Soon you can get cash from an ATM with your smartphone

Soon, you won’t need your card to withdraw cash from JPMorgan Chase ATMs. Upgraded machines arriving later this year will be accessible with your phone, using codes generated from its smartphone app. That’s only the first stage: second-generation upgrades will offer up NFC access to bank accounts, like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Yep, you’ll still be able to use your cards, but importantly, the new machines will also have higher withdrawal limits during banking hours — up to $3,000. Future upgrades include the ability to cash checks and pay bill through the machines, but expect to see those features some time in 2018. Chase isn’t the only bank looking to involve your smartphone with your money.

At the same time, TechCrunch reports that Bank of America and Wells Fargo are working on their own mobile connected solutions, with Apple Pay mentioned in discussions with both banks. Accordiing to Bank of America, it’ll “enable customers to leverage NFC ( technology on their smartphone in order to authenticate and complete transactions at a Bank of America ATM.”

“We will roll out this capability in late February with associates at select ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York and Boston followed by a broader roll out to customers mid year.”

Source: AP (Mashable), TechCrunch

Apple Planning to Open Third Retail Store in Turkey in 2016

Apple is preparing to open a third retail store in Turkey, reports MacReports, citing a source familiar with the company’s plans. Set to open in Istanbul, the store will launch later in 2016.

Apple is said to be in the process of hiring for retail positions at the store and has posted advertisements on job sites in Turkey. The store will reportedly be located at the Emaar Square Mall in Istanbul. Still under constriction, the Emaar Square Mall will feature 491 stores and restaurants, a hotel, and apartment space for residents.

Emaar Square rendering, via MacReports

When it launches, the Emaar Square Apple Store will be the third Apple retail location in Istanbul, joining retail stores at Zorlu Mall and Akasya Mall, both of which opened in 2014. Turkey’s Zorlu store opened with quite a fanfare as it featured a unique design with an all glass exterior.

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Physics-Based Game ‘Piloteer’ Named App of the Week, Available for Free

Challenging physics-based game Piloteer has been named Apple’s App of the Week, and as a result, it’s available to download for free for the first time since it launched in June of 2015.

In Piloteer, the goal is to navigate a jetpack-wearing inventor through three gameplay environments to complete a series of 60 missions. Piloteer‘s tap-based controls are easy to grasp but difficult to master, so the inventor spends a lot of time being flung around and crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs.

Blending elements of both physics and trick-based games, players will need to maneuver their state-of-the-art jetpack through the skies while completing a myriad of increasingly difficult missions to change public perceptions.

Players will find themselves immersed in a wholly integrated physics simulation, making the beautiful world around them feel dynamic, unpredictable, and alive.

Along with Career mode for completing missions, Piloteer also includes a Free Fly mode and a series of GameCenter achievements to earn.

Piloteer will be available from the App Store for free for the next week. [Direct Link]

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Apple’s latest acquisition is an education-focused startup

Apple went on a major shopping spree last year, acquiring a handful of startups from different fields — depth-sensing cameras, speech technology and more. But it doesn’t look like the company’s had enough. As Bloomberg reports, Apple has purchased LearnSprout, a firm with an education service which lets academic staff members analyze student data. While LearnSprout’s website doesn’t offer many details beyond this, it does mention that its tools are being used in more than 2,500 schools in the US.

In a story from 2014, TechCrunch said the startup allows educators to understand many key areas of student trends, including attendance, college readiness and health information. Although we don’t know what exactly Apple plans to do with LearnSprout, there’s a chance it could be related to iTunes U, iBooks — or, why not, maybe something entirely new.

We reached to out to Apple for confirmation of the acquisition and will update this article when we hear back.

Source: Bloomberg

Wells Fargo and Bank of America to Add Apple Pay Support to ATMs

Bank of America and Wells Fargo are working on implementing Apple Pay into their ATMs, reports TechCrunch, citing a source with knowledge of the project. Both companies are said to have engineers working on the technology that would likely allow Apple Pay to be used at an ATM in place of a physical debit card.

When questioned about the possibility of Apple Pay at ATMs, Wells Fargo head of ATMs Jonathan Velline suggested the information was accurate and that Wells Fargo was working on adding support for mobile wallets that would meet all of its customers needs.

Wells Fargo’s head of ATMs Jonathan Velline implied Apple Pay would come to its ATMs. He confirmed that “We’ve been working on the technology that allows us to hook to digital wallets, leveraging NFC on mobile phones to replace the card at the transaction at the ATM. Right now the wallet that we support is Android Pay.” […]

“But we’re also looking at lots of different mobile wallets and evaluating which ones are going to be appropriate for our customers. We’ll likely add more mobile wallets throughout the year.”

Bank of America was less forthcoming about its plans, but told TechCrunch the company is developing a cardless ATM solution that would let customers use NFC technology on their smartphones to authenticate and complete transactions at Bank of America ATMs. The company would not confirm which phones it will work with.

Bank of America plans to begin rolling out its cardless ATM solution starting in late February at ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York, and Boston before a wider rollout set to take place in mid-2016. Wells Fargo did not provide information on when it plans to implement its NFC-based card replacement feature.

Apple Pay at ATMs would be a big win for Apple, given their prevalence across the United States. Wells Fargo has more than 12,800 ATMs, while Bank of America has more than 16,000.

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Apple planned ahead for the inevitable hardware slump

It was inevitable, but nonetheless concerning to investors. iPhone sales flattened out this quarter, part of an overall trend of weakness in the smartphone market, and Apple admitted that next quarter will see sales decline year-over-year for the first time. Yes, the company just reported record-breaking profit — again — but as the iPhone goes, so does Apple. As such, the company is forecasting its first revenue decline in years.

The job of a good CEO and CFO is to spin this news and keep investors calm through a downturn, and Tim Cook and Luca Maestri gave plenty of reasons for the upcoming decline — as well as plenty of reasons they’re not worried just yet. The crux of the Apple’s argument centered around the whopping 1 billion active Apple devices currently in use worldwide.

“A growing portion of our revenue is directly driven by our existing install base,” Cook said Tuesday. That installed base supports two of the most important messages Apple shared Tuesday: Its users are both satisfied and loyal, and that keeps them generating revenue for the company through the wide network of services that Apple offers. Basically, the company’s insistence on controlling both the hardware and software has provided Apple with a revenue source that hardware makers like Samsung and LG can’t hope to duplicate.

“A growing portion of our revenue is directly driven by our existing installed base.”

It starts with satisfaction, a metric that has long been important to Cook. He brought it up again this week: “Our customer satisfaction and retention rates are second to none and provide us with a long lasting foundation,” he said. Cook noted 99 percent satisfaction among iPhone 6S and 6S Plus owners, based on a survey from 451 Research. He’s also cited similarly impressive numbers for the iPad and Apple Watch recently.

That satisfaction is important for two reasons, Cook says. For one, when combined with high engagement numbers, it means customers are more likely to spend money on additional apps and content, further entrenching them in the company’s ecosystem. It also means that those owners are likely to buy multiple products to get the full Apple experience. OS X, iOS, WatchOS, and tvOS all have ties to various degrees, and the company has long touted the benefits of owning multiple devices.

Cook and Maestri, the company’s CFO, believe this is all very good news for its services category, which is primarily made up of revenue from iTunes, the App Store, AppleCare, iCloud and Apple Pay. And the numbers back that up. Services revenue of $6.1 billion represented a 27 percent year-over-year increase. To put that context, $6.1 billion is far, far less than the $51.6 billion it made from the iPhone. But, it isn’t far behind Mac revenue ($6.7 billion) or even iPad sales ($7.1 billion) — and it’s growing a lot faster than either of those businesses, too. (The iPad has seen shrinking sales for two years now, but that’s a story for another time.) “We have tremendously satisfied and loyal customers who are engaged with our services at a fast growing rate,” Maestri said as he summed up the impact of the services business. “All of this provides us with an unparalleled foundation for the future of Apple business.”

A huge installed base of satisfied customers means Apple’s sevices revenue will probably keep growing.

Of course, one can argue that Apple is a hardware company first, and that the iPhone will continue to account for the lion’s share of its revenue for a while yet. But Cook and co. had to know that iPhone sales would flatten out eventually, even if they see it as a temporary blip rather than the lasting decline, like what happened with the iPod. With that in mind, you can look at the company’s focus on services as preparation for this day: There’s a piece of Apple gear out there for one in seven humans, and those humans who love the company’s products will spend even more money to get the most use out of them.

It’s a strategy Apple’s hardware-focused competitors can’t easily duplicate. Samsung has tried, building its own “Galaxy” of services like Samsung Pay, Milk Music, Milk VR and a host of built-in apps like S Health and S Voice. But the fact that the company gave up on Milk Video after just one year is telling. When it has to compete with Google’s own bundled services right on the phone, it’s hard to imagine Samsung ever really relying on these features as a notable revenue source. And no other Android OEM has even really tried. Everyone else is content to use Google Play.

Despite this strength, a growing services business will not make up for missed iPhone revenue. The company is headed towards the first downturn of the iPhone era, even if most companies would kill for the money Apple will make over the rest of the year. But Apple isn’t expecting services to be its new savior.

Instead, Cook is focusing on Apple’s diverse ways of making money. He made his mark by shipping massive amounts of product with military efficiency. Now, Cook is flexing another muscle: The push into services that started in earnest with the iTunes Store back in 2003 is now nearly as big as the Mac, Apple’s oldest product line. Cook is positioning this business as one not dependent on hardware sales, but rather that huge base of happy customers. “We might not ship as much hardware,” Apple says, soothing panicked investors, “but that’s not our only way to make money.”

[Lead image credit: Stephen Lam/ Getty Images]