Instagram today announced that more than 150 million people now use its Snapchat-like Stories feature on a daily basis, and now the company is looking to monetize that user base with the introduction of full-screen ads.
Just like Snapchat, Instagram will sometimes add a 5-second photo or 15-second video ad in between stories when a user watches more than one in a row. The video ads in particular are set to autoplay with audio. The good news: each ad can be skipped by swiping on it, according to TechCrunch.
Instagram said it will begin testing the ads over the coming weeks with over 30 global brands, such as Airbnb, Capital One, Buick, Nike, Netflix, and Qantas. In the future, the company said the ads may be tappable, enabling users to proceed to an advertiser's website to purchase a product or learn more information.
Instagram Stories enables users to share personalized photos and videos with their followers that disappear after 24 hours.
Apple has partnered with security firm Tresorit so that developers using Apple's CareKit platform will have access to increased privacy options (via Mashable).
Tresorit's security technology, ZeroKit, will bring user authentication to patients and healthcare workers, while its end-to-end encryption smarts promise "zero knowledge" sharing of health data. The ZeroKit team announced the partnership in a blog post on Apple's CareKit blog.
"Apple designed the iOS platform and CareKit with security at its core. When building apps where data is shared across devices and with other services, developers want to extend this security to the cloud. This is exactly what ZeroKit does."
CareKit is Apple's open-source platform aimed at making it easer for developers and health care professionals to build health apps via a number of integrations, like monitoring of medical symptoms, sending images of an injury, and keeping tabs on medication schedules.
CareKit also offers two-way benefits, as it not only helps doctors monitor patients but also allows patients to observe their progress over time. While patients won't get to choose whether to apply ZeroKit's encryption tools, the back-end integration will allow Apple's platform to fall in line with state privacy rules around patient information.
U.S. airlines will no longer have to make a pre-boarding notification to passengers that the Samsung Galaxy Note7 is prohibited on aircraft, it was announced yesterday.
In a statement on its website, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was dropping the requirement because public awareness that the banned Note7 was a fire risk was deemed to have reached a sufficient level, thanks in part to extensive recall efforts by Samsung and smartphone providers.
The Department of Transportation removed the requirement for air carriers to specifically notify passengers about the Note7 phone immediately prior to boarding due to the high degree of public awareness of the ban since issuance of the emergency restriction/prohibition order, as well as the extensive efforts by Samsung and U.S. wireless providers to make all Note7 users aware the phone is recalled and banned from transport on U.S. aircraft.
Following the announcement, Samsung released a statement claiming that over 96 percent of Note 7 devices have been returned so far. U.S. carriers have sent out an end-of-life software update to handsets that remain in circulation, rendering the devices unable to charge. Meanwhile, Samsung has said it will release a report later this month detailing the results of its investigation into what caused some handsets to explode or catch fire while charging.
Purported leaked image of the Galaxy S8 expected to launch in April (Image: Weibo)
According to one report on Tuesday, Samsung has refused to give up on the Galaxy Note name, due to the historical popularity of the brand in the "phablet" category, and a Note8 is currently being readied for launch later this year.
Samsung is currently focusing on the Spring launch of its flagship Galaxy S8, which is rumored to include a "Bixby" AI voice assistant – based on its acquisition of Viv – and is said to have a home button embedded in its edge-to-edge display. The company is reportedly aiming to ship 60 million S8 units by the end of the year.
This week marked 10 years since Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco. In commemoration, iFixit has published a roundup of 15 iPhone teardowns the site has completed over the past decade, offering a look at how the design's construction has evolved over time.
In contrast to Apple's iMacs and MacBooks which have become progressively more difficult to repair in recent years, the iPhone's repairability score has fared a lot better after quickly improving upon its first incarnation, as noted by iFixit.
iFixit's teardown of the first-generation iPhone
iPhones have become taller, wider, and skinnier. But they’ve also become more repairable. The very first iPhone earned a dismal 2/10 on our repairability scale. It had a soldered battery and was almost impossible to open without breaking the case. Repairability improved radically from there — jumping to a 7/10 for the iPhone 3G.
Since then, the company's flagship smartphone has remained relatively repair-friendly, earning at least 6/10 on iFixit's repairability rating with every iteration. The most recent iPhone offering, the iPhone 7, was awarded 7/10 on the scale in 2016.
Check out the "10 Years of iPhone" roundup page on iFixit, which also features a neat look at the visual changes the components have undergone over 15 models.
A couple days ago Sonny Dickson shared a look at one of two early prototypes for the original iPhone, the iPod Click Wheel-based OS that iPod "Godfather" Tony Fadell was working on. Tonight, Dickson has shared a video pitting Fadell's version against Scott Forstall's icon-based iPhone prototype, which went on to become the basis for iOS.
Fadell's prototype was referred to as P1 while Forstall's prototype was referred to as P2. The two projects reportedly went head to head in 2005 when Steve Jobs pitted the two against each other. While the P1 used the click-wheel interface to navigate the OS, the P2 used a series of touch-based icons to move around the OS.
Both P1 and P2 run a prototype OS Apple codenamed "Acorn OS" internally, though Dickson notes that P1 runs faster because it uses a slimmed down version of Acorn OS. Each prototype also sports a unique logo that pops up after the Acorn OS logo while it boots up.
The P2 loads octopus whereas the P1 has the iPod classic logo. The P2 takes a significantly longer to load because it actually has a real OS, whereas the P1 takes much less time since the OS is slimmer. These P unit prototypes are so early in the development process that they rely on a custom process to be turned off, and can only be powered down during a certain step of the boot process.
The video, and accompanying photos, provide both a look at the choice Steve Jobs and Apple employees faced as they were developing the iPhone and iOS 10 years ago and how Apple explores ideas. As Dickson notes, "P devices" are the first step of any project at Apple. They're barely-functioning devices that allow the company to explore and test concepts, iterating on them until they're satisfied enough to push the project further.
More images of the P2 iPhone prototype are available on Sonny Dickson's website.
Starting in March of 2017, AT&T will raise the prices of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5, according to information obtained by DSLReports. The price hike is AT&T's second price increase in the last 12 months and will raise prices from $35 to $40.
DSLReports forum users began receiving notifications about the $5 price increase in early January, and the site was able to confirm AT&T's plans. AT&T's statement on the new pricing is below:
Our Mobile Share Advantage plans and our AT&T Unlimited Plan provide several benefits that our legacy unlimited plan doesn't. If you have a legacy unlimited data plan, you can keep it; however, beginning in March 2017, it will increase by $5 per month.
AT&T no longer offers standalone unlimited data plans to customers, but a small number of people continue to hold onto unlimited data plans that were purchased before AT&T discontinued them in 2010. Those plans allow customers to use an unlimited amount of data, but throttling does occur with excessive data usage.
AT&T previously raised prices for its unlimited data customers in February of 2016, increasing data plan costs from $30 to $35. AT&T's data plan costs are charged in addition to voice and text plan costs for unlimited customers, putting the minimum price on an unlimited data plan with text and voice (not unlimited) in the neighborhood of $90.
Over the course of the last several years, AT&T has used price hikes, data caps, and throttling to attempt to get its grandfathered unlimited customers to switch to new plans. In 2014, the FTC launched a federal court complaint against AT&T for its throttling practices, which led AT&T to scale them back.
At the beginning of 2016, AT&T reintroduced $100 unlimited data plans but limited them to AT&T users who subscribe to an AT&T DirecTV or AT&T U-Verse plan.
Apple's hardbound photo book, "Designed by Apple in California," is now available for purchase in five additional countries around the world. As of this month, Apple's websites and retail stores in the following countries carry the book: Canada, Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Introduced in November, "Designed by Apple in California," showcases 20 years of Apple products, highlighting Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads, and accessories released between 1998 and 2015.
The book is text-free, featuring 450 large, high-quality images of Apple products, highlighting the company's design process. Apple says it took eight years to design the book, which features specially milled custom-dyed paper with "gilded matte silver edges" and low-ghost ink.
Because "Designed by Apple in California" is positioned as an art book, it costs $200 for the small version and $300 for the large version in the United States. Prices are higher in other countries like Brazil due to import taxes and other fees.
Update: Apple has released the book in even more countries, including Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, and Norway.
Chris Lattner, director of Apple's Developer Tools group, has announced he will be leaving the company later this month to "pursue an opportunity in another space." Lattner was responsible for leading the teams behind Xcode, Swift, and some other development-related tools and compilers at Apple.
In a message posted to the Swift mailing list, shared by MacStories, Lattner said Ted Kremenek, currently Senior Manager of Languages and Runtimes at Apple, will be taking over as "Project Lead" for the Swift programming language, managing the "administrative and leadership responsibility" for Swift.org.
This recognizes the incredible effort he has already been putting into the project, and reflects a decision I’ve made to leave Apple later this month to pursue an opportunity in another space. This decision wasn't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I’m still completely committed to Swift. I plan to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team, as well as a contributor to the swift-evolution mailing list.
Lattner said he does not expect his resignation to impact day-to-day operations of the Swift team in any significant way. He also noted Apple's development of Swift 4 will continue under Kremenek. Apple previously said it will shift its focus to Swift 4 after Swift 3.1 is released over the coming months.
Latter is best known as the main author of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project, a collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies. He started development of Swift in 2010, and the open source programming language was introduced for Apple software platforms at WWDC 2014.
Update: Chris Lattner is leaving Apple for Tesla, where he will fill the position of Vice President of Autopilot Software and lead Tesla's autopilot engineering team.
Apple has since learned that Consumer Reports was using a "hidden Safari setting" which trigged an "obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons" that led to inconsistent battery life results. With "normal user settings" enabled, Consumer Reports said it "consistently" achieved expected battery life.
Apple's full statement was shared with MacRumors:
"We appreciate the opportunity to work with Consumer Reports over the holidays to understand their battery test results," Apple told MacRumors. "We learned that when testing battery life on Mac notebooks, Consumer Reports uses a hidden Safari setting for developing web sites which turns off the browser cache. This is not a setting used by customers and does not reflect real-world usage. Their use of this developer setting also triggered an obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons which created inconsistent results in their lab. After we asked Consumer Reports to run the same test using normal user settings, they told us their MacBook Pro systems consistently delivered the expected battery life. We have also fixed the bug uncovered in this test. This is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made, we respect Consumer Reports and we’re glad they decided to revisit their findings on the MacBook Pro."
Apple said it has fixed the Safari bug in the latest macOS Sierra beta seeded to developers and public testers this week.
Consumer Reports has issued its own statement on the matter to explain why it turns off Safari caching during its testing and other details:
We also turn off the local caching of web pages. In our tests, we want the computer to load each web page as if it were new content from the internet, rather than resurrecting the data from its local drive. This allows us to collect consistent results across the testing of many laptops, and it also puts batteries through a tougher workout.
According to Apple, this last part of our testing is what triggered a bug in the company’s Safari browser. Indeed, when we turned the caching function back on as part of the research we did after publishing our initial findings, the three MacBooks we’d originally tested had consistently high battery life results.
Consumer Reports said it will complete its retesting of MacBook Pro battery life and report back with its update and findings when finished.
Apple advertises that the latest MacBook Pro models get up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge when watching iTunes movies or browsing the web. This estimate can be affected by several factors, such as screen brightness, which applications are running, and other system processes.
Following a year filled with doom and gloom stories surrounding Apple and its first revenue decline in thirteen years, major iPhone supplier Foxconn Technology Group has reported its own first ever sales decline since the company went public in 1991. In a report by Nikkei, "lukewarm demand" for the iPhone 7 and a "saturated smartphone market" are said to be to blame for Foxconn's downturn.
In total for 2016, Foxconn's revenue of 4.356 trillion New Taiwan dollars (approximately $136 billion) was down 2.8 percent from its 2015 earnings. As a slight bright spot, its revenue for December grew 9.8 percent year-on-year because of increased user spending for the approaching Chinese New Year holidays, "and the relatively robust demand for the 5.5 inch iPhone 7 Plus model."
Apple's overall revenue decline in 2016 also included the company's first year-over-year decline in iPhone sales -- the first ever dip in profit for the iPhone. The lowering of demand for the smartphone directly impacted the company's manufacturing partners, with analyst Vincent Chen reporting that in total 207 million iPhones were shipped in 2016, down from 236 million in 2015. That's even lower than what Nikkei predicted midway through last year -- believing shipments would total between 210 and 220 million.
There's expected to be a turn around this year, however, with Chen predicting Foxconn's revenue to grow between 5 and 10 percent on the back of "healthier demand" for the tenth-anniversary iPhone. Apple and its products account for more than 50 percent of Foxconn's revenue.
"Look forward to 2017, we think Foxconn's revenue could grow by 5% to 10%," said Chen. The growth drivers for the current year will come from healthier demand for the next iPhone 8 and a mild rebound in the PC market, according to Chen. Foxconn is also the world's biggest desktop assembler.
For 2017, iPhone's shipment could rise to some 221 million, said Chen.
A lack of "compelling" features for the iPhone 7 was said to be the main reason why many Galaxy Note7 owners decided to stay in the Samsung family when those devices began malfunctioning. After the events of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 crisis began subsiding, analysts criticized Apple for failing to capture new customers into its ecosystem from the churning Note7 user base.
Although Apple.com has listed the BeatsX Earphones as not launching until sometime in February, a few tipsters emailing MacRumors have pointed out that Amazon updated their pre-orders to suggest that BeatsX will be arriving earlier than expected. The updated delivery windows are large, but both place the upcoming earphones with a January delivery date: one ranges from January 17 to January 27, and another from January 18 to January 30.
Additionally, Fry's Electronics lists a shipping date on January 23 for BeatsX. Although that would fall in the window of Amazon's orders, the date is most likely a placeholder. Fry's was a part of a few retailers who suggested a December launch for BeatsX back in November -- a debut which the earphones obviously missed.
On both Apple.com and the official Beats website, BeatsX are currently not available to pre-order. Apple describes the earphones as "currently unavailable" along with the general "Coming February" launch month. On the Beats website, users can opt in for an e-mail notification when BeatsX launches, but there is no purchase or order button option either.
In terms of features, the $149.95 BeatsX Earphones include in-line volume and playback controls on a flex-form cable, along with multiple wingtip and eartip add-ons (four total) that the company says will ensure a secure and comfortable fit for each user. Each bud of the earphones is magnetic and attaches to the other when hanging around a user's neck, further ensuring BeatsX can't easily be lost when not listening to music. The earphones are also part of the new "Got No Strings" Beats advertising campaign.
BeatsX were one of the W1-enabled earphones that Apple announced during its September 7 iPhone event, also including the AirPods, Powerbeats3, and Beats Solo3. The AirPods launched on December 13 and stock quickly dwindled, while the Beats Solo3 have been out since September, and the Powerbeats3 were available to order in October.
Apple's website has been updated to indicate the LG UltraFine 5K Display now ships in 3-5 business days in the United States, compared to a previous estimate of 2-4 weeks listed since just minutes after the display launched on December 20. The improvement suggests the display's supply and demand mix has improved.
The new 5K display, created in partnership with Apple, remains on sale for $974 until March 31, when the price will return to $1,299.95. Shipping estimates vary in other countries, including 2-3 weeks in the United Kingdom, 4-6 weeks in Australia, and upwards of 1 week in Canada.
LG's UltraFine 5K Display connects to the latest MacBook Pro with a single Thunderbolt 3 cable, which simultaneously streams up to 5K video, transfers data, and charges the notebook at up to a full 85W. Apple also sells a 21.5-inch UltraFine 4K Display for $524 until March 31, when it returns to $699.
In addition to 5K resolution, the 27-inch display has a wide DCI-P3 color gamut that shows more vibrant colors compared to the traditional sRGB standard. It also has a built-in camera, microphone, stereo speakers, and three downstream USB-C ports at 5 Gbps speeds for connecting peripherals.
After partners like CBS and NBC were confirmed to be part of Hulu's upcoming live-streaming TV service, Mashable recently got a glimpse of the early build for the service on both iOS and full-screen TV apps. Hulu has still kept details under wraps regarding specific price points and plans, although Hulu Chief Executive Mike Hopkins said last week that it will cost users "under $40" each month.
The addition of live TV is said to have changed Hulu's "entire user experience," by combining the company's existing on-demand content with the all-new live TV streams. The app guides users through a taste-test quiz about the type of TV they like to watch, using the information and accumulated data of what each user watches to offer recommendations on its home screen. If there are multiple users in a house, each person will get their own menu, recommendations, and everyone can watch their shows at once.
If the new Hulu has a philosophy, it's personal, personal, personal. From the home screen to the recommendations it serves up, the new Hulu is intended to be about you. That becomes clear the moment you launch the new app on your phone, which quizzes you on the kind of content you like — genres, networks and specific shows — before you even get to the home screen. Sorta like Foursquare, but for TV.
The "Lineup" greets users when they first dive into their personal profile, and it's said to be "a compilation of the content — live or on-demand — Hulu thinks is most important to you." Favorite shows will take top billing, while shows recorded in a cloud DVR (an expected add-on feature) will also be added to the Lineup.
The user interface then splits content into a horizontal list with icons at the top of the screen representing Movies, News and Networks. The Networks tab is where most of Hulu's live content will be housed, with users able to tap on any channel and tune into what's happening now on each station. Mobile notifications will be available to warn users when a game is starting with their favorite team, but the feature will only encompass sports at launch. Notifications for breaking news and warnings about expiring TV shows are being worked on as well.
One of Mashable's concerns about the new service is its attempt at seamlessly mixing Hulu's old content with its new live-streaming options. The site compared the move to when Apple decided to do something similar with both old, downloaded songs and the new streaming content in Apple Music, which confused many users.
The demo I got of Hulu's new UI was canned, so I didn't get a chance to navigate it myself. From the looks of it, Hulu has done a good job of mixing together live and on-demand content into a single interface, although it's questionable if they ever should have been mixed in the first place.
Similarly, when Apple mixed together on-demand music streaming with downloads in Apple Music, it stepped into a minefield. It eventually rolled back the UI to better separate the two things the app does. Will the same thing happen to Hulu?
Curiosity surrounding the new live TV service from Hulu has been building ever since it was rumored last May. As of now, Hulu's cord-cutting service includes partners CBS, Walt Disney, Time Warner, Fox, and NBC. When it launches sometime in the spring, the service will enter the market to competitors including Sling TV and DirecTV Now, but Hulu won't have to worry about competition from Apple's own live-streaming service since it has long been shelved after the company failed to make inroads with network programmers.
Greenpeace has declared Apple to be the most environmentally friendly technology company in the world for the third year in a row.
The conclusion was reached in the environmental organization's latest report, entitled Clicking Clean: Who is Winning the Race to Build a Green Internet, which awarded Apple a final 'A' grade and a clean energy index score of 83 percent. Facebook and Google also scored 'A' grades, with clean energy index scores of 67 and 56 percent respectively.
"Thanks to the leadership and advocacy of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Switch, we are seeing the tech industry make major strides toward powering the internet with clean energy," Gary Cook, Greenpeace's senior IT analyst, said in a statement.
The report ranked companies on a range of green credentials, from energy transparency and renewable procurement to energy efficiency and mitigation. Nevada-based telecoms company Switch, which develops data centers, was the only company in its sector to be awarded grade A's across the board, with a 100 percent clean energy index.
According to the report, Apple "played a catalytic role within its IT supply chain, pushing other IT data center and cloud operators who help deliver pieces of Apple's corner of the internet to follow their lead in powering their operations with renewable energy".
Apple, Google, and Facebook pledged in 2012 to commit to 100 percent renewable energy sources. Apple's new Cupertino campus, which is currently under construction, will run entirely on renewable energy, thanks to an estimated 700,000 square feet of solar panels.
Despite the positives in the tech sector, the report highlighted concerns with regards to emerging East Asian internet companies, which lack access to renewables from monopoly utilities in those regions.
"Without key policy changes, the rapid growth of the internet in East Asia will likely be powered by coal and other dirty sources of electricity," the report stated. According to Greenpeace, the north and southeast Asian region is the world's biggest emitter of CO2.
Fitbit has made another acquisition in the wearables market, this time buying out European luxury smartwatch maker Vector Watch for an undisclosed price.
Vector Watch only launched in March of last year offering a range of 12 smartwatch models in various fashion-conscious styles. Key features in its line-up include basic activity tracking, phone notifications, and 30-day battery life, with some third-party apps built into the interface. The London-based company announced the buyout in a statement on its website.
Today, we are happy to announce that the Vector Watch team and our software platform are joining Fitbit, the leader in the connected health and fitness market! We believe this is an important milestone as a moment when we will start building other new and amazing products, features and experiences, incorporating our unique technology and knowhow with Fitbit's experience and global community.
Vector said its integration with Fitbit would have no impact on existing customers, whose smartwatches would continue to function as usual, while technical support and warranties would be unaffected. However, new product features (software and hardware) would not be added.
The buyout comes just one month after Fitbit acquired U.S.-based Pebble for a reported $40 million, signaling the company's intention to continue to invest in software development, despite falling shares and a gloomy outlook for the overall wearables market.
Global shipments in the last quarter fell by more than half compared to last year, according to recent figures by IDC. Despite the numbers, Fitbit remains the market leader with 23 percent share, up from 21.4 percent a year ago, on the strength of its new Charge 2 fitness tracker. The Apple Watch is still the world's best-selling smartwatch, but basic wearables account for 85 percent of the market, putting Apple in fourth place overall with 4.9 percent share and 1.1 million devices shipped in the last quarter.
Apple is expected to adopt a forged stainless steel crafting process for its glass-encased "iPhone 8", rather than use traditional aluminum CNC machining.
Taiwanese sources from the upstream supply chain apparently confirmed the transition on Tuesday, according to DigiTimes, with component orders expected to be shared between Foxconn and U.S.-based Jabil.
The next-generation iPhone is expected to abandon its conventional aluminum back cover design and will adopt a new design using two reinforced glass panes and a metal frame in the middle. The metal bezel will be made of stainless steel using a forging process to enhance its sturdiness and reduce costs and manufacturing time.
The stainless steel process was last used by Apple in the iPhone 4s handset, which encased a "glass sandwich" chassis in two CNC-machined steel bands. However, every succeeding iPhone iteration has used aluminum because the alloy offers heightened structural rigidity while remaining relatively lightweight.
Supply chain sources said the cost of the forging process is between 30 percent and 50 percent cheaper than the current unibody CNC machine process, while quality control is also more stable. Despite the switch, Apple is expected to continue outsourcing orders for internal structural parts to Catcher Technology and Casetek, because the stainless steel bezel will require further refinement using traditional CNC machining.
Today's report supports recent rumors indicating at least one model of iPhone this year will have a redesigned all-glass body with a steel frame housing an edge-to-edge, curved OLED display. Jony Ive has wanted to introduce an iPhone that looks like a single sheet of glass for several years, and glass is also necessary if Apple wants to introduce wireless charging. If an edge-to-edge display does feature, the home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor would be embedded in the display.
Apple is said to be planning to position the OLED iPhone 8 as a "Premium" model that will perhaps be sold alongside standard flat display 4.7, 5, and 5.5-inch iPhone models, but details relating to size, configurations, and materials used remain sketchy.
Apple and German company Carl Zeiss AG are working together on a pair of augmented reality smart glasses that could be announced as soon as this year, claims well-known blogger Robert Scoble in a Facebook post.
According to Scoble, a Zeiss employed allegedly confirmed the partnership between the two companies in a conversation that took place at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada last week.
Zeiss' booth at CES. Image via Robert Scoble
Scoble questioned the Zeiss employees at the show after noticing Zeiss had a booth in the augmented reality section of CES without showing off an augmented reality product. He believes Apple forced Zeiss to keep quiet about an upcoming release.
Exclusive news: Apple and Zeiss working together on augmented reality optics. [...]
A Zeiss employee confirmed the rumors that Apple and Carl Zeiss AG are working on a light pair of augmented reality/mixed reality glasses that may be announced this year. (I thought it was next year but now that I saw this I believe it will happen this year).
It's not clear how reliable Scoble's information is, but previous rumors have suggested Apple is working on a set of smart glasses that would connect wirelessly to the iPhone and display images and other information to the wearer.
Apple is said to have contacted suppliers about the project, which appears to be in the exploratory prototyping phase of development. While Scoble believes the glasses could be released in 2017, previous information points towards a 2018 or later release.
Apple has a full team dedicated to AR/VR research and exploring how the technologies can be incorporated into future products. Multiple times over the past year, Tim Cook has said that Apple has a deep interest in augmented reality. "AR can be really great. We have been and continue to invest a lot in this. We're high on AR in the long run," he said in July.
Less than a year after introducing a fee for customers upgrading their smartphones, Verizon has raised the the price of said fee from $20 to $30, reports The Verge.
The fee change was quietly implemented last week alongside the discontinuation of two-year contracts for existing customers. Those customers previously had to pay a $40 fee when activating a new contract and purchasing a new device, while the fee has been $20 for device payment plans and outright purchases from Verizon.
With two-year contracts no longer available, all customers will now pay $30 when upgrading their smartphones on the Verizon network. A separate activation fee when purchasing a new line also applies.
According to Verizon, its upgrade fees help to cover "increasing support costs" from customers switching their devices.
Verizon also recently clarified its data usage policies for unlimited customers, notifying employees that customers who use over 200GB per month will be forced to move to a tiered data plan.
Starting in March of 2017, AT&T will raise the prices of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5, according to information obtained by 
