iPhone 6 Plus is Fine - There Is No Hardware Problem, & Apple With 86% of the Mobile Profit

9to5Mac has a post debunking a Korean hit piece against Apple's seemingly unstoppable iPhone 6.  Specifically, the iPhone 6 Plus.  Again, a post originating in Korea, which is where Apple competitors Samsung and LG calls home, where the iPhone 6 Plus by even Korean media is trouncing the latest and greatest these two homegrown companies have to offer.  Namely, the Galaxy S 5, Note 4 and Edge from Samsung and the G3 from LG.

By themselves, those devices are top-notch Android devices.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  It's just that in the high-end part of the mobile market, the iPhone is the choice for premium customers.

The original Korean report stated iPhone 6 Plus users saddled with restarting problems due to NAND issues, the memory used in mobile devices and that Apple is faced with a massive recall.  Of course, this issue isn't new and dated back to iOS 6 when users loaded their iPhones will more apps than they really have time to use.

Not to blame the users because Apple should have fixed this bug a while back.

Social: Annual "I Ate Your Halloween Candy" Torture of Your Own Kids

This is now an annual event - post-Halloween ritual from Jimmy Kimmel Live where parents forever change the innocent lives of their children by telling them (pretending?) that they ate all their hard-earned Halloween candy.

This never gets old.  Enjoy.

Source: ABC.

Privacy: Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), Group Pushing CurrentC, Said They're Misunderstood

Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), retailers that are pushing CurrentC, said they're being given a bum rap and want to explain some misconeptions (USA Today).

Just a couple of words on that:  privacy and security.

It appears all the information are still being shared among retailers and third parties with access to all the customer information.  So, zero privacy. 

Lastly, not even out and they've got security problems. 

Yeah...still, no go, guys. 

Apple Pay: Burger King Sides With PayPal and It Won't Matter In the Long Run

Source:  iMore.

Burger King is siding with PayPal as its mobile payment of choice for its mobile app.  To entice users, it'll be offering special deals.  It'll be interesting if the details of such a deal come to light and what Burger King gets out of this deal or if it only wanted to to partner with PayPal as a means to differentiate with rival McDonald's who partnered with Apple Pay.

Before folks go head first into how Burger King is signing its own death warrant or other end-of-life analogy, remember that Starbucks has yet to offer Apple Pay and has been offering mobile payment through its own app for years now and has been quite successful.

In the long run, it won't matter if Apple Pay continues to flourish and more retailers realize that by not offering Apple Pay, they will miss out on Apple's more affluent iOS users as a percentage of user base. 

The differentiators won't be about mobile payment of quality of service and food.  Customers will not switch to Big Macs if they prefer Whoppers just because they can't use Apple Pay.  The can't be said about the backlash for drugstores CVS and Rite Aid because they have nothing to offer mobile warriors that is different than Walgreens. 

In the long run, many of these retailers will have to offer Apple Pay and Paypal as these mobile payments are here to stay.  Paypal does seem relatively more secured than the CurrentC, as offered by the MCX retailers, being prepped as an alernative to NFC payment (which is what Apple Pay is based on). 

Apple Pay is here to stay.  There is already defection from the MCX cartel and more will follow.  Retailers on the fence will also fall in line with the more secured NFC platform. 

What Happens When Your iPad Is Destroyed By A Space Vehicle? Apple Will Replace It

Apple will replace your damaged iOS device if it was destroyed by a spaceship...with this kind of publicity, it is no wonder that Apple has some of the most loyal and fanatic customer base?

Source:  Cult of Mac.

Mobile Payment: Question for MCX guys - What Happens When You Get Hacked And the Bad Guys Empty My Checking Account?

Every few weeks, you hear about this or that retailer getting hacked and millions of credit cards are stolen.  Okay, when that happens, we talk to our bank and change the numbers on the credit card or, worse, have charges reversed if we happen to be unlucky enough to have been a victim of credit card fraud. 

With the consumer-unfriendly CurrentC being developed by good folks at Walmart, Target, CVS, and a few others and slated for 2015, there is one question that has been bugging me beyond these retailers asking for very personal questions like social security numbers and sharing with each other our buying habits that has not been asked.

What happens when, not if, one or more of these retailers and "third parties" they will inevitably blame when the CurrentC system is hacked to our bank accounts?  Do we need new bank account numbers?  Change banks? 

And will will put the stolen money back in when they're emptied by these hackers?  Does anyone know? 

CurrencyC: The Mobile Payment System Supported by CVS Hacked Already

MCX, the retailer group that wants everything but your first-born from you, that is offering their own mobile payment system as an alternative to other forms of payment systems like NFC, is still months if not a whole year away from offering the dubious service.  The system, CurrenyC, is still in beta.  Neverthless, it's never too early to get hacked right?

That's exactly what happened when it informed beta testers and folks interested in the system that there was unauthorized access to their e-mails.  (Source:  Macrumors)

Given the bad press that CurrencyC is getting, I'm going to go ahead and make this prediction:  we're going to see some defections just ahead of the Christmas shopping season starts.