The move by Apple allows for further negotiations between the two companies regarding changes that Apple has demanded for the social media platform, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Sept. 5), citing unnamed sources.

Apple’s approval of the WeChat update for the iOS ecosystem is expected to end speculation in China that the dispute between the two companies over Apple’s app store fees could have resulted in WeChat being excluded from the latest iPhones, according to the report.

The disagreement between Apple and Tencent centers around Apple’s demand for a share of the transactions made through WeChat’s mini-games platform, the report said. Apple wants Tencent to block links to external payment services within these mini-games and prevent developers from using the platform’s built-in messaging to direct gamers to other payment portals, thus avoiding paying Apple its usual 30% cut.

While Tencent has rejected Apple’s request to disable in-game messaging entirely, the company is still engaged in talks with Apple about a potential compromise for future updates, per the report.

Tencent Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell said the company is negotiating a revenue-sharing deal with Apple to allow it to accept payments in mini-games using Apple’s system, according to the report. Mitchell expressed hope that the ongoing discussions would lead to a positive outcome, but if not, the current status quo would continue.

Apple’s policies in maintaining the quality and security of its app ecosystem are well-known worldwide, the report said. However, the company’s actions in China, including warning Tencent and ByteDance about in-app payment policies, have raised concerns about alienating creators in a crucial market.

WeChat is widely used in China, with nearly 1.4 billion people relying on the app for various purposes such as paying bills and booking movie tickets, per the report. However, while many payments made through WeChat are exempt from Apple’s fees, in-app content and other online entertainment, such as mini-games, are subject to the iOS charges.

The post Report: Apple Approves WeChat Update, Allows Time for Fee Negotiations appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The iPhone maker is scheduled to announce its new slate of devices on Sept. 9, with China’s Huawei planning a similar event hours later, Bloomberg News reported Monday (Sept. 2).

According to the report, Huawei’s consumer group chief Richard Yu announced the event on social media platform Weibo, describing the company spending five years to create “an epoch-making product.” A source told Bloomberg Huawei plans to introduce the world’s first commercial-ready smartphone that folds twice, along with an Aito electric vehicle launch.

Bloomberg said that Yu has been spotted using the new device, known as a “trifold,” which offers the ability to fit an even larger, tablet-style screen within the dimensions of a standard smartphone. Other Chinese device makers like Honor Device and Xiaomi are also working on new iterations of the foldable phone.

The report noted that Huawei had dethroned Apple from the top five device makers during the June quarter, and argued that scheduling its event on the heels of Apple’s is a sign the company is ready to face off against the tech giant once more.

Apple’s event, meanwhile, will showcase devices like the iPhone 16. The rollout, happening at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, is dubbed “It’s Glowtime,” an apparent reference to the interface used by the digital assistant Siri on the Apple’s newest devices.

The iPhone 16 is due to go on sale Sept. 20. It will feature larger screens on the Pro models and new camera functions like a dedicated button for taking photos, though its most high-profile selling point is the inclusion of the new Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Last month, Apple released quarterly earnings showing quarterly hardware sales crept up to $61.6 billion, with management pointing out the potential for AI to help the company’s efforts to expand its ecosystem.

“It will transform how users interact with technology, from writing tools to help you express yourself to image playground — which gives you the ability to create fun images and communicate in new ways — to powerful tools to summarize and prioritizing notifications,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

The post One-Upsmanship? Huawei Will Debut ‘Epoch-Making’ Smartphones Hours After Apple’s appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Under a current deal between the two companies, Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on iOS devices, according to a Friday (Aug. 30) report by Seeking Alpha.

This longstanding agreement adds billions of dollars and several percentage points of Apple’s operating margin and profits, PYMNTS reported Aug. 6. Apple and Google entered into this Internet Services Agreement in 2016 and, per the deal, Google pays Apple a share of its search ads revenue in exchange for Apple preloading Google as the “exclusive, out-of-box default” search engine. The agreement is in place through 2026, and there’s an option to extend the joint efforts until 2031, via mutual agreement.

“A large direct investment by Apple into OpenAI could raise concerns on potential AI partnership as a long-term alternative to Google search,” Bank of America analysts wrote, according to the Seeking Alpha report. “At the very least, a capital infusion should help OpenAI compete vs. Google and Amazon.”

Apple’s potential investment in OpenAI was reported Thursday (Aug. 29). Apple is among the companies that are in talks to invest in a new funding round by OpenAI, in which the artificial intelligence (AI) company aims to raise several billion dollars, reports said, citing unnamed sources.

OpenAI became the first official partner of Apple Intelligence — a new suite of AI features that will be added to the iPhone, Mac and iPad experience — in June. Later this year, OpenAI’s GPT-4o will be integrated into Apple’s iOS, macOS and iPadOS and, with the user’s permission, will step in to handle tasks that Apple’s Siri can’t manage.

OpenAI said in July that it is testing a prototype of new AI search features that may be integrated into its chatbot, ChatGPT. The company launched the prototype, dubbed SearchGPT, to a small group of users and publishers, and plans to integrate its best features into ChatGPT after receiving their feedback.

When announcing the launch, OpenAI said the prototype is “designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.”

The post Apple Investment in OpenAI Could Threaten Google Search’s Reach appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The cuts are part of a shift in priorities for the unit, Bloomberg News reported late Tuesday (Aug. 27), citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

Among the cuts are workers in engineering roles, with the biggest layoffs happening in the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore, as well as the services team behind Apple News. The report says Apple Books has become a lower priority for the tech giant. However, sources told Bloomberg that the cuts to the news division isn’t a signal that it’s become less important.

PYMNTS has contacted Apple for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

The report notes that layoffs are pretty rare for Apple. However, the company has made a few rounds of cuts this year. 

Apple in April cut 614 jobs, its largest round of layoffs since the pandemic. The company also laid off hundreds of employees when it wound down its connected car effort, and recently shut down a team in San Diego.

The services division has been a revenue driver for Apple, with CEO Tim Cook saying on an earnings call earlier this month that revenues for the unit had climbed 14% in the latest quarter to $24.2 billion as paid subscriptions reached a record high. 

As PYMNTS wrote, that growth rate matched the fiscal second quarter and marked an acceleration from the 11% pace seen earlier in the year. Cook also noted that Apple had seen record revenue “in the majority” of services categories, pointing to advertising, cloud and payment services.

In other Apple news, PYMNTS recently examined the company’s pending artificial intelligence (AI) roll-out, and what that means for its mobile wallet Apple Pay.

“There’s a huge opportunity for Apple to change consumer spending behavior and take its mobile wallet to the next level by integrating it into its core AI strategy,” Darryl Cumming, director of product management at payments solutions company NMI, told PYMNTS. “OpenAI is only the beginning.”

Combining AI with Apple Pay could usher in more intuitive, context-aware financial experiences, that report said.  Potential features include AI-fueled budgeting advice, real-time spending analysis and even predictive purchasing based on consumer habits.

“We should expect consumer choices in the Apple universe to be amplified and channeled into more App Store purchases and commerce personalization,” Cumming said.

The post Apple Reportedly Cutting 100 Jobs in Crucial Services Division appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Understanding how a CFO’s responsibilities have expanded and what qualities are now essential in a CFO is crucial for enterprises looking to grow and win in the 21st century.

Take, for instance, Apple CFO Luca Maestri. Since he was appointed in 2014, the tech giant’s stock value has grown more than 800%.

News broke Monday (Aug. 26) that Apple is undergoing a CFO transition. Kevan Parekh, Apple’s vice president of financial planning and analysis, will replace Maestri Jan. 1, 2025.

After serving as the CFO of Xerox, Maestri joined Apple in 2013 and was elected to the chief finance role within a year of his hiring. He will continue to lead the company’s corporate services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development. He will continue reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

“Luca has been an extraordinary partner in managing Apple for the long term,” Cook said in a statement Monday. “He has been instrumental in improving and driving the company’s financial performance, engaging with shareholders, and instilling financial discipline across every part of Apple.”

Cook added in the statement that Parekh “has been an indispensable member of Apple’s finance leadership team, and he understands the company inside and out.”

Parekh began his tenure at the Cupertino giant leading the financial support of Apple’s Product Marketing, Internet Sales and Services, and Engineering teams.

Read also: Why There Are No Sacred Cows for Today’s CFOs

CFOs Remain Source of Truth Amid Financial Uncertainty

With a new financial leader at the helm, Apple is working to position itself to continue its trajectory of innovation and growth, facing the future with renewed vigor and strategic focus.

“Different industries have seen transition happen at different paces, but 20 years ago, the CFO was the senior accountant at the company … but now, the majority of companies need their CFO to be a strategic leader and trusted adviser, a crucial player in shaping the direction of the organization,” XiFin CFO Erik Sallee told PYMNTS in June for the series “A Day In The Life of a CFO.”

“The hardest part is not coming up with exciting ideas but financing and executing them effectively,” he added.

While serving as CFO, “Maestri enabled essential investments and practiced robust financial discipline, which together helped the company more than double its revenue, with services revenue growing more than five times,” per the statement.

Technology has also reshaped CFOs’ responsibilities, necessitating a broader skill set and a more strategic approach to financial management. Advanced analytics and big data have become integral to financial planning and analysis. CFOs are expected to use data to provide actionable insights, forecast trends and support strategic decisions. This requires a strong understanding of data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “60 CFOs Can’t Be Wrong … AI Can Help Accounts Payable.”

Creating data visualizations or reports is the most common use of generative AI, according to findings detailed in a separate PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Most CFOs See Limited ROI From GenAI, but Boost Its Investment.”

As CSI CFO Ken Gayron told PYMNTS in June, “being a modern CFO is about using your analytical and financial skills to partner with the business, ensuring it makes the best decisions with the right financial lens. At the same time, you have to drive efficiency through automation and process improvement so that you can scale profitably and maintain a competitive advantage.”

“The CFO and the CEO are really the two positions that see the entire business,” he added.

See also: CFOs’ Top 4 Concerns Reveal Importance of Controlling What’s Controllable

Cross-Departmental Discussions Drive Better Results

Apple’s statement noted the close collaboration between its CFO function and CEO as key to the company’s sustainable success, emphasizing the way Maestri instilled “financial discipline across every part of Apple.”

According to PYMNTS’ series “A Day In The Life of a CFO,” finance leaders say that by connecting granular details to overarching goals, CFOs can help ensure that financial strategies support the company’s long-term vision.

Underpinning this approach is the need to establish a culture of financial discipline.

“The finance department exists to fuel decision frameworks,” ABBYY CFO Brian Unruh told PYMNTS in June, noting that the “timely, accurate and multidimensional data” finance teams provide daily to the rest of the business is ultimately what helps define and accelerate internal growth drivers.

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.

The post Trending: Apple’s CFO Shake-Up Spotlights Finance as Corporate Growth Engine appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Maestri will exit the CFO office starting Jan. 1 but continue to lead Apple’s corporate services teams, according to a Monday (Aug. 26) press release. Kevan Parekh, Apple’s vice president of financial planning and analysis, will take his place.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the release that Maestri “has been instrumental in improving and driving the company’s financial performance, engaging with shareholders and instilling financial discipline across every part of Apple. We’re fortunate that we will continue to benefit from the leadership and insight that have been the hallmark of his tenure at the company.”

Cook added that Parekh’s “sharp intellect, wise judgment and financial brilliance make him the perfect choice to be Apple’s next CFO.”

During his tenure as CFO of Apple, Maestri “enabled essential investments and practiced robust financial discipline,” helping Apple more than double its revenue, the release said. Services revenue increased more than five times.

“It is the greatest privilege of my professional life to serve the world’s most innovative and admired company, and to work side by side with a leader as inspirational as Tim Cook,” Maestri said in the release. “I’m looking forward to the next stage of my time at Apple, and I have enormous confidence in Kevan as he prepares to take the reins as CFO.”

Parekh has been with Apple for 11 years and led the company’s worldwide sales, retail and market finance efforts before moving into his current role. Before Apple, he held various senior leadership positions at Thomson Reuters and General Motors.

In other Apple news, the company plans to introduce Apple Intelligence, a sweeping artificial intelligence initiative that experts say could reshape the rules of digital commerce.

Apple is wading into a Silicon Valley AI arms race. Google is integrating the technology into its search engine, Microsoft is making it a part of Office and Meta is weaving it into its social media platforms.

The post Apple Finance Chief to Depart at Year’s End appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

As Bloomberg News reported Monday (Aug. 26), the company will host this event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, home to Apple’s headquarters. The theme: “It’s Glowtime,” an apparent reference to the interface employed by the digital assistant Siri on the Apple’s newest devices.

According to that report, sources said Apple had planned the launch for Sept. 10, but has moved it up one day. Sept. 10, that report noted, is the also the day that presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are due to debate.

The iPhone 16 is set to go on sale Sept. 20. While it will feature larger screens on the Pro models and new camera features such as a dedicated button for taking photos, perhaps the phone’s most high-profile selling point is the inclusion of the new Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Earlier this month, Apple released earnings showing that its quarterly hardware sales crept up to $61.6 billion, with iPhone and wearables sales declining but Mac sales gathering 2.9% to $7 billion. iPad sales jumped 24% in the quarter, to $7.2 billion, bolstered by new launches including the iPad Pro.

During the earnings call, management pointed out the potential for AI to help the company’s efforts to build out its ecosystem.

“It will transform how users interact with technology, from writing tools to help you express yourself to image playground — which gives you the ability to create fun images and communicate in new ways — to powerful tools to summarize and prioritizing notifications,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

In other recent Apple product development news, this month also brought reports that the company is working on a device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic arm, allowing it to perform tasks like adjusting to face the user during a video call.

“Apple envisions the device as a tool for tasks related to smart home management, videoconferencing and home security,” PYMNTS wrote, adding that the company “expects it to be controlled by the Siri digital assistant and Apple Intelligence AI offering; and aims to release it by 2026 or 2027 for around $1,000.”

The post Apple Moves iPhone 16 Rollout Up One Day appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The tech giant’s push comes as Silicon Valley wages an AI arms race. Google is integrating AI into its search engine, Microsoft is infusing it into Office, and Meta is implementing it across social media platforms. Apple, however, has been notably quiet on the AI front — until now.

“Apple’s AI integration could bring us closer to the concept of a true AI assistant — something that’s portable, convenient and seamlessly integrated into our daily lives,” Ryan Waite, vice president of public affairs at Think Big, told PYMNTS. “While we’ve seen attempts at this with devices like Rabbit, they haven’t fully delivered on the promise.”

At the core of Apple Intelligence is a suite of AI-powered features designed to enhance iOS functionality. Central to this is a significantly upgraded version of Siri, bolstered by a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. This collaboration is expected to improve Siri’s natural language processing capabilities, enabling more complex and context-aware interactions.

The first iteration of iOS 18 will debut alongside Apple’s iPhone 16 models in September. However, the full range of AI features is slated for the iOS 18.1 update, expected in mid-to-late October. Initial offerings include AI-enhanced writing tools, context-aware reply suggestions in the Messages app, email summarization capabilities and real-time phone call transcription.

More advanced features are on the horizon. “Image Playground,” an AI-powered image creation and editing tool, is expected to launch in early 2025. This will be accompanied by “Genmoji,” a feature allowing users to create custom emojis using AI technology.

“With Apple’s AI in your iPhone, shopping could be revolutionized similarly to how Amazon transformed book buying,” Waite said. “The key disruption would be reducing friction in the purchasing process and offering hyper-personalized experiences.”

iPhone AI for Mobile Commerce

Imagine entering a store, and your iPhone recognizes your location, pulls up your size preferences, cross-references with current inventory and suggests items you might like — all before you’ve reached the first display. This level of personalization could significantly alter the retail landscape.

But it’s not just about shopping. Apple Pay, the company’s mobile wallet, is set for an AI makeover, too. “There’s a huge opportunity for Apple to change consumer spending behavior and take its mobile wallet to the next level by integrating it into its core AI strategy,” Darryl Cumming, director of product management at payments solutions company NMI, told PYMNTS. “OpenAI is only the beginning.”

Integrating AI with Apple Pay could lead to more intuitive, context-aware financial experiences. Potential features include AI-driven budgeting advice, real-time spending analysis and even predictive purchasing based on user habits.

“We should expect consumer choices in the Apple universe to be amplified and channeled into more App Store purchases and commerce personalization,” Cumming said.

However, before this AI utopia can be realized, Apple must address a significant challenge: privacy. The company has long positioned itself as the guardian of user data. AI requires vast amounts of personal information to function effectively, creating tension between AI capabilities and privacy protection.

“The data collected to fuel any personalized shopping experience will be extremely valuable, not just to Apple, but to any entity interested in selling products or services,” Waite warned.

Apple’s proposed solution includes on-device processing for many AI tasks and new visual cues to indicate when Siri is active. Questions still need to be answered about whether these measures will be sufficient to maintain user trust.

New Revenue Possibilities

The stakes are high. If Apple successfully navigates these challenges, it could unlock significant new revenue streams.

“I expect to see a boost in Apple’s partnerships and digital marketing as they look to swarm the tech industry with new AI innovations,” Cumming said. “Apple is in a unique position, via its existing networks and App Store, to enable a new world of AI-driven commerce.”

This AI push could also upend traditional retail and marketing strategies. Personalized AI recommendations could potentially replace conventional advertising methods.

“It’s a shift from push- to pull-based eCommerce,” Waite said. “Instead of brands broadcasting to consumers, consumers will be pulling exactly what they want, when they want it, through AI-powered interfaces.”

The implications extend beyond Apple’s bottom line. The retail landscape may see a fundamental shift, with AI-driven personalization potentially rendering some traditional marketing approaches obsolete. Brands and retailers must adapt to this new paradigm or risk being left behind. 

As Apple prepares to roll out these features, the mobile commerce landscape appears poised for significant change. The success of Apple Intelligence will hinge on a delicate balance of technological prowess, user trust and ethical considerations. 

“It’s too early to say with certainty, but change is definitely coming,” Cumming said. “It will be a snowball effect — as more big players like Apple commit to making generative AI a part of their core growth strategy, we’re going to see a lot of excitement across the tech industry in the months ahead.”

For all PYMNTS digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily Digital Transformation Newsletter.

The post Apple Plays AI Catchup in Hopes of Creating New Mobile Commerce Frontier appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The company hasn’t announced the timing of the event, but it is planning to hold it on that date, Bloomberg reported Friday (Aug. 23), citing unnamed sources.

Apple did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The iPhone 16 will go on sale Sept. 20 and feature larger screens on the Pro models, new camera features like a dedicated button for taking photos, and Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence tools, according to the report.

The Apple Watch Series 10 models will be thinner but have larger screens, the AirPods lineup will get new low-end and mid-tier versions, and the Macs will transition to M4 processors, the report said.

Later in the year, Apple will add a smaller Mac Mini, new MacBook Pros and iMacs with M4 chips, per the report.

Apple said in an Aug. 1 earnings report that its hardware sales in the third quarter inched up to $61.6 billion, with iPhone and wearables sales slipping but Mac sales gathering 2.9% to $7 billion. IPad sales surged 24% in the quarter, to $7.2 billion, boosted by new launches including the iPad Pro.

Management noted the potential for AI to help transform the company’s efforts to build out its ecosystem. Speaking about AI during the earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “It will transform how users interact with technology, from writing tools to help you express yourself to image playground — which gives you the ability to create fun images and communicate in new ways — to powerful tools to summarize and prioritizing notifications.”

Looking further into the future of product development, it was reported Aug. 14 that Apple is developing a device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic arm, enabling it to perform tasks like adjusting to face the user during a video call.

Apple envisions the device as a tool for tasks related to smart home management, videoconferencing and home security; expects it to be controlled by the Siri digital assistant and Apple Intelligence AI offering; and aims to release it by 2026 or 2027 for around $1,000.

The post Report: Apple to Unveil New iPhones, Watches, AirPods Sept. 10 appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

These changes apply to iOS and iPadOS users in the EU and will take effect by the end of the year, the company said in a Thursday (Aug. 22) update.

One of the changes involves the browser choice screen, as Apple will show more information about browsers to users who view the choice screen, according to the update. The updated screen will be shown to all EU users who have Apple’s Safari browser set as their default browser. In addition, developers of browsers will get access to more data about the performance of the choice screen.

Another change centers on the introduction of a new Default Apps section in Settings that lists the defaults available to each user, the update said. This section will be included in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. In future software updates, there will be new default settings for dialing phone numbers, sending messages, translating text, navigation, managing passwords, keyboards and call spam filters.

In a third change announced Thursday, users in the EU will be able to delete five Apple apps: the App Store, Messages, Photos, Camera and Safari, per the update.

“These updates come from our ongoing and continuing dialogue with the European Commission about compliance with the Digital Market Act’s requirements in these areas,” Apple said in the update.

The Digital Markets Act, which is intended to increase competition in the digital economy, set Big Tech companies scrambling to comply with the new set of regulations that went live in March, PYMNTS reported at the time.

The latest changes announced by Apple come a day after it was reported that the company is reorganizing its App Store in response to global regulations. In that reorganization, the App Store is reportedly being divided into two teams, with one overseeing Apple’s own App Store and the other focusing on alternative app distribution.

The Digital Markets Act has also driven other changes in mobile commerce, gaming, app developer and commission structures.

The post Apple to Update Browser Choice and App Deletion in EU appeared first on PYMNTS.com.