The creative mastermind behind some of Apple's most iconic advertising campaigns announced his retirement today.
Lee Clow
Lee Clow, the Global Director of Media Arts at Apple's advertising agency partner TBWA, will move into an advisory role as Chairman Emeritus of TBWA\Media Arts Lab, a division of the agency he founded in 2006 to exclusively serve Apple. His iconic, award-winning career spanned five decades.
Over a 30-plus-year partnership with Apple, Clow worked on some of the company's most famous campaigns, including its "1984" ad for the original Macintosh, "Get a Mac" series of Mac vs. PC ads, "Think Different" slogan after Steve Jobs returned in 1997, and colorful silhouette ads for the iPod and iTunes.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reflected on Clow's legendary career:
During his long partnership with Steve and Apple, Lee told powerful visual stories that elevated new technologies with the passion, creativity and ingenuity that define our own humanity. He helped Apple carry itself through times of challenge, and his work inspired audiences to look beyond the horizon as an exciting future came into view. Lee's body of work over five decades hums with cleverness, warmth and enthusiasm—and there is no doubt that it will inspire and motivate generations of 'Crazy Ones' still to come.
A look back at some of those ads:
TBWA\Media Arts Lab will continue to serve Apple around the world, led by executives Katrien De Bauw and Brent Anderson.
Apple today confirmed rumors that it will start selling modified iPhone models in its German stores to comply with a patent infringement lawsuit Qualcomm won against the company in December.
The California-based company said it had "no choice" but to replace Intel chips in the iPhone models with chips from Qualcomm in order to allow them to be sold again in the country.
"Qualcomm is attempting to use injunctions against our products to try to get Apple to succumb to their extortionist demands. In many cases they are using patents they purchased or that have nothing to do with their cellular technology to harass Apple and other industry players," an Apple spokesperson said.
"To ensure all iPhone models can again be available to customers in Germany, we have no choice but to stop using Intel chips and ship our phones with Qualcomm chips in Germany. Qualcomm is working to eliminate competition by any means they can, harming consumers and stifling industry innovation along the way."
Sources in German retail hinted last week that Apple was working on new versions of the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, and 8 Plus with updated modem hardware that does not violate the injunction levied against it in Germany that resulted in a sales ban on the devices.
Mobile chip supplier Qualcomm sued Apple in Germany alleging that some older iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models violated Qualcomm patents related to so-called "envelope tracking," which helps mobile phones save battery power while sending and receiving wireless signals. The German court sided with Qualcomm and demanded Apple stop selling the offending iPhones in the country.
In its ongoing legal dispute with Qualcomm, Apple has also had some iPhone models banned in China. However, Apple was able to get around that ban with a software update and has continued selling iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models in that country.
Misuse of Apple's enterprise developer program certificates continues to make news, with a new report from Reuters outlining how software pirates have been using the program to distribute hacked versions of popular apps like Minecraft, Pokemon Go, Spotify, Angry Birds, and more.
Using so-called enterprise developer certificates, these pirate operations are providing modified versions of popular apps to consumers, enabling them to stream music without ads and to circumvent fees and rules in games, depriving Apple and legitimate app makers of revenue.
The software pirates in turn make money by charging some users annual subscription fees for "VIP" versions of their hacked apps that are "more stable than the free versions."
After being alerted by Reuters to these developer accounts being used to distribute hacked apps, Apple removed a number of them, but more have since sprung up to take their place.
Revelations regarding abuse of Apple's enterprise developer program surfaced late last month, led by word that Facebook and Google were using the program to distribute market research apps to users that were capable of tracking all of their online activity in exchange for rewards.
Apple briefly revoked enterprise certificates for both companies, which had the side effect of temporarily disabling Facebook's and Google's internal apps including custom testing versions of their own public apps as well as private internal apps for corporate use such as transportation and food.
And just yesterday, additional abuse of Apple's enterprise program came to light in the form of apps featuring adult content and gambling that can not be distributed through the traditional App Store due to Apple's rules prohibiting or limiting those types of content.
Apple today announced that as of February 27, all developer accounts will require two-factor authentication to be turned on, a move that will help secure these accounts and limit their ability to be traded or sold amongst those seeking to skirt Apple's rules.
Apple is set to launch an Apple News service that will provide access to paywalled news content and magazines for one $9.99 monthly fee in March, but the company is still working to establish deals with newspapers.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal said that Apple was having trouble convincing some major news publications like the Washington Post and The New York Times to sign up for the service, due to Apple wanting a 50 percent revenue split.
Apple would keep 50 percent of all subscription revenue and the other half of the revenue would be split among publishers "according to the amount of time users spend engaged with their articles."
Compared to Apple's 70/30 App Store split and the more than 70 percent of revenue that goes to Apple Music artists, the 50/50 split sounds stingy, but Recode today spoke with industry insiders and provided some insight into why Apple settled on that number.
As it turns out, there are many magazine publishers already on board with the 50/50 revenue agreement, with most convinced that Apple will get millions of people to subscribe to the new service, providing a lot of revenue to publishers despite the dramatic split. From Re/code:
And some publishers are happy to do it, because they think Apple will sign up many millions of people to the new service. And they'd rather have a smaller percentage of a bigger number than a bigger chunk of a smaller number.
In the words of a publishing executive who is optimistic about Apple's plans: "It's the absolute dollars paid out that matters, not the percentage."
Magazine publishers, though, have little to no online monetization of their content, which is not true of major newspapers. The New York Times and the Washington Post, for example, have existing digital subscription businesses that allow them to collect 100 percent of the revenue brought in by subscribers.
According to Recode, magazine publishers that have been participating in Texture, the magazine service Apple purchased, are already familiar with that kind of revenue split. Texture will form the base for the Apple News subscription service Apple is creating, with Apple planning to charge one fee for access to news and magazines.
Since Apple's Texture purchase, magazines have been receiving approximately half of the revenue the service generates, along with 100 percent of ad revenue. It's not clear if major newspapers will ultimately agree to a similar terms given that doing so could cannibalize more profitable subscription options available outside of Apple News.
Apple is telling publishers that the new Apple News service will be heavily promoted and that it has the potential to generate millions of subscribers, which, as Recode points out, is not impossible given the success of the Apple Music service. Apple Music, which launched in 2015, now has more than 50 million paid subscribers.
Starting on February 27, Apple will be requiring all developers to have two-factor authentication enabled for their Apple IDs, with two-factor necessary for signing into Developer accounts after that date.
Apple today told developers via email that the requirement is being implemented to help keep developer accounts more secure and to make sure that no third-parties can access a developer account.
Developers who do not have two-factor authentication enabled for their Apple IDs will need to turn it on by February 27.
Two-factor authentication can be enabled on an iPhone or Mac by following Apple's instructions. Once enabled, a verification code from a trusted device will be required when logging in to a developer account.
Popular grocery store chain Kroger has launched a new mobile payments service called Kroger Pay, which it will be using in lieu of Apple Pay.
According to a WCPO, a local Cincinnati news site, Kroger Pay launched in Columbus and Colorado today, but will be expanding to all Kroger stores by the end of the year.
Kroger Pay is QR-based, so to pay, users need to open up the app and generate a single-use QR code that's scanned at checkout when making a purchase.
Kroger customers can link any major debit or credit card to the Kroger Pay app, and it also includes a Kroger Rewards debit card for earning fuel points and other rewards with purchases.
"Kroger Pay is one of the few mobile wallets that pairs loyalty and payment," said Mary Ellen Adcock, group vice president of operations. "The application of this exciting technology is another step in our front-end experience transformation."
With Kroger embracing its own payment solution, it looks like the grocery store chain has no plans to introduce support for Apple Pay. Kroger did test support for Apple Pay in stores that support contactless payments, but reportedly discontinued the program "due to little interest by customers."
Kroger in 2018 told a Reddit user that it did not have plans to implement Apple Pay in any of its stores.
Kroger has been working on its payments service for more than two years, and has been accepting the Chase Pay digital wallet since 2017.
Apple is planning to unveil both its news service and its TV streaming service at its March 25 event, reports Bloomberg, and celebrities will be in attendance.
Apple's plans for a March 25 event were revealed yesterday, but at the time, Apple was only known to be unveiling an upcoming news subscription service in Apple News. The rumored TV service that's in the works will also reportedly be included.
Hollywood stars such as Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, and JJ Abrams are set to attend the event, which will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. All of these actresses are starring in television shows that Apple has purchased, and JJ Abrams is directing one of them.
Apple's upcoming video service is said to be similar to Amazon's Prime video option and Netflix's service. It will include TV shows and movies acquired by or funded by Apple, and Apple has more than two dozen original television shows in the works. An actual paid subscription service will launch by the summer.
There is some confusion over Apple's streaming TV plans. While Bloomberg's report suggests Apple's content will be delivered via paid streaming service, other rumors have indicated that Apple plans to provide at least some of its original content to Apple device owners for free.
These other rumors have also suggested that Apple will be teaming up with content providers like Showtime to allow Apple owners to sign up for add-on services like Showtime premium through its TV app, where the upcoming streaming service will presumably be available.
Apple's plans for its TV service will become clearer after March, when the details are officially announced.
Along with its TV service, Apple is going to unveil a premium news service that will let Apple News users sign up for a $9.99 per month subscription that will provide unlimited access to paywalled content from sites like The New York Times and the Washington Post, though Apple is said to be still negotiating deals ahead of the service's launch.
There's also a magazine subscription service in the works, which will provide unlimited access to dozens of magazines for $9.99 per month, similar to the Texture service that Apple acquired in 2018. All of these services could potentially be bundled into a single subscription package option in the future.
The March 25 event is believed to focus solely on services, with Apple not planning to introduce any hardware.
With the AirPower having already been announced and all of the other updates being relatively minor in scale based on circulating rumors, it makes sense for the new products to debut more quietly.
The iPad mini 5, for example, is expected to be quite similar in design to the iPad mini 4, with the exception of an updated processor, and the same goes for the seventh-generation iPad. That device may get a slightly bigger 10-inch screen and a new chip, but the changes won't be significant.
AirPods rumors have been a bit mixed, but it looks like we may get a wireless Charging Case and "Hey Siri" functionality with other features saved for a later update in 2019 or 2020. We're also not expecting significant design changes to the seventh-generation iPod touch, which will look similar to the sixth-generation model.
Update: A separate report from Reuters suggests that Apple may be planning to hold an event to introduce its streaming television service in April, not March.
Update 2:The Hollywood Reporteralso confirms that Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, and J.J. Abrams have all been invited to an Apple event set to be held on March 25.
Apple's preliminary disengagement data for its self-driving car project surfaced yesterday pointing towards a high number of disengagements, and today, the DMV has shared the full disengagement reports from the company, providing more insight into Apple's autonomous car testing.
A disengagement report tracks the number of times an autonomous vehicle disengages and gives control back to a safety driver or the number of times the safety driver in the vehicle interferes.
Yesterday's information suggested Apple had the worst rank when it came to disengagements, but Apple has now provided details [PDF] explaining its disengagement reporting procedures and some changes that were made mid-year.
For the period between April 2017 and June 2018, Apple vehicles drove 24,604 miles autonomously and experienced 40,198 manual takeovers and 36,359 software disengagements, a number that is comparatively high based on disengagement reports from other companies.
As of July 2018, however, Apple stopped reporting its total number of disengagements and instead began focusing on "Important Disengagements," aka disengagements that might have resulted in a safety-related event (aka accident) or a violation of the rules of the road.
Using this metric, Apple vehicles have driven 56,135 miles since July 2018, with only 28 "Important Disengagements" reported. Two of these "Important Disengagements" were indeed minor collisions that weren't the fault of Apple's vehicles. One accident took place in August 2018 and the other was in October 2018.
Under Apple’s revised reporting threshold, the company’s cars experienced only one important disengagement every 2005 miles, compared to every 1.1 miles if the full data is counted. If other companies use similar thresholds to Apple’s new standard, Apple would rank much better.
Making direct comparisons between Apple's disengagement report and the results from other companies is difficult because there is no standard for reporting disengagements. It's up to each individual company to decide what constitutes a disengagement and what disengagements need to be reported.
It is clear, though, that Apple's vehicles are in the early stages of testing, as the company says itself in a DMV cover letter.
According to Apple, safety is its "highest priority" and its approach to disengagements is "conservative" because its system is not yet able to operate in "all conditions and situations."
Apple's testing parameters require drivers to proactively take manual control of a vehicle any time the system encounters a scenario beyond its current capabilities. The vehicle itself also self-monitors and returns control back to the driver when errors or issues are encountered.
Situations where drivers take over include the appearance of emergency vehicles, construction zones, or unexpected objects in the road, as Apple's vehicles cannot self-navigate these obstacles.
The autonomous software hands over control when it can't sufficiently track an object, is unable to generate a motion plan using the path planning system, when the vehicle systems don't respond as expected, and when there are communication issues.
Apple now has more than 62 vehicles out on the road, a number that will likely ramp up in 2019 as autonomous software testing continues. Apple is required to provide annual disengagement reports to the DMV, so we'll see the company's 2019 performance in early 2020, and will be able to look for improvements.
Apple is planning to launch its rumored streaming television service in April or May, but some cable content providers won't be participating, reports CNBC.
Recent rumors have suggested that along with Apple's own original content, which will be provided to Apple users for free, the service will allow Apple customers to subscribe to additional add-on subscription services on top of Apple's own offering. Customers will be able to sign up for existing digital services like Showtime and watch that content within the TV app, so long as those services are partnered with Apple.
According to CNBC, as Apple prepares to launch the service, some content providers are still not on board. HBO may not be participating because of disagreements over data sharing and revenue splits, for example, and Hulu and Netflix are not expected to participate.
Starz, Showtime, and Viacom are all expected to offer subscription streaming services through Apple's platform, though, and HBO may also join up if the disagreements can be settled.
Apple is requesting a 30 percent cut on every subscription that originates from its TV service, higher than the 15 percent cut that Apple takes when customers sign up for services like Netflix through the App Store.
The April or May target launch date is in line with past details from The Information, which suggested Apple was telling content partners to be prepared for a launch by mid-April.
Pixelmator Pro for Mac, Pixelmator's higher-end editing software, was today updated with support for masks from Portrait Mode photos.
When you open up a photo taken with an iPhone that offers Portrait Mode, Pixelmator Pro will open the photo itself along with a useful layer mask for doing things like swapping out the background in just a few minutes.
The portrait mask uses the depth information from the iPhone to isolate the subject of a photo, making it easy to remove background elements with little effort.
The Portrait mask feature is limited to the Pixelmator Pro software, and it is not available on the standard version of Pixelmator or the Pixelmator app for iOS devices.
Pixelmator Pro has been around since late 2017 and it has seen several major updates since then with the Pixelmator team introducing useful new functionality on a regular basis. Pixelmator Pro can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $39.99, and there is a free trial available on the Pixelmator website. [Direct Link]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Apple's former vice president of corporate law Gene Levoff with insider trading, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey on Wednesday.
The complaint alleges that Levoff had access to Apple's earnings results before they were publicly announced and used this information to buy Apple shares in advance of better-than-expected earnings results and to sell shares ahead of weaker-than-expected earnings results between 2011 and 2016.
Through his illegal insider trading in 2015-2016, the complaint alleges that Levoff profited and avoided losses of approximately $382,000:
For example, in July 2015 Levoff received material nonpublic financial data that showed Apple would miss analysts' third quarter estimates for iPhone unit sales. Between July 17 and the public release of Apple's quarterly earnings information on July 21, Levoff sold approximately $10 million dollars of Apple stock – virtually all of his Apple holdings – from his personal brokerage accounts. Apple's stock dropped more than four percent when it publicly disclosed its quarterly financial data.
Levoff also served on Apple's Disclosure Committee from September 2008 to July 2018. In this position, he was ironically responsible for ensuring that other Apple employees were compliant with Apple's insider trading policies, including enforcement of "blackout periods" around the time of Apple's earnings reports.
Update: Apple issued the following statement per Bloomberg's Mark Gurman: "After being contacted by authorities last summer we conducted a thorough investigation with the help of outside legal experts, which resulted in termination."
The advisory board's recommendations will help guide the National Council for the American Worker's efforts to establish a strategy to ensure that American students and workers have access to "affordable, relevant, and innovative education and job training that will equip them to compete and win in the global economy."
The board, co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump, is expected to help address a "skills crisis" due to the rapidly increasing use of technology, automation, and artificial intelligence that is shaping many industries across the United States.
The full list of members:
Jay Box, President, Kentucky Community and Technical College System
Walter Bumphus, President & CEO, American Association of Community Colleges
Jim Clark, President & CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Juanita Duggan, President & CEO, National Federation for Independent Business
Elizabeth Goettl, President & CEO, Cristo Rey Network
Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President, & CEO, Lockheed Martin
Eric Holcomb, Governor, Indiana
Barbara Humpton, CEO, Siemens USA
Al Kelly, CEO, Visa
Vi Lyles, Mayor, Charlotte, North Carolina
Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP America
Sean McGarvey, President, North America’s Building and Trades Unions
Doug McMillon, President & CEO, Walmart
Craig Menear, Chairman, President, & CEO, Home Depot
Michael Piwowar, Executive Director, Milken Institute
Scott Pulsipher, President, Western Governors University
Kim Reynolds, Governor, Iowa
Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President, & CEO, IBM
Scott Sanders, Executive Director, National Association of State Workforce Agencies
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President & CEO, Society for Human Resource Management
Jay Timmons, President & CEO, National Association of Manufacturers
Sheree Utash, President, WSU Tech
Marianne Wanamaker, Professor, University of Tennessee
President Trump established the National Council for the American Worker in July 2018 to "create and promote workforce development strategies that provide evidence-based, affordable education and skills-based training for youth and adults to prepare them for the jobs of today and of the future."
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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.
Sleep fitness company Eight Sleep today announced "The Pod," a smart bed that lets users control the temperature of their side of the bed through their iPhone. Not only that, but The Pod will dynamically warm or cool you (55 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit) as you sleep based on settings you enter in the app.
The Pod does not support HomeKit and Eight Sleep has no plans to do so as of now. When we asked about HomeKit integration, the company pointed out that The Pod does support IFTTT, which opens up many smart home connection possibilities. The Pod also integrates with Alexa devices, Google Home, Philips Hue, Wemo products, and more. With these integrations, you can say things like "Alexa, cool down my bed" to prepare for nighttime.
This "smart temperature mode" is powered by machine learning and biofeedback, and is accompanied by a thermo alarm that leverages temperature to wake you up more naturally, without disturbing a sleep partner and without the need of a noisy alarm. This mode gradually cools your side of the bed in the minutes prior to the wake-up time you set on your iPhone.
In addition, The Pod includes biometric tracking to monitor time slept, time to fall asleep, time of wake up, respiratory rate, heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature in bed, sleep breaks, light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. All of this is fed into Eight Sleep's AI engine to calculate your "sleep fitness score" and rate your sleep each night.
You can then take this score to adjust your next night of sleep as needed, change settings in The Pod, and even compare scores with friends.
Sleep monitoring has become a popular market over the past few years, and even Apple has shown interest in the technology by acquiring sleep tracking company Beddit in May 2017. Beddit is a slim sensor strip that you place over your existing mattress to monitor sleep stats like sleep time and efficiency, heart rate, respiration, temperature, movement, snoring, room temperature, and room humidity.
You can reserve Eight Sleep's Pod for $95 beginning today, and the remaining balance will be due at the time of shipping in April 2019. The Pod is available in Full ($1,995), Queen ($2,195), King ($2,495), and Cali King ($2,495), and each mattress will have a 100 night trial period with free returns.
Over the past 24 hours, we've seen a handful of reports talking about a new update to the speaking voice of Siri on HomePod in a few regions. These reports are mostly located in the United Kingdom and Australia, and mention the British (Male and Female) and Australian (Male and Female) speaking voices for the assistant, specifically on Apple's HomePod smart speaker.
The change appears to be very subtle. MacRumors readers described the Australian Female and British Male voices as "more natural" and "much clearer," and similar reports have emerged about other voices. Although there are many different descriptions for each voice, the consensus appears to be that the tweaks make Siri sound more human-like.
HomePod users can choose any Siri voice no matter the region they are located in, but as of now the vast majority of these reports appear to be located in the same regions as the voice they represent. This may be the beginning of a wider rollout, but that's still unclear at this point.
Twitter user @callumjcoe recorded the difference between the current iteration of the Australian Female voice (on an iPad) and the updated voice (on HomePod). Of course, distortion and muddled sound quality from a recording don't provide a perfect example, but there is a slight change between the two heard in the video, which is likely much more pronounced in person.
As of writing, MacRumors hasn't noticed any similar updates to Siri on HomePod (for any voices) in the United States. Apple has updated Siri over the past year with improvements to the assistant's ability to recognize local businesses and destinations, as well as new jokes, but many Apple users remain frustrated with the technology. One of the last major updates to Siri came in iOS 11 in 2017, when Apple gave Siri a more natural voice that had better pronunciation and different inflection depending on what's being said.
In early 2018, Siri creator, co-founder, and former board member Norman Winarsky talked about the origins of Siri and the company's intentions for the assistant before Apple acquired it. According to the co-founder, Siri was originally meant to be incredibly intelligent in just a few key areas -- travel and entertainment -- and then "gradually extend to related areas" once it mastered each. Apple's acquisition pivoted Siri to an all-encompassing life assistant, and Winarsky said that this decision has likely led Apple to search "for a level of perfection they can't get."
Although unconfirmed, the new voice changes to Siri may be Apple's latest attempt to make the voice assistant more personable and easy to talk to, in the wake of ongoing user complaints. If the changes roll out to other regions, we'll update this article.
Apple recently introduced an easier way to manage subscriptions via the App Store, as spotted by MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci.
Apple recently made a change (seems iOS 12.1.4 and 12.2 beta) to make it easier to manage subscriptions for iOS apps.
Now you just need to open the App Store, tap your profile, and choose 'Manage Subscriptions'. pic.twitter.com/4PtxvAQjTm
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) February 13, 2019
iPhone and iPad users running iOS 12.1.4 or iOS 12.2 beta can now simply open the App Store, tap on their profile picture in the top-right corner, and tap on Manage Subscriptions to view and edit App Store, Apple Music, and Apple News subscriptions.
We've confirmed this Manage Subscriptions shortcut is not in earlier iOS versions.
iOS 12.1.2
Managing subscriptions previously required an extra step of tapping on the box with your Apple ID name and email address via the App Store or Settings.
Further cementing its status as Nintendo's most successful mobile game to date, Fire Emblem Heroes has officially crossed the half-a-billion-dollar revenue mark, which it hit just after the two-year anniversary of its launch in early February 2017. The game's $500 million in player spending includes players on both iOS and Android (via Sensor Tower).
Fire Emblem Heroes is a free-to-play game that lets players spend real money inside the app once they download it. Most of Nintendo's apps have followed this structure, except Super Mario Run, which requires players to pay $9.99 to see the full game. In total, Fire Emblem Heroes has brought in "more than seven times the revenue" of Super Mario Run, and grossed more than twice the combined earnings of all of Nintendo's other mobile games, according to Sensor Tower.
To date these include Miitomo (now defunct), Super Mario Run, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Dragalia Lost. Released just last September, Dragalia Lost has already become Nintendo's second most lucrative mobile game, surpassing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run.
In terms of platforms for Fire Emblem Heroes, players on Google Play/Android accounted for the majority of spending at 54 percent, while the iOS App Store made up 46 percent of player spending. Most players are located in Japan, which accounted for 56 percent of the game's $500 million total, while the United States is the game's second largest market at 31 percent of player spending.
Despite Super Mario Run performing poorly in comparison to the free-to-play games, Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that Nintendo will "continue pushing" for pay-once mobile games over freemium experiences. One senior official at Nintendo called the F2P structure of Fire Emblem Heroes as "an outlier" in the grand scheme of Nintendo's mobile strategy, claiming that Nintendo "prefers" Super Mario Run's payment model.
Despite this, Nintendo's next two mobile game releases will be free-to-play: Mario Kart Tour will launch this summer and Dr. Mario World is set to release later in 2019.
Apple is offering a special $70 promotional discount on its "Skyline Collection" of Beats Studio 3 Wireless Headphones on its online store.
The Skyline Studio 3 Wireless Headphones come in Crystal Blue, Desert Sand, Midnight Black, and Shadow Grey. All of the colors feature gold accents with a gold beats logo and gold band.
The collection was originally launched online in October for $349.99, but Apple is currently offering them for $279.99 online and via Apple Store pickup, presumably for a limited time.
Studio 3 Wireless Headphones feature Apple's Pure Adaptive Noise Canceling technology, designed to block external noise when listening.
They're also equipped with an Apple W1 chip, designed to make it easy to switch between devices when listening. The power efficiency of the chip also means the headphones last for 22 hours on one charge.
Apple Watch is the "clear market leader" in the burgeoning U.S. smartwatch market, according to a new report from consumer research firm The NPD Group.
Market data shows U.S. smartwatch sales showed strong growth in the 12 months ending November 2018 when compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit made up 88 percent of smartwatch unit sales in that time.
The report found dollar sales of the devices were up 51 percent, amounting to nearly $5 billion in sales, while unit sales experienced a 61 percent increase, indicating an impressive acceleration in demand for the wearables.
"Over the last 18 months smartwatch sales gained strong momentum, proving the naysayers, who didn't think the category could achieve mainstream acceptance, had potentially judged too soon," said Weston Henderek, director, industry analyst for NPD Connected Intelligence. "The ability to be truly connected via built-in LTE without the need to have a smartphone nearby proved to be a tipping point for consumers, as they now recognize the value in being able to complete a wide range of tasks on the device including receiving notifications, messaging, accessing smart home controls, and more."
According to the report, 16 percent of U.S. adults now own a smartwatch, which is up from 12 percent in December of 2017. Interest from the younger 18-34 age demographic is said to be responsible for the overall growth in the smartwatch market, but NPD analysts expect Apple Watch will continue to entice older consumers thanks to health features like Fall Detection and ECG and greater control over home automation.
Apple doesn't break out Apple Watch unit sales from its overall earnings. However in its recent earnings call for the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year, CEO Tim Cook said the company's wearables revenue was being driven by the "amazing popularity" of Apple Watch and AirPods, and that the category alone was "approaching the size of a Fortune 200 company."
