Did you know the largest Apple Store in Asia was just inaugurated? Located in China, the store has been opened up for public, and is making news across the globe. Head on after the jump for further details.
Customers can now buy products online from the Apple Store using PayPal. Previously available as a payment option for purchases made through the App Store and iTunes, PayPal could only be used for buying digital goods, but this seems to have changed now.
Signaling a first for the region, Apple has started selling iTunes gift cards to customers in the United Arab Emirates ahead of the opening of its first retail store.
One of the major announcements at last month's Apple event - aside from the introduction of two new smartphones and the company's inaugural smartwatch effort - was that of Apple Pay, a contactless, NFC-driven system that would allow iOS 8 users to seamlessly pay for goods at a wide selection of outlets. As excited as we were about this significant new initiative, Apple did make it clear at the time that Apple Pay wouldn't be hitting the scene until this month. With iOS 8.1 now upon us, we're likely to witness a rapid, concerted effort to support the new infrastructure, and this has begun quite close to home today with an update to the Apple Store app.
Apple has posted a number of job listings for a future retail store in the United Arab Emirates. These listings are a strong, positive indicator that Apple might be making a move towards opening an official store in the UAE, which would make it the tech giant’s first official move into the Middle Eastern region.
Apple customers in the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and a whole host of other European countries are now able to utilize a handy new feature to add monetary credit to their iTunes accounts. After silently rolling the iTunes Pass feature out in Japan, Apple has continued on the path of giving by making the feature available to those in the US and Canada, with a number of additional countries also confirmed to be in on the action, including Germany. The feature allows consumers to adds funds to an iTunes account using Passbook, rather than having to purchase an iTunes Gift Card to redeem.
Apple has, for a good while now, been looking to expand the reach, functionality and general usefulness of the Apple Store app. In short, the Cupertino company wants it to serve as the focal point of the consumer's Apple experience, and in order to help familiarize iOS users with the service, the company has been running a series of promotional giveaways. Going on the premise that everybody loves a freebie, we've already seen paid apps go free through the Apple Store app, and over the festive period, a special free playlist of tracks was compiled and distributed in the spirit of the occasion. Today, Apple is back with another free mixtape of sorts, pushing a three-song bundle out focusing on new artists for 2014.
Witnesses on the scene in New York are reporting that a snowblower has accidentally collided with one of the glass panes in Apple's Fifth Avenue Retail Store. It's certainly not unusual to see a heavy piece of machinery snowblowers on the streets of New York City as part of the cleanup crew that is dealing with the aftermath of a heavy snow storm. However, Apple employees will be slightly dismayed to see that such substantial damage has been caused to the $450,000 piece of glass that forms part of the store's iconic "cube" exterior.
Apple has been working hard over the past year or so to noticeably improve the Apple Retail Store experience. The Apple Store app, for example, has been greatly enhanced, offering all kinds of free content including a Christmas-themed playlist earlier this week, and now, the Cupertino giant has rolled out its iBeacons infrastructure across the entire network of U.S. retail outlets. For the benefit of the uninitiated, iBeacons hubs will reside in various locations throughout each Apple Store, and depending on whereabouts you are at any given time, beam information about certain products within that proximity via the Apple Store app.
It's no secret that Apple is looking to make a lot more of its Apple Store app than it has so far. Over the past few years, it has been used to place orders, pay for purchases wirelessly when in the Apple Store, and to check out the latest products released by the Cupertino company, but in more recent times, we've seen Apple promote the app by giving away free stuff. With this this in mind, as well as the fact that the holiday season is now upon us, Apple has released a playlist of Christmas-themed songs from famed artist such as Mary J. Blige, Kool and the Gang and Kelly Clarkson, and all are available for free through the Apple Store app.
