MacRumors

Apple is once again said to be considering wireless charging capabilities for the iWatch, according to a various Chinese media reports citing sources at Apple supplier Luxshare (Google Translate, via GforGames).

The Shenzen-based company has reportedly sent Apple wireless charging coils for certification, and pending approval, will likely be providing the wireless charging modules for the iWatch. The report also notes that the iWatch will launch in the second half of this year pending production times.

A report last December also stated that Apple would include wireless charging capabilities in the iWatch, allowing the device to charge from up to a meter away. The iWatch's battery life has been previously reported as a problem for Apple, with iWatch prototypes lasting only 1-2 days on a charge and the company hoping to find ways to extend that to 4-5 days. While wireless charging would be one way to reduce the burden of frequent charges, it is still unclear exactly how it would be implemented in the device's body.

Rumors have indicated Apple's iWatch will contain several different biometric sensors allowing it to track health-related metrics like heart rate, sleep quality and more. The sensors will aggregate data that will be stored in a rumored "Healthbook" application, slated for inclusion in iOS 8.

Along with health-related functionality, the iWatch will likely integrate with the iPhone and iPad to provide notifications and quick access to frequently used apps and services.

Apple's iWatch is rumored to ship later this year two different sizes to accommodate different sized wrists. A report last week stated the the device will feature a round face similar to that of Motorola's Moto 360 smart watch, with production beginning in late July.

Apple's SVP of Internet Services Eddy Cue and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine spoke on the impact of Steve Jobs on Apple during an interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher yesterday at the Re/code Code Conference. While the pair noted that a transition was inevitable after Jobs' death, both spoke on Apple's commitment to quality and putting together an exceptional executive team.

When asked about the late-cofounder, Cue noted that Jobs wanted to "create a culture that was going to last longer than he was going to be CEO." Cue also maintained that the company's values remain in strong attention to every detail and putting product quality first, all while "doing a few things and doing them really great."

Cue was also asked if Apple had to go through a "reset" period when Jobs passed away three years ago and his current feelings on the company:

I never felt like we had a reset. I feel like we have an amazing executive team, many of us who have been there for a long time, working together as a team, building those products whether it's hardware, software, services, completely integrated.

Look, Steve was a great friend, a great mentor, I miss him, you can't say it doesn't mean anything from that standpoint; but when I look at what he set up at Apple and what we're doing, I think he'd be extremely proud of the all the work we're doing today and the products we're building, and I think we're continuing a lot of the legacy he built.

Iovine also commented on the former CEO, praising Apple's executive team and stating that Jobs "put the greatest team in the world together" despite an inevitable transition period for the company. The Beats CEO also admitted that he was surprised on how "flexible" Apple is, noting that it "moves like a small company" despite its large presence.

Cue and Iovine also discussed a number of other topics during the interview, mostly pertaining to Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats that was made official yesterday. Cue shared that Apple has the best product pipeline in 25 years coming later this year, all while noting new milestones for iTunes and the company's quest to "fix" the TV experience.

Notable Apple journalist Jim Dalrymple -- known for his "Yep" and "Nope" confirmations on Apple rumors -- today indicated that Apple will not be introducing a new iMac or a lower-capacity 8GB iPhone at Monday's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Dalrymple's most recent "Nope" is in response to a report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who suggested earlier today that Apple would debut both hardware products at WWDC. According to Kuo, Apple had plans to launch an 8GB iPhone designed for emerging markets and a lower-cost iMac.

While an iMac update might not be imminent, there have been a few hints that a refresh is in the works for a later date, including a reference to new iMac models in the OS X 10.9.4 beta released to developers today.

It remains unclear whether the eventual iMac update will include a price drop, but it is not out of the question given the $100 price cut on the recently updated MacBook Airs.

Speaking at today's Re/code Code Conference, Apple's SVP of internet services Eddy Cue and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine shared some new numbers on iTunes and Beats Music in the wake of today's acquisition.

Cue mentioned that the iTunes Store and iTunes Radio hit new milestones, with the former selling its 35 billionth song and the latter now including over 40 million listeners around the world.

Speaking on the newly formed relationship between Apple and Beats, Cue noted that Apple's great rapport with artists, data on listening habits, and 800 million iTunes accounts with credit cards attached contributes a great deal. "We think all of those things, when you put them all together, it's on steroids with us together," he expressed.

Meanwhile, Iovine announced that Beats Music, currently limited to the U.S., now has 250,000 subscribers since it launched three months ago. A report earlier this month pegged the service's subscriber base at just 110,000 during the month of March, illustrating how the service has grown since then. By contrast, rival music streaming service Spotify reported earlier this month that it has 10 million paying subscribers worldwide.

Iovine added that Beats made a mistake by not offering in-app purchases from the start, and stated that 5 million people have "visited" the service since it launched. After today's announcement, the Beats Music iOS app was updated with an extended 14-day trial period and a price drop to its yearly subscription to $100 from $120.

Eddy Cue, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, and new Apple employee Jimmy Iovine sat down with Re/code's Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher tonight at the inaugural Code Conference and were asked about the much-rumored Apple TV.

Echoing past Apple sentiments, Cue said today's TV experience "sucks" and has "a long way to go." He confirmed that Apple is continuing to work on a way to improve television, but a fix is "complicated."

The problems aren't complicated. Solving them is complicated, because there are lots of parties involved.

According to Cue, many of the problems with TV are related to a lack of global standards and complicated rights issues with content; issues that are far easier to deal with in the music industry. Cue does confirm, however, that Apple is talking with various industry players to work on fixing TV.

Specifically, Cue noted that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts "is the best" and that Cue himself is a Comcast subscriber that is able to watch ESPN and HBO on his Apple TV, which he says Apple will keep evolving and improving. He noted that Apple is looking to add even more content. In March, it was reported that Apple was in talks with Comcast about a potential streaming TV service on a future Apple TV.

Despite Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson speculating that Iovine could be key in any potential TV deals, Iovine told Swisher and Mossberg that he was "not going anywhere near TV". He did, however, acknowledge the challenges of movie curation, pointing to difficulties in finding content to watch on the various video-on-demand platforms like iTunes and streaming services like Netflix.

While it has been a slow start for Apple's product launches thus far in 2014, its flagship iPhone and iPad launches are still to come and it looks like there may be considerably more in the works. That conclusion is based on the level of anticipation shared by Apple's Internet Software and Services chief Eddy Cue at today's Code Conference, as related in a live blog from The Verge.

During a session in which Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher sat down with Cue and Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine to discuss the just confirmed deal and other topics, Swisher asked Cue about how Tim Cook is as a leader.

Cue responded with some of the usual compliments said about Cook: thoroughness, vision, care, and focus. And as if anticipating a follow-up question about when we will see those qualities having more of an impact on Apple's product pipeline, Cue set a high bar for the remainder of this year:

"Later this year, we've got the best product pipeline that I've seen in my 25 years at Apple."

Cue declined to elaborate on that pipeline, noting only that the products will unsurprisingly be "great".

The first hints of Apple's plans for the remainder of 2014 are likely to be revealed next Monday during the keynote at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple executives are expected to show off OS X 10.10, iOS 8, a "smart home" initiative, and likely some hardware, although it is unclear how significant those hardware announcements will be.

Apple may introduce a new 8GB iPhone 5s model for emerging markets and the much-rumored lower-cost iMac at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, according to a new research note from KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo.

As iPhone 5S is a highly popular model, we predict Apple may launch an 8GB version to boost market share in emerging markets.

Kuo notes that Apple may not announce the new 8GB iPhone 5s model on-stage at WWDC, but will possibly debut the phone around the same time.

In addition, Kuo predicts that a lower-cost iMac is likely to debut as well, following up his earlier report and rumors that were fueled after shipping estimates for the machine began to slip in Apple's Online Store. Earlier today, references to new iMac models appeared in OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 beta before it was pulled from the Mac App Store and Developer Center.

Finally, Kuo notes that if Apple does in fact launch a smart home software platform that it will likely involve iCloud, iBeacons and Airplay. Both iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 are expected to debut at the conference as well.

WWDC 2014 will kick off on June 2 with a keynote address from CEO Tim Cook at 10 AM Pacific Time.

Apple is buying Beats Electronics and the Beats Music streaming service for a total of $3 billion. The acquisition is the largest in Apple's history and is the biggest move by CEO Tim Cook since he took the reins from Steve Jobs several years ago.

Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple as full time employees, with both reporting to iTunes head Eddy Cue. In an interview with The New York Times, Cook said Iovine and Dre were "really unique" and that "it's like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They're rare and very hard to find."

Cook said that "of course" Apple could have built a subscription music service rather than buying one, just like the company could have built all the technologies that it has acquired over the years. "You don’t build everything yourself. It’s not one thing that excites us here. It's the people. It’s the service."

In the Times, Cook promised new features for Beats that will "blow your mind" as well as "products you haven't thought of yet". He promised the team would "take music to an even higher level than it is now."

In an interview with Re/code, Cook said that Apple felt Beats was the first subscription music service to "get it right:

We get a subscription music service that we believe is the first subscription service that really got it right. They had the insight early on to know how important human curation is. That technology by itself wasn’t enough — that it was the marriage of the two that would really be great, and produce a feeling in people that we want to produce.

[...]

But mostly, backing up — it’s because we always are future-focused. So it’s not what Apple and Beats are doing today. It’s what we believe pairing the two together can produce for the future.

Apple has seen rumors of a interest in a subscription music service for close to a decade, with Jobs saying in 2007 that customers "don't seem to be interested" in music subscriptions. The New York Post said in 2010 that Apple was negotiating with record labels on such a service, though nothing ever came of it.

Earlier this month, Spotify reported that it has 10 million paying subscribers to its music service, showing that many customers are now interested in such a service.

The Wall Street Journal says Iovine will quit as chairman of Interscope records to work full time at Apple. Dr. Dre will continue to produce music but do "as much as it takes" for Apple. The two men's titles will reportedly be "Jimmy and Dre". In a letter to employees, Tim Cook confirmed that the entire Beats team will be joining Apple under Eddy Cue and noted the company's commitment to curated content.

Both Apple and Beats believe that a great music service requires a strong editorial and curation team, and we will continue to expand what we do in those areas. The addition of Beats will make our incredible iTunes lineup even better, extending the emotional connection our customers have with music.

Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine will appear tonight on stage at the Code Conference.

The acquisition will include $2.6 billion in cash and another $400 million that will vest over time. Apple expects the transaction to close sometime next quarter. The Beats Music iOS app has been updated with an extended 14-day trial period and a price drop to its yearly subscription to $100 from $120.

Beats Music is a free download for the iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]

Ahead of the upcoming debut of iOS 8, which is expected to include Apple's "Healthbook" health aggregating platform, Samsung has announced its own health tracking platform that envelops both open modular hardware and a cloud storage solution.

Called SAMI (Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions), the company's cloud-based sensor data platform is designed to be entirely open to developers and "complementary" with Samsung's S Health initiative.

Alongside SAMI, Samsung showed off its Simband, a reference device that includes a multitude of wearable sensors with several different health-tracking functions. Designed to be an open reference sensor module, Simband offers the standard accelerometers to measure movement along with an ECG sensor and a sensor that measures skin temperature.

The device, which offers miniaturized electronics along with Bluetooth and WiFi, also shows off a removable "shuttle battery" that clips into the band to charge it while it's being worn. As described, the battery allows the device to be worn 24/7, snapping in to charge it during sleep. The open device is multimodal and designed to be customized with interchangeable components, allowing hardware developers to create their own hardware able to be attached to the band.

Samsung's cloud platform SAMI is designed to collect "any kind of data" from a range of devices. On stage, the platform was likened to a bank, storing and securing data privately.

Samsung president Young Sohn compared the company's health efforts to a car dashboard for the human body, aimed at giving consumers an overall picture of their wellbeing. Simband and SAMI are both open and available to developers, and Samsung has paired with early partners like PhysIQ and UCSF to develop new wearable hardware. Developers will be given access to the SAMI SDK later this year.

The company also announced a $50 million digital health challenge aimed at creating new sensors and new health-related technology.

Apple is working on a multitude of prototype projects ranging from the expected to the fantastical, according to Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who suggests the prototypes are "floating around" in the Asian supply chain. In a research note to investors, Misek describes several prototype products, including an iTV with 4K, gesture control, and voice control, along with an ARM-based touchscreen MacBook Air, and an "OLED iPhone that unfolds into an iPad mini."

In contrast to investors' fears, the supply chain thinks Apple's innovation may be accelerating. With more than the usual number of prototypes floating around, here are some highlights (with the caveat that Apple might be purposely leaking to confuse competitors): 5.5" OLED phone with 2k >660ppi display; iTV with full gesture control, voice control, and 4K; touchscreen MacBook Air running on A8; 4" OLED iPhone that unfolds into an iPad mini; smartwatch prototypes including curved bangle-type and curved-screen; and wearables including health care appliances and payment authentication modules.

While some of these products, such as the smartwatch prototypes sound plausible, some, such as the folding iPhone, range into the almost-unbelievable.

Given Apple's commitment to secrecy, it seems unlikely that many of these described prototype devices are available in the Asian supply chain. Apple maintains a highly exclusive design lab for its prototype products, which are likely produced in-house or in very small quantities by manufacturing partners, leaving the legitimacy of the "prototypes" discovered by Misek in question.

Apple has been rumored to be working on Apple television set prototypes and experimenting with ARM-based Macs, but it is unclear whether these type of products will make it out of the prototype stage.

Peter Misek has been frequently incorrect with his predictions, but occasionally, one of his reports is accurate. He was one of the first analysts to point towards early iPhone 6 prototypes in a 4.8-inch size, but he also incorrectly predicted several elements of the iPhone 5s and has long championed an Apple iTV that has not materialized. He has previously suggested Apple planned to merge iOS and OS X, which was not true, and he has predicted Apple signed deals to create an iTunes Netflix competitor, which did not happen.

In his research note, Misek also suggests that the iWatch is ready to go into full production and could thus be announced at any time, but this contrasts other reports that suggest the device will begin production in July. Misek believes the rumored 5.5-inch iPhone, which is said to be somewhat delayed in comparison to the 4.7-inch version, will launch at the earliest in November with a new in-cell display coating technology.

Apple today seeded the first build of OS X 10.9.4 to developers, approximately two weeks after releasing OS X 10.9.3 to the public. The new beta is available thorugh the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store should be listed soon in the Mac Dev Center.

It is unclear what improvements the 10.9.4 update will bring to Mavericks, but it is likely to include bug fixes and stability enhancements. It is also unclear when the beta might be released to the public.

The last Mavericks update, 10.9.3, added enhanced support for 4K displays and restored the ability to sync contacts and calendars between Mac and iOS devices over USB.

Apple reportedly is close to inking a deal with Beats Electronics for $3 billion, an acquisition that Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty believes is important if Apple wants to further monetize its 800 million iTunes user base and boost revenue in its increasingly important online services division.

Apple's online services segment, which includes iTunes, is often overlooked because it contributes so little to the company's overall revenue. But as Huberty points out in a recent message to investors, online services shouldn't be so casually tossed aside as the segment "is an underappreciated growth and margin lever for Apple." It may be small, but online services revenue is expected to grow and margins are predicted to increase in 2014, driven primarily by rising App Store revenue.

Online services hold promise, but Apple needs to address iTunes, which is losing ground to rival music services. While App Store revenue is increasing, Huberty notes that iTunes revenue is falling as users turn to streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify to meet their music needs. This decline "raises concerns about Apple's ability to monetize the new base of emerging market customers," writes Huberty. According to Huberty's calculations, each iTunes account spent an average of $3.29 in the first quarter of this year, down 24% year-over-year.

Huberty believes Apple could reverse this trend and improve monetization with the introduction of a subscription music service. One of the quickest ways to launch a subscription music service under the iTunes umbrella would be to acquire an existing service, something Apple appears to be doing with Beats Electronics and its Beats Music service.

Press reports, including the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, suggest Apple is considering the purchase of Beats Electronics, which would give Apple an accessories business focused on headphones and a music streaming service. Apple has not commented and we have no knowledge of any pending deals. However, a subscription music service -- whether organically built or acquired -- is a logical extension of iTunes.

Spotify, which is generally viewed as the leader in streaming music, has 10M paying subscribers or about 25 % of its over 40M active user base (MAU). If Apple charges $10 per month, same as Spotify, every 1% penetration of Apple's 800M user base, equates to $960M revenue annually, adding 8 pts of growth to online services and half a point to total company growth.

Apple's acquisition of Beats would bring not only a streaming music service, but also veteran music producer Jimmy Iovine and musician Dr. Dre to Apple. The pair are considered to be the "big prizes" of the acquisition and could help Apple negotiate favorable music deals for a streaming music service.

Looking beyond Beats, Huberty argues that Apple also could bolster its online services with the introduction of a mobile payments option, an area of opportunity recently acknowledged by CEO Tim Cook. The launch of the rumored iWatch also may contribute to Apple's online services as customers bolster App Store revenue by purchasing apps compatible with the new device.

Based on Taiwanese supply chain sources, analyst Brian Blair of Rosenblatt Securities believes Apple's iWatch will feature a round face, similar to a traditional watch (via Business Insider). The iWatch design will resemble Motorola's Moto 360 smart watch, with the Apple version shipping with a slimmer profile.

Apple may begin production of the iWatch in late July, with the goal of producing up to 21 million units in the second half of 2014, claims Blair in a research note to investors. AppleInsider also highlights Blair's claim that Apple may partner with Quanta Computer to produce the smart watch device, instead of Foxconn which may be busy manufacturing the iPhone 6. Quanta's involvement in iWatch production has been rumored since last August.

Blair's sources also believe Apple may be producing multiple models of the iWatch, including one that features a sapphire display cover. This information echoes an earlier report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who claimed the iWatch may ship at various price points and in a variety of materials that allow the smart watch to compete with both low- and high-end watches.

Apple's iWatch is currently expected to arrive near the end of 2014, with a fashionable design and biometrics that provide basic health monitoring features. It likely will sync with an iOS device sharing data with iOS apps, including the new Healthbook app that is expected to debut in iOS 8. Though an iWatch announcement is not expected for WWDC, Apple will likely unveil some of the early details on iOS 8 at the developer conference next week.