Innehållsförteckning för #157 från AppleMagazine

Plan on paying in stores with your shiny new iPhone 6? Not so fast. Retailer resistance to Apple Pay had been expected because Apple hasn't offered incentives to install pricey point-of-sale terminals and train staff on its new mobile payment system. But the decision to not accept Apple Pay by retailers that already have contactless terminals in the checkout line is a "skirmish" rooted in competition. Big merchants like McDonald's, Mac/s and Foot Locker are all accepting Apple Pay. But a consortium of retailers called Merchant Customer Exchange plans to offer a rival mobile payment system next year which could direct debit customers' checking accounts, instead of using a credit card. It also will be designed to track customer buying patterns to be able to offer targeted promotions. In the…

China may ban Facebook, but not its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The young billionaire delighted an audience of students at a prestigious Beijing university this week with a 30-minute chat in his recently learned Mandarin Chinese. DID HE COMPLAIN ABOUT THE BAN? He made no explicit mention of China's ban on the social media giant, but an indirect reference to it drew laughter during the question-and-answer session Wednesday at Tsinghua University. Zuckerberg, whose company has long sought to enter China, noted Facebook already helps some Chinese companies in foreign markets, citing computer maker Lenovo's ads on Facebook in India. "Speaking of China, I have a more difficult question for Mark, which I hope will not get me fired. What are Facebook's plans in China?" asked the forum facilitator and Facebook employee…

iOS #01 - Facebook Messenger By Facebook, Inc. Category: Social Networking Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 - Spider-Man Unlimited By Gameloft Category: Games Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 - Yik Yak By Yik Yak, LLC Category: Social Networking Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 - Amazing Thief By Ketchapp Category: Games Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #05 -…

How To Train Your Dragon 2 The second chapter in the epic computer-animated How To Train Your Dragon trilogy finds Hiccup and his friends as young adults. On their discovery of a secret ice cave with wild dragons and a mysterious Dragon Rider, Hiccup and Toothless end up battling to save the future of men and dragons. FIVE FACTS: 1. The films are loosely based on Cressida Cowell's book series of the same name. 2. The latest movie takes place five years after the last one. 3. It is written and directed by Dean DeBlois. 4. Starring voice actors include Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrara and Jonah Hill. 5. The movie has grossed $614,979,349 worldwide. Stonehearst Asylum This Brad Anderson-directed thriller, based on an Edgar Allan Poe…

Twitter's third-quarter revenue outpaced expectations, but investors concerned about user growth and holiday-quarter revenue clipped the company's stock price late Monday (27). The San Francisco-based company has been trying to increase its user base amid concerns that it doesn't hold mass appeal in the way that the much-larger Facebook does. Its user base grew 23 percent to 284 million monthly active users in the three months that ended in September, which Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott said was "better than nothing." "It's hard to be ecstatic about those numbers when it's still a user base under 300 million people," Elliott said. "It's a social property less than a quarter (of the) size of Facebook." To appeal to more people, Twitter has tried to make it easier to sign up for…

Christian Bale has been confirmed as the titular lead in Sony's upcoming Steve Jobs movie, which already boasts a script from Aaron Sorkin and the directing talents of Danny Boyle. While Matt Damon, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, and Leonard DiCaprio were among a host of seasoned actors considered for the role, Bale's casting sheds further light on what was already expected to be an innovative blockbuster. THINK DIFFERENTLY: SORKIN'S INVENTIVE SCREENPLAY Sorkin's outstanding pedigree makes him an ideal candidate to write a movie about Apple's charismatic co-founder and former CEO. Sorkin has already encountered success on similar terrain: The Social Network, which portrays the founding of Facebook and the tempestuous relations between its creators, earned Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama, and Best Screenplay. The movie lost out…

WHY IT REALLY DOES TRANSFORM MOBILE PAYMENTS We're so used to hearing that the latest Apple product or service launch "transforms" its category, and we aren't necessarily referring to the language used in the Cupertino firm's own press releases - the wider media are more than good enough themselves at that particular hyperbole. It would be easy to think that Apple's latest innovation - Apple Pay -surely can't live up to the hype of doing the same for mobile payments. However, if you did, you'd be wrong. Sure, a lot of bold claims have been made for a solution that is supposed to make mobile payments easier and quicker than ever. Apple itself has described the service as "a new category of service that will transform mobile payments with an…

iOS #01 - Five Nights at Freddy's By Scott Cawthon Category: Games / Price: $2.99 Requires iOS 5.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #02 - Minecraft - Pocket Edition By Mojang Category: Games / Price: $6.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #03 - Goblin Sword By Eleftherios Christodoulatos Category: Games / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. #04 - Sleep Cycle alarm clock By Northcube AB Category: Health & Fitness / Price: $0.99 Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for…

Under Pressure (Deluxe Version) Logic The Maryland rapper and member of the RattPack makes his studio album debut with this release, also his first project with Def Jam Recordings. It has been described by one critic as feeling "like a feature film about Logic's life", and benefits from the production talents of No I.D., 6ix, DJ Dahi, S1 and M-Phazes, among others. FIVE FACTS: 1. Logic is the stage name of Sir Robert Bryson Hall II. 2. He has released four official mixtapes, including the critically acclaimed Young Sinatra: Welcome to Forever. 3. That mixtape was downloaded over 100,000 times on DatPiff in less than a day. 4. This deluxe edition of the album includes guest verses from Childish Gambino and Big Sean. 5. The official album artwork was painted…

Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple's new mobile payment system had over 1 million activations in the first three days after it became available, and is now more widely used than any competing payment system. "We're already No. 1. We're more than the total of the other guys," Cook boasted Monday during a tech industry conference, "and we've only been at it a week." He said Visa and MasterCard officials have told Apple that the Apple Pay system is already seeing more use than similar "contactless" methods of paying for purchases. While Apple has partnered with major banks and large retail chains including Macy's Inc., Walgreen Co. and McDonald's Corp., critics have noted that it's not accepted by a number of other large chains. Among them are the drugstore chains…

When you think of tech startups, you probably ' think Northern California. Companies there receive the largest share of funding from venture capitalists, but there are several other notable pockets around the country. In the first nine months of the year, venture capitalists poured $24 billion into tech startups around the country. About half of that funding went to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, accordinj to the National Venture Capital Association. Here are the top 20 metropolitan areas receiving such funding through Sept. 30, ranked by funding amount. The figures include tech startups for software, business services, networking and telecom, but exclude some categories such as biotech, energy, medical devices and retail. 1. San Francisco, $9.32 billion, 506 deals 2. San Jose, California (Silicon Valley), $3.78 billion, 237 deals 3.…

Amazon has long acted like an ideal customer on its own website: a freewheeling big spender with no worries about balancing a checkbook. Investors confident in founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' invest-and-expand strategy flooded into the stock as the company revolutionized shopping, upended the book industry and took on the cloud - even though its vast range of initiatives ate up all the company's profits. After all, when Amazon.com filed for its IPO 17 years ago, it was very clear: the company would post losses for the "foreseeable future" while it invested in the business to drive bigger and bigger sales. Stockholders seemed to like playing Bezos' long game: shares more than quadrupled between 2010 and 2014 to over $400 apiece. Lately, they've lost a little patience. After the Seattle…

Google executive Alan Eustace broke the sound barrier and set several skydiving records over the southern New Mexico desert early Friday after taking a big leap from the edge of space. Eustace's supersonic jump was part of a project by Paragon Space Development Corp. and its Stratospheric Explorer team, which has been working secretly for years to develop a self-contained commercial spacesuit that would allow people to explore some 20 miles above the Earth's surface. Friday's success marked a major step forward in that effort, company officials said. "This has opened up endless possibilities for humans to explore previously seldom visited parts of our stratosphere," Grant Anderson, Paragon president and CEO, said in a statement. The technology that has gone into developing the balloon, the spacesuit and the other systems…

For many high school seniors, fall means deciding where to apply for college and maybe visiting a guidance counselor. Data crunchers hope to help. The popularity of social media sites and advancements in the ability to analyze the vast amounts of data we put online give members of the class of 2015 more tools than ever to help chart their next step, even if finding the right college is an inexact science. The professional networking site Linkedln has just come out with its "University Finder/' which identifies which colleges are popular with which companies. Parchment.com pools student data to predict an individual's college admission prospects. There's even a dating service-like site for higher education: Admitted.ly pairs students with colleges based on such as factors as body piercings and whether applicants…

AT&T is being sued by the government over allegations it misled millions of smartphone customers who were promised unlimited data but had their Internet speeds cut by the company - slowing their ability to open web pages or watch streaming video. The Federal Trade Commission filed its complaint Tuesday against AT&T Mobility Inc., charging that the telecom company failed to adequately disclose to customers that it would reduce data speeds if they went over a certain amount of data use in a billing cycle. The practice, known as throttling, slowed web browsing, GPS navigation or streaming videos. According to the complaint, at least 3.5 million consumers have been affected. Some customers, the agency said, had data speeds slowed by nearly 90 percent. "If you make a promise about unlimited service,…