The iPhone isn’t likely to get NFC-capabilities allowing it to function as a credit card until 2012, according to most reports, but Apple’s biggest competitor in the smartphone arena has no intention of waiting so long: Google is preparing to unveil their own mobile payment system on May 26th.
It ain’t over until it’s over, Yogi Berra once said. The sports legend could have been talking about Apple’s attempt to lure the music industry onto the cloud. Just as an agreement to make your music accessible everywhere seemed at hand, publishers want more cash.
With iOS 4, Apple left the original iPhone and iPod Touch behind in the dust of iOS 3.1.3, and even the iPhone 3G could not avail itself of some of iOS 4’s most notable features, like multitasking. As long as you at least had an iPhone 3GS, though, you’d be fine.
Given how many problems the iPhone 3G hardware had running iOS 4.0, it should come as no surprise that Apple is hoping to consign that hardware to the dustbin when they debut iOS 5 at WWDC next month. What may be more surprising is that the iPhone 3GS will go into the dustbin too.
It’s enough to bring a smile to an angry bird: Apple’s iTunes can boast a half-million apps. That figure likely will get an official stamp of approval when CEO Steve Jobs speaks June 9 before developers at the annual WWDC in San Francisco.
Are Lady Gaga followers Apple or Android fans? Amazon is using the flamboyant celebrity to push its cloud storage option, selling the singer’s new “Born This Way” album for only 99 cents. Along the way, the Internet retailer hopes you’ll pick it over Apple’s $16 iTunes price … and in doing so, be locked into using their Cloud Locker service instead of Apple’s forthcoming iCloud.
Apple’s plans to bring music streaming to the upcoming iCloud service are coming together swiftly this week as the company signs up a third major record label.
With all the deals getting inked and all the right hires in place, Apple is increasingly ready to jump iTunes into the cloud… possibly as early as next month’s WWDC. But how exactly will it work?
We’ve been speculating on Apple’s partnership with Nuance for some weeks now, and confirmation the two companies are working together comes with the new speech technology discovered in the Mac OS X Lion beta.
Cult of Mac has learned Apple could be scheduling secret employee meetings with retail staff on May 28th between 8 and 10am. Is this just pre-WWDC preparations, or something more?
When Google and Amazon launched their cloud music services, they did so without signing deals with the four major music labels. Apple will not be following suit, and according to music industry insiders, having all the contracts signed is what’s going to let Cupertino kick the competition’s teeth in.