iPhone 6's to take up to 4 weeks to ship
NEW YORK -- Apple's new iPhones will take as many as four weeks to ship, as people rushed to buy the smartphones hours after the world's most valuable company began taking pre-orders.
The iPhone 6 Plus, which has a larger display, will take three to four weeks for shoppers who pre-order online Friday, according to Apple's website. Certain models of the iPhone 6, which has a slightly smaller screen, will take an extra seven to 10 business days to arrive, though some versions are still available for delivery on Friday, when the devices are set to officially go on sale in stores.
Apple last week unveiled the new smartphones with rounded edges, thinner frames and higher-resolution displays, and they became available for pre-order starting at 3 a.m. Eastern time Friday. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is counting on the new devices to usher in demand for other products he introduced this week, from the iPhone-compatible Apple Watch to the credit card substituting Apple Pay service.
Demand for the latest iPhone is the greatest AT&T has seen in two years, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of its mobile division, said Friday at a Goldman Sachs media conference.
This isn't the first time Apple and phone carriers have seen iPhone models delayed and sold out well before they were available in stores. In 2012, the iPhone 5 was delayed for shipment by a week after a rush of orders, and in 2011, the iPhone 4S sold out at AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel only five days after pre-orders began.
The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch display, and the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch one, while the previous iPhones have a 4-inch screen.
-- Bloomberg News
Facebook official says Chinese want in
BEIJING -- Facebook says Chinese consumers routinely ask about accessing its services even as a regulator indicated there's little chance a ban will be lifted.
"When I'm in China, I often get asked," Facebook Vice President Vaughan Smith told a conference sponsored by the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, on Thursday. "They all come to me and say, 'Hey, when is Facebook going to come to China?'"
Since 2009, the operator of the world's largest social-networking site has only been accessible in China through so-called proxy services that sidestep government censors. Without an accessible site, Facebook is limited to selling marketing services to exporters. Lu Wei, minister of China's Cyberspace Administration, told state-run media at the forum that Facebook "cannot" win access any time soon.
Facebook said before its 2012 listing that substantial legal and regulatory complexities prevented its entry into China, home to the world's largest number of Internet users.
After his speech Thursday, Smith declined to comment on when Facebook would be able to enter China. Smith said he was unaware of Lu's remarks as reported by the China Business News.
China controls the Internet by blocking sites that contain pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party.
Other U.S.-based social-network sites, including YouTube and Twitter, are also blocked. That leaves LinkedIn, which set up a Mandarin-language professional networking site in February, as the biggest U.S. social media company active in China at the time.
-- Bloomberg News
Consumers don't care to pay via iPhone
Although shoppers can use Apple's newest iPhone instead of their credit and debit cards to buy goods and services from retailers who install the required technical system, nearly two-thirds of Americans express little or no interest in making payments by tapping their cellphones at a register, according to a survey of consumers.
CreditCards.com, a division of Bankrate.com, reported Tuesday that 44 percent of the consumers surveyed said they would never use their mobile phones to make purchases. An additional 18 percent said they would hardly ever do so.
Younger, more affluent and better-educated people are more interested in paying by cellphone, according to the tally of 1,003 U.S. adults by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, which said the margin of sampling error was 3.6 percentage points.
City dwellers had a more favorable view of these mobile payments than people in rural areas, said Matt Schulz, a senior analyst at CreditCards.com.
Demand for mobile payments has been lukewarm so far, analysts said. Critics have taken aim at systems such as Google Wallet, saying the programs are designed to invasively track consumers' individual spending.
But the devotion many consumers feel for Apple products could help change things, Schulz said, "if Apple can make it as easy as pulling out a debit or a credit card and consumers believe it is safe and secure."
-- Los Angeles Times
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