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Thursday, October 11, 2018

CVS Pharmacy Now Accepting Apple Pay in Stores

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CVS Pharmacy has officially launched support for Apple Pay nationwide this week, a few months after Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the retailer would be accepting Apple Pay later in the year. CVS has been gradually rolling out support for Apple Pay at its stores in recent weeks, and now it appears to be officially complete.

Using Apple Pay, CVS customers can now pay for their items on compatible iPhones and Apple Watches, by placing the devices close to a near field communication (NFC) payment terminal at checkout. In a marketing email being sent out to customers, Apple encourages shoppers to check out at CVS with its mobile wallet:

Get your essentials in a flash. Buying snacks, vitamins, personal care, and prescriptions from CVS Pharmacy just got faster and more secure.

At the launch of Apple Pay in 2014, CVS disabled NFC payment terminals at some of its locations in order to stop the use of Apple Pay. A few years later, the company debuted "CVS Pay," which used a barcode-based system to allow customers to check out using their smartphone and the CVS Pharmacy app.

Now that CVS has turned around and rolled out Apple Pay support, there are just a few remaining large retail chains refraining from supporting Apple's mobile wallet. This includes Target, which previously said it has no plans to accept Apple Pay in its stores and instead launched a "Wallet" feature in the Target iOS app, allowing customers to pay for their groceries and other items with their smartphone at checkout.

Another is Walmart, which has followed a similar trajectory as Target: the company confirmed it has no plans to support Apple Pay in its retail stores, instead pushing its own "Walmart Pay" mobile wallet checkout option. As with CVS, these companies could eventually decide to accept Apple Pay as a checkout option for customers, but as of now it doesn't appear like this will happen anytime soon.

Apple Pay launched in the United States in October 2014, providing tap-to-pay functionality with a compatible iPhone or Apple Watch after setting up a supported credit or debit card in the Wallet app. Apple Pay is now available in more than 20 countries, and now also supports a person-to-person payment feature called Apple Pay Cash.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Tag: CVS

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Developers’ Opinion of Mac App Store Improving, but Many Still Unhappy With Lack of Upgrade Options and Free Trials

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Setapp, a company that offers a subscription service for Mac apps, today published the results of an annual survey querying Mac app developers on the state of the Mac App Store.

Many Mac developers continue to be unhappy with the Mac App Store and fewer are choosing it for app distribution, but Apple's efforts to improve the Mac App Store in Mojave have improved opinions in some cases. To get the data for this survey, Setapp queried a total of 814 developers.

Just 22 percent of Mac app developers choose to distribute their apps exclusively through the Mac App Store. 32 percent, up from 30 percent last year, distribute their apps outside of the Mac App Store entirely, while 46 percent sell their apps both in the Mac App Store and outside of the Mac App Store.

Developers continue to make more money outside of the Mac App Store for the most part, with 59 percent earning more revenue without the Mac App Store and 41 percent earning more money through the Mac App Store.

Despite the fact that fewer Mac developers are using the Mac App Store, among those who do exclusively sell through the Mac App Store, overall opinion has improved. Those who sell outside of the Mac App Store and both through the Mac App Store and outside of it also had a higher overall opinion, though it still trends toward the negative.

Mac App Store developers happy with the Mac App Store
51 percent of developers surveyed said that providing Apple with a 30 percent cut of revenue is worth it, an impressive jump from the 31 percent that said the same thing in 2017.

Compared to 2017, when developers were upset with Apple's sandboxing practices and named it as a key reason for avoiding the Mac App Store, opinions have improved. Sandboxing is no longer seen as a critical issue.

Developers are, however, concerned with a lack of pricing upgrade options, no analytics, and an inability to offer trials.

Developers who do not choose the Mac App Store said they avoided it because of the unclear app review process, 30 percent revenue share, and lack of trials.

This year, 20 percent of developers decided to switch to a subscription model for their apps, and 52 percent of those said that it had an overall positive impact on their business. Of those using subscription models, increased revenue and an active growing user base were cited as positives.

Full details and comparisons between data collected in 2016 and 2017 can be viewed on Setapp's survey website, which also includes details on how developers view the Setapp service.

Tags: Mac App Store, Setapp

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Huawei Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro Prices Leak in Polish Market Ahead of Launch on October 16

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Kuo: Apple Has Opportunity With iPhone XR in China as Chinese Rivals Face 'Lower Than Expected' Demand

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In a research note obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said cumulative smartphone shipments from four major brands on the Chinese market, including Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, declined 10 percent on a year-over-year basis during China's Golden Week, a national holiday and major sales period.

iPhone XR in (PRODUCT)RED
Kuo, writing on behalf of research firm TF International Securities, said the estimated 6.5-7 million shipments during Golden Week, which ran October 1-7, were "lower than expected." He called Huawei the "major winner" as the only brand with a year-over-year increase in shipments during the weeklong holiday.

The well-known analyst attributed the year-over-year decline to a lack of innovative selling points among Chinese-brand smartphones. Kuo is positive on the trends of triple-lens cameras and fingerprint sensors under the display in smartphones, but said only limited models currently support both functions.

Kuo also cautioned that the US-China trade war "may be affecting consumer confidence, which makes the replacement cycle longer."

A third reason is that some consumers—particularly existing iPhone owners—will opt for more affordable legacy iPhone models or wait for the iPhone XR, according to Kuo, who expects replacement demands for the iPhone XR in China will be better than last year's demand for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

Extrapolating from Golden Week, Kuo said smartphone shipments in China in 2018 as a whole may be "lower than expected." He estimates shipments may decline 10-15 percent to 410 million units on a year-over-year basis.

Chinese brands have to rely on overseas markets for further growth, according to the research note, shared with investors Thursday. Kuo remains confident about Huawei's future shipment momentum because the brand has "the best competitiveness among Chinese brands in overseas markets," the note said.

As for Apple, the iPhone XR represents an opportunity for the company to increase its market share and revenue in the Greater China region, where it has faced increasing competition from the likes of Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

Related Roundup: iPhone XR

Tags: China, Ming-Chi Kuo, TF International Securities

Buyer's Guide: iPhone XR (Caution)

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Pocket Updated With Text-to-Speech 'Listen' Feature, Turning Articles Into Podcasts

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Read-it-later app Pocket has announced a few new features coming to the iOS and Android versions of the app today, including a new text-to-speech ability and a new design.

After updating to Pocket 7.0, users will be able to listen to text-based articles that they've saved in Pocket. With a new feature called "Listen," articles can be saved into Pocket from around the internet, opened in the app, and played in their entirety through text-to-speech. Pocket compares this to creating your own personally curated list of miniature podcasts, for when you don't have time to sit down and read.

Pocket's Listen feature is powered by Amazon Polly, a cloud service that can convert text into lifelike speech. Because of this, Pocket says that Listen is not limited to any specific publishers or articles, but can be applied to any text articles viewed inside of the Pocket app. Listen can be found by tapping the headphones icon in the top left corner of Pocket.

Your Pocket list just became your own personal podcast, curated by you. Our new listen feature frees the content you’ve saved to fit into your busy life. It enables you to absorb articles whenever and wherever, whether you are driving, or walking, working out, cooking, or on the train.

The new update also brings a fresh design to Pocket, which the company says is tailored to ensure that readers can focus on their saved articles. There's a new and cleaner article view right when the app is opened, a new app-wide dark theme and sepia theme, and updated fonts and typography so reading is more comfortable overall.

Earlier in the year, Pocket introduced time estimates for articles and videos into the iOS app, allowing users to see exactly how long it will take them to read each piece of content. The new additions to the app follow Mozilla's acquisition of Pocket in February 2017.

Tag: Pocket

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