MacRumors

Apple Card users will now receive 3% Daily Cash when making purchases via Apple Pay at Nike stores, on Nike.com, in the Nike app, and across SNKRS, Nike Training Club, and Nike Running Club, according to TechCrunch.

3% Daily Cash only applies to Nike purchases made with the Apple Card via Apple Pay. The physical Apple Card only offers 1% Daily Cash.

3% Daily Cash was initially limited to purchases made directly with Apple, but partners now include Uber and Uber Eats, Walgreens, Duane Reade, T-Mobile, and Nike. Apple says additional partners will be added over time.

All other purchases made with the ‌Apple Card‌ via ‌Apple Pay‌ will continue to receive 2% Daily Cash.

To apply for an ‌Apple Card‌, simply open the Wallet app on an iPhone running iOS 12.4 or later, tap the plus button in the top-right corner, and follow the on-screen steps. The process takes just a few minutes, and if approved, your digital ‌Apple Card‌ will be ready for purchases immediately.

Daily Cash is unlimited and paid out daily to your Apple Cash account. For more details, make sure to check out our Apple Card guide.

Apple today announced that it will donate $1 to (RED) for every purchase made with Apple Pay on Apple.com, through the Apple Store app, or at an Apple Store worldwide through December 2, up to a total of $1 million.

Apple says 100 percent of all proceeds generated by (RED) partners goes to fund HIV/AIDS programs in Africa, as part of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Since 2006, Apple has raised over $220 million for (RED) through the sale of red-colored products and accessories.

In honor of World AIDS Day on December 1, many Apple Stores will also likely turn their logos red during the first week of December.

Apple has announced its annual four-day shopping event, offering customers up to a $200 Apple Store gift card with the purchase of select products between Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States.

Apple has yet to reveal the full terms for its offer. Last year, most Macs came with a $200 gift card, while previous-generation iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch models were eligible for a $50 gift card. HomePod and Beats were also eligible for a $50 gift card, while the Apple TV was bundled with a $25 gift card.

Last year, the offer excluded the latest iPhone, iPad Pro, and Apple Watch models, as well as refurbished products, products purchased with an educational discount, and iPhones purchased via the iPhone Upgrade Program. AirPods, special edition Beats, and then-new MacBook Air and Mac mini models also did not qualify.

Apple's four-day shopping event runs November 29 through December 2 on Apple.com, by phone at 1-800-APPLE, and at Apple Stores.

The offer will also be available in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and several other countries, with gift card amounts varying.

As usual, there are better Black Friday deals on Apple products than what Apple offers itself, so be sure to check out our Black Friday roundup this week for all of the best discounts leading up to the big day. We'll also be highlighting various one-off deals throughout the week.

Update: As noted by MacGeneration, Apple is offering iTunes gift cards instead of Apple Store gift cards in some countries, such as France, Germany, and Switzerland.

Apple on Wednesday unveiled new Smart Battery Cases designed for the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max, offering up extra battery life for its newest flagship smartphones.

The first Smart Battery Case orders are arriving to customers today and the cases are in stores, so we picked one up to give MacRumors readers a heads up on the features and the differences compared to last year's Smart Battery Cases.

This year's case has the same bump at the back, which houses the battery that charges the iPhone, and it's about the same thickness as last year's model.

There are volume up buttons at the side, a power button, and, on the right side, a brand new button that's designed to be a camera control. You can press the button to automatically launch the camera app, regardless of whether the iPhone is locked or unlocked.

Pressing the button the first time opens up the camera app, but when the app is opened, pressing again takes a photo. Pressing and holding captures a QuickTake video, and the single press also works with the selfie camera.

Apple is offering the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max Smart Battery Cases in black, white, and pink sand, while the iPhone 11 ‌Smart Battery Case‌ is limited to black and white. The black shade of the new cases has shifted. Last year, Apple used a black case with a charcoal logo, but this year, the entire case is the lighter charcoal color with a deeper black logo.

There are two 1,430mAh battery cells inside of the ‌iPhone 11 Pro Max‌ version of the ‌Smart Battery Case‌, up from the 1,369mAh battery cells used last year in the iPhone XS Max ‌Smart Battery Case‌. The two battery cells are wired together into one battery, allowing the cases to offer 10.9Wh of energy (vs. 10.1Wh in the prior XS Max model).

Apple says that all of the new battery cases will add up to 50 percent more battery life to the iPhones, which translates to 9 hours of additional video playback for the 11 Pro, 10 hours of additional video playback for the 11 PRo Max, and 8.5 hours of additional video playback for the iPhone 11.

With the ‌Smart Battery Case‌ attached to an iPhone, the iPhone will drain the case first before using the built-in battery, and this is automatic and can't be shut off. Battery life of the case can be viewed on the Lock screen when placed on a charger or in the Today view of the Notification Center.

Charging the case can be done using a Lightning cable or a Qi-based wireless charger. The iPhone will always charge before the case when charging the two together. For those with Lightning-based headphones and accessories, the Lightning port on the ‌Smart Battery Case‌ does have passthrough capabilities.

The Smart Battery Cases can be purchased from the Apple online store or from Apple retail stores, and all three new cases cost $129.

Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this week sat down for an interview with ABC News after his visit to Texas with President Donald Trump, and today, ABC News has shared additional details from that interview.

Cook said that his focus is on policy over politics, and that he's focused on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which both Cook and Apple have been advocating for.

"No matter who is in the White House, the things I'm focused on are going to be the same. I am focused on DACA. We have 450 folks in Apple, employed at Apple, who are employed on DACA. I want those folks protected. Not just the 450 but the broader DACA people in America."

Cook in October signed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold DACA and protect dreamers in the United States. Cook in the interview said that he's going to continue to fight against the Trump Administration's efforts to rescind DACA.

"I will fight until my toes point up on the subject because I think that it is so core to who we are as a people that we not turn our back on people that came into the country as kids, they were brought here well before they could make a decision on their own. These people are the core of what an American is."

Cook also spoke on privacy, and reiterated comments that he's made many times before. Apple, said Cook, does not want to know personal details about your life and is not trying to "vacuum up all your data."

Cook went on to say that he's "very worried" that in a world where "nothing is private," then freedom of expression, a classic part of what it means to be American, "just evaporates."

On the topic of breaking up tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, Cook said that he thinks there's too much focus on "fines and breakups" and not about how tech companies are collecting and using data that customers did not make an informed decision to give access to.

Cook's full interview can be read on ABC News, and his commentary from the other part of the interview can be read in our first article.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis and his associates recently traveled to Asia to meet with manufacturers within Apple's supply chain, and today they shared their expectations for 2020 iPhones based on information they gathered.

In a research note viewed by MacRumors, the Barclays analysts said the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will likely have 6GB of RAM, up from 4GB in the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. They also expect both models to feature rear-facing 3D sensing and mmWave support for higher-performance 5G.

The base model iPhone 12 is expected to have 4GB of RAM, equal to the iPhone 11. While the iPhone 12 is also expected to be 5G enabled, the analysts did not indicate whether the device will support mmWave, sub-6GHz, or both.

Last, the analysts indicated that the so-called "iPhone SE 2" is still in the pipeline, with production apparently set to begin in February. The lower-cost device is expected to resemble the iPhone 8, including a 4.7-inch display and Touch ID home button, but with a faster A13 chip and 3GB of RAM.

iPhone 12 models will likely be introduced in September as usual, while the new lower-cost iPhone is expected around March.

Barclays has proven to be a largely reliable source of information.

Shipments of Apple's popular AirPods lineup are projected to double to 60 million in 2019, according to Bloomberg. The strong growth is due in part to "much higher" early demand for AirPods Pro than Apple had expected.

The $249 AirPods Pro -- which offer noise cancellation and water resistance -- have surpassed expectations and demand for them is pushing Apple’s assembly partners against capacity and technical constraints, a person familiar with the matter said. Multiple suppliers are competing for the business of manufacturing the Pro earphones, though some are still building up the technical proficiency.

After a ramp-up in popularity of the original AirPods, which debuted in late 2016, Apple has released two updates to the lineup this year, with second-generation AirPods in March and the new AirPods Pro just a few weeks ago.

Apple Watch and AirPods are the two cornerstones of Apple's push into wearables so far, and both have seen strong growth over the past few years. AirPods are the market leader in true wireless earphones, which are proving popular with consumers. While there are some competitors like Sony and Google already in the market, the launch of Microsoft's Surface Earbuds has been pushed back until at least March.

Google this week began rolling out its new cloud gaming service, known as Stadia, which is designed to let you play games wherever WiFi is available on smartphones, laptops, tablets, TVs, and more.

Google Stadia doesn't work on the iPhone at this time (though you can use the app to manage your account), but you can play games on the Mac so we thought we'd give it a try in our latest YouTube video.

There are a few cloud-based gaming services on the market such as PlayStation Now and GeForce NOW, so Google Stadia isn't a new concept, but Google promises a simple hassle-free experience that works cross platform.

Basically, to use Google Stadia, you sign up for an account ($9.99 per month for 4K streaming and a selection of free games) and then you can access games on a Mac, Windows PC, Chromebook, or a TV using a Chromecast Ultra, with Stadia also available on Pixel 2, 3, and 4 smartphones running Android 10.

The $9.99 per month fee is to access the Stadia platform. You still need to purchase games separately, and major titles are going to cost anywhere from $30 to $60. There aren't a ton of games available right now, but you can play Red Dead Redemption 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat 11, and a handful of other popular games.

We tested Stadia on a new 16-inch MacBook Pro, and found it to be simple and straightforward to use. All of our games were available right away after logging in to Google Stadia via a web browser, with no downloading or installing required to play.

Because these are cloud-based games, you can pick up where you left off on any compatible device, so a game started on the Mac can later be picked up on the TV.

Setup was simple, but the gameplay experience was, well, average. In testing, there was quite a bit of lag and several drops in resolution. Gameplay would be stable for a bit, but we also ran into some stretches where the gameplay was terrible.

Game quality also depended on the game. With Destiny, for example, we saw some hiccups but it was mostly stable, but with NBA 2K20, the game refused to recognize certain button presses and it just didn't work well, suggesting not all games are quite as optimized as they should be. Google definitely has some bugs to work out.

The Stadia service works with any Bluetooth controller, but Google has designed its own Google Stadia controller that shipped with its Founders Edition bundle. We used the Stadia controller, which is pretty similar to an Xbox controller.

Using Google Stadia requires a solid internet connection, so it's not for people who have slow connection speeds. You need at least 35Mb/s for 4K gaming, but even with a connection 10 times that, we had the aforementioned lag issues.

As mentioned before, Stadia is priced at $9.99 per month, but Google is also working on a free tier next year that won't have a monthly fee and will be limited to 1080p quality.

The Founder bundle that we tested Stadia with is no longer available, but Google does have a similar "Premiere" bundle that includes the white Stadia controller (instead of the blue founder model), a Chromecast Ultra, and 3 months of "free" Stadia Pro service. After that, it will cost $9.99 per month.

Cloud gaming has been picking up in popularity over the course of the last few years, and now that Google has launched a cloud gaming service (Microsoft has one in the works too), it doesn't seem out fo the realm of possibility that Apple could launch something similar in the future as an expansion of Apple Arcade.

What do you think of Google's Stadia cloud gaming service? Let us know in the comments.

Apple appears to have eliminated reviews from its online Apple Store, removing the options that customers previously had for both leaving reviews and viewing reviews.

Apple made the change over the weekend, and as of now, no products on the online store have reviews, so there's no way to tell how customers liked a given product.

Items like the Apple Pencil and the Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack had hundreds of reviews at the time they were removed, as noted by AppleInsider. For example, a Wayback Machine archive of the original ‌Apple Pencil‌ from November 16 had more than 300 reviews, many of which were negative.

At the current time, product listings have no Ratings & Reviews section and it's not clear if Apple plans to return them, but it's looking like the change was made deliberately since it expands to the online store in multiple countries.