Apple Launches Worldwide ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ Ad Campaign Spanning Magazines, Billboards and More

Apple has launched a worldwide “Shot on iPhone 6″ advertising campaign involving 77 photographers, 70 cities and 24 countries, with iPhone 6 photography to be featured in magazines, newspapers, billboards, transit posters and more. The large-scale marketing initiative has started rolling out in several countries across the world this week, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Thailand, Malaysia, Tokyo and United Arab Emirates.

“Shot on iPhone 6″ photo on billboard in Los Angeles (via Twitter)
A number of “Shot on iPhone 6″ advertisements have begun surfacing on Twitter and Instagram over the past few days, with spots appearing on the back cover of The New Yorker magazine, horizontal posters in London’s Euston Square subway station and in the Malaysian city of Bangsar, billboards in Los Angeles and Toronto, the side of a tall skyscraper in Dubai and more.

“Shot on iPhone 6″ photo on back cover of The New Yorker (via Twitter)
The photography campaign began with Apple promoting a world gallery of photos taken with the iPhone 6 on its homepage over the weekend, including photo apps such as Instagram, Snapseed, VSCO Cam, Filterstorm Neue, Camera+ and Adobe Photoshop Express used for editing and filtering. The majority of photos shown provide scenic views of the outdoors, ranging from mountains and deserts to lakes and waterfalls.

Upcoming Steve Jobs Book Promises ‘Sensational’ New Stories, Launches March 24

There’s a new Steve Jobs book set to be published later this month, penned by Brent Schlender, a reporter who interviewed Jobs several times throughout his life and became close to him, and Rick Tetzeli, Executive Editor at Fast Company. Called Becoming Steve Jobs, the book aims to go beyond existing myths and stereotypes about Jobs, giving a look at a man who was only human, who “wrestled with his failings and learned to maximize his strength over time.”

The book explores the story of how Steve Jobs made the transformation from an arrogant young man exiled from Apple to the visionary leader that skyrocketed Apple to fame. Schlender and Tetzeli interviewed many of Steve Jobs’ friends, family, and inner circle, to get access to never-before-told stories. Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and Robert Iger all contributed to the book. It also draws on the experiences Schlender had with Jobs in interviews across many years.

Schlender and Tetzeli make clear that Jobs’s astounding success at Apple was far more complicated than simply picking the right products: he became more patient, he learned to trust his inner circle, and discovered the importance of growing the company incrementally rather than only shooting for dazzling game-changing products. .

Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber received an advanced copy of Becoming Steve Jobs and called it “the book about Steve Jobs that the world deserves.” According to Gruber, it’s an accurate retelling of the life of Jobs, with a “significant amount of new reporting. Some stories, he writes, “are going to be sensational.”

The book is smart, accurate, informative, insightful, and at times, utterly heartbreaking. Schlender and Tetzeli paint a vivid picture of Jobs the man, and also clearly understand the industry in which he worked. They also got an astonishing amount of cooperation from the people who knew Jobs best: colleagues past and present from Apple and Pixar — particularly Tim Cook — and his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.

A hardcover copy of Becoming Steve Jobs can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com for $21.78. There’s also a Kindle edition and an Audible version.

iCloud Photo Library: What You Need to Know [Mac Blog]

With today’s launch of the public beta of OS X 10.10.3 and the new Photos app for Mac, a number of users are now getting their first tastes of Apple’s replacement for iPhoto and Aperture. The release will also complete the rollout of Apple’s cross-platform iCloud Photo Library service, offering users an easy way to keep all of their photos stored in the cloud and synced across their devices. Various pieces of the service have been in beta since iOS 8.0 was made available to developers last June.

What Is iCloud Photo Library?

While Apple has offered some iCloud photo services such as Photo Streams for some time, iCloud Photo Library is a new service still in beta that moves the user’s entire photo and video library into the cloud. The service is part of Apple’s push to make it as easy as possible for users to switch among Mac and iOS devices throughout the day, making the user’s photos are available on all of their devices and ensuring any changes get quickly synced across devices.

Initially planned to launch as part of iOS 8.0, Apple pushed the service back to beta ahead of the public release as the company continued to refine the service and work on cross-platform capabilities. The Mac portion was also not ready for the public release of OS X Yosemite last October, but with the new Photos app for Mac ready for launch, all of the pieces are falling into place for iCloud Photo Library.
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OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 Public Beta With Photos App Now Available

Apple today made a pre-release version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 available to those who are signed up for the company’s OS X public beta program, giving them early access to the new update and the new Photos for OS X app.

The public beta carries a build number of 14D87p, a slightly later build number than the 14D78h from the second developer beta of the software, released last week.

All registered public beta test members should be able to download OS X Yosemite through the Mac App Store.

Google’s New Take on Mobile Payments Puts Focus on Developers With Android Pay [iOS Blog]

At Mobile World Congress today Senior Vice President of Google Sundar Pichai revealed a handful of new projects the company is working on, including a new mobile payments solution called Android Pay (via The Verge).

Though only spoken of briefly, Pichai mentioned that the new service would take a decidedly more developer-focused route, calling Android Pay a “developer tool” that would give those developers considerable flexibility in how to implement the payments service.

He noted that the service was less a new consumer-level product and more of an “API layer” that will give other developers and companies the chance to build interesting mobile payment solutions on Android platforms.

“We are doing it in a way in which anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android,” said Pichai. “So, in places like China and Africa we hope that people will use Android Pay to build innovative services.”

Although Pichai did not explain the details of Android Pay to any great degree, he claimed it would “start with NFC” and eventually accommodate biometric sensors as well.

Google’s news follows on the heels of Samsung’s own entry into the contactless payment market with Samsung Pay just yesterday. Samsung’s offering is set to be baked in to the upcoming Summer release of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones, which will include a fingerprint scanner to help secure mobile payments made on the device, falling far more in line as a direct competitor to Apple Pay than Google’s new service.

Samsung is attempting to come out of the gate strong, with the company having already made deals with MasterCard and Visa to support the service and attempting to line up various other companies and banks before the new Galaxy phone launches this summer. The announcement appears to be a direct continuation of Samsung’s acquisition of mobile payments-focused company LoopPay earlier in February, setting itself up to battle Apple Pay in the coming months.

Pichai noted during MWC that Android Pay is a bit more malleable of a service, not locking itself onto one specific phone or brand similar to Apple Pay or the upcoming Samsung Pay. He continued that the company doesn’t mean to directly compete with Samsung’s newly announced mobile payments service, and mentioned that Google wanted to “work closely [together] to see how we can align [with them].”

Tim Cook: Apple Watch Launch in April Won’t Be Exclusive to United States

Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly said at the company’s flagship Apple Store in Berlin that the Apple Watch launch in April will not be limited to the United States, according to retail employees in attendance that spoke with 9to5Mac.

Cook specifically confirmed that the Apple Watch will launch in Germany during the month of April, indicating that a wider international launch in other countries could be on the horizon. MacRumors previously reported that Apple is targeting an early April release date for the Apple Watch based on a source that has proved reliable.

The report corroborates that the Apple Watch may be released in the United States in early April, followed by Germany and other countries later in the month. The first wave of countries that Apple has often launched previous iPhones and iPads in typically includes the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. Cook did not confirm that the Apple Watch would launch in April in all of those countries.

Apple Watch starts at $349 and will be available in three models: Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition. Apple is expected to provide more details about the wrist-worn device at its highly-anticipated “Spring Forward” media event on March 9th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. MacRumors will be providing live coverage of the event, which should provide more specific pricing and release date information about Apple’s first wearable device.

Apple Expands Company Trademarks to Cover Vehicles, but Similar Filings Date Back to 2003

Following several weeks of rumors about Apple’s car-related projects, a recent move by the company to expand trademark coverage of the “Apple” name and iconic Apple logo in Switzerland to include vehicles is gaining attention, as noticed by ApfelBlog.ch [Google Translate] (via Cult of Mac).

While the expansion, which also occurred in Mexico on the same date last month, is unsurprisingly sparking discussion about Apple’s efforts in the automotive industry, it is not exactly a new development. Various other Apple trademark applications over the years have included protection under International Class 12, which covers vehicles and their accessories. A European Union filing from October 2003 describes a similar vehicle-related corporate trademark, and others such as a United Kingdom filing from last year have been filed since that time.

Each trademark filing goes through the same basic motions in mentioning various types of vehicles and vehicle-related devices to be covered.

Vehicles; Apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water; electronic hardware components for motor vehicles, rail cars and locomotives, ships and aircraft; Anti-theft devices; Theft alarms for vehicles; Bicycles; Golf carts; Wheelchairs; Air pumps; Motorcycles; Aftermarket parts (after-market parts) and accessories for the aforesaid goods.

One issue with interpreting trademark applications is the common strategy of trying to cover as broad a base as possible in order to maximize protection, and thus it is difficult to tell whether Apple’s new vehicle-related applications are related to the rumored projects or something simpler such as CarPlay. Apple also currently holds “iPhone,” “Mac,” and “iPod” trademark protection under Class 12 in several countries.

The Swiss and Mexican filings come on the heels of a recent deluge in Apple car-related news that began when a mysterious van leased to the company was seen on Bay Area streets. Further news on the company hiring employees from Tesla, Ford and GM, and reports stating the so-called “Project Titan” is aiming to launch in 2020 have led some to believe the vans are related to Apple’s vehicle project, but they appear more likely to be an attempt to beef up Apple’s Maps offerings with imagery similar to Google’s Street View.

IBM Expands MobileFirst for iOS Portfolio With Three New Apps [iOS Blog]

IBM on Monday announced the expansion of its MobileFirst for iOS portfolio with three new enterprise apps for the banking and financial services, airline and retail industries. The new made-for-business apps available for customization and deployment in the enterprise today include Passenger Care for travel agents, Dynamic Buy for retail buyers and Advisor Alerts for financial professionals.

“Apple and IBM are the only companies that could partner to develop a new category of made-for-business apps that is truly transforming how works gets done,” said Fred Balboni, IBM General Manager, IBM and Apple partnership. “We set out to transform how millions of workers consume, process and use information when they are outside the four walls of the office. Our goal is to boost the performance of every enterprise by making all its data and processes available to any employee with an iOS device – anytime, anywhere.”

Apple and IBM announced an enterprise partnership last summer and released the first ten apps in the MobileFirst for iOS suite in December. MobileFirst for iOS apps are designed specifically for iPhone and iPad in a secure environment, and can easily be deployed, managed and upgraded through IBM cloud services. The other apps cover insurance, telecommunications, energy and utilities for governments and airlines.

Apple Watch Featured in Hong Kong Fashion Magazine ‘East Touch’

Apple Watch continues to make its international debut in magazines worldwide with a new cover appearance and multi-page spread in Hong Kong fashion magazine East Touch this month. The latest March issue of the magazine features the Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport being worn by several models in various lifestyle shots.

In the past few months, the Apple Watch has made magazine debut in a range of other publications such as Vogue and Style as part of a marketing campaign leading up to the wrist-worn device’s launch in April. Apple is expected to provide more details about the Apple Watch at its highly-anticipated “Spring Forward” media event on March 9th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Next-Generation iPhones Said to Feature Force Touch, Lack Dual-Lens Camera System [iOS Blog]

The so-called “iPhone 6s” and “iPhone 6s Plus” will reportedly adopt Force Touch, a feature that debuted on the Apple Watch in September, according to sources for AppleInsider. The next-generation iPhones are expected to retain the same physical design as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, including 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models. The report adds that the return of a 4-inch model appears unlikely for this refresh.

Force Touch uses tiny electrodes to distinguish between a light tap or deep press on the screen, prompting the software to perform a different action depending on how much pressure is exerted on the display. Apple would likely have to use a flexible OLED display on a future iPhone model in order for Force Touch to be possible on the smartphone. Apple calls Force Touch its most significant new sensing capability since Multi-Touch on its Apple Watch microsite.

“In addition to recognizing touch, Apple Watch senses force, adding a new dimension to the user interface. Force Touch uses tiny electrodes around the flexible Retina display to distinguish between a light tap and a deep press, and trigger instant access to a range of contextually specific controls — such as an action menu in Messages, or a mode that allows you to select different watch faces — whenever you want. It’s the most significant new sensing capability since Multi‑Touch.”

Apple reportedly experimented with adding Force Touch to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last year, although calibration issues resulted in removal of the feature prior to the smartphones being released. The issues appear to have been resolved at this point, however, and Force Touch is now on Apple’s upcoming roadmap. The so-called “iPhone 6s” and “iPhone 6s Plus” will presumably be announced next September.

The report also dismisses the rumor about next-generation iPhones gaining a DSLR-like dual-lens camera system, as implementing this feature would require redesigning the iPhone and moving away from the current chassis found on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Last month, it was reported that the iPhone 6s will retain an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera sensor, although that does not limit other improvements from being made.

It was also rumored in January that the iPhone 6s will gain Force Touch.