Square is today launching a new set of APIs under the “Build with Square” banner that will allow sellers to use Square payment services and hardware (including Apple Pay), while maintaining a customized point of sale experience that might be crucial to their business.
Apple will introduce several major initiatives to ready its retail stores for the Apple Watch’s launch in April, according to sources briefed on the upcoming changes. Starting on April 10th, Apple will allocate 15 minutes per customer for in-store try-on appointments, using 10 or more try-on stations to manage what’s expected to be a steady flow of customers interested in having hands-on time with the Watch. While customers will not necessarily be required to have an appointment, they will be time-limited and guided during the hands-on experience. Additionally, they will be given the opportunity to place a reservation at the time of try-on for a particular model, and make a follow-up appointment to pick the watch up during the April 24th launch date. Stores will also have launch day stock for walk-in appointments.
New chip analysis of the A8X powering the iPad Air 2 has revealed that it is even more powerful than it initially appeared.
Further analysis by AnandTech showed that initial guesses as to the GPU specification of the Apple A8X chip, exclusively available in the iPad Air 2, were wrong. In fact, the chip uses a unique 8 cluster design. AnandTech describes the discovery as “even better than I thought”. Although the customizations are limited, this represents a big step for the company as it is now dabbling in both custom CPU and GPU engineering, even if the leap over generally-available components in this instance is small.
Effectively, Apple has engineered a way to stick two Imagination GX6450 PowerVR chips on the same die. A die shot sourced by AnandTech confirmed this theory, although the site is unable to publish the image. Shown above is a mockup of what is going on internally.
Following photos that surfaced this morning showing much more subtle antenna breaks on the back of a supposed production model iPhone 6, a video of a device based on the upcoming flagship has surfaced thanks to Feld & Volk, an association of designers and engineers who create luxury custom versions of Apple’s most popular handsets. But what’s interesting about this device is that it seems to actually be built from working parts, and can be seen booting and asking the user to connect to iTunes.