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Apple and Goldman are the FinTech Power Couple

Andrew Orr ·

Wall Street was surprised when Apple chose to partner with Goldman Sachs. According to a new article by WSJ, other financial institutions like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase offered their services to Apple as well.

Goldman can’t do it on its own either. It is new to consumer banking, having spent most of its 150-year history catering to big companies and billionaires. Without branches, it needs other ways to find customers for its online savings and lending business. Apple, too, needs new engines of growth as iPhone sales slow.

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The Mystery of the Beats AirPlay 2 Speaker

Andrew Orr ·

Zac Hall reminds us that right before Apple announced the HomePod, Craig Federighi showed a slide of speakers that would support AirPlay 2. But where is the Beats AirPlay 2 speaker? It’s been two years and we haven’t seen it.

A Beats AirPlay 2 speaker would still need Wi-Fi though. Wi-Fi would be new to the current Beats lineup, but it wouldn’t be the first Bluetooth + Wi-Fi combo AirPlay 2 speaker. Libratone’s versatile Zipp speaker retroactively added AirPlay 2 support to its existing portable Wi-Fi + Bluetooth speakers last year.

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1TB MicroSD Cards Are Here And It's Insane

Andrew Orr ·

1TB microSD cards are here, and it’s insane that the technology has reached this point. Western Digital, Samsung, and Micron have announced 1TB cards at Mobile World Congress.

The new SanDisk card can record with 90MB/S write speeds with up to 160MB/s read speeds. Western Digital says the card can transfer files with twice the speed of standard UHS-1 microSDs. That’s paired with 1TB of storage, designed to expand the memory of a smartphone or to manage large files in action cameras and drones. The card will also launch in a 512GB version.