MacRumors

Apple today officially ended free streaming of its iTunes Radio channels worldwide, incorporating the catalogue of stations into its subscription-based Apple Music service.

The change follows Apple's announcement earlier this month that its free radio-listening feature would be discontinued at the end of January but would remain available to Apple Music subscribers.

As of this morning, iOS Music app users who tap on a radio station are bounced to a screen prompting them to join Apple's premium streaming music service.

Likewise, iTunes users on a Mac who attempt to access the stations or create their own are met with a dialog window asking them to "Get on Our Wavelength" and join Apple Music.

Users with an iTunes Match subscription are also no longer able to access the stations. However, Apple's Beats 1 radio channel remains available to iTunes users worldwide as a free listening option.

Apple had quietly continued to offer ad-supported iTunes Radio stations in the United States and Australia even after the launch of Apple Music on June 30, 2015. However, after the company's decision to wind down its mobile iAd platform, the feature was already being limited in other regions to those who pay for Apple's streaming music service.

iTunes Radio was originally released with iTunes 11.1 and iOS 7 as a free ad-supported service, offering music discovery through featured and genre stations provided by Apple or through the creation of new stations based on a specific artist or song.

Apple is reportedly developing a wirelessly-charged iPhone for as soon as 2017, according to Bloomberg. The company is working with its partners in both the U.S. and Asia to create the technology.

Apple is exploring cutting-edge technologies that would allow iPhones and iPads to be powered from further away than the charging mats used with current smartphones, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details are private. The iPhone maker is looking to overcome technical barriers including loss of power over distance with a decision on implementing the technology still being assessed, they said.

Current wirelessly-charged devices require users to place their phones or other devices on charging mats. In September 2012, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said that the company wasn't sure of how convenient wireless charging is as most wireless charging systems still have to be plugged into a wall.

In early January, it was reported that Apple was working on wireless charging for the iPhone 7. However, that report warned that the feature could be pulled from the iPhone 7 for a future iteration of the device as Apple is working on the technology currently.

Apple has held an interest in wireless charging since the first iPhone, gaining patents for wireless charging stations and wireless charging through a near field magnetic resonance, which wirelessly charges a device within a certain region. The Cupertino company has also shown an interest in WiTricity's wireless charging technology, which uses "hidden charging" technology that allows magnetic fields to wrap around barriers. This allows users to place their charging pads wherever they want.

Last November it was reported that the iPhone 7 would see the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack for an all-in-one Lightning connector that allows users to both power their device and plug in headphones. While the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack would mean that Apple would be able to make the iPhone thinner, it would not allow users to listen to headphones and charge their phone at the same time. A proprietary wireless charging solution from Apple in future iPhones with all-in-one Lightning connectors would likely allow for that.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo are working on implementing Apple Pay into their ATMs, reports TechCrunch, citing a source with knowledge of the project. Both companies are said to have engineers working on the technology that would likely allow Apple Pay to be used at an ATM in place of a physical debit card.

When questioned about the possibility of Apple Pay at ATMs, Wells Fargo head of ATMs Jonathan Velline suggested the information was accurate and that Wells Fargo was working on adding support for mobile wallets that would meet all of its customers needs.

Wells Fargo's head of ATMs Jonathan Velline implied Apple Pay would come to its ATMs. He confirmed that "We've been working on the technology that allows us to hook to digital wallets, leveraging NFC on mobile phones to replace the card at the transaction at the ATM. Right now the wallet that we support is Android Pay." [...]
"But we're also looking at lots of different mobile wallets and evaluating which ones are going to be appropriate for our customers. We'll likely add more mobile wallets throughout the year."

Bank of America was less forthcoming about its plans, but told TechCrunch the company is developing a cardless ATM solution that would let customers use NFC technology on their smartphones to authenticate and complete transactions at Bank of America ATMs. The company would not confirm which phones it will work with.

Bank of America plans to begin rolling out its cardless ATM solution starting in late February at ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York, and Boston before a wider rollout set to take place in mid-2016. Wells Fargo did not provide information on when it plans to implement its NFC-based card replacement feature.

Apple Pay at ATMs would be a big win for Apple, given their prevalence across the United States. Wells Fargo has more than 12,800 ATMs, while Bank of America has more than 16,000.

Apple has purchased education-technology startup LearnSprout, reports Bloomberg. LearnSprout is a company that develops software for schools and teachers to track student performance and other metrics. Apple will likely use its technology to build out its classroom tools to encourage schools to adopt iPads and other Apple products.

Apple confirmed the acquisition with the standard statement it gives on purchases: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

According to its website, LearnSprout software is already used in more than 2,500 schools across the United States. It aggregates all student grades across the school, letting teachers and administrators hone in on students that may need more help. LearnSprout aims to allow schools to analyze collected data, discovering trends on attendance, college readiness, student health, and more.

To combat waning iPad sales, Apple has been making an effort to make the tablet more appealing to educational customers. In iOS 9.3, Apple is introducing a wealth of new education-oriented tools, including shared iPads for students, a dedicated Classroom app that allows teachers to guide students through app-based lessons, an Apple School Manager for easily managing student accounts and courses, and new Apple ID creation and management options for schools.

The latest numbers from market research firm Strategy Analytics reveal that Samsung increased its lead over Apple as the world's largest smartphone maker, after shipping 81.3 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of the 2015 calendar year. Apple announced earlier this week that it sold a record 74.8 million iPhones during the same three-month period encompassing the busy holiday shopping season.

Global smartphone shipments grew 12 percent annually from 1.28 billion in 2014 to a record 1.44 billion in 2015, according to the data. Samsung and Apple contributed 319.7 million and 231.5 million smartphone sales respectively to that worldwide total, while Huawei, Lenovo-Motorola, and Xiaomi rounded off the top five smartphone makers. All other vendors collectively shipped 637.5 million smartphones in 2015.

Samsung led the fourth quarter with 20.1 percent market share, a slight increase over its 19.6 percent market share in the year-ago quarter. Conversely, Apple's fourth quarter market share was 18.5 percent, a slight decline from its 19.6 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2014. Huawei, Lenovo-Motorola and Xiaomi had market shares of 8.1 percent, 5 percent and 4.8 percent respectively.

In the year-ago quarter, Apple matched Samsung's 74.5 million smartphones shipped on the strength of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but its South Korean rival has since pulled ahead again. The comparison is largely unbalanced, however, as Samsung sells dozens of different smartphone models worldwide, while Apple currently only sells the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 5s.

Apple expects iPhone sales will likely decline in the March quarter, marking the first year-over-year decline since the smartphone was released over eight years ago. The decline will be realized if Apple sells fewer than 61.2 million iPhones this quarter, ending in late March. iPhone growth in the just-announced first fiscal quarter of 2016 was the slowest since the smartphone's introduction in 2007.

Strategy Analytics has also published smartphone data for the Chinese market, where Apple trails closely behind Xiaomi and Huawei.

Apple is expected to refresh its MacBook lineup in 2016 with Intel's faster Skylake processors and Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C, and supply chain sources now indicate the updated notebooks may see a staggered launch throughout the year.

The company's manufacturing partners are expected to start producing new 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Pro models around late March or early April, followed by 15-inch MacBook Pro models in the third quarter, according to the sometimes-reliable Taiwanese website DigiTimes.

If accurate, new 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Pro models could debut at Apple's rumored March media event, alongside the new 4-inch iPhone, iPad Air 3, and Apple Watch updates, or at WWDC, likely scheduled for mid-June. Smaller updates could also be announced at any time via press release.

The larger 15-inch MacBook Pro may not be launched until after WWDC, however, as the third quarter translates to between July and September. While that seems questionable, Apple may elect to announce a new 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC and begin shipping the notebook later in the year.

Last year, Apple refreshed the 13-inch MacBook Pro in March, but its 15-inch sibling was not updated until May. For this reason, the 13-inch model is classified as Early 2015, and the 15-inch model is Mid 2015. Both notebooks received Force Touch trackpads, faster flash storage, longer battery life, and improved graphics.

The Early 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro is based on Intel's newer Broadwell chip architecture, while the 15-inch model still has older Haswell architecture. Since then, Intel has announced Skylake chips appropriate for the 13-inch MacBook Pro in September and 15-inch MacBook Pro earlier this week.

Given that Skylake chips have been announced for both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro, there does not appear to be any reason for Apple to stagger the release of its notebooks this year. But, perhaps in line with its 2015 release cycle, Apple may plan to give the current 15-inch MacBook Pro a longer shelf life before replacing it.

Intel also announced Skylake chips appropriate for the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Airs throughout 2015, so it is likely we will see Mac updates across the board over the coming months. The report also claims a new iMac will be released in 2016, but an update is unlikely until later in the year.

Apple today issued a voluntary recall for certain two-prong AC wall plug adapters designed for use in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Continental Europe, New Zealand, and South Korea, due to the risk of electrical shock if touched in very rare cases. Apple has also advised customers to stop using affected plug adapters.

Apple is offering a new, redesigned adapter for free to affected customers.

Customer safety is always Apple's top priority, and we have voluntarily decided to exchange affected wall plug adapters with a new, redesigned adapter, free of charge.

The recalled wall plug adapters shipped with Macs and some iOS devices sold between 2003 and 2015, and were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit. Apple says an affected wall plug adapter has 4 or 5 characters or no characters on the inside slot where it attaches to a power adapter.

Redesigned adapters have a 3-letter regional code in the slot, such as EUR, KOR, AUS, ARG or BRA. Apple says other wall plug adapters, including those designed for the U.S., Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and the U.K., and Apple USB power adapters, are not affected by this program.Apple's AC Wall Plug Adapter Exchange Program provides instructions on how to identify your wall adapter and initiate the exchange process.

Taiwanese touch panel makers General Interface Solution and TPK will share production of a third-generation "4K" iPad Air set to debut in March, according to sources out of the China supply chain (via DigiTimes).

The same sources claim that in addition to a 4K resolution touch panel, Apple's new 9.7-inch tablet will feature up to 4GB RAM and improved battery life, and is scheduled to enter mass production in the second quarter of 2016.

The report goes on to state that both display makers expect a slight on-year increase in demand for touch panel products from Apple in the first half of 2016 due to orders of products equipped with 3D Touch. This comes despite previous rumors suggesting the iPad Air 3 will not adopt the pressure-sensitive display technology due to the production difficulties involved with scaling it up for a larger display.

Taiwan-based website DigiTimes has a mixed track record at reporting on Apple's upcoming product plans, but its sources within the upstream supply chain have proven reliable in the past. However, the term "4K" may simply refer to the new iPad Air adopting features included in the iPad Pro, which inherited the oxide thin film transistor from the 5K Retina iMac, along with a UV-based photo alignment technique that ensures uniform color and brightness in the display. It also included a variable refresh rate that preserves battery life by cutting the refresh rate in half whenever there's static content on the screen.

Based on details from leaked design drawings, the next-generation iPad Air may be set to adopt the iPad Pro's four-speaker design and gain an LED flash next to the rear-facing camera. Other updates that would make sense include a faster A9 or A9X processor, Smart Connector, and improved cameras.

According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who often accurately predicts Apple's plans, the iPad Air 3 will launch in the first half of 2016. Apple is rumored to be planning a media event for March of 2016, which is said to be the event where the iPad Air 3 will launch alongside a new 4-inch iPhone and Apple Watch updates.

The second beta of iOS 9.3, which was seeded to developers on Monday and the public earlier today, includes a new feature that allows the iPad Pro's Smart Connector to update accessory firmware. The new feature was first spotted by German developer Stefan Wolfrum (via Cult of Mac) when he plugged his Logitech Create keyboard case into his iPad Pro.

In the past month, several users in the MacRumors forums have noted that the Create keyboard case suffers from lag and dropped keystrokes. A MacRumors forum member, who also reported that his Create keyboard had its firmware updated when plugged into an iPad Pro running iOS 9.3 beta 2, said that both issues were resolved by the firmware update.

MacRumors was able to recreate the steps that led to the update by updating our iPad Pro to beta 2 and connecting the keyboard. When the keyboard is connected, a pop-up is displayed alerting users to an "accessory update", asking whether they want to update the "Smart Connector Accessory". If a user chooses to update, the pop-up stays on the screen and displays the update progress. Once progress hits 100 percent the dialog box disappears; the update took 30 - 40 seconds. However, there was no dialog or indication of what the update changed once the process was complete.

The Smart Connector's ability to transmit both data and power at the same time has been on full display with keyboard accessories like the Smart Keyboard and Logitech Create, but it was unknown whether the port could be used to update firmware for accessories. It's unclear whether the new iOS beta housed the firmware update or whether it quickly pinged a server to download the update before applying it.

United States Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler introduced a proposal [PDF] this afternoon that would de-couple cable subscriptions from cable set-top boxes. Under the proposal, cable and satellite subscribers would be able to access and watch cable content on any set-top box of their choosing, including the Apple TV, rather than being limited to the set-top box provided by the cable company.

While allowing customers to access the full content provided with a cable subscription through the Apple TV is not quite the cord-cutting solution Apple has been aiming for, it is a step towards a more open relationship between technology companies and cable companies. Such a system would not give Apple control over content, but it would allow Apple to build an interface for that content.

The new rules would create a framework for providing device manufacturers, software developers and others the information they need to introduce innovative new technologies, while at the same time maintaining strong security, copyright and consumer protections. Nothing in this proposal changes a company's ability to package and price its programming to its subscribers, or requires consumers to purchase new boxes.

As The Verge points out, the FCC faces a tough battle attempting to get this proposal passed and implemented due to resistance from cable companies who want to have control over content and how and where it's displayed.

A similar plan for the CableCard, which allows companies like TIVO to offer cable content, has largely failed because of its complexity and because many cable providers refused to make the process simple enough to be widely adopted. Cable companies are against the proposal because of the loss of control and the loss of the revenue from rented cable set-top boxes, and more than 40 telecommunications groups have already formed a coalition to oppose the FCC's plan.

Cable companies argue it would give technology companies unfair access to customer data and potentially disrupt deals that have been established for channel positioning, giving some programmers better spots in the lineup for higher payments.

Having continually failed to reach deals with content providers and cable companies, Apple has settled on focusing on its tvOS operating system and the App Store available on the fourth-generation Apple TV. The tvOS App Store model allows for cable companies to create apps and deliver cable content to consumers on the Apple TV, but it's a fragmented system that's less than ideal because it still doesn't give Apple full control over the interface. The FCC's proposal has the potential to greatly improve the cable watching experience on the Apple TV, at least for cable subscribers.

Earlier today, reputable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the iPhone 7 Plus will likely have a dual-lens camera system based on technology Apple acquired from LinX Imaging. The new hardware could lead to some significant improvements in camera quality on Apple's next flagship smartphone.

LinX's multi-aperture cameras pack impressive image quality in a smaller size than single aperture cameras, meaning the iPhone 7 Plus may lack a protruding camera lens and be able to take SLR-quality photos — think Canon or Nikon. The camera modules are also capable of very interesting technology called 3D depth mapping and more.

We previously provided an in-depth look at LinX's camera modules after Apple acquired the company, but it is worth recapping some of the major advantages of their technology, given today's iPhone 7 Plus rumor.

Noise Reduction

The images captured by the LinX camera are brighter and clearer, with significantly reduced noise levels, compared to smartphone cameras. Available detail when zoomed into a photo was also much greater, as can be seen in the comparison below. View this PDF for more side-by-side image comparisons.

Improved Indoor Photos

In the photo below, the image was taken in mid-levels of light, at approximately 40 to 50 lux, similar to a decently well-lit room in a house or restaurant. The LinX sensor let in more light than the iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S4, for a photo that is clearer and sharper with less noise.

Improved Low Light Photos

LinX technology is able to significantly improve low light performance by using multiple channels to increase the sensitivity of the camera for better detail. It also keeps exposure times short to cut down on the motion blurring that can impact photo quality in conditions where lighting is not optimal.

LinX technology doesn't have to compromise between pixel size and resolution, as it can use small pixels but still let in adequate amounts of light.

3D Depth Mapping

LinX's multi-aperture cameras can create detailed depth maps of objects. With depth information on a per-pixel basis along with RGB information, LinX cameras can create 3D point clouds of objects from a single frame or a complete 3D model by combining several frames captured from different angles.

3D depth mapping has a number of useful applications, including 3D scanning of objects, sizing of objects, background removal and replacement and gesture recognition. The depth maps also allow for improved refocusing; by knowing the depth at every pixel, the feature allows for a synthetic blur to be applied that emulates a shallow depth.

Benefits Overview

Read A Look at LinX Camera Technology for more details about the dual camera systems.