MacRumors

Composed of a large group of retailers aiming to introduce the QR code-based "CurrentC" payments system, Apple Pay competitor Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after the removal of Apple Pay support from Rite Aid and CVS, two prominent MCX members.

Following a hacking incident and negative press focused on CurrentC's convoluted QR code payment process and privacy issues, MCX has been scrambling to reverse the public's negative perception of CurrentC.

After a press conference last week where executives suggested MCX was under attack for "challenging the status quo" of large, entrenched payments systems, MCX chief operating officer Scott Rankin did an interview with USA Today to clear up more misconceptions about MCX and CurrentC.

One of the major privacy complaints about CurrentC centered around a requirement that users provide both a social security number and a driver's license when signing up. According to Rankin, this is only necessary for the pilot test, and he does "not expect to have those requirements" when CurrentC launches in early 2015.

Another issue has been CurrentC's ability to link to a customer's bank account, allowing merchants to avoid paying costly credit card fees, a feature Rankin says is actually based on customer preference. 75 percent of all purchases made at the 50 MCX merchants (including Walmart, Target, Lowe's, and more) are done with cash, debit cards, gift cards, and store cards, rather than with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express credit cards.

MCX has previously said CurrentC will accept debit and credit cards in addition to connecting directly to a checking account, and Rankin downplayed the focus on connecting to a user's bank account, saying that he doesn't expect it to be the most prevalent CurrentC payment method.

Rankin also addressed the QR code payment process, which has been described as "convoluted" by the media. He called it "frictionless," but even described in his own words, it requires several steps beyond Apple Pay's one-finger Touch ID checkout process. MCX has said that it will explore NFC in the future if necessary.

Here's how Rankin describes the checkout process with CurrentC.

After the sale is rung up, and you say you want to pay via mobile, "You pull out the phone, open the app, click pay and a QR code is displayed. She scans it, and you're done. It's like when the QR code is sent to you by the airline and you use it for your boarding pass. It's frictionless."

Finally, Rankin once again addressed the exclusivity agreements that bind all MCX members, stating that exclusivity terms are "closer to months than years."

Rite Aid and CVS, as MCX members, were required to cease accepting Apple Pay to remain part of MCX, but are free to leave at any time. Meijer, another MCX member, has opted to continue offering Apple Pay support in its stores, It is not clear if Meijer has left MCX or if it is ignoring exclusivity restrictions. Rankin confirmed there are no fines for companies that leave MCX, but he did not address the large sums of money companies have already invested in the program.

Rankin's full comments on CurrentC and MCX can be found at USA Today. MCX executives have plans to speak on CurrentC at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas this week, further explaining how CurrentC will benefit consumers.

Starting this week, travelers on select Southwest Airlines flights will be able to listen to music streamed via Apple's Beats Music service. The airline today announced this new Beats Music option and provided a live demonstration onboard a 737 emblazoned with the Beats Music logo.

Southwest adopted Beats Music in response to growing consumer interest in streaming music.

"Southwest connects our Customers to what is important in their lives and in this case, it's music," said Kevin Krone, Southwest Airlines Chief Marketing Officer. "We continue to enhance our onboard offerings to remain current as our Customers' needs evolve, and with the addition of Beats Music on our entertainment portal, we're doing just that."

The in-flight service is free and includes hundreds of music lists compiled by Beats' own expert curators. It is available on WiFi-enabled Southwest flights and is compatible with iOS, Android, and other devices.

Apple purchased Beats Music and Beats Electronics in a $3 billion deal that was finalized earlier this year. As part of the deal, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre joined Apple and are reportedly using their music contacts and Apple's clout help make inroads in the streaming music market. Rumors suggest Apple is working to lower Beats' pricing and revamp the service early next year.

Audio expert Peter Eastty of Oxford Digital Limited has left the company he co-founded to work for Apple. According to his LinkedIn profile, Eastty joined Apple in September of this year as the Director of SoC (System on Chip) Audio Processing.

Eastty's career in digital audio spans more than 40 years, including oversight of a pioneering digital audio team at Solid State Logic, a 13-year stint at Sony as a chief consultant engineer, and more than eight years as CTO at Oxford Digital. Most of his work has focused on digital audio and digital signal processing for audio equipment.

"I’ve worked in the application of digital and computer technology to audio since I graduated from college and I still find the problems fascinating as well as the answers."

Details on Eastty's role as Director of SoC Audio Processing are unknown, but he likely is using his DSP expertise to improve the audio quality of Apple's hardware. Earlier rumors suggested Apple was working to add support for 24-bit audio files in iOS 8 and create a new 24-bit capable version of its In-Ear headphones, but those reports have not yet panned out.

Eastty is not the only audio pioneer hired by Apple in recent years. Back in 2011, Apple hired THX pioneer Tomlinson Holman to help "provide technical direction for the company in audio" as he reports on his LinkedIn profile.

(Thanks, Manu!)

Apple's October 20 debut for Apple Pay included support from many of the biggest banks in the United States, including Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Bank of America, but the company has said it has over 500 other banks working to roll out support for the mobile payments service. A few of the larger ones are listed on Apple's site as launching Apple Pay support "later this year", and it appears that this next wave is now beginning to roll out.

Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in the United States with over 5 million members, today announced the immediate launch of Apple Pay support.

"We're excited to make this new service available to our members starting today," said Randy Hopper, vice president of credit cards and business optimization at Navy Federal. "Our members live fast-paced and mobile lives. And, they have enthusiastically adopted our mobile banking solutions. Now, with Apple Pay, they'll be able to save time when shopping while having a safe and easy payment experience."

USAA, another of Apple's key partners for the second wave, had previously announced plans to launch Apple Pay support this Friday, November 7, but several Reddit posters have noticed that support appears to have arrived a bit early.

A third partner for the second wave, US Bank, has also apparently flipped the switch, as several posters on Twitter have reported Apple Pay support going live today.

PNC Bank has also been telling customers it will launch Apple Pay support in the "next several weeks", with one Reddit poster being given a date of November 7, but again posters on Twitter are reporting support going live today.

Update: According to a MacRumors poster, Barclaycard is also working today. M&T Bank is also working.

Update 2: Apple has updated its support document listing Apple Pay card issuers to highlight the various types of cards from the newly added banks that are supported.

Update 3: Removed mention of Regions Bank, Renasant Bank, Keesler Federal Credit Union, and Zions Bank, as multiple forum posters have confirmed these banks are not yet supporting Apple Pay, contrary to initial reports from other posters.

Following an initial pilot program at a pair of its properties, hotel chain Starwood today announced the official launch of its SPG Keyless program that will allow hotel guests to use their iPhones or Android phones to check in for their stays and unlock their doors via Bluetooth. The system will go live this Wednesday in ten hotels around the world under Starwood's Aloft, Element, and W brands and expand to 150 hotel comprising 30,000 hotel room doors by the end of next year.

SPG Members must register their phone once through the SPG App and allow push notifications. After booking a reservation at a keyless hotel and approximately 24 hours before arrival, SPG members are invited to opt-in to SPG Keyless. Guests will receive a push notification noting that they are checked in and the SPG App will update with his/her room number and Bluetooth key when the room is ready. Upon arrival at the hotel, the guest can completely bypass the front desk (where available) and go directly to his/her room. After ensuring his/her Bluetooth is enabled, the guest simply opens the SPG App, holds the smartphone to the door lock, waits for the solid green light and enters the room.

Starwood's SPG: Starwood Hotels & Resorts app [Direct Link] has been updated today to support the iPhone check-in program, which is going live at hotels in Beijing, Cancun, Cupertino, Harlem, Doha, Hollywood, Hong Kong, New York City, and Singapore.

Starwood is not the only hotel chain working on phone-based room keys, with Hilton previously announcing its intentions for a similar program including check-in and room selection via app available in 4,000 hotels by the end of this year and and mobile phone room keys rolling out in 2015. And just today Hilton has reiterated those plans, announcing pilot testing of room keys early next year with an initial rollout to its Conrad brand soon after and expansion to additional brands coming in the summer.

Apple is planning to hold an investor call today ahead of a potential bond sale, reports The Wall Street Journal. A banker working on the deal says that Apple may begin issuing bonds in Euros, as Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group are said to be arranging the call.

Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs Inc. are arranging a call for the firm with investors Monday, and a deal, possibly at least partly in euros, could come as soon as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter. The iPhone maker has never issued debt in currencies other than the dollar before.

Apple last entered the bond market in April with a $12 billion sale, which followed last year's $17 billion sale. The order book for Apple's bond offerings in April 2013 topped $40 billion, as investors oversubscribed and offered bids for more than twice the amount of debt issued. Apple's bond offerings are a part of its expanded capital return program, which centers around a major stock buyback program and a quarterly dividend. Apple has pledged to return more than $130 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015.

Microsoft today launched a new ad targeting the MacBook Air and comparing the notebook to Lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro convertible laptop. The latest spot, which is titled "Let's Dance", features both laptops side-by-side and highlights the differences between the form and functionality of both.

Microsoft first highlights the thickness of both devices, showing that the MacBook Air is 17mm thick while the Yoga 3 Pro measures in at 13mm thick. Next, both laptops are shown in a "tablet" and "tent" position, showcasing the Yoga 3 Pro's ability to fold back while the MacBook Air is unable to do the same. Microsoft finally highlights the Yoga 3 Pro's touchscreen, which is then shown as a non-feature on the MacBook Air.

The new ad comes after Microsoft launched a new round of Surface Pro 3 ads targeting the MacBook Air in August, which showed off the tablet's versatility and power when compared to Apple's laptop. Microsoft has also released a number of ads comparing its "Cortana" virtual assistant on its Windows Phone platform to Apple's Siri virtual assistant on iOS, showing off the former's ability to integrate with a number of apps and perform contextually-aware tasks.

In a video message sent out to retail employees, Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts revealed that the Apple Watch will be launching in the Spring of next year, reports 9To5Mac. The timeframe given is slightly more specific than Apple's own launch projection of "early next year", which was shared during its initial unveil of the Apple Watch back in September.

"So, again, we do - you guys were hired because you're the best people in the world. And you know how to service customers, but we are sprinting a marathon and it's not going to stop. Right? We're going into the holidays, we'll go into Chinese New Year, and then we've got a new watch launch coming in the spring."

The report also notes that Apple will be training its retail employees on how to introduce customers to the Apple Watch. Apple Retail Stores will allow customers to try on the wearable device and experience the different sizes and bands offered. The Apple Watch's presence at the company's retail stores are said to be a big emphasis for Ahrendts, who believes that sales of the device will help deepen relationships with customers.

A source briefed on Apple's plans for the Apple Watch told The Information in September that the company would be "lucky to ship it by Valentine's Day." That report stated that Apple planned to have the watch ready to ship in time for the 2014 holiday season, but had problems finishing software development in time. Hints of a delay on the software side first surfaced shortly after the device's unveiling, as members of the press who were invited to spend some hands-on time with the devices noted that none of the display units were running the actual Watch OS operating system.

While Intel's next-generation Broadwell processors for most Macs are not shipping until early 2015 or even later, the company began shipping some ultra low-power Broadwell chips known as Core M a couple of months ago. These chips are designed to run at just 4.5 watts and are intended for next-generation fanless PCs and tablets, fitting perfectly with circulating rumors of a thinner, fanless 12-inch MacBook Air, potentially with a Retina display.

The first batch of Core M chips launched in early September consisted of the 5Y10/5Y10a running at a base frequency of 800 MHz with a maximum of 2 GHz turbo, along with the more powerful 5Y70 running at 1.1 GHz with a max turbo of 2.6 GHz. But as pointed out by CPU World, Intel now appears to have quietly added several new processor options to the Core M family. Internal roadmaps had targeted an early 2015 launch for these chips, but Intel's chip database shows the new chips as having launched this quarter.

The new chips, which we understand Apple has indeed been testing with the upcoming 12-inch MacBook Air, include a new high-end 5Y71 chip running at 1.2 GHz with a max turbo of 2.9 GHz, two new mid-range chips arriving as 5Y51 and 5Y31, and a new low-end 5Y10c variant. As noted by CPU World, all of the new chips offer faster graphics than the initial batch of Core M chips, with base graphics frequencies moving from 100 MHz to 300 MHz across the board and turbo frequencies in some cases rising slightly to as high as 900 MHz.

Lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro is the first PC to take advantage of the first batch of Broadwell Core M chips, and performance has been lackluster. It is unclear, however, whether the issues are due more to Core M's limitations for the sake of power efficiency or to Lenovo's design decisions. Still, the new second batch of Core M chips appears to mark a significant step forward from the earlier versions while maintaining the same low power draw.

The launch timing of Apple's rumored 12-inch MacBook Air remains up in the air, with one rumor pointing to a likely mid-2015 launch. But with Intel moving forward on its Broadwell Core M chip lineup and perhaps accelerating its launch plans for those chips, it will be interesting to see if Apple looks to launch the new, thinner MacBook Air earlier in the year.

Apple's rumored "iPad Pro" has reportedly been in the works for some time, although the most recent rumors have indicated the company has pushed back its plans for the device as it seeks to give its manufacturing partners time to catch up to iPhone 6 Plus demand. Development work on the project is likely still continuing and a new report from Mac Otakara claims to share some new details on the device.

According to the report, the larger iPad will include a 12.2-inch display, somewhat smaller than the 12.9-inch measurement most commonly rumored for the device. Sources also indicate the device will contain speakers and microphones on both the top and bottom edges, opening the door to an improved stereo audio experience.

Product design concept seems to be based on iPad Air 2, pair of speakers and microphones will be added on top-side not only bottom’s pair. iPad Pro might be capable for supporting stereo audio.

As for thickness, the report claims the iPad Pro will not match the 6.1 mm measurement of the new iPad Air 2 but will still be quite thin, coming in around the same 7 mm mark as the iPhone 6 (6.9 mm) and iPhone 6 Plus (7.1 mm).

The report also includes a rough illustration, and while the sourcing of the illustration is unclear, it appears to show a row of holes presumably representing a speaker along the top edge of the device next to the power button.

Mac Otakara has a relatively strong (but by no means perfect) track record with Apple product rumors, most recently accurately predicting the arrival of the iPad mini 3 last month alongside a relatively specific claim of new Smart Cover and Smart Case color options that did turn out to be true. Some of the site's previous major claims that were accurate included details on redesigns for the iPod touch and iPod nano back in 2012.

With the growing popularity and declining cost of solid-state drives (SSDs) for Macs and other personal computers, users have becoming increasingly interested in putting third-party SSDs into their machines. But one issue Mac users have been running into involves support for TRIM, a system-level command that allows the operating system and the drive to communicate about which areas of the drive are considered unused and thus ready to be erased and rewritten to.

Without TRIM, writes to the drive can see significant slowdowns as the system must read and erase each block on the fly before writing new data. But unfortunately for users looking to install third-party SSDs into their machines, Apple only officially supports TRIM on Apple-branded SSDs. Workarounds such as Trim Enabler have naturally been developed to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs, but a new lineup of SSDs released earlier this month by Austrian firm Angelbird claims to be the first third-party SSD to support TRIM right out of the box with no need for additional software tweaking.

Exactly how Angelbird has achieved native TRIM support on Mac is unclear, as the company has not responded to requests for comment. French site MacBidouille reports [Google Translate], however, that Angelbird's SSDs appear to simply be masquerading as genuine Apple SSDs, thereby qualifying for native TRIM support. While the method appears rather questionable and likely to draw Apple's attention, the drive could still be an appealing option for users looking for the easiest possible solution for upgrading to an SSD.

OS X Yosemite has added yet another wrinkle for third-party SSD users, as the new kext signing security measure included in the new operating system means that Yosemite systems will refuse to load modified drivers such as those used by TRIM-enabling software. Cindori, the company behind Trim Enabler, is for now recommending that users interested in enabling TRIM on third-party SSDs with Yosemite disable the kext-signing check entirely. The company acknowledges that turning off this global setting is far from ideal and "for most users it will not be worth it", but for now it is the only solution.

Angelbird has not specified whether its SSDs bypass the Yosemite TRIM issues, but if the drives do indeed simply qualify as Apple SSDs due to the way the model number is presented, it is possible that native TRIM support may still function under Yosemite. Angelbird's SSD wrk lineup is available in three capacities: 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB starting at an MSRP of $99.99.

A Circuit Court judge in Virginia has ruled that fingerprints are not protected by the Fifth Amendment, a decision that has clear privacy implications for fingerprint-protected devices like newer iPhones and iPads.

According to Judge Steven C. Fucci, while a criminal defendant can't be compelled to hand over a passcode to police officers for the purpose of unlocking a cellular device, law enforcement officials can compel a defendant to give up a fingerprint.

The Fifth Amendment states that "no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," which protects memorized information like passwords and passcodes, but it does not extend to fingerprints in the eyes of the law, as speculated by Wired last year.

Judge Steven C. Frucci ruled this week that giving police a fingerprint is akin to providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, which the law permits. A pass code, though, requires the defendant to divulge knowledge, which the law protects against, according to Frucci's written opinion.

The ruling stemmed from a case involving David Baust, who was accused of strangling his girlfriend. Prosecutors believed Baust may have stored video of the attack on his phone, and requested that the judge force him to unlock it. If protected by a passcode, Baust will not be required to unlock his phone under the Fifth Amendment, but if protected with a fingerprint, he could potentially be forced to unlock the device.

If Baust's phone is an iPhone that's equipped with Touch ID, it's very likely that it will be passcode locked at this point and thus protected by law. Touch ID requires a passcode after 48 hours of disuse, a restart, or three failed fingerprint entry attempts, and the device has probably been in police custody for quite some time. It is unclear if the judge's ruling will have an impact on future cases involving cellular devices protected with fingerprint sensors, as it could be overturned by an appeal or a higher court.