Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey recently sat down with CNN anchor Christine Romans at a private event in San Francisco to discuss the future of payments, including ‌Apple Pay‌ and the Apple Card.

As to be expected, Bailey made some boilerplate comments about the security, privacy, and ease of use of both ‌Apple Pay‌ and the ‌Apple Card‌, but she also touched on cryptocurrency, tipping, and mobile IDs.

On cryptocurrency, Bailey said it is an "interesting" field with "long-term potential":

We're watching cryptocurrency. We think it's interesting. We think it has interesting long-term potential, but we're primarily focused on what consumers are using today… and are happy with. Most people are pretty happy with their debit card as an example. And so helping people do that in a more secure way on our platform and in a more real time way is what we're focused on.

On tipping, Bailey said it is one area where Apple still needs to "work more on that":

We get that feedback a lot from customers about when they start using mobile payments and Apple Pay, they stop carrying cash. And one of the key areas where they would like us to do more is actually in tipping. You'll see in some of the point-of-sale systems now great tipping functionality if you pay with mobile payments, but still that personal touch is one area where we still need to work more on that.

Apple Pay and the Wallet app have already provided digital alternatives to credit and debit cards, student IDs, movie tickets, boarding passes, and more. Asked what the hardest remaining item in a wallet would be to digitize, Bailey said identities, such as a driver's license or a passport:

I think the hardest thing is identity. And the reason is that identity, to be legal, has to be government issued… it has to be authenticated by the government. We see across the globe many countries starting to use mobile to add passport… you might use mobile passport when you're going through airports today. It is moving, and I think it will continue. It's not too far away… it just won't be as fast as some of the other activities we have.

Bailey also confirmed that Apple is "working on" allowing users to export their Apple Card financial data to a budgeting app like Mint.

Sonos today introduced its first portable Bluetooth speaker, the Sonos Move.

The battery-powered Sonos Move features both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for listening at home or on the go, AirPlay 2 support, built-in Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and up to ten hours of continuous music playback per charge. The speaker features an oval-shaped design with IP56-rated water and dust resistance.

‌AirPlay‌ 2 support means music playback on the Sonos Move can be controlled with Siri, and the speaker will also appear in the ‌AirPlay‌ picker on iOS devices and in the Home app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

Sonos Move pre-orders begin today on Sonos.com. The speaker will be available starting September 24, priced at $399 in the United States.

Sonos also unveiled a lower-priced version of its Sonos One smart speaker without built-in microphones. Priced at $179, the Sonos One SL costs $20 less than the regular Sonos One. Like the Sonos Move, the One SL supports ‌AirPlay‌ 2.

The new One SL replaces the Sonos Play:1 and will be available globally starting September 12.

Apple is developing an in-display fingerprint scanner for future iPhones, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Debby Wu.

The report claims Apple is considering including the in-display scanner in a 2020 iPhone if testing is successful, but adds there is a possibility the tech will not be ready until 2021. This lines up with a prediction from noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who expects an iPhone with both Face ID and in-display Touch ID in 2021.

The upcoming fingerprint reader would be embedded in the display, enabling users to unlock the ‌iPhone‌ by placing a finger almost anywhere on the screen, and it would complement rather than replace the existing Face ID system. This would give users the convenience of two biometric authentication options.

‌Face ID‌ and Touch ID each have their weaknesses, such as ‌Face ID‌ not working well when an ‌iPhone‌ is laying flat on a table, or ‌Touch ID‌ not playing friendly with wet fingers. With both systems, users would have the best of both worlds, using the authentication option that is better in a given situation.

Several major Android smartphone makers have adopted in-screen fingerprint scanners over the past few years, including Samsung.

Apple is also working on its first low-cost ‌iPhone‌ since the ‌iPhone‌ SE, which could launch as early as the first half of 2020, according to Bloomberg. As Nikkei reported earlier this week, the device is said to look similar to the iPhone 8, including a 4.7-inch display and a ‌Touch ID‌ home button.

The ‌iPhone‌ 8 currently retails for $599 and up, while the ‌iPhone‌ SE started at $399, but was later discounted to $349.

Samsung has announced the Galaxy Fold will go on sale in South Korea on Friday, September 6, over five months after its original scheduled launch date and just days ahead of Apple's annual iPhone event.

According to The Verge, the Galaxy Fold will also be available in France, Germany, and Singapore come September 18. Samsung hasn't revealed an exact date for the UK or US, but the handset is expected to arrive in those countries in the coming weeks. Initially at least, the phone will be available in just a single configuration, offering 512GB of storage, 12GB of memory, and 5G support, with a Montblanc luxury case thrown in.

Samsung will be crossing its fingers and its toes in the hope of a fault-free rollout this time around. The folding smartphone was initially meant to be in the hands of customers in April, but it was delayed following multiple reports from reviewers of broken units after just a few days' use. Many reviewers experienced issues while testing the device, including random bulges appearing on the 7.3-inch display and flickering screens. In many cases, the issues were enough to make the $1,980 device completely unusable.

An independent investigation revealed that the folding phone lacked adequate protection against the ingress of debris between the OLED screen and the chassis bezel. Samsung recalled all Fold devices that were distributed to reviewers and said it was postponing the launch of the hybrid handset while it completed a redesign to resolve the display failures. The South Korean firm said in July that the phone would relaunch in September, but didn't specify a date.

Samsung is already working on its next bendable smartphone, according to a Bloomberg report earlier this week. Projected to launch early next year, it's said to be a flip phone-style 6.7-inch device that can be folded down into a compact-sized square.

Apple's ‌iPhone‌ event takes place on September 10, when the company is expected to launch three new iPhones with more advanced cameras. The line-up includes two OLED models in 5.8 and 6.5 inches and one LCD model that's 6.1 inches. Apple is said to be exploring folding screen technology, but nothing suggests it plans to release a foldable smartphone in the near future.

Apple today announced that its new Apple Marunouchi store in Toyko is set to open on Saturday, September 7. Marunouchi is Apple's third store in Japan to open since last April, and it is the largest Apple Store in Japan.

Apple Marunouchi is located near the Imperial Palace and across from the historic Tokyo Station. Apple's senior vice president of Retail and People, Deirdre O'Brien, said that the Marunouchi store marks a significant moment in Apple's relationship with Japan.

"Marunouchi has amazing energy and our teams can't wait to welcome customers to our largest store in Japan for the first time on Saturday," O'Brien said.

According to Apple, the split-level Marunouchi store was built with a unique facade, featuring two-story vitrine windows that were constructed from "specially cast aluminum" to allow them to feature three-dimensional rounded corners.

The windows are a first in an Apple retail location and are designed to allow the "vibrant street life" of the surrounding area to connect with the interior of the store. Bamboo lines the interior of the windows.

Marunouchi will feature "world-class creators" leading Today at Apple sessions, kicking off with The Tokyo Creative Guild, which is a special 12-part series that Apple is introducing to celebrate the store's opening.

Customers can begin signing up for Today at Apple sessions at Marunouchi starting now. Apple says that later this month, its Fukuoka store will also be expanding to a new location, and the remodel of Apple Omotesandō will be completed.

Apps designed for the Mac don't often receive as much attention as apps made for iPhones and iPads, so we have a series here at MacRumors designed to highlight useful and interesting Mac apps worth checking out.

This month's picks include apps for revamping your dock, discovering new music, making GIFs, annotating and managing screenshots, and more.

• Plug (Free) - Plug is a macOS player for The Hype Machine, a website that's designed to help you discover interesting new music. The Hype Machine curates content from up and coming artists highlighted by various websites on the internet, which can result in a nice mix of fresh music. You can choose to see what's popular, view remixes, see what friends are listening to, and more.
• Active Dock ($19.99) - Active Dock is a dock replacement app for the Mac that offers features you don't get with the standard dock. You can group documents and apps together for quicker switching between what's open, and you can hover over an app on the dock to see all of the open windows. You can get to options like system preferences and frequently accessed documents, plus there are tons of customization options to work with for changing the look of the dock, icons, and more. Active Dock costs $19.99, but there's a free trial.
• GIFSKI (Free) - GIFSKI is a fun little app that's designed to allow you to create custom GIFs from video clips. Just drag and drop a video file into the app, adjust the start and end points, and you have a GIF. The app supports multiple video formats, it has a clean interface, and it's simple to use.
• In Your Face ($1.99) - In Your Face is a notification app that takes over the entire screen, so if there's something that you really need to remember to do, this is the app to use. The app is located in the menu bar and it interrupts whatever you're doing when it's time for something like an important meeting. It's a good idea if you typically dismiss reminders and calendar events without paying attention, because it's impossible to miss the In Your Face popups.
• Xnip (Free) - Xnip is a screenshot and annotation app that adds a few capabilities not possible with Apple's built-in screenshotting tools. You can capture a full-page screenshot in an app like Safari where all of the content might not be visible, and you can capture multiple windows together. A color picker tool lets you pick a color of a pixel to make a capture, there's an option to measure objects on the screen, and there are other tools like pixelation for hiding details and numbered annotation options. Removing watermarks from screenshots requires a $4.99 per year subscription.

If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

An exposed server with more than 419 million records from Facebook users has been discovered online, reports TechCrunch.

The server was not protected with a password and was accessible to anyone. It featured 133 million records from U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records from users in the UK, and 50 million records on users in Vietnam.

The records contained each person's unique Facebook ID along with the phone number listed on the account. Facebook IDs are unique numbers that can be associated with an account to discover a person's username.

Facebook restricted access to phone numbers more than a year ago, so the database that was found is older than that. A Facebook spokesperson said that the data had been scraped prior to when Facebook cut off access to phone numbers, calling the dataset "old."

"This dataset is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people's ability to find others using their phone numbers," the spokesperson said. "The dataset has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised."

TechCrunch was able to verify multiple records in the database by matching a known Facebook user's phone number against a listed Facebook ID. Other records were verified by matching phone numbers with Facebook's password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a phone number linked to an account. Records primarily had phone numbers, but in some cases, also had usernames, genders, and country location.

Phone number security has become increasingly important over the course of the last few years due to SIM-hacking, which involves calling a phone carrier and asking for a SIM transfer for a specific number, thereby giving access to anything linked to that phone number, such as two-factor verification, password reset info, and more.

SIM-hacking requires little more than a phone number and social engineering skills, and it has been devastating for people who have been impacted. Leaked phone numbers also expose Facebook users to spam calls, which have also become more and more prevalent over the last several years.

The database was originally found by security researcher Sanyam Jain, who said that he was able to locate phone numbers associated with several celebrities. It's not clear who owned the database nor where it originated from, but it was taken offline after TechCrunch contacted the web host. There is no word on why the data was scraped from Facebook or what it was used for.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming iPadOS and iOS 13.1 update to developers, one week after seeding the first beta and ahead of the actual launch of iOS 13 and iPadOS.

iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air after the proper profiles have been installed.

Apple in late August released the first iOS 13.1 beta, which came as a surprise because Apple has never released a point update for software that's not out yet. Apple is likely aiming to make iOS 13.1 ready for download shortly after iOS 13 becomes available and new iPhones launch, as the iOS 13 update may have already been finalized for installation on new devices.

The iOS 13.1 update includes several features that were announced at WWDC but were ultimately removed from iOS 13 over the beta testing period. Shortcuts Automations, for example, is back in iOS 13.1. Shortcuts Automations allows Shortcuts users to create personal and home automations from the Shortcuts app to have actions performed automatically when specific conditions occur.

Share ETA, a major maps feature, is also available in iOS 13.1. With Share ETA, you can share your estimated time of arrival to a location with a friend or family member.

Other new features include new icons on the volume indicator when headphones or speakers are connected (with icons for AirPods, Beats headphones, and HomePod), more detailed HomeKit icons in the Home app, and updates to Dynamic Wallpapers.

Mouse support, an accessibility option in iOS 13, has been improved in iOS 13.1 allowing a long press or 3D Touch to be mapped to the right click function of the mouse. Reading goals now include PDFs, Nike+ is now just Nike, and iOS 13.1 supports HEVC video encoding with alpha channels.

There are some other smaller changes in iOS 13.1, which are outlined in our first iOS 13.1 article. If we find new features in iOS 13.1 beta 2, we'll update this post.

We're just six days away from Apple's annual September event at Steve Jobs Theater, where the company is widely expected to unveil new iPhone and Apple Watch models. And now, there are hints of a new Apple TV and possibly more.

Today, the Twitter account @never_released aka Longhorn, which has a history of sharing codenames and info about upcoming Apple hardware, claimed that an ‌Apple TV‌ refresh is incoming. No timeframe was provided, but the tweet says the new model has an Apple TV11,1 identifier and a codename of J305.

MacRumors can confirm that both the AppleTV11,1 model identifier and the J305 codename appear within strings and plist files in an internal build of iOS 13 that was provided to us, but this does not guarantee an imminent release.

The tweet added that the new ‌Apple TV‌ will be powered by a faster A12 chip, which would certainly benefit the upcoming Apple Arcade gaming service. It is not entirely clear if this means an A12 or A12X chip, as the current ‌Apple TV‌ 4K has the same A10X Fusion chip as 2017 iPad Pro models.

Update: Longhorn has doubled down on the new ‌Apple TV‌ having an A12 chip, not A12X.

Rumors aside, it would be reasonable to expect a new ‌Apple TV‌ next week, as the device has been updated once every two years for the past three generations: a revised third-generation ‌Apple TV‌ in March 2013, the fourth-generation ‌Apple TV‌ in September 2015, and the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K in September 2017.

As for other potential announcements, the Twitter account CoinX today teased followers with a "one more thing" tweet, the iconic phrase used by the late Steve Jobs when unveiling one last product or surprise at Apple events.

CoinX has accurately leaked several details about upcoming Apple products, including the names of the ‌iPhone‌ XS, ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, and ‌iPhone‌ XR before anyone else, the removal of the headphone jack on 2018 ‌iPad Pro‌ models, and much more. CoinX is also the source of the rumored "Pro" moniker for this year's iPhones.

What could the "one more thing" be? Possibilities include Apple's rumored Tile competitor that MacRumors shared exclusive details about last week, or perhaps just maybe an early preview of the so-called Apple Glasses. We'll soon find out.

Apple's keynote kicks off Tuesday, September 10 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

Steve Moser contributed to this report.

Apple plans to launch a new-generation "iPhone SE" in the form of a low-cost 4.7-inch ‌iPhone‌ this coming spring, sources in Asia have claimed.

Nikkei reports that the new model will be Apple's first low-cost smartphone since the 2016 launch of the popular ‌iPhone‌ SE, which started at $399, and while the name and price of the new model hasn't been decided, "it is viewed as the latest generation of the ‌iPhone‌ SE," according to the paper's sources.

The size of the new model will be similar to the 4.7-inch iPhone 8 that was introduced in 2017, three sources said. The model will share most of the same components with the flagship iPhones this year, and it will feature the lower-cost liquid crystal display that will help Apple achieve the lower starting price-tag, although the final pricing for the model is not yet settled, the people said.

Rumors of a new low-cost 4.7-inch ‌iPhone‌ modeled on the ‌iPhone‌ 8 first appeared in April via Economic Daily News. EDN's sources also claimed the device coming in early 2020 will include an LCD display. In addition, they also claimed it will feature a new PCB design to house Apple's A13 processor, a single-lens rear camera, and 128GB of base storage.

It's not clear if the rumored 4.7-inch ‌iPhone‌ would inherit the notched design and Face ID features of Apple's flagship smartphones, but Nikkei's references to 2017's ‌iPhone‌ 8 suggest it could retain the bordered screen and Touch ID-equipped Home button of that device to keep costs down.

Apple's ‌iPhone‌ XS, XS Max, and XR devices dominate its marketing, but the company continues to offer the ‌iPhone‌ 8 and ‌iPhone‌ 8 Plus (starting at $599) as lower cost options alongside the even cheaper ‌iPhone‌ 7 series (starting at $449).

Apple could end sales of the ‌iPhone‌ 7 when its new flagship models launch later this month, which would leave a space in its line-up for a new device that could boost its share of the mid-tier smartphone market. But apart from being new and coming in at a lower price, we'll have to wait and see if comparisons can be legitimately drawn with the much-loved 4-inch ‌iPhone‌ SE of yesteryear.