Apple Watch Redesign and Tata Data Breach

Welcome to Night fiveive Mac Daily for Thursday, july second, twenty twenty six. I'm your host, Chance Miller We are sponsored this week by Back Blaze Leading off stay, Apple and American Express have teamed up to announce a new way for card holders to redeem their rewards points Starting this week, American Express rewards points can now be used to pay for Apple Pay transactions This appears right in the checkout flow for Apple Pay in apps, online and in stores When checking out with an American Express card, you'll see a new option for use rewards instead of putting the full charge on the card itself You can choose to use all of your available membership awwards points and cover the entire transaction. or only use some of them and split the charge between points and cash In a statement, Apple's vice president of Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey, said, quote Users want flexibility and choice when shopping online, and we're excited to work with AMX to bring card members a powerful new way to redeem rewards when checking out with Apple Pay The feature makes it incredibly simple and convenient to use points with the seamless, secure experience users know and love from Apple Pay. Again, this new feature is rolling out this week when you complete the checkout process using an American Express card in Apple Pay Interestingly, this feature comes just over a month after Discover discontinued its support for using rewards dollars in Apple Pay Checkout So now AmX has jumped on board to offer it as another differentiator between it and other card providers Next up today, this fall's Apple Watch Ultra four is rumored to have major design changes. But now a new rumor says that the Apple Watch series line could get its own big upgrades next year In multiple different posts this week, reliable leaker Instant Digital on Weibo said that the twenty twenty seven Apple Watch will boast a major overhaul. The account ties the claim back to years old rumors about a so called Apple Watch X model that was said to bring a new design and notably break compatibility with the existing Watch band system This week's rumor from Instant Digital reiterates that the way the band attaches to the case will change with next year's alleged Apple Watch redesign. The leaker says that anyone planning to buy an Apple Watch in twenty twenty seven should hold off on buying any new extra watch bands in the meantime given that the redesigned case could cut off that existing bandned system The Apple Watch X rumor traces back to a twenty twenty three report from Mark Germman who said Apple was planning the biggest overhaul yet for the Apple Watch's tenth anniversary in twenty twenty five Germman had said that this would include a new magnetic band attachment system, as well as a thinner design and a micro LED display None of this actually came to fruition and Apple instead released the Apple Watch series ten which did feature a slightly refreshed design the same existing band system If this week's posts from Instant Digital are to be believed, then it sounds like that major Apple Watch X redesign wasn't scrapped entirely, but simply delayed Instant Digital believes that new design will debut sometime next year which is when we would expect Apple to launch the Apple Watch series thirteen We are sponsored this week by Back Blaze. 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Try it for free at backblaze d. com slash nine to five Mac and get twenty percent off with code nine to five daily Running out today, a new report from Reuters details how Apple and its Indian supplier Tata Electronics are responding to a massive data breach that has exposed sensitive Apple files According to the report, more than two hundred thousand files totaling over six hundred and thirty gigabytes were published on the Dark Web after Tata fell victim to a cyber attack. Reuters says that the leak includes Apple's manufacturing specifications for different products, quality inspection standards for iPhone circuit boards emails, employee passport copies, and years of system logs The leak contains at least sixteen files and folders of purported documents from Taiwan seemiconductor Manufacturing Company, also known as TSMC and twenty three from Qualcom both of which make parts used in iPhones is Apple's main supplier in India and Apple's security team is working in conjunction with the company on the investigation Apple and Tata are said to be working on near and long term measures following this incident But perhaps most notably, Reuters reports, said Apple is particularly concerned right now that the documents include photos of the upcoming iPhone eighteen Pro. set to be released in September Specifically, Reuter says that the files include images of the iPhone eighteen Pro going through drop testing inside Apple's factories The leak also apparently includes a detailed list of iPhone eighteen Pro components and their suppliers. including information about processors used on the logic board the camera system and battery technology Reuters says the photos quote depict a conventional slab shaped gray handset with a three rear camera setup and the Apple logo undergoing quality assurance drop tests. E quote While photos of the ihone eighteen Pro are juicy leaks nonetheless, remember that the iPhone eighteen Pro is expected to look almost identical to the iPhone seventeen Pro apart from being available in new colors The iPhone eighteen P is expected to come in a new cherry, blue, silver, and black lineup of color options So while it is notable and very rare that images of the iPhone eighteen Pro have apparently leaked because of this TA Tod data breach It's not as notable as if it was something like the iPhone fold or perhaps an all new generation of iPhone designs In the meantime, Apple is working with Tod Tod to get this situation under control and to prevent it from happening again in the future That wraps up another episode of Nine toif Mack Daily. As always, you can find all of the latest Apple news on nine toifMac. com Follow along with me on threads at Chance H Miller And we'll be back tomorrow for a new episode of Nine to five Mac. Daily