MacRumors

Niantic and The Pokémon Company today revealed an all-new gym system heading to the popular mobile app Pokémon Go soon, as well as announcing a new cooperative "Raid Battle" update coming in the future. For gyms, the developer said that its goal was to encourage more players to head to friendly gyms because now they'll be able to interact with them in new ways.

Notably, gyms will now act as PokéStops and include a spinnable disc that gives players unique items like Poké Balls. The basic structure of a gym is being altered as well, so now six Pokémon can occupy a gym and each one must be unique, preventing duplicates of the same Pokémon from appearing multiple times in one gym battle. Enemy teams will battle these Pokémon in the order they were added to the Gym, not in the order of their combat power as before.

Pokémon will also need to be motivated to stay inside a gym with the new "motivation system." Over time, each Pokémon will lose motivation naturally and as they are defeated in battle, temporarily lowering its combat power so enemy teams will be able to more easily defeat the gym. To help keep up a Pokémon's motivation, friendly team members can feed it berries.

Niantic said that all of these updates will feed into the new gym badges system as well, which will reward players for taking part in battles and feeding berries to Pokémon.

Now you’ll be able to earn Gym Badges when interacting with the many Gyms around the world. Gym Badges serve as mementos of your Pokémon GO adventures and reflect your contribution to a Gym’s success.

You’ll be able to level up your Badges by battling, giving Berries to the Pokémon in the Gym and spinning the Gym’s Photo Disc. You can earn the opportunity to receive bonus items and increased rewards from Gyms by raising the level of your Gym Badge.

In the coming weeks, players will be able to take on new "Raid Battles" at gyms, which Niantic described as a cooperative experience that forces trainers to work together to take down a Raid Boss. Before a Raid Battle begins, Pokémon at the gym in question will return to their trainers and a large egg will appear on top of the gym with a countdown clock.

When the countdown reaches zero the Raid Boss is revealed and players will be able to take on the challenge as long as they have a Raid Pass, which can be obtained each day by visiting a Gym, but only one can be held at a time. Up to twenty players can be in a Raid Battle at once, working together to take down the boss, similar to the original announcement trailer for the game back in 2015.

If the boss is defeated in under five minutes, each participant will have a chance to catch an "extra powerful Pokémon," as well as a few new items.

After defeating a Raid Boss, you’ll receive a collection of rewards, including some new items obtained only by defeating a Raid Boss: Rare Candies, Golden Razz Berries, and two types of Technical Machines—Fast and Charged. A Rare Candy is a mysterious candy that, when used on a Pokémon, turns into that Pokémon’s Candy. Golden Razz Berries will greatly increase your chances of catching a Pokémon you encounter in the wild and can also be given to a Pokémon assigned to a Gym to fully recover its motivation meter. Technical Machines are items you can use to permanently teach a Pokémon a new Fast Attack or Charged Attack.

Niantic said that the gym update will begin rolling out to players around the world "very soon" (until then, gyms are disabled in the game), and Raid Battles will show up over the next few weeks, beginning in beta form. Recently, Niantic revealed some events occurring out in the real world to celebrate the one year anniversary of the app, which debuted in July of 2016, while Niantic CEO John Hanke commented on Apple's upcoming ARKit developer platform and how it will change Pokémon Go and AR apps in general.

In a new interview with The Telegraph, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman discusses a wide range of topics covering the origins of the company, its history with eBay, and potential competition with Apple in the peer-to-peer payments space. PayPal owns Venmo, one of the most popular P2P payments apps available today across iOS, Android, and the web, and Schulman cited this availability across various operating systems as a "powerful advantage."

Schulman said that many users have a variety of devices sold by different companies, and the ability for Venmo to be on all of them is where it will stand out from Apple Pay's upcoming P2P update, which will be able to send money through Messages only on Apple devices.

“We’re technology agnostic,” he said in an interview with The Telegraph. “Many individuals are [a] multi-operating system; they can have an Android phone, a Microsoft PC and an Apple tablet. You don’t want a different payment methodology on each of those things … you want a consistency across that.

“We try to offer a consistent value proposition, that’s end-to-end, across operating systems and device type. It’s a powerful advantage we have.”

PayPal and Venmo also control several parts of a payment process made through its apps, including risk assessment and customer protection. Shulman stated that the company owns "the full value proposition" of a payment made between users on Venmo, while Apple "can only provide what they hope is a good user interface."

Unlike Venmo, Apple’s service will not work on Android phones or Windows laptops, and whereas Apple has to work with credit card companies to make payments, PayPal controls several parts of the payments process, such as risk assessment and customer protection.

“We own the full value proposition, Apple can never do that because they don’t do the risk associated with it, they don’t do the onboarding, they can only provide what they hope is a good user interface. We try to provide that end to end value proposition and very importantly we do it across operating systems.”

Apple Pay's P2P update is set to launch this fall with iOS 11. During the announcement at WWDC, Apple said that when users get paid they will receive money in a new "Apple Pay Cash" account, which they can then use instantly to make a purchase using Apple Pay in stores or online, send as a payment to someone else, or transfer it from Apple Pay Cash to their bank account.

Rapper Jay Z has confirmed that his new album, 4:44, will be released on June 30 and will be available exclusively to Sprint customers and existing Tidal subscribers (via Variety). The album is the first major project between the streaming music service and Sprint, which acquired 33 percent of the company in January in a deal reportedly worth $200 million.

Tidal has recently been promoting 4:44 with videos on YouTube featuring actors Mahershala Ali, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danny Glover, suggesting video content could accompany the album.

Based on the performance of previous Tidal-only releases, how long the album remains an exclusive could have a big effect on its chart success. Beyonce's album Lemonade reportedly suffered because of its exclusivity to Tidal, which claims as many as 3 million subscribers. That contrasts with Spotify's claimed 50 million paying subscribers, with Apple Music now on 27 million subscribers, as revealed earlier this month at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apple was rumored to be interested in buying Tidal last year as a way to bolster Apple Music, but the company later denied the reports and said it wasn't looking to acquire any existing streaming services. The rivalry between Apple Music and Tidal has been criticized for their promotion of exclusive artist deals, which Kanye West said was negatively affecting the music industry.

As part of the Sprint-Tidal deal, Sprint customers are eligible to receive a free six-month Tidal trial subscription to the streaming service.

Apple has announced a special shopping event, called "Lose Your Wallet," to be held in San Francisco next weekend, on June 23-25, with a collection of discounts for Apple Pay users. In Hayes Valley and the Marina anyone who has Apple Pay set up on their iPhone or Apple Watch will be able to take advantage of the exclusive discounts and offers at a variety of merchants (via Apple Insider).

Some of the Hayes Valley merchants with exclusive Apple Pay offers running next weekend include Aether (get a free gift card), Smitten Ice Cream (take 25 percent off your order), Blue Bottle Coffee (take 15 percent off your order), Sugar ($5 martinis and beers), Double Decker (get large fries for $1), and more. The offers will be enacted immediately when users check out at each store with Apple Pay.

In the Marina, some locations participating include David's Tea (take 10 percent off and get free tea of the day), Ghirardelli (get a free chocolate pouch), Marina Deli (get a free cookie with a sandwich), Peet's Coffee (take $1 off all beverages), United Liquor and Deli (get a free cork puller with every bottle of wine), and more.

In total, twenty stores in Hayes Valley and sixteen stores in the Marina will have Apple Pay-related offers and discounts for users June 23-25. Check out Apple's new webpage for the "Lose Your Wallet" event to see the full list. The site also lists a few exclusive app and partner offers, including Caviar (take $5 off your order) and an invitation from Square to visit its pop-up on Hayes Street and in the Marina for more exclusive Apple Pay offers.

The massive video game conference E3 was this week, and while iOS gaming played at least a minor role at the event in previous years, that definitely was not the case in 2017. It's not that surprising, particularly with excitement surrounding the Nintendo Switch and the unveiling of the new Xbox One X stealing the show. However, the world of iOS gaming is never calm, and there's always tons happening in it. Here's some of the biggest news of the week:

Minecraft has been the biggest thing since sliced bread for years now, but Mojang took the stage during Microsoft's E3 press conference with a few surprising announcements, the first of which is a new "Super Duper Graphics" mode that adds all sorts of lighting effects and fancy shaders seen in the above trailer. Initially, it seemed like this was going to be an exclusive to highlight the power of the new XBOX One X, but then it was revealed that this new mode would be coming to all Minecraft platforms, including the iOS Pocket Edition.

Additionally, Minecraft is getting an update titled "Better Together" which will add total cross-platform multiplayer. iOS players will be able to play with Switch, Xbox, and PC players... with the PlayStation 4 version left out in the cold. This is great news for all Minecraft players, unless, of course, you're playing on a PS4.

Another E3 tidbit of note came from the Bethesda press conference, where they revealed their digital collectable card game, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, is getting a new expansion based on Skyrim. Among other things, new "Shout" cards are being added ("shouts" were powerful magic spells in Skyrim) along with cards based on popular Skyrim characters.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends is currently only available on tablets and PC, but will be coming to the iPhone "next month." If you haven't played The Elder Scrolls: Legends, it's worth checking out. It's a little more complicated than Blizzard's Hearthstone, which is either a good or bad thing depending on what you're looking for in a card game.

We reviewed three totally fantastic games this week: Monument Valley 2, Framed 2, and Yankai's Peak. Monument Valley 2 is an amazing sequel to the original, with our only minor complaint being that it feels a little too much like the first. More Monument Valley isn't necessarily a bad thing, however.

Comparatively, Framed 2 greatly amps up all the groundwork that Framed laid. The game is an interactive comic book puzzle game, where the pages are solved by putting the various comic book frames in the right order. Finally, Yankai's Peak is a fantastic puzzler where you're moving triangles around a game board. Like any good puzzle game, the concept is unbelievably simple, but quickly gets so difficult that it'll stump even the best puzzle gamers.

Finally, gaming giant Supercell has soft launched a new game called Brawl Stars that we're pretty sure is going to be the next mobile gaming mega-hit. We posted an exhaustive first impressions piece that explains what the game is all about, but in a nutshell it's a greatly simplified multiplayer online battle area (MOBA) game that throws players into three on three team-based battles.

While the game isn't available in the US App Store yet, it's incredibly simple to create a Canadian iTunes account to download it. We posted a full guide on how to get the game, which should result in a decent head start over the rest of the world when Brawl Stars finally launches worldwide.

That's all the big news from this week, and as always, for way (way) more iOS gaming news be sure to visit TouchArcade where we post this kind of stuff all day long.

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Hidrate to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone-connected Hidrate Spark 2.0 water bottle that's designed to keep track of how much water you're drinking each day.

First created as a Kickstarter project, the Hidrate water bottle has been around since 2015, but it's on its second version, the Spark 2.0. The Hidrate Spark 2.0, available in a range of candy colors, features a stylish design, an easy-sip top, and a sensor that's able to detect whenever you take a sip.

The Spark 2.0 connects to an app on your iPhone via Bluetooth so you can keep track of what you've consumed in the accompanying app, which allows you to make sure you're meeting your daily hydration needs. It uses a replaceable battery so you don't need to worry about charging.

In addition to tracking how much you drink, the Spark 2.0 lets you know when you need to take a drink through a built in glow feature that comes on when it's been awhile since the last sip. You can set your own hydration goal in the app and link up with friends so you can motivate each other to drink more water.

The app maintains a log of what you've consumed over time, and if you lose your bottle, you can see its last known location on a map. All of the data collected by the Spark syncs to the Apple Health app on the iPhone.

The Hidrate Spark 2.0 water bottles are available from the Hidrate website for $45, but we have five to give away to MacRumors readers. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner and send the prize. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

The contest will run from today (June 16) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on June 23. The winners will be chosen randomly on June 23 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou has spoken out about the ongoing sale for Toshiba's memory chip unit, which has made headlines over the past few weeks as multiple companies have entered the bidding to win the sought-after unit. Previously, Foxconn was perceived as a long shot for winning the bid due to its connections with China, a fact believed to sit unfavorably with Japanese-owned Toshiba.

Now, Gou is presenting points of argument as to why Foxconn's acquisition of Japanese technology would not hurt Toshiba nor the Japanese government, because he says Foxconn would not seek to import any of Toshiba's technologies to Foxconn's China plants (via DigiTimes). Gou argued that Foxconn is simply an enterprise "seeking new markets" in Japan, "and making investments in these markets is very normal."

With Foxconn's help, Gou said that Toshiba has the potential to improve its technology so it doesn't lag behind the advancements of its competitors. Another point of contention for Japanese officials fearful of Foxconn winning the unit centered upon the company leaking secrets behind Toshiba's best technology, to which Gou said such a practice would never benefit Foxconn or any of its partners.

Gou felt he had to speak out "to clarify many of the false accusations that have been made about Foxconn over the past few weeks."

Gou said that leaking technology would not benefit Foxconn or any of Foxconn's partners, and would only hurt Toshiba's future development. With all the outcomes coming out negatively, there would be no point for Foxconn to leak IP, Gou stated.

Gou noted that Toshiba's technology R&D will remain and continue to be processed in Japan, a pointed out that a company with leadership in technology development does not need to be afraid of being copied.

Since Foxconn owns its production lines and plants, details of production procedures would be kept within the plants. Foxconn would also apply to patent Toshiba's technologies to prevent infringement, Gou noted.

Gou finally said that Foxconn is simply "looking to survive" by bidding on the Toshiba memory chip unit, as well as reduce costs and improve its supply chain delivery times. The last we heard about the bidding, Foxconn had rallied U.S. companies Apple and Amazon to chip in funds to help Foxconn win the unit. Foxconn's first bid was around $27B, and it was never clear if additional funds would be enough to calm Toshiba's worries about the company's ties to China.

In another corner of the ongoing bidding for Toshiba's memory chip unit, Western Digital has continued to go after Toshiba, this week seeking a court injunction that would prevent Toshiba from selling the unit without Western Digital's consent (via Reuters). Western Digital and Toshiba are partners in the chip manufacturing business, and the new injunction is said to have emerged after the U.S.-based Western Digital discovered it was left out of a new Japanese government-led group formed to come together and bid for the unit.

Although sources close to the sale say that Western Digital's legal actions threaten to throw the whole auction "into disarray," Toshiba has said in a statement that it is proceeding with selecting a bidder "by the second half of June," as has always been planned. A final, definitive winner for the unit is expected to be decided by June 28.

Rumors that smart thermostat maker Nest is considering adding Apple HomeKit support to its product range appear to be premature, according to a report on Thursday. AppleInsider spoke to a Nest employee who apparently confirmed there are "no immediate plans" to support Apple's smart home platform and "no roadmap" for such a migration.

The rumors were apparently stoked by Apple's announcement at the Worldwide Developers Conference that it has taken steps to make it easier for third parties to integrate the smart home platform into their devices, followed by a comment recently attributed to Nest that it would "consider HomeKit".

At the present time, HomeKit-enabled smart products require a hardware authentication chip to make them compatible with Apple's Made-For-iPhone program. At WWDC, however, Apple said it was updating its specification so that smart products won't have to include a hardware chip and will be able to authenticate through software instead. The news sparked suggestions that some older products could theoretically be upgraded to support HomeKit using a firmware upgrade.

HomeKit has enjoyed fairly wide support among smart gadget manufacturers, but the Google-owned Nest brand has never been on that list. Apple removed Nest products from its stores in 2015 shortly after the first HomeKit-compatible products became available for purchase.

Nest owners needn't completely give up hope for HomeKit support, as manufacturers have occasionally added the standard to products via upgrades well after they have come to market. Add to that Apple's looser licensing and authentication restrictions for HomeKit and it's not impossible that Nest will come around to the platform one day.

Apple has made electronic music-driven infinite jumper game Beat Stomper its Free App of the Week on the App Store. Usually $2, this trippy little game has been rated at least four stars by over 650 gamers for its frenetic jump-and-hold mechanic, combined with a rousing soundtrack which adapts to the action unfolding on the screen.

Neon-drenched graphics and rapidly strobing particle effects are par for the course in this vertical high score chaser. Gamers control a little square that jumps high into the air with a tap on the screen. Another tap forces the square to stomp down, hopefully onto the next platform. With platforms moving from side to side, timing is everything. Not only that, the movement of the platform also impacts the direction you jump in. This from the App Store editors' notes:

Absolutely exploding with style and energy, this infinite jumper challenges you to guide little leaping block people up, up and away into musical heaven. Using taps to hurl your angular avatars from one shifting platform to the next, you'll aim for boosts that'll rocket them even higher – or at least keep them from plunging to their game-ending doom.

Beat Stomper requires 136MB on iPhone and iPad, and can be downloaded for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]