New Mac Pro Facing Lengthy Delivery Estimates, Possibly Due to Coronavirus

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Last week, we reported that many custom iMac, iMac Pro, and MacBook Pro configurations are facing longer-than-usual delivery estimates on Apple's online store in the United States.

The reason for the delays is unconfirmed, but it could be related to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China that has forced many of Apple's suppliers to temporarily close their factories and suspend production. While some factories are beginning to resume operations, initial production appears to be limited.


In any case, the delay has extended to the new Mac Pro. In many European countries, for example, the base model without any customizations is currently estimated for delivery on March 10. While the new Mac Pro is assembled in the United States for orders placed in the Americas, European orders are assembled in China.

The new Mac Pro also has a February 24-26 delivery estimate in the United States, despite being assembled in Texas, possibly because some components are still sourced from temporarily-closed suppliers in China.

The coronavirus outbreak is a fluid situation, so it remains unclear what its impact might be on upcoming Apple products. Last month, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo outlined his expectations for several new Apple products in the first half of 2020, including refreshed MacBook Pro/Air models, refreshed iPad Pro models with a triple-lens rear camera system, Tile-like item tracking tags, high-end wireless headphones, a small wireless charging mat, and a new lower-cost 4.7-inch iPhone.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro

Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Buy Now)

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Two New Vivo 5G Flagship Phones (PD1602, PD1728) Running Snapdragon 865 SoC Spotted on Geekbench

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Deals: Get the 64GB Cellular 11-Inch iPad Pro for the New Low Price of $749 ($200 Off)

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MacMall today is discounting Apple's 64GB cellular 11-inch iPad Pro to $749.00, down from an original price of $949.00. This same iPad Pro is priced between $825 and $925 on competing retailer websites like Best Buy and Adorama, and this $749.00 price tag represents the best-ever price that we've tracked among the major Apple resellers online.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with MacMall. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

MacMall offers free two-day shipping and free returns on certain high-priced items, and the iPad Pro is eligible. The tablet is in stock, so if ordered today it will arrive by Friday, February 14. During checkout, you can also choose to change the storage size and color of the iPad, add AppleCare, or add accessories, but of course that will raise the price of the order.

11-Inch iPad Pro Sale

• 64GB Cellular - $749.00, down from $949.00 ($200 off, lowest ever)

The new lowest-ever discount on the 64GB cellular 11-inch iPad Pro comes after a round of markdowns hit Apple's entire iPad lineup earlier this week. If you visit our article on the sales, you'll find lowest prices on the iPad mini 5, 10.2-inch iPad, and a few other iPad Pro models, in addition to up to $50 off the iPad Air.

Be sure to visit our full Deals Roundup to shop for even more Apple-related products and accessories.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals

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How to change your iPhone's default apps in iOS 13

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Prefer Chrome to Safari, Fantastical to Calendar, and Google Maps to Apple Maps? Here's how to change the default apps on your iPhone

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Foxconn Aims to Reopen Half of Assembly Plants in China by End of February

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Reuters reports that Apple's main iPhone assembler Foxconn aims to reopen half of its manufacturing facilities in China by the end of February. The move would allow production lines to be phased back into action following the extensive lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Taiwan's Foxconn hopes to resume half of its production in China by month-end, a source told Reuters on Wednesday, as the supplier to tech giant Apple and others reopens plants shut over a coronavirus outbreak.

The world's largest contract electronics maker also aims to resume 80 percent of production in China in March, added the source, who has direct knowledge of the matter, citing internal targets set by Chairman Liu Young-Way.

Foxconn was originally planning to reopen its factories on February 10 to begin production on Apple devices after the Lunar New Year holiday, but the company's plans were put on hold due to the ongoing viral outbreak while facility inspections were performed. Local governments are concerned the virus will spread quickly in a labor-intensive working environment.

Foxconn this week got the go-ahead to reopen some major plants in China, and its plant in the eastern city of Kunshan was also approved on Tuesday to resume production. However, only around one tenth of the workforce had returned to two key plants in southern Shenzhen and central Zhengzhou as of Monday, a source told Reuters.

Apple has also extended the shutdown of its own retail stores in China. Stores were supposed to open on Monday, but Apple has decided to wait until February 15.

Apple typically sources components from multiple suppliers, mainly to diversify local production risks, and Apple is mulling shifting more assembly orders for its new models slated for launch in the first half of 2020 to factories in Taiwan, according to DigiTimes.

Tag: Foxconn

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Samsung's Answer to AirDrop Finally Arrives With the Galaxy S20

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Last month we reported that Samsung was working on its own AirDrop killer for Galaxy devices, called Quick Share. On Tuesday, the Korean company unveiled its new trio of Galaxy S20 phones, and we finally got a better idea of what the local file-sharing feature can do.


On the face of it, Quick Share works just like Apple's AirDrop, in that if you're near another user with a supported device, they will show up on your screen and you can share a picture, video, or file with them. Similarly, Galaxy users can also choose to receive files from anyone or only people in their contacts.

However, Quick Share has an added feature that AirDrop lacks – it allows you to share files with up to five people simultaneously. With AirDrop, you can only send to one recipient at a time.

It'll be interesting to see if Apple develops AirDrop further in response to Samsung's Quick Share feature, given that we already know Apple is continually looking to improve its ad-hoc file sharing service. The most recent addition to AirDrop's capabilities is "directional AirDrop," which allows users to point an iPhone 11 at another iPhone user to instantly share files with them.

The feature was made possible by the U1 Wideband chip included in ‌iPhone 11‌ devices that allows the distance between two Ultra Wideband devices to be measured precisely by calculating the time that it takes for a radio wave to pass between the two devices.


Apple says that the directional AirDrop feature is "just the beginning" of what is possible with Ultra Wideband, and says that "amazing new capabilities" are coming later.

The first Android smartphones with Ultra Wideband technology are expected to be released starting later in 2020. Meanwhile, Google is also working on its own AirDrop-like feature called Nearby Sharing for Pixel phones.

• How to Use AirDrop on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

In addition, China's big three mobile vendors are working collectively on an AirDrop-style peer-to-peer transfer protocol that is expected to launch this month. All of which suggests the development of new close-proximity file-sharing features could well hot up between the big players in the coming years.

Quick Share is currently only available for the new Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra 5G, but Samsung says support for other devices is coming soon.

Tags: Samsung, AirDrop, Galaxy S20

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Apple Pay Could Account for 10 Percent of Global Card Transactions by 2025 and Even Rival PayPal

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Apple Pay could account for 10 percent of global card transactions by 2025 and pose a serious challenge to rivals like PayPal, according to recent trend data compiled by research firm Bernstein.


Drawing from the data, Quartz reports that ‌Apple Pay‌ currently accounts for about 5 percent of global transactions. If that growth trend continues, it may well become a long-term competitive threat to PayPal – and could even end up competing with Visa and Mastercard if it chose to set up its own payments network much further down the line.

‌Apple Pay‌ probably won't pose a challenge to the card giants anytime soon. While the tech company could, in theory, create its own network that runs outside the card systems, Bernstein argues that Apple still needs the card networks, which are ubiquitous and trusted. Visa and MasterCard, meanwhile, are used to dealing with partners (traditionally large card-issuing banks) with the kind of scale that even ‌Apple Pay‌ could muster.

The same may not be true for other wallets. "‌Apple Pay‌ is indeed one of the long-term competitive threats to PayPal," Bernstein analysts wrote. For now, PayPal has a commanding lead in the world of online checkouts, and also benefits from network effects that have been building up since the turn of the century. But Apple and PayPal could end up competing for the same turf in the coming years.

Apple's advantage over other digital payments includes its pre-installed Wallet app for iPhone and its tight control over the NFC technology contained within the device that can process contactless payments.

However, that tight control could cause headaches for Apple if it is perceived as a way to block competition. Apple argues that its policies are strictly for security purposes, but it has already run into difficulties in Australia, where big banks want access to the iPhone's NFC function for a competitive level playing field.

The company has also faced a backlash in in Germany, where a parliamentary committee recently passed an amendment to an anti-money laundering law that could force Apple to open up the NFC chip in iPhones to competing mobile payment providers.

In November 2019, the European Union's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager acknowledged that her department has received "many concerns" over ‌Apple Pay‌ and potential anticompetitive issues.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

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