MacRumors

Apple's fourth-generation iPad mini could be a miniaturized version of the iPad Air 2, according to Japanese blog Mac Otakara. The report claims that the iPad mini 4 will adopt some of the same features and specifications as the iPad Air 2, including an 8-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera, ultra-thin 6.1mm design and possibly a fully laminated display with anti-reflective coating.

Mac Otakara claims that Apple may release the new iPad mini alongside an A9-based iPad Air 3, contrary to a sketchy report last week from Taiwan's Economic Daily News that said no new iPad Air will be released in 2015 and that the iPad mini 4 could be Apple's last 7.9-inch tablet as the company focuses on its larger-sized iPad Air and much-rumored "iPad Pro" in the future.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a respectable track record at reporting on Apple's upcoming product plans, recently issued a note to investors that also claimed the iPad mini 4 will essentially be a smaller version of the iPad Air 2. Kuo did not make any predictions about the iPad Air 3 or the "iPad Pro" in his note, but he has mentioned the latter 12.9-inch tablet in previous notes to investors.

Apple releasing a trio of new iPads later this year -- the iPad Air 3, iPad mini 4 and "iPad Pro" -- could help the company rebound from five consecutive quarters of declining iPad sales. Moreover, while Mac Otakara has a respectable track record reporting about Apple, there is not enough substantive evidence at this time to firmly suggest that all three tablets will actually be unveiled this autumn.

Apple has announced that its fleet of vehicles collecting street-level mapping data in multiple countries will begin surveying France and Sweden throughout August. The vehicles will be driving through the Malmö and Stockholm metropolitan areas in Sweden and Île-de-France region of Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne in France.

Apple Maps vehicles will also begin surveying Tennessee later in August, raising the total number of U.S. states that Apple has driven through to 30. Apple began collecting street-level mapping data in 13 more U.S. states this month, including Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Apple confirmed in June that it is driving vehicles around the world to collect data to improve Apple Maps, and the mapping imagery is almost certainly being used to create a Google Maps "Street View" competitor. Apple Maps vehicles are also taking photos of businesses and storefronts in major metropolitan areas to replace current imagery provided by third-party sources such as Yelp.

Apple has posted a complete list of new areas in the United States, France, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom it will be surveying throughout August on its Apple Maps vehicles website, including extended coverage of unmapped areas in California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah and Washington.

Update Jul 29: Apple Maps vehicles will also begin surveying Italy between August 1 and August 31, collecting street-level mapping data in Rome and the surrounding Lazio region.

Best Buy today announced it will begin selling the Apple Watch in some its U.S. retail stores and online on August 7, marking a substantial expansion of retail availability for the device. Starting with 100 stores and expanding to 300 over the next few months, he company will offer 16 models from the aluminum Apple Watch Sport and stainless steel Apple Watch collections, as well as nearly 50 accessories including stands and watch bands.

Starting Aug. 7, Best Buy will be the first national retailer, other than Apple Stores, where customers can buy the Apple Watch. It will begin to arrive in more than 100 Best Buy stores and will also be available on BestBuy.com. Another 200 of our stores will have the Apple Watch in time for holiday shopping.

“The Apple Watch is an important addition to an emerging product category, and we know our customers want it,” said Jason Bonfig, senior category officer at Best Buy. “We are excited to bring Apple Watch to more consumers, especially with the holidays coming up.”

Apple has provided a statement to iMore, noting the focus on expanding availability for the holiday shopping season.

"Customers love Apple Watch, and we are thrilled to begin offering it at Best Buy locations across the U.S. starting August 7," an Apple spokesperson told iMore. "More than 300 Best Buy stores will carry Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport models in time for the holiday shopping season."

The Apple Watch is currently available in 19 countries with Apple gradually expanding availability as supplies have allowed, and an additional three countries — New Zealand, Russia, and Turkey — will be added to the list this coming Friday.

Apple and BMW were in negotiations to use the German car manufacturer's car platform for its electric i3 for Apple's rumored car project, code-named "Project Titan", according to a new report from German business magazine Manager Magazin [Google Translate].

The Cupertino company was interested in the body of the i3, which is a small hatchback that has a shell made out of carbon fiber, helping keep the car light. The two companies began talks in autumn 2014, but broke off talks before committing to check in with each other and their plans periodically. The report also states that Tim Cook and Apple senior managers made a trip to BMW's factory in Leipzig, Germany to take a look at the production of the i3.

This isn't the first time BMW and Apple have been linked to be working on a car. In March, a report from German automotive magazine Auto Motor und Sport claimed the two were in close negotiations to turn the i3 into an "Apple Car". However, BMW denied the claim to Reuters hours after the report surfaced.

Earlier this week, Apple hired Doug Betts, former Senior Vice President of the Chrysler Group and the global head of operations leading product service and quality, continuing the company's hiring of automotive experts. Additionally, Apple hired Paul Furgale, a researcher with a specialization in autonomous vehicles.

While details on Apple's car project have been scarce, there have been reports of Apple recruiting talent from the automotive industry, including poaching employees from Tesla, Ford and GM, and that the company has hundreds of employees working on its car project. Rumors suggest Apple is aiming to produce a car by 2020, but because Apple often works on projects that never see the light of day, it's possible the company could delay or shelve the project if it's not happy with its progress.

Building on a series of recent ads centered around the "If it's not an iPhone, it's not an iPhone" tagline, Apple today rolled out a new web campaign for the iPhone under the theme of "Why there’s nothing quite like iPhone."

The new campaign is highlighted on Apple's main home page as well as its iPhone pages, and it includes a scrolling feature page drawing attention to a number of aspects of Apple and the iPhone that make the device stand out from its competitors.

Every iPhone we've made — and we mean every single one — was built on the same belief. That a phone should be more than a collection of features. That, above all, a phone should be absolutely simple, beautiful, and magical to use.

The page proceeds to highlight the iPhone's integration of hardware and software, camera capabilities, breadth of available apps, resistance to malware, and Apple's commitment to privacy and security with Touch ID and Apple Pay.

The campaign also highlights how Apple includes a variety of built-in apps and tools to make text, audio, and video messaging free and easy, track fitness and activity, and control devices around the home, all with accessibility features to make the iPhone's features available to as many people as possible. Finally, Apple points to its support network, from its retail stores to AppleCare phone and chat support.

Magnolia Pictures has shared the first trailer and movie poster for Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine with Mashable, just over four months after the film premiered at SXSW 2015 in Austin, Texas. The upcoming documentary, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, portrays Jobs as both a tech visionary and unapologetic leader throughout his career at Apple.

Apple senior executive Eddy Cue expressed disappointment in the documentary following its debut, describing the film on Twitter as "an inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend" and "not a reflection of the Steve I knew." Cue added that the best portrayal of Jobs is in the book Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, which he describes as "well done and first to get it right."Universal previously released the full-length trailer for its aptly named Steve Jobs movie, starring Michael Fassbender, Seth Rogen, Kate Winslet and Jeff Daniels, earlier this month. The trailer mainly consists of a single shot of Fassbender as Jobs, with cast voiceovers providing snippets and teases of conversations regarding Jobs' true legacy at Apple, which he co-founded with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1974.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine opens in select theaters on September 4.

The Merchant Customer Exchange's contactless payment system, CurrentC, is gearing up for a limited trial run next month in the stores of the companies that began backing MCX in 2012, including Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, according to unnamed sources speaking with Bloomberg.

The service is backed by a large roster of retailers, from Sears to Wendy's, who support the platform as a way to avoid losing integral shopping data to an increasingly competitive market thanks to the likes of Apple and Google.

CurrentC is different from Apple Pay however, using barcodes and RFID scanners in place of NFC terminals Apple took advantage of with Apple Pay. As Bloomberg points out, it also has a major hurdle regarding the signing of deals with major credit card companies, something it has yet to do.

While MCX is getting closer to releasing its app, there are plenty of hurdles. It hasn’t signed deals with major credit-card companies like Visa to use bank-issued card accounts within the app. That means a shopper wouldn’t be able to use, say, a Visa debit card from JPMorgan Chase & Co. This can be done with competing products like Apple Pay. Instead, users of MCX’s app will be limited to private-label store cards, like Target’s REDcard, or they’ll have to give MCX their checking-account details.

Also worrisome for MCX is the three-year exclusivity contract each retailer signed when the company began talks of the CurrentC system back in 2012. Those contracts -- which prohibited partnering with other mobile payment services -- begin to end next month, alongside CurrentC's soft launch in August. The company has already felt the weight of this, as Best Buy announced back in April it would begin supporting Apple Pay within its mobile app, with in-store support gearing up for later in 2015.

Not long after, MCX's CEO at the time, Dekkers Davidson, left the company, with a spokeswoman telling press that Davidson's exit had nothing to do with the announcement made by Best Buy days before. Payments security analyst Julie Conroy spoke on the subject to Bloomberg, reiterating on the public's trust issues with the company following a hack last year and stating simply, “I’m increasingly skeptical of their chance to really make a dent.”

Less than two weeks before Intel announces new desktop Skylake processors, likely to be used in future Macs, at the Gamescom trade show in Germany on August 5, FanlessTech has leaked an Intel slide deck that offers a closer look at some of the performance enhancements the next-generation processors will deliver for both desktop computers and notebooks.

The leaked slides reveal that Skylake processors will provide a 10%-20% CPU performance boost in single and multi-threaded applications, with lower power consumption, and 30% faster Intel HD integrated graphics performance on average compared to current-generation Broadwell processors. The improved energy efficiency will also result in up to 30% longer battery life.

The specific performance improvements to the four main Skylake families are outlined below based on preliminary data, with the MacBook model appropriate for each chip listed in parentheses:

- Y-Series (MacBook): Up to 17% faster CPU, up to 41% faster Intel HD graphics, up to 1.4 hours longer battery life
- U-Series (MacBook Air): Up to 10% faster CPU, up to 34% faster Intel HD graphics, up to 1.4 hours longer battery life
- H-Series (MacBook Pro): Up to 11% faster CPU, up to 16% faster Intel HD graphics, up to 80% lower silicon power
- S-Series (iMac): Up to 11% faster CPU, up to 28% faster Intel HD graphics, 22% lower TDP (thermal design power)

Apple refreshed the MacBook Air and 13" Retina MacBook Pro with the latest Broadwell processors in March, but the refreshed 15" Retina MacBook Pro released in May remains powered by two-year-old Haswell architecture due to the lack of quad-core Broadwell processors appropriate for the notebook at the time.

Given that Intel announced a trio of Core i7 processors appropriate for the 15" Retina MacBook Pro just weeks later, and both the iMac and Mac mini still have Haswell processors, it is plausible that Apple has chosen to skip Broadwell processors entirely and release Skylake-based Macs in late 2015 or early 2016 -- and the jump from Haswell to Skylake would deliver an even higher performance boost.

Taiwanese blog DigiTimes, which has a hit-and-miss track record at reporting on Apple's upcoming product plans, says that Intel is planning to launch 18 new Skylake processors for notebooks in the fourth quarter, starting in October. The mid-range and high-end processors could be used in the next-generation 12-inch MacBook, MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro.

Apple has stopped selling the Nest Learning Thermostat and the Nest Smoke Alarm in its stores and has confirmed to Mashable that it will no longer be carrying Nest products. The Nest thermostat was still available online earlier this month, but a search for the Nest thermostat or smoke alarm now redirects customers to other HomeKit products.

Apple's decision to stop offering Google's Nest products in its retail stores and online comes just over a month after the first HomeKit-compatible products became available for purchase. In early June, Lutron, iHome, Elgato, Ecobee, and Insteon began offering a range of smart lights, plugs, thermostats, room monitors, and more, all of which work with HomeKit.

The HomeKit-compatible Ecobee3 smart thermostat is a direct competitor of the Nest, so it's no surprise Apple has opted to stop offering Google's products in order to highlight accessories that are compatible with its own smart home platform.

This isn't the first time Apple has stopped offering products that directly compete with its own product offerings. Last year, the company stopped selling Fitbit activity tracking devices ahead of the launch of the Apple Watch and also culled several other activity trackers from its store earlier this year.

Apple's decision to stop selling the Nest thermostat comes as the company is working to revamp accessory lineups in its retail stores, cutting back on the number of accessories offered and packaging many of them in boxes that match its own design aesthetic.

Honda today at its high-tech research facility in Mountain View introduced its new 2016 Accord with support for both CarPlay and Android Auto, reports Re/code. The ninth-generation sedan will be the first Honda vehicle to support CarPlay as the Japanese car maker aims to expand the iPhone-based dashboard system across its vehicle lineup throughout 2016 and beyond.

CarPlay will come standard on 2016 Accord EX, EX-L and Touring models. Honda opted to announce the mid-sized vehicle in Mountain View, as opposed to traditional auto hotbeds such as Detroit and Los Angeles, because of Silicon Valley's growing importance to the auto industry, particularly as vehicles become more connected with CarPlay and other modern technologies.

Apple has listed Honda as a CarPlay partner on its website for several months, but the car maker has not been entirely clear about its launch plans until today. GM is also committed to supporting CarPlay in 2016 across its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC vehicle brands, while Kenwood recently began shipping its lineup of aftermarket CarPlay and Android Auto systems.

An image said to depict the front panel of the upcoming "iPhone 6s" has been shared by French site Nowhereelse.fr [Google Translate] this afternoon, giving us our first glimpse at the screen for the device.

According to the site, the front panel images were shared by an informant who also said that the iPhone parts are currently in production and ready to be shipped to iPhone 6s assembly lines for use in the Silver and Gold iPhone 6s.

As an "S" upgrade, the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus are not expected to feature physical design changes, so as is expected, the front panels said to be for the iPhone 6s look identical to front panels for the iPhone 6. Previous iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus part leaks have also confirmed that the casings for the device carry the same design as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but there may be small design improvements and material changes to bolster strength and durability.

Nowhereelse.fr mentions that its source could not confirm if the panel included sapphire crystal or hints of Force Touch support. While the addition of Force Touch has been widely rumored for Apple's next-generation iPhones, sapphire crystal displays are not expected and the devices are likely to continue using Gorilla Glass. While there were a few rumors hinting at the possibility of sapphire for the next-generation iPhones, rumors about such a feature have not picked up and no new sapphire deals have become apparent.

Along with Force Touch, the next-generation iPhones are rumored to include an improved 12-megapixel camera, an A9 processor, better Touch ID support, 2GB RAM, and a new rose gold color option.

Mass production of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is rumored to be beginning this month, with early production having started in late June.