While we can’t say for sure that an Apple Car will ever go on sale, it’s a certainty by this point that the company is devoting substantial development resources to the project. Tim Cook said recently that there would be “massive change” in the car industry, and that “autonomous driving becomes much more important.”

But as a recent opinion piece on sister site Electrek argued, and Elon Musk warned, actually manufacturing a car is massively more complex than making consumer electronics devices. Apple will therefore be looking for partners to pull together different elements of the car. Re/code has put together an interesting look at the most likely candidates … 

None of the companies would comment on any conversations they have with the Cupertino giant about their own cars. None of them flat-out denied those conversations, either. Google, Tesla and Apple all declined to comment.

The list below is not exhaustive. Yet after conversations with nearly a dozen manufacturers, industry experts and tech companies involved in the world of self-driving cars, Re/code assembled a portrait of the leading, innovative companies and critical dynamics in the autonomous industry.

The exterior of the car could, it suggests, be made by five companies: Roush, Delphi, Edison2, Atieva and Renovo Motors. The first of those, Roush, is a Michigan-based “boutique automotive supplier” which already has one key claim to credibility in the field: it assembled the exterior for Google’s prototype self-driving cars.

Renovo recently teamed-up with engineers from Stanford University to create a self-driving electric DeLorean capable of donuts and drifting. While it was of course a PR stunt, you need some impressive tech to pull it off.

Atieva, founded by a former Tesla VP and with many former Tesla staff in its employ, is noted for its expertise in battery tech, and is working on building a complete electric car.

For the internals – including the technology required for self-driving capabilities – Continental, Bosch and Frimo are all listed as contenders. Bosch already has an impressive record in the field. It’s a key supplier to many of the world’s car manufacturers, including Tesla’s auto-pilot functionality. The company is also working on its own self-driving hardware, using a Tesla S as a testbed.

Continental is another Tesla supplier working on “systems that build autonomy into brakes, acceleration and steering.”

Autonomous cars require some serious processing power, and Nvidia is the chipmaker described as “ahead of the curve,” establishing an automotive division back in 2007 geared to adapting its video games expertise to the real world. It supplies in-car computers to both Tesla and Google, as well as other luxury carmakers, which can process data from “up to 12 cameras on a car, plus any Lidar and ultrasonic sensors.” Apple recently poached Nvidia’s director of deep learning.

Head on over to Re/code to read the full piece, which also covers cameras, LIDAR and more.

Filed under: Apple Car Tagged: AAPL, Apple, Apple Car, Automotive industry, Autonomous car, Elon Musk, Google, Inc, LIDAR, Self-driving car, Tesla Motors

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Although carriers have created workarounds in the past, Apple has been slow to support carrier billing for iTunes and App Store purchases so far. That appears to be changing, in Germany at least, as TechCrunch reports Telefonica-owned carrier O2 is officially supported as a payment option within iTunes. O2 customers are said to be able to provide a phone number rather than a credit card to allow billing to be handled through O2 rather than directly with a credit or debit card or other options.

iTunes and App Store payments are then handled through the carrier with the phone bill monthly rather than immediately. This allows subscription services like Apple Music and Netflix to also be handled through carrier billing.

In the past, we’ve seen O2 in the UK offer a similar but unofficial solution for carrier billing with iTunes purchases. Through its Charge to Mobile solution, O2 sells iTunes credit in a deal that’s okay’d by Apple by not an official partnership. That differs from the carrier billing feature through O2 appearing in Germany where customers can link carrier accounts directly in iTunes.

TC, which credits German blogger Carsten Knobloch with the discovery, has confirmed the O2’s partnership with Apple as Telefónica Germany promised the feature will be available to all subscribers by the end of next month. For Knobloch, the feature is available on both iTunes on the desktop and within iOS on mobile.

Carrier billing remains unavailable through providers in the United States for now with credit cards, PayPal, and iTunes gift cards current solutions. Before Apple bought Beats, the pre-Apple Music streaming service Beats Music supported carrier billing exclusively through AT&T. T-Mobile has made streaming Apple Music on its cellular network not count against data tiers, but billing is still handled through traditional methods with iTunes.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: App Store, carrier billing, iTunes, O2

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Last month in Brussels gave us our first look at the all-new Apple Store design after Jony Ive and his team went to work, and today we can see what looks very much like a carbon copy of that look in the new Dubai store set to open on Thursday.

We see the same indoor trees and huge screen as seen in Brussels, but on a much larger scale. Gulf News, which took the photos below, says that the store is still being reported to be the world’s largest Apple Store, overtaking London’s Covent Garden, though it notes that “at first appearance” it looks smaller than expected … 

The store, located in the Mall of the Emirates, will be the first Apple Store to open in the United Arab Emirates when it opens at 4pm on the 29th, but UAE residents won’t have long to wait for the second: the Abu Dhabi store opens just three hours later at 7pm the same day.

Gulf Business also gave us a quick video tour.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Abu Dhabi, Apple Retail Store, Apple Store, Dubai, uae, United Arab Emirates

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The Apple TV is now available to buy but customers won’t be receiving their new hardware until Friday at the earliest, according to Apple shipping estimates. Although the dev kits currently lack an App Store to download software, plenty of developers are announcing their titles for the new Apple TV, ahead of schedule. We’ll be bringing you full coverage of the Apple TV later in the week but here’s a taste of the software already announced for the Apple TV’s debut …

Simplex

Plex has already announced that it is making an official Apple TV client ready for the App Store launch (more on that soon) but there is also a market of third-party clients that could be even better. One of these is Simplex. Simplex Video will stream your full Plex library straight to Apple TV featuring a fantastic UI that closely mirrors the Apple iTunes Movies experience, whilst exposing all of the Plex categorization options. This could be the de facto to stream your own content library to Apple TV, as iTunes Home Sharing leaves much to be desired.

Mr Jump

Mr Jump won an Apple App Store Editor’s Choice for its addictive iPhone and iPad platformer earlier in the year, accruing over 15 million downloads. The game maker is now bringing the popular title to Apple TV. Users tap on the Siri Remote touchpad to control Mr Jump and navigate the various platforms and obstacles in the levels. A longer tap makes Mr Jump go higher. A variety of power-ups are unlocked on the way, giving the one-button platformer a surprising level of depth. You can download Mr Jump for iOS now to get it automatically on the new Apple TV when the App Store launches.

Streaks Workout

Streaks is a cool new workout app for Apple TV. You can select from a variety of activities to do workouts directly in your living room … all wrapped into a pretty design with bold imagery and rich typography. Streaks times the pacing and number of repetitions and keep a record of your performance history. The goal is to do one workout every single day; you can customize the goals based on your fitness and free time. Get Streaks when the tvOS App Store launches. It’s also worth giving a shout-out to the 7 Minute TV Workout here, which is a very similar premise, but it includes videos of instructors doing each move so you can copy the professionals and maximise your efficiency.

Withings Home

Home health company Withings is jumping on board too, they’ll have an Apple TV app available at launch. The Withings Home app will work with their video monitoring hardware to let you easily add CCTV in every room of the house and view it all on your big-screen TV in the living room. The app will support streaming of up to 4 live videos at the same time, so you can glance at the security and safety of everyone in your house simultaneously. The app will be available for free in the Apple TV App Store but obviously you will need to buy the Withings cameras for it to be useful.

Sketch Party TV

SketchParty kind of exists today on the current Apple TV through AirPlay — you can download the iOS app and stream the game content to the television. It’s not a great experience though, AirPlay lag and occasional choppy frame-rates ruin the experience.

With the new Apple TV, SketchParty has made a tvOS game that runs on the Apple TV hardware. The app still connects with users’ iPhones and iPads to act as controllers for each of the players, where the sketching takes place. Its just that the main experience is now being powered by a real native app, allowing SketchParty to deliver higher quality, sharper graphics and fluid visuals to the Apple TV, eliminating the lag issues inherent with AirPlay Mirroring.

This is just a taste of the kinds of apps and games to expect for tvOS. Apple is still working through the review queue so the Apple TV app library will grow significantly in the coming days. Many of the top apps are also still under embargo, so we’ll bring you full coverage of those as the details become public. The first Apple TV units will be delivered to customers this Friday and we expect the tvOS App Store to go live for people with developer kits on Wednesday or Thursday.

(If you are working on a great tvOS app, please get in touch).

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple TV, Apps, apps and games, Games, mr jump, Plex, roundup

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The consensus forecast among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for Apple’s Q4 earnings is $51.11B, up 21.3% year-on-year. This would be slightly above the top end of Apple’s guidance of $49-51B reportsRe/code. Analysts predict unadjusted net profit of $10.72 billion, or $1.88 per AAPL share – up from $1.42 per share last year … 

Apple will report its earnings later today. The stock was looking set to see a 7.9% gain for the year until yesterday, when it fell sharply to a little over $115.

Analysts are forecasting that Apple sold around 48M iPhones in the quarter, 24% up on the same quarter last year – in large part because the new iPhones went on sale in China from the opening weekend. Investor reaction is expected to hinge more on Apple’s guidance for the holiday season than on the numbers it reports today.

KGI expects both iPad and Mac sales to have fallen year-on-year. There is nothing even approaching a consensus estimate of Apple Watch sales, but that’s a number Apple is unlikely to reveal.

We’ll of course be bringing you full coverage of the actual numbers as soon as they are announced.

Photo: Reuters

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: AAPL, AAPL Q4 2015, Apple Inc, china, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Reuters

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Pandora co-creator Tom Conrad discovered that Siri won’t open the pod door answer questions about the music charts if you don’t subscribe to Apple Music. When Conrad asked Siri for the most popular song in the US today, she remained tight-lipped.

Sorry, Tom, I can’t look up the music charts for you. You don’t seem to be subscribed to Apple Music …

Business Insider report that other non-subscribers get the same result. Here in the UK, at least, Siri can’t answer the question directly anyway: when I ask, Siri simply does a web search, with the Billboard Hot 100 as the first hit. (It’s The Hills by The Weeknd, if you’re curious.)

The hard sell seems a little un-Apple-like to me, especially as the service doesn’t appear to need much help, having reached 6.5M paid subscribers within the first month after the end of the free trial period for early adopters. That puts it on track to be a billion dollar business right off the starting grid.

What next? Siri refusing to answer questions about smartphones unless you own the latest iPhone?

Ironically, Apple recently ran an ad highlighting Siri’s increased helpfulness. Perhaps she’s a little tetchy from the thought of the added workload of dealing with Apple TV searches once the new units ship?

Main photo: Digital Trends

Filed under: Apple Music Tagged: Apple Music, Billboard Hot 100, Siri, The Weeknd

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Just a day after sharing three new advertisements for its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple this evening has unveiled yet another. Today’s new ad features Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry showing off Live Photos.

The ad shows Curry shooting a half-court shot while a teammate watches and snaps a photo right after Curry releases the ball. The two then use the Live Photos feature of iPhone 6s to view the image. Live Photos is the iPhone 6s capability that automatically records a short snippet of time before and after taking the actual image. In this case, it allows us to see Curry’s release as well as his reaction when the shot goes in.

Yesterday’s ads showed off the “Hey Siri” and camera features of iPhone 6s. Curry also made an appearance in one of these, using the slo-mo recording capabilities of the device.

You can view today’s new ad entitled “Half court” below:

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Apple, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, Live Photos, video

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Yet another bank has announced today that it is launching its own mobile payment solution. At the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas today, Chase announced that it is launching Chase Pay. Chase Pay is digital wallet solution similar to Apple Pay that allows users to pay with their phones at retail locations and online (via Re/code).

There’s one notable difference between Chase Pay and Apple Pay. Chase’s offering works by giving shoppers a QR code to show to their cashier, while Apple Pay works by using NFC technology to tap and pay. Another example Chase showed is paying for a dinner by taking a photo of the bill.

To get Chase Pay into more retail stores, the company will be partnering with MCX, the consortium that has recently faced more than its fair share of struggles thanks to increasing competition from Apple Pay. In some MCX stores, Chase Pay users will be able to show that QR code to pay, while in others they will be forced to use Chase Pay within MCX’s CurrentC app on their phones.

Chase’s QR code solution is an interesting idea that certainly sets it apart from the competition. But given that Chase credit and debit cards are supported by Apple Pay, it seems like a steep task for the bank to be able to convince users to use its solution versus Apple’s, which is built-in to the operating system and included in the set-up process through which every iOS user goes.

Chase Pay is slated to launch in “about the middle of 2016,” the company said.

Filed under: Apple Pay, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple pay, chase, Chase Pay, mobile payments

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While it appears to be an entry-level position, it will likely be a hot one for anyone looking to get a job in radio: Apple just posted a job listing looking for a production assistant that will work directly with famed radio personality Zane Lowe and the team producing the 24/7 Beats 1 radio station that Apple launched alongside its Apple Music streaming service back in June.

The job listing posted on Apple’s website is seeking a production assistant for Beats 1 to work specifically on Lowe’s show. That includes “creative content ideas, editing, and execution of both audio and video,” and it also means the position will be at Lowe’s Beats 1 studio located in LA. Apple gave a brief tour of the studio back in July. 

Zane Lowe was hired away from his popular show on BBC Radio 1 to run the live streaming radio offering included with Apple Music. The DJ and radio personality recently gave his take on how things have been going so far noting that Apple told him not to worry about numbers, but simply to “go out and make noise.”

Following that interview, Apple earlier this month revealed for the first time that it has 6.5 million paying Apple Music subscribers and 15 million total users since launching in late June. It didn’t, however, break out any numbers related to Beats 1 specifically.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Music, Beats 1, DJ, job listing, LA, production assistant, radio, zane lowe

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If you’re a Facebook user, you’re definitely familiar with the Notifications tab in the company’s iOS app. Although it has barely evolved from being a simple stream of your notifications since its introduction many years ago, Facebook has today come out to outline some changes on the way to make it more useful and personalized.

Assumably since most of us rarely use or view notifications that are more than a day old, Facebook has decided to use the space in the Notifications tab in other, more useful, ways. With the new version, you’ll find the 5 or so most recent activity notifications at the top, with handfuls of additional — and hopefully useful — information below.

Among the things that Facebook says it is adding to the Notifications tab are friends and family “milestones” (which include birthdays, major life events, and the like), sports scores and television notifications based on the pages you have already liked, as well as events that are around the corner (but, seemingly, only those that you’ve already joined).

Facebook says that if you head into the app settings and allow it to see your location history (which many users already have), you can see things like local events based on your physical location, as well as weather updates, movies that are playing at nearby theaters, and even places to eat. Unsurprisingly, most of these features will connect your with many locations’ Facebook pages.

Facebook says that the update is rolling out “gradually,” so it should appear on your device sometime in the next few days.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apps, iOS Tagged: Android, app, Apple, Facebook, Google, iOS, iPhone, notifications, update

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