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telecommunications

Foxconn halts some production lines for Huawei phones, according to reports

Huawei, the Chinese technology giant whose devices are at the center of a far-reaching trade dispute between the U.S. and Chinese governments, is reducing orders for new phones, according to a report in The South China Morning Post.

According to unnamed sources, the Taiwanese technology manufacturer Foxconn has halted production lines for several Huawei phones after the Shenzhen-based company reduced orders. Foxconn also makes devices for most of the major smart phone vendors including Apple and Xiaomi (in addition to Huawei).

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “national emergency” to protect U.S. networks from foreign technologies, Huawei and several of its affiliates were barred from acquiring technologies from U.S. companies.

Tech stocks slide on US decision to blacklist Huawei and 70 affiliates

The blacklist has impacted multiple lines of Huawei’s business including it handset manufacturing capabilities given the company’s reliance on Google’s Android operating system for its smartphones.

In May, Google reportedly suspended business with Huawei, according to a Reuters report. Last year, Huawei shipped over 200 million handsets and the company had a stated goal to become the world’s largest vendor of smartphones by 2020.

These reports from The South China Morning Post are the clearest indication that the ramifications of the U.S. blacklisting are beginning to be felt across Huawei’s phone business outside of China.

Huawei was already under fire for security concerns, and will be forced to contend with more if it can no longer provide Android updates to global customers.

Contingency planning is already underway at Huawei. The company has built its own Android -based operating system, and can use the stripped down, open source version of Android that ships without Google Mobile Services. For now, its customers also still have access to Google’s app store. But if the company is forced to make developers sell their apps on a siloed Huawei-only store, it could face problems from users outside of China.

Huawei and the Chinese government are also retaliating against the U.S. efforts. The company has filed a legal motion to challenge the U.S. ban on its equipment, calling it “unconstitutional.”  And Huawei has sent home its American employees deployed at R&D functions at its Shenzhen headquarters.

It has also asked its Chinese employees to limit conversations with overseas visitors, and cease any technical meetings with their U.S. contacts.

Still, any reduction in orders would seem to indicate that the U.S. efforts to stymie Huawei’s expansion (at least in its smartphone business) are having an impact.

A spokesperson for Huawei U.S. did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/01/foxconn-halts-production-lines-for-huawei-phones-according-to-reports/

telecommunications

Why carriers keep your data longer

Your wireless carrier knows where you are as you read this on your phone — otherwise, it couldn’t connect your phone in the first place.

But your wireless carrier also has a memory. It knows where you took your phone in the last hour, the last week, the last month, the last year — and maybe even the last five years.

That gives it an enormous warehouse of data on your whereabouts that can help your wireless carrier fix coverage gaps while revealing much more. Depending on the density of cell sites around you at any one point, the location data triangulated from them can not only highlight your home and office, but also point to the bars you frequented, the houses at which you spent the night and the offices of therapists you visited.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/03/why-carriers-keep-your-data-longer/

Credit Cards

JCPenney explains why it dropped Apple Pay

JCPenney quietly ditched Apple Pay this month. The decision was announced in response to a customer complaint on Twitter, but without any context or further explanation at the time. JCPenney had first rolled out Apple Pay into testing in 2015, then expanded to all its U.S. stores the following year, and later to its mobile app.

The retailer now claims the move was necessitated by the April 13, 2019 deadline in the U.S. for supporting EMV contactless chip functionality.

As of this date, all terminals at U.S. merchants locations that accept contactless payments must actively support EMV contactless chip functionality, and the legacy MSD (magnetic stripe data) contactless technology must be retired.

JCPenney was not ready to comply, it seems, so it switched off all contactless payment options as a result. However, it hasn’t ruled out re-enabling them later on, it seems.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, JCPenney explained its decision:

A third-party credit card brand made the requirement for all merchants to actively support EMV contactless functionality effective April 13, retiring the legacy MSD contactless technology in place. Given the resources and lead time associated with meeting the new mandate, JCPenney chose to suspend all contactless payment options until a later date. Customers still have the ability to complete their transactions manually by inserting or swiping their physical credit cards at our point-of-sale terminals in stores, an option employed by the vast majority of JCPenney shoppers.

It’s worth noting, too, that JCPenney is hinting here at low Apple Pay adoption among its customer base — as the “vast majority” of shoppers pay using a physical card.

That means the retailer’s decision to re-enable Apple Pay at a later date may still be in question — especially as this change allows JCPenney to fully take back ownership of customer purchase data.

Customer data is an important part of JCPenney’s plan to get the business back on its feet. Under new CEO Jill Soltau, who took the job last October, the retailer has been closing underperforming stores, hiring new execs to focus on merchandise selection and eliminating its low-margin items, noted Bloomberg following the company’s most recent earnings. It’s also reducing inventory and adjusting its buying process to ensure it doesn’t end up with excess inventory going forward.

And, as Soltau explained to investors in February, the retailer is rethinking its pricing and promotions strategies, too.

“I think that’s one of the key initiatives that we’ll be working on here in the coming months because we’re not being as strategic in how we speak to the customer and engage with the customer through our pricing and promotion,” she said. “And I would frankly say it might be a little bit confusing, and you might not know exactly when you can get the best value at JCPenney,” the CEO added.

Customer purchase data allows a retailer to better target its customers with relevant promotions, as stores are able to collect the customer’s name and card number at point of sale, which they can then combine with other demographic data like the customer’s address, phone and email.

Apple Pay, meanwhile, prevents this level of access — something that customers like, but retailers traditionally have not. In fact, the lack of access to customer data was one reason retailers were hesitant to warm up to Apple Pay in the first place, and spent years developing their rival solution, CurrentC, which ultimately failed.

Today, many major retailers incentivize customers to use their own payments solution instead of Apple Pay — as with Walmart Pay, Sam’s Club’s Scan-and-Go, or like Target does with its store card, which can be combined with Cartwheel discounts in a single barcode scanned at point-of-sale.

Apple Pay is also a more secure method of payment, which today’s consumers prefer — particularly in the case of retailers who have suffered major data breaches, like JCPenney has in the past. Plus, Apple Pay allows shoppers to carry only their phone — not a wallet stuffed with physical cards.

The removal of Apple Pay from JCPenney stores was reported earlier by MacRumors which credited Appleosophy. 9to5Mac also noted Apple Pay was pulled from the JCPenney app.

JCPenney has more than 800 stores in 49 states.

Despite being dropped by JCPenney, Apple Pay remains a top mobile payment solution. In January, it was accepted by 74 of the top 100 U.S. merchants, and 65 percent of all retail locations across the country.

JCPenney tells us it will “seek to implement EMV contactless at a later date.”

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/jcpenney-explains-why-it-dropped-apple-pay/

Credit Cards

Apple Card will make credit card fraud a lot more difficult

Apple’s new credit card has a curious security feature that will make it much more difficult to carry out credit card fraud.

The aptly named Apple Card is a new credit card, built into your iPhone Wallet app, which the company says will help customers live a “healthier” financial lifestyle. The card is designed to replace your traditional credit card and give you perks, such as daily cash. Chief among the benefits is a range of security and privacy features, which Apple says — unlike traditional credit card providers — the company doesn’t know where a customer shopped, what they bought or how much they paid.

But its one feature — a one-time unique dynamic security code — will make it nearly impossible for anyone to use the credit card to make fraudulent purchases.

That three-digit card verification value — or a CVV — on the back of your credit card is usually your last line of defense if someone steals your credit card number, such as if your card is cloned or skimmed by a dodgy ATM or stolen from a website through a phishing attack.

But rotating the security code will increase the difficulty for an attacker to use your card without your permission.

The idea of a dynamic credit card number first came about a few years ago with the Motion Code credit card concept, built by Oberthur Technologies, which included a randomly generating number built into a tiny display on the back of the card. The only downside is if someone steals your physical card.

Since then, other credit card makers — including Mastercard, the issuing payment provider for Apple Card — have worked to integrate biometric solutions instead. By enabling a fingerprint sensor on the card, powered by the card machine it was entered into, it was hoped that fraudulent purchases would be impossible. Other credit cards have worked to roll out biometric-powered credit cards. Again — a big letdown was online fraud, which still accounts for a huge proportion of fraud.

Apple Card seems to meld the two things: a virtual credit card with a rotating security code, protected by a biometric, like Touch ID or Face ID in newer devices. Better yet, the company’s debut physical titanium credit card won’t even have a credit card number.

Now if someone wants to commit fraud, they need to steal your phone and your face or fingerprint.

Like other sensitive data — such as health, financial and biometric data — any banking and credit card data is stored on the device’s security chip, known as the secure enclave.

Apple Card will be available in the U.S. later this summer.

Apple introduces its own credit card, the Apple Card

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/25/apple-credit-card-fraud/

Telecom

Hands On: This is the Apple Watch’s most important update yet

Image: karissa bell/mashable

Apple just upped its smartwatch game in a huge way.

The Apple Watch Series 3 is the biggest and most consequential update to date. By adding LTE connectivity, Apple has delivered an upgrade that will completely change how you use the device.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s biggest announcement won’t be the iPhone 8, but HOW you use it

Earlier iterations of the Apple Watch, and frankly, most other smartwatches, have been hamstrung by their dependency on your phone for data. By completely untethering the watch from your iPhone, it’s not a completely different story. 

Prior to today’s unveiling there was some speculation as to whether Apple would significantly change up the design with Series 3. Not only did Apple not change the form factor of its watch, they managed to keep the case size nearly identical even with the additional LTE radio and SIM.

Image: KARISSA BELL / Mashable

The only difference is that the case is now slightly thicker. The company says it’s the equivalent of about two sheets of paper — but it’s not noticeable that I could see.

The most noticeable difference is the red dot on the Digital Crown, which doesn’t actually do anything other than let people know you’re wearing the latest Apple Watch, which is, of course, the point. 

Speaking of colors, the Series 3 also comes in a few new finishes: a new shade of pinkish gold and a gray ceramic. Both are nice, if somewhat predictable, additions. 

The new gold finish.

Image: karissa Bell/mashable

Gray ceramic.

Image: karissa Bell/mashable

Naturally, there are a load of new band styles and colors to go with the new watches. The woven nylon bands now come in new patterns, and there’s a new sport band made of soft nylon that promises that is much more adjustable than the existing sport band.

New bands and colors aren’t why you’re going to want to upgrade your Apple Watch, though. You’re going to upgrade because LTE connectivity completely changes what you can do with it.

The new sport band is more adjustable so it can fit closer to your wrist.

Image: karisa Bell/mashable

Yes, you can send text messages and make phone calls from your wrist even when your iPhone is at home. But it also means you can ask Siri to call you an Uber or a Lyft, stream music, and use any other Apple Watch-enabled app. 

All this comes with one important caveat, though: You’ll have to fork over extra money to your carrier each month for your watch. And even though carriers tend to charge significantly less for smartwatch data, handing even a little more money over to telecom companies just plain sucks. 

If you can get past that, though, there are other reasons to upgrade.

The latest version of watchOS also comes with new fitness tracking features, like the ability to track high intensity interval training. There’s also a built-in altimeter, which allows the watch and watch apps to better track your elevations — a huge update for skiers and snowboarders. 

There are also a load of upgrades to the heart rate monitor. Now, the watch’s heart rate monitor can track your heart rate over time and, when paired with the Health app on the iPhone, surface all your past heart rate data.

As Apple pointed out during its keynote, this has big implications for how people monitor their health, since they can better track changes in their heart rate over time. 

WATCH: If you wear an apple watch, you’re an a**hole

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/09/12/apple-watch-series-3-hands-on/

Merchant Services

With the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, are consumers caught in the middle?

Today’s retail launch of the Apple iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is a crucial test for Apple’s riskiest iPhone strategy.

For the first time, Apple introduced its latest iPhone upgrades while simultaneously teasing something better coming soon — what, by Apple’s own admission, is “the future.”

SEE ALSO: Here are the first photographer-shot iPhone 8 pictures

Apple’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are, based on my review and what I’ve seen elsewhere on the web (and even in teardowns), “S” series devices in full-number-update clothing. Except for the glass back, the handsets maintain the iPhone 6 design introduced in 2014. Apple swapped out the A10 Fusion chip for the incredibly powerful A11 Bionic CPU, but left the screen and cameras largely unchanged.

I really like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, but the changes come directly from Apple’s “S” playbook.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this, and I really like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, but the changes come directly from Apple’s “S” playbook: Upgrades instead of an overhaul, so the number stays the same to signal the subtler nature of the changes.

Instead of delivering the iPhone 7S (and 7S Plus), though, Apple gave them the full-number update treatment and simultaneously introduced the iPhone X (which, to remind, is pronounced “ten”). With its aggressive redesign and cutting-edge technology like the TrueDepth camera module, edge-to-edge OLED display and retirement of the home button, the iPhone X earns the name. It’s the true apex iPhone and easily the most coveted product in Apple’s iPhone lineup.

On Friday, the day Apple put the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus on sale in retail stores (after a few days of online store pre-sales) I started reading reports of sparse crowds at Apple Stores. In London, there were more Apple employees in the store than queued up iPhone 8 buyers, and it appears to be a very similar picture in the U.S. To be fair, iPhone retail launch events have been in decline since the iPhone 6 launch.

At the same time, I launched a little online poll:

People want the X.

Image: lanc eulanoff

Granted the results aren’t exactly scientific, but the sentiment is clear: More than half the people responding are sitting on their hands and waiting until the sexier iPhone X ships in November, even after numerous reports said supplies could be so low that some people won’t get the smartphone until next year. 

What if, I wondered, Apple made a terrible mistake?

This strategy of offering the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus first, while the real update, one that some believe is prohibitively expensive, looms just a few weeks later, is an unusual choice. In fact, it could squeeze Apple from both sides. iPhone consumers usually want the shiniest, new thing, but they don’t want to pay an arm and a leg (The argument could be made they they’ve been doing so for ages, but the loss of carrier subsidies and the psychographic impact of a $1,000 price should not be underestimated).

Could iPhone consumers feel caught in the middle between the phone they really want, but can’t afford, and the more reasonably priced device that doesn’t excite them because it’s not Apple’s ultimate iPhone?

Looked at this way, this bold iPhone strategy could be Apple CEO Tim Cook’s first big misstep… or another stroke of brilliance.

One iPhone for all

Ten years ago, we had one iPhone to choose from. Even as Android competitors started introducing a wider array of handsets and the early, large-screen devices that, at the time, few (certainly not Steve Jobs) believed would be successful, Apple maintained its one (small-screen) handset strategy

That strategy persisted until 2013, when Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 5C alongside the iPhone 5S. Suddenly, Apple’s new phone lineup doubled in size. It set the stage for the company’s first big-screen iPhone, the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, which launched in 2014 next to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. 

Personally, I loved this shift. It acknowledged changing smartphone tastes and started to give people design and price options. 

Today, we have a lineup of eight iPhones that range in price from the $349, 4-inch, iPhone SE to the $999, 5.8-inch, iPhone X. There’s a lot of choice in there and I have no doubt that consumers welcome this. However, the core iPhone user, the person who bought the first iPhone as a status symbol and has upgraded like clockwork to every new device each year is possibly facing a dilemma.

This bold iPhone strategy could be Apple CEO Tim Cook’s first big misstep…or another stroke of brilliance.

If they bought the iPhone 7 last year, are they planning on buying the iPhone 8? Probably not. It certainly wasn’t my recommendation. So that means they wait for the iPhone X.

As Mashable Senior Tech Analyst Raymond Wong pointed out to me: This is potentially a “win-win” for Apple. Consumers who don’t buy the cheaper iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, will just wait for the expensive iPhone X.

He may be right, but what if anemic iPhone X supplies in 2017 mean that most people are waiting or buying their iPhone X in 2018?

“So what?” you might respond. Apple still makes the money, right?

Yes, but what does the Apple’s first quarter look like if demand for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is low (we have yet to hear about pre-sale numbers, but there have been zero reports of delivery delays on pre-sales, a possible sign of soft demand) and tens of millions of customers wait for iPhone X in 2018?

Apple’s first quarter, the one that includes holiday sales, has looked amazing for almost a decade precisely because of the iPhone, which sells anywhere from 40 to 75 million units in the first three months after launch. Those sales are driven by the Apple’s hottest new device and, in this situation, that isn’t the iPhone 8.

Things could still work out in Apple’s favor, especially if they just collect all the pre-orders for the iPhone X, put those sales on the 2017 Q1 books and then let people wait for delivery until next year when they can make enough of the 5.8-inch handsets.

Alternatively, Apple could benefit from the unusually high number of upgraders ready to buy new phones. Samsung told me earlier this year that some 50 million consumers were at the end of the 18-month smartphone ownership cycle. They hope to sweep a lot of them up in the Galaxy S8/S8+ and Note 8 launches. But they’re up for grabs for Apple, too, which could sell them any one of eight different iPhones.

I’m confident Apple will sell millions of new iPhones, but if most them end up being the iPhone X, the question of when those sales happen starts to look really murky. Will they still be meaningful if many happen after the Samsung Galaxy S9 is a reality? Or iPhone 11/iPhone X2 rumors start to mount?

How the world — and Apple’s customers — respond to a protracted iPhone X launch is anyone’s guess.

Watch: Secrets of the Steve Jobs Theater

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/09/22/could-apple-risky-iphone-8-and-x-strategy-backfire/

Merchant Services

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus pre-orders start right now

Apple's iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
Image: Apple

The moment has arrived: You can now pre-order Apple’s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. 

If you haven’t been paying attention, those are not very close relatives with the radically new, huge-screened iPhone X; instead, they have a lot more in common with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. 

SEE ALSO: If you own an iPhone 7, you absolutely should not buy an iPhone 8

So, what’s new? Well, besides the brand new gold/pink color, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have better cameras compared to their predecessors. They also sport Apple’s new A11 Bionic processor, they have wireless charging, and the speakers are a little bit louder. 

The design was slightly changed — the new phones have a glass back now — but the form factor is the same as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. 

The iPhone 8 starts at $700 for the 64 GB model, while the iPhone 8 Plus starts at $800 for the 64 GB model.

You can pre-order both devices right now from Apple’s online store, with the shipping date being Sept. 22., though some models are listed as shipping in 1-2 weeks. 

WATCH: The iPhone X is here—and we are drooling

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/09/15/iphone-8-pre-order/