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Apple Could Have Multi-billion-dollar Payment Businesses

Charlotte Henry ·

Payment services like Apple Pay and Apple Card could be the company’s next multi-billion-dollar businesses as the fintech sector grows. That’s according to a note to investors from Cowen analyst Krish Sankar, seen by AppleInsider.

“While Apple has portrayed these digital services as complementary to its mobile hardware platforms, we believe future scaling out of these services globally coupled with increasing depth and sophistication of them could position Apple as an emerging contender in the fintech space,” Sankar writes. Within Apple’s fintech segment, the analyst expects Apple Pay to remain the cornerstone. The platform could see increasing acceptance at U.S. retailers, and Sankar predicts that the contactless payment service will be the largest revenue driver over the next few years, with an expected $800 million in growth annually. Sankar sees Apple Pay growing at an 18% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2023, and markets such as Asia and Europe could allow for even further expansion.

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The Features That Could be Missing From an iPhone 12 Mini

Charlotte Henry ·

There have been rumors that amongst the iPhone 12 lineup will be a ‘mini’. Macrumors looked at the compromises this might involve and the features that might be missing. Most significantly, this includes reduced battery life.

As the smallest device in the ‌iPhone 12‌ lineup, the ‌iPhone 12‌ mini is also expected to have the smallest battery. Certifications have suggested that the battery capacity of the ‌iPhone 12‌ mini is 2,227mAh. Apple’s current smallest flagship ‌iPhone‌, the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro, has a battery capacity of 3,046mAh battery, making the ‌iPhone 12‌ mini’s capacity 819mAh smaller. Although the A14 Bionic processor and OLED display are likely to improve energy efficiency, the fundamental limits of battery size in the ‌iPhone 12‌ mini are likely to result in an overall smaller battery life.

 

Cool Stuff Found

Watch a Preview of Bruce Springsteen’s “Letter To You’

Andrew Orr ·

Apple announced on Friday a Bruce Springsteen documentary, and you can see a preview of it that will be released Friday, October 23. It captures Mr. Springsteen recording live with The E Street Band for the first time in 35 years. Both the album and companion documentary include recently written Springsteen songs side by side with legendary but previously unreleased compositions from the 1970s. Throughout the documentary, Springsteen shares his thoughts and feelings behind “Letter To You,” and puts the new music into the context of his entire body of work. In that way, it’s the next piece in the autobiographical series that began with the memoir “Born to Run,” continued with “Springsteen on Broadway” and advanced through his film “Western Stars.”

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When Will The Targeted Advertising Bubble Burst?

Andrew Orr ·

A large part of the web is free because of targeted advertising, but former Google employee Tim Hwang argues that it doesn’t even work.

He notes that while “some digital and social media messaging is quite effective,” it’s common for platforms and media agencies to triple (at least) its apparent value by wrongly crediting digital ads for purchases that consumers would have made anyway. Aral calls this “the most widely used shell game in business today.”

Or, as Hwang puts it: “The whole edifice of online advertising is, in short, bunk.”