Apple Pay is set to arrive in the U.K. during the first half of 2015, according to a recent report from The Telegraph newspaper, which states that Apple is in talks with top banks in the country.
If true, this report backs up what Cult of Mac wrote recently, noting that Apple recently advertised for a new employee to help “drive the roll-out” of mobile payments in Europe and elsewhere.
But there are likely to be a few teething problems along the way.
Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s troubled Steve Jobs movie has had difficulty holding onto its cast members, but there’s a way you can help change that: by putting yourself forward for a role.
Beau Bonneau Casting is looking for San Francisco-based extras to appear in the movie when it starts shooting in late January 2015.
Here’s everything you’ll need to do to stand a chance at making the movie, just in case you ever wanted to be in the audience for one of Apple’s product launches (and, frankly, who wouldn’t?).
It was a great Christmas for iOS, according to new figures released by IBM, which monitored mobile traffic for online shopping over the holidays.
What it discovered was that a massive 57.1 percent of online shopping via a mobile device was carried out using an iPhone or iPad: up 8.3 percent compared to the previous year.
While no direct explanations were drawn, this has to be due to the enormous success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which some analysts have predicted was set to sell a massive 71.5 million units over the festive season.
There are plenty of festive apps out there, but one of the quirkiest and most fun is the NORAD Tracks Santa app, which lets you keep real time tabs on Jolly Old Saint Nick as he carries out his gift-dispensing journey around the globe.
As one of the foremost authorities on tracking man-made objects in space, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa’s progress for many years now. For those who don’t want to use the app, its possible to visit the Santa Tracker website, or check out the updates on Twitter.
Foxconn might get in on Apple’s sapphire business for future iPhones, according to a source speaking with Cult of Mac.
While Foxconn has no actual experience growing sapphire, it is reportedly very interested in the material, and has been actively pursuing various sapphire related patents over the past several years.
Foxconn’s array of sapphire patents include LCD displays with sapphire, protective sapphire covers, methods of sapphire growth, as well as a laser process to cut sapphire substrates to eliminate the need for grinding and polishing.
From perfect superhero books to quirky indie hits, the comics scene circa 2014 is about as varied as it’s ever been.
If you’re looking for some four-color reading recommendations over the holidays, look no further than Cult of Mac’s list showcasing the year’s finest comics. Whether it’s DC’s best-ever take on Batgirl, or Bryan Lee O’Malley’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the superb Scott Pilgrim series, there truly is something for everybody.
Apple turned down the opportunity to distribute the controversial movie The Interview on iTunes, despite a plea from Sony to the White House aimed at getting Cupertino on board.
Sony hoped Apple would step up as its sole “technology partner” to distribute the film, according to The New York Times.
When it comes to Asia, Apple’s increasing foothold in China has been the big Cupertino-related story of the year. However, mainland China’s far from the only Asian country that’s big into Apple devices.
According to a new report published today, Apple stormed the smartphone market in Taiwan for the month of November, capturing a 24.6 percent share in sales volume, and a massive 48.9 percent in sales value.
Of the 10 top-selling phone models sold in Taiwan last month, different configurations of the iPhone 6 represented four of them, with the most popular models being the 64GB iPhone 6 Plus, the 64GB iPhone 6, and the 16GB variants of both devices.
Features like Handoff demonstrate just how useful it is to be able to chop and change tasks between different Apple devices, perhaps starting an email on your iPad and continuing it on your Mac.
A similar thing may soon be possible with your Apple TV, as a patent published today shows how Apple has invented a way of carrying out a sort-of reverse AirPlay: sending content from your Apple TV to your iOS device, rather than the other way around.
The big advantage of the concept is that it would allow remote viewing of Apple TV, whether this means having a TV show follow you from room-to-room, or tuning into your Apple TV while you’re away from home.
Tim Cook has been named “CEO of the year” by CNN Money, beating other contenders including T-Mobile’s John Legere, BlackBerry’s John Chen, other singled out as leading executives for 2014.
CNN Money notes that Cook performed an “amazing job,” and points readers toward the fact that the AAPL stock price is up 40 percent, while Apple hit new all-time high valuation levels.
This is credited to the launch of the iPhone 6, the debut of Apple Pay, and excitement about the Apple Watch, which is set to be the first major new product line launched at Apple under Tim Cook’s stewardship.
One of the great things about the world of fitness trackers post-Apple Watch (or, at least, post-Apple Watch announcement) is that we’re seeing how different companies are trying to insure themselves against Cupertino’s high-end luxury lifestyle tracker.
Jawbone recently answered this question by launching its UP Move: It’s an entry-level fitness wearable that may lack the bells and whistles of the Apple Watch, but is also, at $49.99, shy a couple of zeroes in the price tag department.
There’s a line of thought which suggests that Apple’s CarPlay technology essentially turns your car into one giant iPhone add-on. A new trademark application, however, suggests that Apple is planning to lend its approval to some other, likely smaller third-party CarPlay accessories — coming soon to a vehicle near you.
Similar to the “Works With iPhone” developer program for accessories designed to connect specifically with the iPhone, Apple’s “Works with CarPlay” trademark will certify that a particular third-party product has been approved as meeting Apple’s performance standards for its in-car iOS interface.
Apple has re-opened its online store in Russia after temporarily closing it last week following “extreme” fluctuations in the valuation of the country’s currency, the ruble.
But while that’s good news for people wanting to order Apple goods over the holidays, it’s not likely to go over well with the majority of customers — since prices have dramatically increased.
The cost of an iPhone 6, for instance, has risen 35 percent: with a 16GB iPhone 6 selling for 34,990 rubles before the shutdown, and 53,990 rubles now. That means a base level iPhone costs $980 in Russia.
One of the best features launched with OS X Yosemite this year was the ability to make and receive phone calls from your Mac, provided it is paired with a compatible iPhone.
But while it’s usually great receiving phone calls with the feature, making outgoing calls yourself is not so straightforward: You must launch the FaceTime app, turn on your webcam and then maneuver through an interface that’s clearly more complex than it needs to be.
Thankfully, this is where DockPhone app comes to the rescue. If you use your Mac to makes calls with any regularity whatsoever, consider this an early Christmas present to yourself.
Whatever your thoughts on last week’s BBC documentary about the poor worker conditions in factories producing the iPhone, there’s no doubt that it’s brought the topic back into widespread circulation.
Unlike the majority of previous reports, this time the target wasn’t Foxconn, however, but instead the Taiwan-based firm Pegatron Technology, which has been taking an increasing amount of Apple orders as of late.
With negative press circulating about the company mistreating its workers, Pegatron today filed a statement with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, pledging to inspect all negative claims carried in the report and implement improvements to make sure these problems are solved.
Apple’s new 12-inch Retina MacBook Air is expected to enter mass production in the first quarter of 2015, manufactured by Quanta Computer, according to a new report released today.
The new notebook is expected to boast Intel’s Broadwell processors, and a chassis redesign which will further reduce the device’s already-slimline thickness and weight.
With an estimated 71.5 million iPhones predicted to sell over the holidays, and more buzz surrounding Apple than ever, it’s no surprise that advertisers are keen to muscle in on the action.
In the case of digital marketing company Truth NYC, that means producing a holiday video campaign for luxury skincare brand Erno Laszlo using the iPhone 6 Plus.
Check out the two videos after the jump.
We know that Eddy Cue has used Apple Pay to buy Frozen toys before, and from December 24 he can take his Disney love to the next level, thanks to the news that the Walt Disney World Resort is set to begin accepting Apple Pay on Christmas Eve.
Initially, payments using the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will work in the majority of stores, quick service restaurants, bars and ticket sales booths. Locations which use portable payment terminals (such as table service restaurants) will be added later.
2014 has been an intriguing 12 months for movies. With no obvious breakout Oscar winners (a la 12 Years a Slave) or billion-dollar box office smashes (like The Avengers), it’s easy to think it’s been a forgettable year.
But that’s not really true. Peer beneath the surface and it has, in fact, been a very strong year for movie fans — from emotional masterpieces like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and returns-to-form like Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street to action-packed blockbusters such as Guardians of the Galaxy, there’s truly been something for everyone.
So what are our picks for the 10 “must see” movies of 2014? Keep reading to find out.
Speculation about who is going to build Apple’s A9 processor may be coming to a halt, as Korea’s Electronic Times reports today that not only has Samsung won the contract from Apple, but it’s also entered production.
As per the report, Samsung began fabrication on the new system-on-chip yesterday at its chipmaking facility in Austin, Texas, using a 14 nanometer process.
A working Apple-1 computer has sold at a Christie’s auction for $365,000: more than 600x the $600 that was paid for it back in July 1976, when it was bought from Steve Jobs.
While the figure is certainly sizeable, however, it’s also a bit of a disappointment when you consider that just two months ago, a similar machine fetched an eye-watering $905,000, when it was acquired by the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, to be part of its ongoing collection. “It’s very rare to be able to collect the beginning of something, but the Apple-1 is exactly that,” Henry Ford curator Kristen Gallerneaux told Cult of Mac shortly after that auction had concluded.
Yesterday’s Christie’s auction in New York had expected the Apple-1 to sell for between $400,000 and $600,000, although there had been some speculation it could break the $1 million mark.
The Apple-1 came complete with a mounted cancelled check for his purchase, made out to Apple Computer by original owner Charles Ricketts.
If you’ve ever dreamed of using an Xbox One controller to play games on your Mac, today is your lucky day — thanks to a new application which recently appeared on GitHub.
Created by user Guilherme Araújo, all you have have to do to use the controller is to open his code in Xcode and run it.
Happy gaming!
More than 100 protestors — consisting of unionized security guards from San Francisco, fast-food workers and members of other unions — gathered at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters yesterday to protest working conditions for service workers in Silicon Valley, where tech workers can strike it big, but other people struggle to get by.
The demonstrators brought with them a petition signed by 20,000 people, calling for Apple to lead a charge better working conditions not just at Apple, but in the Bay Area as a whole. They carried a sign reading, “Apple dodges taxes, we pay the price.”
President Obama’s not the only world leader to be a big iPad fan. According to a new report, Apple’s tablet also has a devotee in the world’s most famous royal toddler and future King of England, Prince George.
The revelation was made by the U.K.’s Prince William during his trip to the United States, while meeting with tech company littleBits, which is responsible for manufacturing electronic modules and magnets for kids.
“He told me that his son George has been playing iPad games and loves them, and that this was a good way to teach him the inner workings of electronics,” CEO Ayah Bdeir told reporters.
Anyone that has ever taken a look at Xiaomi’s suspiciously Apple-like designs won’t be surprised to hear them dismissed as ripoff artists. But a new court ruling suggests they might be patent infringers too.
Delhi High Court in India has banned Xiaomi from selling, assembling, importing and advertising its smartphones in the country, on the basis that the bestselling handsets infringe on certain patents held by another company.
Interestingly, that company isn’t Apple — but rather Ericsson, which claims that Xiaomi violated 8 of its patents, including those related to 3G, EDGE and other technologies.
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