,000 yen ($300) and come in four different configurations, with common items including an Apple TV, a 4000 mAh Mophie Powerstation external battery pack, an Incase Icon backpack, an iTunes gift card, and Beats by Dre Powerbeats2 wireless earbuds. For the most valuable Fukubukuro bag, Apple included an 11-inch MacBook Air with a Power Support Air Jacket and a Twelve South PlugBug dual charger along with the common items.

Other variants of the bag offer a fifth-generation 16GB iPod touch, a 16GB iPad mini 3 or a 16GB iPad Air 2 alongside the common items. The iPad lucky bags also feature Logitech's UE Boom portable speaker.

Apple's grab bags are sold as is, and returns are not allowed unless a product is defective. The promotion is limited to Apple Stores in Japan, although they are usually met with long lines of shoppers hoping to purchase their own lucky bag.

Thanks to the iPhone 6, the iPad Air 2, the iPad mini 3, OS X Yosemite, and iOS 8, 2014 was a major year for Apple. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus brought new screen sizes and a radical redesign, while iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite introduced deep integration between Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems.

The past year has seen an impressive display of innovation and new ideas, but upcoming product releases and rumors suggest that 2015 may be an even more monumental year for Apple.

Along with the Apple Watch, which Apple has said will launch in early 2015, we will likely see major updates across the Mac lineup due to the availability of Intel's next-generation Broadwell chips. An Apple TV update has long been in the works and could see a 2015 debut, and as it has done every year, Apple will undoubtedly update its iPad and iPhone lineup, along with releasing new versions of iOS and OS X.

As we did last year, we've highlighted Apple's prospective 2015 product plans, outlining what we might see from Apple over the course of the next 12 months based on current rumors.

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Earlier this week, Apple debuted a new "Start Something New" campaign on its Japanese site, showcasing individuals using its latest products and creative apps to make art and capture photos.

As of today, the company's new campaign has been expanded to several other countries, including the United States and many locations across Europe and Asia.

The "Start Something New" micro site includes a gallery that features art made with Apple products like the iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iMac. A range of photography, painting, and sketching apps like Procreate, VSCO Cam, iDraw, Waterlogue, and Brushes 3 are also featured on the site.

Apple also highlights individual creator stories, sharing the tools that each person uses to create their pieces. Japanese artist Nomoco, for example, uses an iPad Air 2 and the Brushes 3 app to make paintings.

Nomoco's approach to making art is organic and tactile. She is inspired by movement and light, and even the way an ink drop splashes can guide her next move. So when she painted digitally for the first time, it was natural for her to use her fingers. With iPad Air 2 and the Brushes 3 app, Nomoco was able to create this ethereal series exactly as she had imagined it.

Other artists, like Marcelo Gomes and Jingyao Guo use various photography and sketching apps to make stylized photos and drawings. Several photographers like Jared Chambers and Christian Weber use popular photo editing app VSCO Cam to edit photos, and Apple apps like iMovie and Final Cut Pro are used by videographers Matt Pyke and Thayer Allyson Gowdy.

Several iOS tools are featured as well, including Exposure Control, Burst Mode, and HDR, which various photographers use in the art creation process. Apple's "Start Something New" campaign follows in the footsteps of its previous "Your Verse" iPad campaign, which demonstrated the many ways people have incorporated Apple's iPad into their daily lives.

Several iPhone 6 owners on Apple support forums and in MacRumors forums are reporting an issue with Apple Pay after making changes to the their phones that automatically reset the Apple Pay service (via 9to5Mac). These activities include restoring a phone, logging out of iCloud and possibly removing a passcode from the device.

Following such changes, Apple automatically removes the associated credit cards from Apple Pay as a security measure to protect a user's sensitive financial information in case of loss or theft of the phone. Users are then required to repeat the setup process and re-add their credit cards to the mobile payment service. It is during this restoration step, however, that the process fails for some users.

Upon failure, users are greeted with an alert advising them to contact their card issuers. Subsequent calls to banks confirmed the cards not associated with the Apple Pay service, but the phone still fails to accept the card information. Apple support is typically unable to fix the issue and, in many cases, Genius Bar technicians have replace the phones with new or refurbished units in order to restore Apple Pay functionality.

The issue likely involves the secure enclave on the iPhone that stores the Apple Pay information. It is possible that the automatic removal of Apple Pay information does not clear the enclave properly, leaving behind details that block the addition of credit card information. This apparent glitch in the service appears to only affect users who made changes that disabled Apple Pay and removed cards automatically. Users who manually remove their cards are able to add new and previously used cards back to Apple Pay without an issue.

It is not clear how many iPhone 6 owners are affected by this issue. It could be a system-wide glitch affecting all Apple Pay users or an issue with only a small number of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets. Not surprisingly, Apple has yet to comment officially on the matter.

A new class action lawsuit was filed against Apple on Tuesday in a U.S. federal court, alleging the company's newest version of iOS doesn't properly inform its users just how much storage space it will occupy once downloaded.

As reported by Siliconbeat, the lawsuit is claiming that iOS 8 can take up as much as 23.1 percent of the overall storage capacity of an iOS device, but that fact isn't actively advertised when customers purchase a new Apple product, or go to download the new software update. The plaintiffs point to personal moments akin to sporting events or weddings where users are desperate for more storage as Apple preying on consumers for more profit.

"Using these sharp business tactics, defendant gives less storage capacity than advertised, only to offer to sell that capacity in a desperate moment, e.g., when a consumer is trying to record or take photos at a child or grandchild’s recital, basketball game or wedding," alleges the plaintiffs in the case.

William Anderson, the plaintiffs' attorney of Cuneo Gilbert & Laduca, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, seeks both damages and changes to Apple's policies specifically under California state law.

"We feel that there are a substantial number of Apple consumers that have been shortchanged," Anderson said in a statement. "And we’ll be pursuing the claims vigorously."

Anderson continued to sound off support not only for consumers facing storage issue following the download of iOS 8, but those who purchased an iPhone or iPad with iOS 8 already installed.

iOS 8 launched back in September, including a bevy of new features like Continuity and allowing third-parties to access Touch ID and its keyboard functionality. A few days after launch, problems such as battery drain and slow Wi-Fi began cropping up for some iOS 8 users. Apple's further attempts to remedy the rocky launch with steady updates caused even larger problems with cell service outage and spotty Touch ID issues.

A late-October update brought much-anticipated support for Apple Pay, amongst other features, and began putting the service back on track. As of early November the newest operating system was installed on 60 percent of active iOS devices.

Despite the company's continued efforts to address iOS 8 bugs, the plaintiffs of the new class action are attempting to use Apple's own branding of iOS 8 - "The biggest iOS release ever" - as a hidden piece of subtext hinting at the hefty amount of storage the operating system requires.