The Touch ID fingerprint sensor will get an upgrade this year with Apple's next-generation iPhone, according to well-connected insider Ming-Chi Kuo, who said on Tuesday that the new model will improve the Apple Pay experience with fewer reading errors.
Apple has historically downplayed the significance of megapixels in measuring image quality, and the company may stick to that approach once again later this year with another 8-megapixel camera in its next-generation iPhone, according to a new rumor.
Apple's domination in the smartphone market compelled Canaccord Genuity to raise its price target on Apple stock to $145 on Monday, advising investors to buy in on the continued strength of the new iPhone 6, which decimated profits for competitors last quarter.
While rumors have long claimed that Apple has plans to replace Intel's x86 chips in Macs with its own custom ARM Application Processors, there are a series of more valuable opportunities available to Apple's silicon design team, each of which has the potential to replicate Apple's history of beating Intel in mobile chips and in building mobile GPUs without the help of Nvidia or AMD.
Typo, makers of a BlackBerry-like keyboard accessory for the iPhone, were ordered Wednesday to pay the Canadian smartphone maker $860,000 plus attorneys' fees and costs after failing to heed a sales injunction handed down last March.
Ongoing price wars in the U.S. mobile industry have led Verizon to shave $10 off the monthly rate of a number of its shared data plans, in line with aggressive strategies taken by AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
For the first time since the end of 2012, Apple's iPhone edged out all devices running Android for shipments in the U.S., becoming not only the top device, but also the top domestic platform for the quarter.
Mobile device manufacturers may finally have a reason to evaluate sapphire on an equal footing with traditional strengthened glass, as a new method of dealing with sapphire is said to have lowered its reflectivity significantly.
Millions more consumers now have access to Apple Pay as BECU, Golden 1, Alliant, and First Tech — four of the ten largest credit unions in the country — have been added as partners alongside leading regional banks BBVA Compass and Fifth Third, while Samsung is rumored to introduce a payments program of its own at the Galaxy S6 launch next month.
In the follow-up to Apple's blockbuster December quarter, the company could exceed sales of 50 million iPhones in the current March frame, companies in the Apple supply chain reportedly believe.
Though it has the backing of legendary rocker Neil Young, the new Pono music player for audiophiles doesn't actually sound much better, or better at all, than high-quality MP3s played from an Apple iPhone.
Highlighting the huge disparity between the iPhone and the rest of the mobile market, the average selling price of Apple's smartphone lineup is now 2.7 times that of devices running Android.
The strong initial success of Apple Pay, combined with the news that eBay will spin off PayPal, has led to expectations that PayPal could be a major acquisition target for mobile companies vying for users' wallets.
After years of failing to do much more than embarrass Samsung Electronics in legal battles over patent infringement, Apple has rapidly obliterated Samsung's mobile division profitability, rendering it as barrenly unprofitable as every other Android or Windows licensee with razor thin margins in the phone, PC and tablet market.
Apple revealed this week that the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus attracted more Android users than ever before. But new data suggests that the rate of Android switchers in the U.S. was steady last quarter, implying that international users are the ones who made the jump to iPhone in record numbers.
The 74.5 million iPhones sold over the last three months of 2014 didn't just help Apple report the highest quarterly profit of any publicly-traded company in history, they also propelled the Cupertino giant into a first-place tie with Samsung as the largest smartphone maker in the world.
Samsung Electronics reported overall Q4 operating profits of 5.29 trillion won ($4.9 billion)—a 36 percent year-over-year drop—but its Mobile division suffered a 64.2 percent drop in profits, falling from $5 billion in the year ago quarter to $1.8 billion in the December quarter.
Chipmaker Qualcomm on Wednesday revised its revenue forecast downward for 2015, lopping nearly $1 billion off of its high-end estimate and seemingly blaming the change in part on Apple's annexation of market share with the iPhone 6.
During its quarterly conference call on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the company had sold its one billionth iOS device in the December quarter, a device that will be kept at Cupertino for posterity.
More than 200,000 self-service stations across America — including vending machines, coffee brewers, parking pay stations, kiosks and laundry equipment — will gain compatibility with Apple Pay, thanks to support from USA Technologies Inc.
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Neil Hughes
Katie Marsal
Daniel Eran Dilger
AppleInsider Staff
Sam Oliver
Mikey Campbell
