When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Apple Pay in October 2014, only about 2.7 percent of retailers that accepted credit cards had the technology to compatible with the mobile wallet. In 2015, only 0.2 percent of sales were made with mobile wallets, according to survey by research firm eMarketer. However, that same research firm predicts that by the end of 2016, nearly one in five smartphone users will use mobile payments.

After several years of various mobile wallets trying to gain momentum, three factors — all are related to the switch most retailers made last October to accept chip cards (also called EMV) — are predicted to drive a big shift towards mobile wallets. Updates at retailers to accept EMV cards also often include compatibility for near field communication (NFC), the tap-to-pay technology used by many mobile wallets.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will probably never win a Grammy for his erhu skills but he can say that he got to have an erhu jam battle with one of Asia’s biggest popstars.

During his star-studded tour of China, Tim Cook met up with JJ Lin to play a new song on the new Garageband app that’s been updated to celebrate China’s musical history with over 300 musical samples, and new instruments like Chinese percussions, pipa and erhu.

Checkout Cook playing JJ Lin’s new song “The Key” on his iPad:

Apple suppliers in Taiwan are already taking on new recruits in preparation for the iPhone 7. Local sources say that the design of this year’s device is more complex to build than previous models, so manufacturers are getting to work early.

If identity thieves and data snooping have you feeling uneasy when you get online, you should consider logging on with a virtual private network. By distributing your traffic among a set of globally distributed, secure servers, Celo’s VPN service anonymizes and encrypts your online activity in a way that adds significant security to your browsing, even on public Wi-Fi networks. And right now you can get a lifetime subscription to Celo’s VPN service for only $29.

Apple is preparing to team up with Intel for the upcoming iPhone 7, according to sources familiar with its plans. The chip maker is expected to supply up to 50 percent of Apple’s LTE modems for the new device.

I’ve seen the future of Wi-Fi. It’s called Eero. It comes in a pack of three, costs an arm and a leg, but boy is it worth it.

Eero is a slick system of mesh-connected routers that blanket your whole house in Wi-Fi. Eero promises to eliminate dead spots, make restarts redundant, and offer blazing speeds from the basement to the attic.

In my tests, Eero performs as advertised. After years of Wi-Fiheadaches, and an Apple Time Capsule that barely worked, we now have fast and reliable Wi-Fi all over the house.

Chinese authorities are scrutinizing Apple devices before allowing them to be sold in the country, claims a new report.

The reviews involve Chinese officials requiring executives of foreign tech companies to answer questions in person, with the concern being that companies like Apple may be forced to trade trade secrets for market access.

Android handsets crash far more regularly than iPhones, a new study by the Blanco Technology Group claims.

Measuring the number of failures of Android phones and iPhones during the first three months of 2016, devices running Google’s mobile platform were found to have a failure rate of 44 percent, compared to 25 percent for the iPhone.

Have companies not yet worked out that trying to go against Apple rarely seems to work out? If not, they may be learning quickly — with Apple Pay rival CurrentC reportedly delaying its arrival yet again, while laying off 30 of its staff.

Hardly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Tim Cook’s in China right now, and what better way to showcase Apple’s dedication to growing its Chinese customer base than by updating GarageBand for Mac and iOS with new instruments intended to, “celebrate the rich history of Chinese music?”

The update adds 300 new Chinese musical loops including guzheng, dizi, yangqin and Peking Opera samples, as well as a plethora of Chinese musical instruments such as the pipa, erhu, and Chinese percussion.

Don’t you just hate it when you compose the perfect tweet and then insert a link that takes it over the 140 character limit? Well, that could soon become a thing of the past.

According to sources familiar with Twitter’s plans, the company will soon stop counting the URLs and photos inserted into your tweets.

This post is brought to you by VMware AirWatch.

Let’s face it: Asking a person to carry around two devices all the time, one for work and one for play, is just inefficient. When organizations implement overbearing management or ignore privacy concerns, they almost force users to carry a device for work and a device for personal use.

While a few employees may enjoy the air-gap separation of church and state, most people buckle under the stress of having two separate devices to potentially forget in a cab or leave on the airport bathroom sink (true story!).

Apple CEO Tim Cook will have a lot to talk about with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi when Cook touches down in the country later this week.

The iPhone-maker is ready to make a big push into India, and according to a new report, that will include investing in India’s start-up scene with an incubator focused on helping companies in the country that build iOS apps.

El Capitan users can now download the latest OS X 10.11.5 update from the Mac App Store. The release promises to improve stability and security, and it’s recommended for all users.

Using iTunes just got slightly less crappy.

Apple has pushed out iTunes 12.4 to the public bringing some minor design tweaks that makes Apple’s most contorted and bloated app ever a little bit easier to navigate.

Oh, and it might not destroy your music library anymore either.

Apple Watch wearers received a new software update today in the form of watchOS 2.2.1 that has been made available to the public after two beta versions were tested by developers.

After more than a month of beta testing, Apple is now rolling out iOS 9.3.2 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The update brings a bunch of big bug fixes, and the ability to use Night Shift while Low Power Mode is activated.

As a long-time player of console rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, I’ve had several people’s share of silly, plastic instruments laying around my house. And while they’ve all looked varying levels of authentic, none of them actually taught me anything about how to play the guitar other than the base concepts of “one hand pushes down here while the other one goes up and/or down.”

But the Jamstick+ aims to change that by being an odd-looking, toy-like instrument that actually has lessons (via apps) to show you the basics and help you learn strumming, plucking and finger assignment. It even has real-feeling strings and frets to help you translate your lessons into the real thing.

Other than those individual pieces, however, you might feel ridiculous holding it.

It’s time to dust off that virtual reality headset you bought for your iPhone. Thanks to a new YouTube update that’s rolling out now, it’s finally possible to watch any video in glorious VR.

Steve Jobs left a lasting impression on Hungarian software developer Gabor Bojar when the two met in 1984.

Today that impression stands more than 7-feet tall, in jeans and mock-neck shirt, of course, cast in bronze outside of Bojar’s firm in Budapest.

Google isn’t waiting until its I/O conference next week to put its latest app in your hands. The company today launched Spaces for Android, iOS, and the web, making it easy to share just about anything with your favorite groups of friends.

Some of the world’s biggest investors have ditched their Apple shares lately, but where others see doom and gloom Warren Buffett sees an opportunity to make some serious money. 

Warren Buffet’s legendary investment firm Berkshire Hathaway has taken a large position in Apple stock, scooping up 9.81 million shares, worth about $1.07 billion.

The MacBook Air is delightfully lean, but it’s less than pleasing when its drive space runs thin. It’s a costly hassle to upgrade the internal drive, which makes TarDisk’s 64 gig SD drive expansion a very attractive alternative. It plugs right into the SD slot on the side of your laptop and stays out of the way, for an easy expansion that you can get right now for just $99.99.

Notes on iOS is an extremely useful app, and it got more useful with the addition of password protection in iOS 9.3. Keeping bank codes, addresses, passwords and more has never been more secure from outside threats. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe from you.

If you tend to tidy up apps and notes in a rush — as I do — you may end up deleting something you need or want. And if you haven’t finished with that note yet, that becomes a big problem. But it’s one that’s easy to fix.

In this week’s Quick Tips video, I’m going to show you how to recover deleted notes and restore all those personal details you’ve jotted down to their rightful place.

Check the video out below.

Google is finally stepping up its bid to kill Flash content. Later this year, its Chrome browser will default to HTML5 wherever possible, using Flash only as a last resort.

The move should make Chrome speedier and more stable — and better on battery life when used on a MacBook.