Walgreens Planning for October 18 Apple Pay Launch

An internal memo addressed to Walgreens employees designed to prepare them for the upcoming launch of Apple Pay suggests that Apple’s new payments service might be going live on Saturday, October 18.

A Saturday launch is unusual, but it could make sense as Apple Pay is designed for in-store shopping and a weekend debut would give customers time to try the service. It is, however, also possible that Apple Pay will go live shortly before the October 18 date, following the company’s Thursday, October 16 iPad event, with support coming to Walgreens a day or two later.

At its October 16 event, Apple is expected to debut a new iPad Air, Retina iMacs, and possibly a new Retina iPad mini. The event, which will also likely see Apple previewing OS X Yosemite one last time before its public debut, would also be an opportune time to divulge more information about Apple Pay and possibly even launch the payments service.

As announced on September 9, popular drug store Walgreens is one of Apple’s major launch partners, along with other companies like McDonalds, Macy’s, Staples, and more. According to the Walgreens memo, customers who have an iPhone 6 will be able to use Apple Pay in Walgreens stores by tapping their devices “to the upper portion of the pinpad to pay for their purchase.”

Earlier this week, USAA assistant vice president Vikram Parekh suggested the bank would begin supporting Apple Pay on November 7, leading many to believe the service might see an official launch on that date, but it is possible that USAA and other banks may roll out support at different times following the launch of Apple Pay. Apple originally promised an October launch for Apple Pay when it unveiled the service.

Apple Pay will be enabled on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices through an update to iOS 8. iOS 8.1, which has already been seeded to developers, includes hidden Apple Pay settings and set up screens. With Apple Pay set to launch on or around the time of Apple’s October 16 event, that also means we should be seeing iOS 8.1 at that time as well.

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Apple Rolling Out Revamped iTunes Store to iTunes 12 Users Ahead of OS X Yosemite Launch

Apple has started rolling out a new iTunes Store design for OS X Yosemite testers that have iTunes 12 installed. The revamped storefront takes several design elements from the iTunes Store and App Store on iOS, adopting a cleaner, flatter look that does away with a lot of shadowing and texture that was previously seen in the design. The revamped look fits in with the design of iTunes 12, which takes on the flatter, more iOS-like look seen across OS X Yosemite.

For example, the top bar of the iTunes Store that currently displays cards in a rotating carousel for featured music, movies, apps, and TV shows in their respective categories has been flattened out into a scrollable banner with the new iTunes Store design, doing away with the previous card-style layout.

The slight bit of shadowing that used to highlight app icons, music icons, and categories, has been eliminated and as can be seen in the screenshot below, Apple is using a slightly lighter and larger font for menu options. The light gray background of the existing store has now been replaced with a white background.

Prominent rounded menu buttons have been eliminated in favor of flat, unobtrusive buttons as can be seen with the “Download” option in the individual App Store view shown below. Individual content pages have also lost all highlight shadowing, with screenshots and app icons flat against the background of the page. Movie, TV Show, and Music pages all have the same flattened design.

While main content pages now have a white background, some individual movie, app, TV show, and music pages continue to have a colored background, that also adopts all of the flat interface elements.

As noted by 9to5Mac, the new design has not yet been implemented on all pages, with some, like the gift card redemption page, continuing to use older interface elements.

iTunes 12 will launch alongside OS X Yosemite, which is expected to be released to the public in late October. The operating system may be shown off one last time at Apple’s October 16 iPad event ahead of its official launch.

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Beats and Bose agree to settle noise-cancellation lawsuit out of court

It’s almost a relieving thing to hear: two tech companies have decided not to pursue a long, drawn out patent lawsuit. Earlier this year, Bose accused Beats of taking noise-cancellation technology from a series of five Bose patents — but now the two audio groups have reached a settlement and asked the International Trade Commission to halt investigation of the issue. The terms of the agreement aren’t clear, but both sides will get to skip the hassle of going to court.

Beats may be off the hook for the alleged theft of Bose’s intellectual property, but that doesn’t mean Bose and Apple’s acquisition have buried the hatchet: the two companies are still fierce competitors. Bose’s exclusivity contract with the NFL, for instance, is already bearing fruit — slapping players with the wrong headgear with steep, $10,000 fines. Apple’s playing a little dirty, too: sources close to MacRumors say that the Cupertino company is planning to remove Bose products from Apple stores sometime next week. The two firms may have avoided a legal battle, but it seems that the war for public opinion has only just started.

[Photo credit: Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post via Getty Images]

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Apple

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GT Seeks to Void ‘Oppressive and Burdensome’ Agreements With Apple, Outlines Sapphire Wind Down Process

Yesterday, lawyers for Apple’s bankrupt sapphire production partner GT Advanced Technologies notified the court that court that the company would be seeking to “wind down” operations at its sapphire production facilities in Arizona and Massachusetts, while also pursuing efforts to escape from contracts related to those operations.

In a pair of filings today, GT has followed through on those plans, with one filing asking for court approval to void its contracts related to the operation, calling the terms of its contracts with Apple “oppressive and burdensome.”

As discussed in detail in the Supplemental First Day Declaration, the agreements imposed oppressive and burdensome terms and obligations on GTAT. The contracts and leases…provide no benefit to GTAT’s estates, and GTAT’s continued performance under the Agreements is no longer a viable business option. […]

GTAT has determined that the Agreements are no longer necessary for GTAT’s business operations. The Agreements also are not a source of potential value for GTAT’s future operations, creditors, or interest holders and constitute an unnecessary drain on GTAT’s resources.

GT believes it will be able to pursue further claims against Apple, but is unable to do so at this stage of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, and so has asked that the agreements be voided while maintaining its right to pursue future claims against Apple related to the agreements.

GT’s second filing addresses the wind down procedure for its sapphire production facilities, noting that sapphire boules currently being grown in furnaces are valued at roughly $20,000 each and take up to 30 days to grow, and thus it is in the interest of the company and its creditors to allow boules already being grown to be completed.

[M]erely “pulling the plug” is not a viable option given the significant value of GTAT’s equipment at these facilities (most notably, the sapphire growing furnaces) as well as the significant value of the sapphire boules that are currently being grown in the furnaces (a process that can take up to 30 days). For these reasons, GTAT has developed the Wind Down Process, which will allow GTAT to wind down its sapphire manufacturing operations in as orderly a manner as possible while preserving the value of its assets.

The first stage of GT’s Wind Down Process involves maintaining a crew of 75 employees to monitor ongoing sapphire growth and then remove the boules and prepare them for sale, a process expected to be completed by mid-November. The second stage, requiring 15 employees, involves the cleaning and decommissioning of the furnaces themselves to preserve their value. Finally, roughly 35 employees will be needed to “shut down and clean up” the Arizona facility, with final closure coming by December 31.

Overall, GT projects that 890 employees will lose their jobs with the shutdown, with the company seeking approval to spend approximately $65,000 in incentives to ensure certain qualified employees remain with the company during the wind down process.

Apple has not commented publicly on the matter beyond its initial statement expressing surprise at GT’s bankruptcy filing and pledging to work to preserve jobs in the area.

(Image: GT sapphire furnace)

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Chinese Carriers Take One Million iPhone 6 Pre-Orders in First Six Hours [iOS Blog]

Pre-orders for Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus started today in China, with sales from the country’s three carriers hitting one million units, reports Chinese publication Tencent (via Fortune). This figure includes orders processed by China’s major wireless carriers and does not account for those orders accepted by Apple or the more than 6,000 resellers that also opened iPhone reservations today.

While pre-orders officially began on Friday, October 10th, Chinese website JingDong started accepting iPhone 6 and 6 Plus reservations last week. In its first week, the website processed more than 9 million reservations, with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus almost equally popular among consumers.

Apple launched its new iPhone models in September with sales reaching 10 million in the opening weekend. Demand for the new iPhone models remains strong, with Apple reportedly pushing back production of a rumored 12.9-inch iPad in order to boost the company’s iPhone 6 Plus supply first.

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