Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee supermarkets in the Midwest, Speedway convenience stores and Jack in the Box are the latest merchants to support Apple Pay, the most popular mobile contactless payment system in the world that lets customers easily and securely pay in stores using their iPhone and Apple Watch. With the addition of these national retailers, 74 of the top 100 merchants in the US and 65 percent of all retail locations across the country will support Apple Pay

It looks like the display industry's equivalent of the personal jetpack or flying car may actually be traveling from the future into the present. The flexible OLED display, long demoed but never sold, is coming to TVs (from LG) and smartphones (from Samsung, among others). In a smartphone market that has consistently gone ape for larger and larger displays, phones that double in size once they've left your pocket could be game changers.

Apple has quietly started selling the beloved iPhone SE again, just four months after it was discontinued with the release of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. The iPhone SE launched in March 2016 with a starting price of $400 for the 16GB model, and is “the best 4-inch smartphone you can buy, period.” The device was just as powerful as the iPhone 6s, which was released just six months prior with a starting price of $649 for the 16GB model. It had the same 64-bit A9 processor, M9 motion coprocessor, 2GB of RAM, and the headphone jack, but with a smaller screen and no 3D Touch.

What's unusual isn't the size of the cuts but the timing, Nikkei sources noted. Contracts would normally be renewed every month between August and mid- to late January, so dismissals before the end of the year are "quite different," one source said. Similar layoffs are happening at other companies in the iPhone supply chain, such as at fellow assembler Pegatron, which began terminating monthly contracts in November.

Apple yesterday officially unveiled its new Smart Battery Cases for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. iPhone X users, however, have been left wondering whether or not the iPhone XS case …

The first Mac to include a graphics processing unit by Nvidia was the Power Macintosh G4 (Digital Audio), which was released in January 2001 and continued an Nvidia GeForce2 MX. Up to then, Apple had been using graphics cards made by ATI and this change was significant for more than just switching to Nvidia. Rather than picking one manufacturer over another, however, Apple was actually choosing to work to the industry standard OpenGL.

Apple doesn’t offer an official Apple Music web player, but it does offer web APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) which allow other people to create their own. The first one we’ve seen was Play Apple Music, which hit the web last month. That one had a design rather reminiscent of Google’s Material Design …

It looks like the new $129 Smart Battery Case for the iPhone XS will support last year’s flagship iPhone X after all. Yesterday, it seemed like Apple was leaving its most dedicated customers out in the cold when the company announced the new battery case for the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR but not for the iPhone X that early adopters snapped up in late 2017.

Apple may have had to replace as many as 11 million iPhone batteries under its heavily discounted $29 replacement program, according to John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. According to Gruber, Apple would typically expect to perform between one and two million replacements during the same period. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently cited the program, alongside a slowdown in the Chinese economy, as one of the reasons for the the company’s slashed earnings outlook for Q1 2019.

According to a new report from supply chain blog Macotakara, Apple could be in the process of developing a revised iPod touch. Further, the report says the 2019 iPhone might make the jump to USB-C, just like the 2018 iPad Pros. The report is rather vague, with Macotakara citing supply chain sources. Details on what changes a new iPod touch might feature are unclear at this point, but it is long overdue for an update. The 6th generation iPod touch was released in 2015 and for $199 with 32GB of storage.

For the past year, discussions involving data privacy have heated up in Congress, and new federal legislation now seems inevitable. Today, a leading technology policy think tank, supported by Google, Amazon, and Facebook, proposed a “grand bargain” with lawmakers, arguing that any new federal data privacy bill should preempt state privacy laws and repeal the sector-specific federal ones entirely.

It doesn’t matter if we buy them less often, we’re all going to continue to buy smartphones. The congregation of loyal iPhone users will continue to grow, which means Apple’s biggest challenge isn’t mobile – it’s Mac.

In the ongoing legal tussle between Qualcomm and Apple, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf has testified at a federal courthouse in San Jose, California, that Apple demanded a $1 billion 'incentive payment' for a chance to supply the iPhone modems. The payment would ease the technical costs Apple would face switching from its then current supplier Infineon Technologies.

Apple needs its next big thing—fast. With its shares down nearly a third in the past three months and the financial guidance bombshell earlier this year, the burning question turns to what Apple (ticker: AAPL) can do to spark a turnaround. On Jan. 2, the smartphone maker lowered its December-quarter revenue guidance 8% below the Wall Street consensus. The announcement confirmed the market’s worst fears that a negative growth year for the iPhone was ahead.

The Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG function has only been available for a month, but it’s already proving to be life-saving for some. WMUR reports today that a Nashua, New Hampshire man discovered he had atrial fibrillation with his Apple Watch, and rushed to the emergency room. Barry Maden said he originally bought the Apple Watch to “keep a closer eye on his health after suffering a brain injury.” His wife concurred with this reasoning, citing the device’s Fall Detection feature...

If you’ve bought movies or TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store, you’re going to be able to watch them on Samsung TVs — without connecting an Apple TV box to your TV. This is one of those consumer tech announcements that is a big deal for tech reporters and analysts, and that normal people will almost never hear or care about. But it’s still worth pointing out what this means for Apple in the near-term, and in the long run.

Far from Apple’s troubles in emerging markets and China, the company is attracting the ire of what should really be a core supporter demographic naturally aligned with the pro-privacy stance CEO Tim Cook has made into his public soapbox in recent years — but which is instead crying foul…

Serial phone leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer has partnered with Indian tech site Digit to release some new renderings claimed to be of the next-generation...

One of the biggest shake-ups we’ve seen in the iOS user-interface was the replacement of skeuomorphism – making things look like real-life objects – with the complete opposite in iOS 7. Where once we had realistic looking 3D representations, we instead got a ‘flat’ UI which goes out of its way to remain 2D. While some feel that skeuomorphism looks old-fashioned these days, the approach still has its fans even now – and Apple has shown signs of beginning to adopt a new take on the look using something called anisotropism …

Apple stole the limelight at CES without even appearing as an exhibitor, thanks to a series of announcements from Samsung and a series of other television makers incorporating Apple's AirPlay 2 wireless streaming in their products, including LG, Sony and Vizio. This news was cynically portrayed as a "strategy reversal" and a new effort at "copying Microsoft" by the Wall Street Journal -- and out here in the real world, it is nothing of the sort.

In only three months, Apple has lost $446 billion in market capitalization — and counting, as the tech giant's stock sinks further on Thursday. Apple shares have fallen by more than 38 percent since Oct. 3, when the stock hit a 52-week high of $233.47 a share. With its market cap down to about $682 billion, those losses are larger than individual value of 496 members of the S&P 500 — including Facebook and J.P. Morgan.

Tim Cook is reportedly hosting an all-hands meeting with every Apple employee today about the revelations regarding stalling iPhone sales. The news caused Apple shares to plummet in after-hours trading, taking some Apple suppliers with it. As part of the meeting, Cook will spell out what the news means, and take questions from employees. Cook’s revelation about the fact that the latest iPhones aren’t selling to expectations — particularly in China — caused the company to revise its earnings. The reduced earnings cut the amount of money Apple expected to rake in for the holiday quarter by $9 billion.

Only a few months ago, Apple was crowned the first company to be valued at more than $1 trillion. Now, in the wake of a surprise profit warning, its entire future is being questioned. Both reactions are extreme. A victory lap wasn’t warranted last summer, nor is a eulogy now. The company is at an inflection point. Apple, like others before it, is attempting to navigate the shift. It’s fair to wonder if it can; it’s premature to conclude that it can’t.

As reported by TechCrunch, Apple is pushing HomeKit hard at CES this year. It coordinated with manufacturers to demo key new HomeKit smart home announcements to the tech press. Apple HomeKit has been criticized in the past for having a relatively small ecosystem of compatible accessories. In 2017, Apple made it easier for accessory makers to get HomeKit accessories approved, and the fruits of that labor are finally paying off.

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A federal appeals court has upheld a landmark patent judgment brought by VirnetX against Apple, affirming a $440 million judgment in a years-long patent dispute. On Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied Apple's efforts to overturn a 2016 verdict that imposed $302 million in damages. That figure has since risen to encompass enhanced damages, interest, and more. Many would dub the Nevada-based VirnetX a "patent troll," as it has no meaningful source of income outside of patent litigation.

Apple has for years been a premium brand that rarely, if ever discounted products. Period. Every year, the company could raise prices on products, and consumers would not only happily pay, but stand in long lines for the privilege of doing so. So when Apple started putting misleading, but seemingly consumer-friendly posters in front of Apple Stores at the end of 2018 offering a new iPhone model for $300 off (with trade-in of your current phone), you know something different happened for the company this year.

Today on Apple’s Instagram page they shared ten wallpapers from the #shotoniphone campaign. Now is your chance to download them if you missed it earlier. I enjoy getting Apple “official” wallpapers so I hope they keep this up in the future. Follow their Instagram @apple.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 43 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today to kick off 2019. In this particular report we cover Multiplayer Gaming, Ride Hailing for Maps, Home Automation with Siri, Glass Metal, Apple Pencil and a design patent for Fabric. We wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.

The lull between Christmas and New Year’s is the perfect time to pause and reflect on the buzz of activity that December brings. It’s a time of relaxation that can only be perfected by keeping up to date on shifts in the device market. In order to achieve this, we examined our vast mobile data over Christmas this year, looking specifically at the volume of new devices that entered the market. As a reminder, this data only consists of devices that users activated for the first time and began using apps in.

Apple is not the only smartphone maker suffering from a slowdown in China. CEO Tim Cook partially blamed weaker than expected iPhone sales at the end of last year on the country's slowing economy and its ongoing trade war with the United States. But Apple (AAPL) and its biggest competitors are also struggling against an overall decline in the world's biggest smartphone market.

This is a big deal. Netflix is the top-grossing app in the App Store in the U.S. They might remain the top-grossing app, even, because users who have already signed up with iTunes billing can keep doing so. But it really tells you how fractious Apple’s relationship is with content providers if the most successful one on the platform stops supporting it. And keep in mind that Netflix has long had a special relationship with Apple, with an 85/15 cut from the start, not just after a year.

Revenues for Apple's wearable products, particularly the Apple Watch and AirPods wireless headphones, have exceeded the iPod's revenues when the music player was "at its peak," Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday. "On a trailing basis, ... the revenue for wearables is already 50 percent more than iPod was at its peak," Cook told CNBC in an interview with "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.

Apple today has made a small but notable change to its App Store Guidelines. The company quietly adjusted section 3.1 of the guidelines, which previously prohibited gifting in-app purchases to other users. With today’s change, however, Apple is permitting developers to add support for gifting in-app purchases. As first spotted by MacRumors, Apple previously indicated in its App Store Guidelines that gifting of in-app purchases was not permissible.

Apple has for years been a premium brand that rarely, if ever discounted products. Period. Every year, the company could raise prices on products, and consumers would not only happily pay, but stand in long lines for the privilege of doing so. So when Apple started putting misleading, but seemingly consumer-friendly posters in front of Apple Stores at the end of 2018 offering a new iPhone model for $300 off (with trade-in of your current phone), you know something different happened for the company this year.