Apple Loop: New iPhone 16 Pro Details Leak, Europe’s Apple Pay Challenge , Ambitious iPhone Targets

Taking a look back at this week’s news and headlines from Apple, including the latest iPhone 16 Pro specs, fast charging for the iPhone 16, iPhone sales targets, longer-lived Macs, Vision Pro predictions, Apple Pay opening up, and Google Photos tools.

Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Apple in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes.

iPhone 16 Pro Picks Up Improved Camera

Apple looks set to bring x5 optical zoom to the iPhone 16 Pro. Last year this was only available on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but the benefits of the tetraprism lens will reach both Pro models for 2024. There’s no sign of an upgrade to the lens, but it will offer an improved experience on the 16 Pro.

“…analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who cites a recent earnings call with Apple lens supplier Largan…. In the call, a spokesperson from Largan said “some flagship specifications will be extended to other models” in the second half of 2024, presumably in reference to the upcoming iPhone Pro models.

“Apple is Largan’s largest customer, and Largan is also Apple’s largest lens supplier,” Kuo said. “Therefore, the quote likely refers to the fact that the new iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will have a tetraprism camera in 2H24 (while only the iPhone 15 Pro Max had this camera in 2H23).”

(Medium via Tom’s Guide).

How Fast Is Fast Charging On Your iPhone?

The next iPhone models could pick up a faster charging speed with move to 40W wired charging, according to details from the supply chain. It’s worth noting that many high-end Android smartphones offer 120W wired and 50W wireless charging. Apple’s improvement is welcome, but a long way from the average phone:

“While the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can go up to 27W using a cable and up to 15W using MagSafe wireless charging, this year’s models will allegedly take things further. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are apparently going to support 40W wired charging and 20W MagSafe wireless charging. Those are, of course, peak rates, and won’t be achieved for a very long time throughout the charging process.”

(GSM Arena).

Apple’s iPhone 16 Sales Target

Apple has set ambitious internal targets for the upcoming iPhone 16 family of handsets. Tim Cook and his team are looking towards the addition of AI to boost sales by ten percent year on year… even with the launch of Apple Intelligence delayed until the first quarter of 2025:

“The company told suppliers and partners that it’s targeting about 10% growth in shipments of new iPhones compared with their predecessors, a person familiar with the matter said, after shipping about 81 million iPhone 15s in the second half of 2023. The company has grown confident that the addition of some Apple Intelligence features with the iPhone 16 will help boost demand when the model goes on sale late this year,”

(Bloomberg).

Your Mac Is Living Longer

New research data from CIRP looks at the average consumer is holding onto their Mac and using it for longer. This will have an impact on sales, with longer lifecycles pushing back consumer upgrades, which will reduce the size of the market in the short- and medium-term.

“For the US, the study shows the majority of Mac customers – 56% – are now holding on to their laptop or desktop for “3 years or more.” That’s up 16% from 2020. All other lifecycle lengths gave up users to the “3 years or more” category. Those keeping their Mac for 2-3 years are down to 13% from 19% in 2020. Users keeping a Mac for 1-2 years is down to 19% from 23%, and those holding onto a Mac for less than a year decreased to 13% from 19%.

(9to5 Mac).

IDC’s Vision Pro Prediction

as Apple opens up sales of the Apple Vision Pro in a number of European territories, IDC reports on sales of Apple’s headset, and the brave new world of VisionOS is not proving a popular as Apple may have hoped for:

“The $3,500 Vision Pro mixed-reality headset has yet to sell 100,000 units in a quarter since its launch in the US in February, and it faces a 75% drop in domestic sales in the current quarter, according to market tracker IDC.

(Bloomberg).

Apple Pay Gets Come European Competition

Apple will be opening up NFC-based payments in Europe to allow third-party services to use iOS without being forced by Apple to use Apple Pay. The European Commission had flagged up potential anti-competition issues previously, which Apple has now addressed by opening up the NFC hardware to other finance apps:

“The EC market tested the suggestions and, after some consultation, Apple tweaked its proposal to make it easier for developers to prompt users to change their default payment app and removed the requirement for developers to have a license as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) or a binding agreement with a PSP to access the NFC input.”

(The Register).

And Finally…

Moving data between cloud services just became a little easier this week, as photos can now move between the two services from Google and Apple. The software and the usability

“Beginning today, Apple and Google are expanding on their direct data transfer offerings to allow users of Google Photos to transfer their collections directly to iCloud Photos. This complements and completes the existing transfers that were first made possible from iCloud Photos to Google Photos and fulfills a core Data Transfer Initiative (DTI) principle of reciprocity.”

(Data Transfer Initiative).

Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.