MacRumors

Google today released its "Year in Search" feature, highlighting popular and trending searches for 2014 in a number of categories. Unsurprisingly, a number of Apple-related search terms ranked highly among the most trending searches in the Consumer Electronics category, with "iPhone 6" taking #1, "Apple Watch" taking #8, and "iPad Air" taking #10.

Other popular search terms in the Consumer Electronics category include "Samsung Galaxy S5" which took #2, "Xbox One" which took #7, and "Nokia X" which took #9. Google's top 10 overall trending searches of the year did not include any tech products, however Dong Nguyen's ultra-popular app Flappy Bird did take the #6 spot.

Last year, Apple-related terms like "iPhone 5s", "iOS 7", and "iPad Air" ranked highly among the most popular Google searches for 2013, coming in at #3, #11, and #68, respectively. Apple-related terms also performed strongly in the trending tech category last year, with the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPad Air, iPad mini, and even the iPhone 6 all placing among the top ten.

Apple's Beats Electronics and Bose already compete in the headphone and speaker markets, but it appears that Bose may be gearing up to compete with Beats in another area -- streaming music.

A Bose job listing first noticed by Hypebot (via VentureBeat) seeks a Senior User Experience Designer to work on prototyping Bose's "next generation streaming music platform and ecosystem of products."

You will help to develop a holistic view of the customer journey through the Bose ecosystem as it relates to our streaming music experiences. You will work with a cross-functional team to implement meaningful and delightful design solutions into experiential concepts and prototypes. You will collaborate with development teams to realize the execution of your designs.

Aside from the information obtained in the job listing, details on Bose's potential music project have been kept under wraps. Bose does, however, ask for job candidates that have worked for Pandora, Spotify, Songza, Beats Music, SiriusXM, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, RDIO, and several other radio-based streaming music services, suggesting a potential Bose music offering could emulate either the on-demand style of Beats Music or a radio-style service akin to Pandora.

Bose and Beats have had an ongoing rivalry since July of this year, when Bose sued Beats for product infringement. Though the two reached quickly a settlement, Apple briefly removed all Bose products from its retail stores before resuming sales last week.

Beats and Bose have also clashed over NFL players, after Bose signed a deal with the NFL that saw players banned from wearing Beats during games. Jimmy Iovine, Beats co-founder, praised Bose's "culturally inept" move to block the popular headphone brand and said it made Beats "look like superheroes."

Along with returning Bose products to store shelves, Apple has demonstrated that it's open to offering competing products by recently adding Master & Dynamic headphones to its online store and by continuing to offer several non-Beats headphones and speakers in its retail locations. While Apple has made an effort to allow competing products on store shelves, it will be interesting to see if the relationship between Beats and Bose shifts again should the latter company also enter the streaming music market.

Each year, Apple provides its employees with an exclusive Apple-branded holiday gift to thank them for their contributions to the company and to celebrate the holidays.

This year, Apple employees received an exclusive black Apple-branded Incase backpack that's similar to the Incase Staple Backpack. Incase's Staple Backpack, which has a slot for a MacBook along with several different pockets for accessories, typically retails for $59.99. Apple distributed the backpacks with an accompanying poem.

This is our gift to you.
But it can never compare to what you've given.

What does it take to give a gift?
It takes thoughtfulness. Compassion.
And sometimes, sacrifice of your time,
your talent, and your heart,

These are the gifts you give:
kindness, knowledge, humor, and patience.
You give them when you cover for a teammate,
so they can go on a much-deserved break.
When you send an email recognizing a job
well done. Or when you grab an extra coffee
for a friend before you clock in.

You give these gifts whether it's the beginning
of the season, or the end of a very long day.
You do it over, and over, and over again.

Amazing products are designed in Cupertino.
Amazing moments are made by you.
These moments are your gift this
holiday season -- to your customers,
to your team, and to the world.

Thank you.

As noted by 9to5Mac one of the Incase backpacks gifted to an Apple employee has already been listed on eBay and purchased for a buyout price of $99.99. In past years, Apple employees have received blankets, water bottles, hoodies, free apps, and more.

TD Bank plans to soft launch Apple Pay on Tuesday, December 16, according to a source with knowledge of the bank's plans. As of tomorrow, the U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian bank will begin allowing customers to add their TD Bank Visa Debit or Credit Card to Apple Pay, making purchases with their iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.

As with other credit and debit cards, TD Bank cards will be added via Passbook or in the Apple Pay Settings menu. Some customers may be required to confirm their cards by calling TD Bank's customer service numbers.

Eligible cards are listed below:

- TD Bank Visa Debit Card
- TD Bank Business Visa Debit Card
- TD Bank Private Client Visa Debit Card
- TD Easy Rewards Visa (Platinum & Signature) Credit Card
- TD Cash Rewards Visa (Platinum & Signature) Credit Card
- TD Payment Plus Visa Platinum Credit Card
- TD First Class Visa Signature Credit Card
- TD Business Solutions Visa Credit Card
- TD Simply Flexible Visa Business Card

TD Bank employees have been training for the Apple Pay launch since early December, and training wrapped up last week ahead of tomorrow's soft launch. Though Apple Pay is soft launching at TD Bank on Tuesday and will become available to customers, a full launch, complete with advertising, is not expected to come until mid-January.

TD Bank's Apple Pay support is launching later than many other banks, but TD Bank has been an eager partner and announced that it would support Apple Pay shortly after the service first launched.

Apple formed partnerships with many of the largest banks in the United States that saw them adding support for Apple Pay just after it was released, but Apple has also been hard at work getting additional banks on board. In November, for example, several major banks began accepting Apple Pay, including Navy Federal, USAA, US Bank, and PNC.

According to Apple, more than 500 banks are signed on to support Apple Pay and are working on Apple Pay support. A running list of banks that currently support Apple Pay can be found on Apple's site.

Amid the explosion in popularity of streaming music services, Warner Music Group continues to support the concept, as long as subscribers are paying for the music to which they are listening, reports Re/code. Warner's CEO Stephen Cooper spoke about the company's growing interest in streaming music during the company's latest earnings conference call which was held last week.

Streaming music is increasingly important to Warner, with revenue from online music up 74 percent year over year. In the same period, revenue from downloads plummeted 12 percent, echoing a similar downward trend also seen by Apple's iTunes music download service.

To offset the loss from downloads, Warner currently accepts the freemium model of ad-supported streaming music, but only as a means to convert users to paying subscribers. Paid subscriptions and not freemium plans are the future of the industry, states Cooper.

In our view, right now, enabling meaningful global growth in the number of paying subscribers is the best option for artists, for songwriters, for copyright owners and for the services themselves. Subscription streaming is not only a fantastic offering for music fans, it will propel the long-term health of the music industry. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our partners to turbo-charge the adoption rate for subscription streaming.

Warner's emphasis on paying subscribers may not bode well for Apple's reported plan of slashing monthly costs for its Beats Music service. The Cupertino company is rumored to be pushing music labels to cut current subscription prices in half to $5 per month as it negotiates the terms for its recently acquired Beats Music streaming service. Apple argues that lowering the monthly cost will encourage significantly more users to sign up for the paid service, but labels are obviously considering whether those gains will outweigh the lower per-user income that comes with the cheaper pricing.

Along with a goal of lowering consumer pricing, Apple is also said to be working on an early 2015 refresh for the Beats service, likely integrating it into the iTunes brand. With iTunes Radio and Beats Music, Apple offers both ad-supported and paid streaming service, although the two are not currently integrated. iTunes Radio is currently tied to Apple's traditional download offerings, offering easy access for users to purchase individual tracks they hear on iTunes Radio. Even so, iTunes Radio has seen a tepid reception and international expansion has been extremely slow with the service available only in the United States and Australia.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are both seeing improved inventory availability at Apple's retail stores across the United States, according to a new report from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has been tracking in-store availability of various models across 80 different stores since the devices' launch in September.

According to the report, checks of Apple's online store for in-store pickup at the location found that 56 percent of "core SKUs" (AT&T and Verizon) of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were in stock as of last Friday, December 12, which was "up from almost no inventory in mid-November." Munster's previous tracking saw 6 percent availability as of October 14 and 0.4 percent as of November 14.

We believe that this tracking suggests that availability has improved, but we also note that we would have expected availability to be 100%. Previously, we believed that Apple would likely reach 100% availability by the end of the quarter. We now expect it to be closer to 80% by the end of the quarter.

Shipping estimates for online orders through Apple in the U.S. and other countries also began improving in late November and moved to 3-5 business days earlier this month. Munster noted, however, that "typically at this time in the cycle, we would expect online leads times to be same business day."

Looking back at the iPhone 5s, which was also considered constrained for quite some time after launch last year, Munster found in-store availability in the United States was essentially at 100 percent as of December 9, 2013, with online orders achieving "within 24 hours" balance just a day later.

With a little over a week until Christmas, it appears that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are continuing to face far more shortages than any of their predecessors have in the past, despite the boost in online and retail availability over the past month.

Apple today released a new 90-second holiday ad entitled "The Song", following in the footsteps of last year's "Misunderstood" ad.

"The Song" centers around a girl who stumbles upon an old record, apparently a gift from her grandmother to her grandfather from 1952. The record includes a message about not being able to be together for the holidays and then a rendition of "Love Is Here to Stay" sung by the grandmother.

As a part of the ongoing class action iPod lawsuit Apple is facing in court this week, former iTunes engineer Rod Schultz testified that he worked on a project that aimed to block non-iTunes clients and shut out third-party music providers competing with the iPod, reports The Wall Street Journal.

A former iTunes engineer testified in a federal antitrust case against Apple Friday that he worked on a project "intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients" and "keep out third-party players" that competed with Apple’s iPod.

Subpoenaed by the plaintiffs to prove that Apple's moves to block outside music from playing on the iPod drove up prices, Schultz told the court that his project was codenamed "Candy" and that he didn't really want to talk about his work on iTunes from 2006 to 2007.

Schultz went on to reiterate Apple's argument in the case, suggesting the security measures introduced in iTunes reflected the digital music landscape at the time. Record companies, Apple says, demanded DRM and forced Apple to keep the iPod secure.

Both Schultz and Apple also argued Apple's DRM efforts were designed to protect its systems and user experiences, which could have been compromised by being opened up to third-party music players and file formats. Schultz did, however, say that this also led to iPod's market dominance.

Schultz was the final witness in the case, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she plans on sending the case to the jury for deliberations next week. The plaintiffs are requesting $350 million in damages, which could triple under antitrust laws.