News

After spending most of December fluctuating on almost a daily basis, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock saw five consecutive positive days for its first full week of trading in the new year. The share price opened last Monday at $106.25 and closed the week at $112.01. Stocks surged $4.14 on Thursday, almost 4%. It seems the fluctuations are persist however, as the share price is currently down 2.4%. Apple will announce its Q1 fiscal 2015 earnings on Tuesday, January 27th 5 PM ET.

Despite the recent roller coaster, analysts are still bullish about Apple's holiday quarter sales. Investment firm UBS notified its clients last week that it believes Apple may have sold upwards of 69 million iPhones in the December quarter. This would outstrip the Wall Street consensus of 65.5 million sales and would make for a record breaking quarter for Apple.

Apple today released the fourth beta for iOS 8.2. The update includes a "new panel specifically for pairing an iPhone with the Apple Watch" and it confirms that there will be a dedicated watch app, according to 9to5Mac. Previous builds of the new software have included support for Apple's WatchKit and a fix for an issue with blood glucose tracking within the Health app.

iOS 8.2 and the Apple Watch are expected to launch sometime in March. The smartwatch will be available in three collections starting at $349 for the standard edition. There will be several band options and 11 digital faces to choose from at launch. You can learn more about the Apple's smartwatch in our Apple Watch section.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) last week announced record breaking sales for the App Store. The first week of the new year set a new sales record with over half a billion dollars in app and in-app purchases, and New Year's Day was the biggest day in the App Store's history. Apple also reported that app sales were up 50% in 2014 and generated $10 billion for developers - 40% of the $25 billion total since the App Store opened in 2008.

Apple's developer page reported last week that iOS 8 is now on 68% of all registered Apple devices.

Talk about left field, Gameblend Studios released Princess Bride - The Official Game to the App Store this week. There doesn't seem to be a specific reason for the release, except that it is an awesome idea. The game features four mini games based on the 1987 romantic comedy. The games are: Survive the Shrieking Eels, Scale the Cliffs of Insanity, Cross swords and duel with Inigo and Wrestle against a Giant! Princess Bride the game is available now on the App Store for $3.99.

Apple this week announced that the App Store broke records in 2015. The App Store raked in close to half a billion dollars in app sales and in-app purchases on New Year's Day, and sales saw a 50% increase in 2014, helping developer earn $10 billion in revenue.

The Pokémon Trading Card is getting a 160 card expansion called Primal Fear on February 4th. The expansion will include Primal Reversions, two new theme decks, twenty-five trainer cards and more.The Primal Fear cards will include digital codes so players can use them on the iPad and online version of the game.

Evernote released its own document scanning app for iOS devices a few days after Neat and its NeatConnect cloud scanner made an appearance on Celebrity Apprentice. Evernote Scannable offers the same service as the Neat app without the additional cloud service. The Evernote app promises to "move paper forward" by allowing users to use their iPhone or iPad's camera to easily scan contracts, receipts, business cards and so on.

Users of Evernote Scannable can simply point their device's camera at any document and the app will scan it for them. The app will then automatically cleanup your document so it is clear and easy to read. You can also manually scan your own documents and rotate and crop them as you see fit. Once your documents are all scanned you can digitally file them away, add them to your Evernote app, or share them via email, Facebook and so on.