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Walmart to Begin Accepting Apple Pay in U.S. Stores‎

After years of holding out, Walmart today announced that it will finally begin accepting tap-to-pay options like Apple Pay and Google Pay in some of its Walmart and Sam's Club stores in the U.S. starting Monday, August 24. The retailer plans to roll out tap-to-pay support to all of its U.S. stores by the end of 2026 and to its gas stations by mid-2027. "We want customers and members to have choice in how they pay, so they can check out in the way that works best for them," said Walmart, in a press release. Walmart has already accepted Apple Pay in its Canadian stores since 2020.Related Roundup: Apple PayTag: WalmartRelated Forum: Apple Music, Apple Pay/Card, iCloud, Fitness+This article, "Walmart to Begin Accepting Apple Pay in U.S. Stores" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

17:13
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MacRumors

Apple Paid $17 Billion in Taxes to Ireland Last Year‎

Apple paid $17 billion in taxes to Ireland last year, which is 40% of its $43 billion worldwide total (via the Financial Times). The figures were disclosed for the first time under new EU rules requiring large companies to break down their finances by country. The payment was significantly boosted by the EU's top court ordering Apple in 2024 to pay €13 billion in back taxes, after ruling that Ireland had granted the company unlawful state aid resulting in a tax rate of less than 1%.This article, "Apple Paid $17 Billion in Taxes to Ireland Last Year" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

17:13
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MacRumors

Smartphone Sales Are Falling Worldwide, But Apple Keeps Growing‎

Apple gained ground in India, Latin America, and Europe even as all three markets contracted, according to a new series of Counterpoint Research reports. Between late March and the beginning of August, Indian smartphone sales ran 14% behind the equivalent stretch of 2025, and the market slipped for three straight weeks once major promotions in July had finished. Apple outperformed every rival with a 15% rise, which Counterpoint attributes to strong iPhone 17 demand holding up alongside continued affordability offers. Samsung and OPPO each grew just 4% in the country. The research firm added that promotions are borrowing demand from the weeks either side of them, rather than growing the market. Amid broad price rises, Counterpoint expects the Indian smartphone market to finish 2026 down around 13%. Latin American smartphone shipments fell 10% in the second quarter, which is the region's steepest annual drop since the third quarter of 2023. Apple and Samsung were the only brands to grow, by 5% and 6% respectively, while Motorola, HONOR, and Xiaomi all receded in the market. Apple's gains apparently came from absorbing component cost increases rather than passing them on to customers, and the company now accounts for roughly 51% of everything sold above $600 in the region. European shipments dropped 10% to 35 million units, which is the weakest second quarter in three years. Apple added nine percentage points of market share to achieve parity with Samsung, with each now on 34%, and Xiaomi on 15%. No other brands sit above 4%. Counterpoint expects further declines as inventory dries up, but forecasts that Apple will continue outperforming the wider market. The smartphone market in China was down 8.6% across the first 30 weeks of the year, with the rate of decline widening back into double digits once the popular 618 shopping festival had concluded. Apple's sales have slowed since July, with discounts pulled back across retail channels and much of the summer's demand already spent during promotions. Counterpoint expects that lull to last until the new iPhone lineup arrives. Huawei, meanwhile, led the market throughout in the region, holding more than a fifth of weekly sales since April. Counterpoint expects constrained memory supply and elevated prices to run through the remainder of 2026, with a recovery unlikely before 2028. Apple is expected to introduce its next iPhone lineup in September, featuring the iPhone 18 Pro, ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max, and foldable "iPhone Ultra."Tags: China, Counterpoint, Europe, India, Latin AmericaThis article, "Smartphone Sales Are Falling Worldwide, But Apple Keeps Growing" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

16:42
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MacRumors

Apple Reportedly Lays Off 60 Vision Products Group Employees‎

Apple "has just laid off an entire team dedicated to VR development," reports AppleInsider, citing its own source. Apple is said to have laid off at least 60 employees from its Apple Vision Group. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that the Vision Pro team was disbanded and its members redistributed across other projects, following the October 2025 refresh of the Vision Pro and the headset's weak reception. Incoming Apple CEO John Ternus also reportedly signed off on canceling both a second Vision Pro and a cheaper, slimmer "Vision Air," with Apple's focus now shifted to smart glasses. Gurman doesn't expect Apple to launch another headset before late 2028 at the earliest.Related Roundup: Apple Vision ProBuyer's Guide: Vision Pro (Neutral)Related Forum: Apple Vision ProThis article, "Apple Reportedly Lays Off 60 Vision Products Group Employees" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

14:39
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MacRumors

Camera AirPods Code Reveals Image Capture Resolution, Status Light, Person Detection, and More‎

Apple is working on camera-equipped AirPods, as indicated by various reports and a demo video of them in action discovered earlier this week. The video was found by MacRumors in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, but it turns out there are even more details in the code. MacRumors forum member mactracker has discovered a hidden macOS framework called "AccessorySensorManager" that manages sensor data from the AirPods when they are connected to a Mac. That's turned up the following information: AirPods designed to capture paired color images: Code indicates the left and right earbuds have individual camera sensors that return synchronised RGB still images of up to 1 megapixel with matching frame IDs, giving Visual Intelligence the same scene from two angles. This doesn't rule out other sensors like infrared cameras, but they aren't mentioned in the code. AirPods support periodic image capture but not video: The cameras take internal still frames for Visual Intelligence to process, rather than "taking pictures" or recording video. In "active" mode, the framework can request a synced pair of images, or it can receive a capture rate, where pairs of stills are continually sent at the specified rate. Active and passive capture modes use different resolutions: In "active" mode, likely triggered by the user via Siri, the AirPods capture a 640x640 image and return a processed 1024x1024 image. "That's about 0.4 megapixels of sampled image data, and a little over 1 megapixel for the output frame," mactracker explains. In "passive" mode, they capture a 320x320 image that can return a 320×320 or 512×512 output. "These are capture-specific resolutions, and the physical sensor's native resolution may be larger," adds mactracker. Passive mode appears intended for background environmental awareness: The framework mentions contextual conditions like nearby speech, changes in the surrounding audio, posture changes, head rotation, and movement outside a defined area. It's not clear from the code whether every condition triggers a camera capture. AirPods account for continual head movement: The framework includes lens distortion correction, dual-camera calibration, and camera-to-motion sensor calibration. It can also reject images affected by excessive movement or an occluded view. Some processing happens directly on AirPods: The code mentions "peripheral inference," or on-device detection of whether a person is in view. Each AirPod likely has a capture indicator light: The framework contains code that allows it to remotely control a hardware indicator and its brightness, suggesting the AirPods have a light to let other people know when they are capturing still images. It's worth noting that the AirPods that were shown in the demo video were a version of the AirPods Pro 3 with cameras, which have a B790 codename. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said that Apple no longer plans to release this model, and instead is working on a new generation of AirPods with cameras, codenamed B798. This makes it likely that the discovered framework is related to the canceled model. It also underlines that the findings show how Apple's camera-equipped AirPods could work, rather than a guarantee of the final product's features. Gurman says the AirPods are planned for 2027, and could potentially launch alongside the 20th-anniversary iPhone.Related Roundup: AirPods 4Buyer's Guide: AirPods (Caution)Related Forum: AirPodsThis article, "Camera AirPods Code Reveals Image Capture Resolution, Status Light, Person Detection, and More" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

12:37
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