iPhone 6 Includes Mobile Wallet, HealthKit App

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Also unveiled, Apple Watch, which measures biometric information to feed into Apple’s HealthKit service and Health app

Apple has spent the past week erecting a large, white building right outside the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, just down the road from its headquarters, where it made its latest announcements of new products.

Among the newly unveiled gadgets is the much anticipated iPhone6. Confirming rumors that have been circulating for the past few weeks, it includes a mobile wallet — called Apple Pay — which will use a one-time payment number and security code each time a user pays.  It does not store credit card information, and when a consumer uses Apple Pay, the clerk does not see the customer’s name, credit card number, or security code to complete the transaction. Among the early merchants that will support Apple Pay are Macy’s, Bloomindales, Walgreens, Staples, Subway, and McDonalds. It will launch next month as a free update to iOS 8. 

Also as a part of iOS 8, iPhone 6 will include the HealthKit App and will connect to third-party Health Apps as well. 

The larger screen of the new designs, one 4.7 inches and the other 5.5 inches — makes text, photos, and videos easier to see and gives developers more space within their apps for additional buttons and features, similar to the jump from the iPhone to the iPad. More importantly though, this puts Apple on equal footing with competitors that have been releasing increasingly larger phones for years, a move that will help Apple be more competitive in the mobile market. Analysts said the new iPhones were likely to help Apple to gain market share against devices running Google Inc.’s Android platform by offering larger screens.

Compared to previous models, iPhone 6 has a speedier, next-generation A8 processor to replace last year’s A7 processor and faster graphics, and is also 50 percent more energy efficient, resulting in smoother overall performance. The iPhone 6 is also thinner than the iPhone 5 and 5S, roughly 7 mm thick, which is a hair smaller than the 7.6 mm iPhone 5S, while the batteries are slightly larger. New offerings and features also include a 128 GB model, a better camera that offers a new “super-resolution photo” feature, an NFC (near-field communications) chip, and a barometer — to facilitate measurements including elevation and ambient temperature.

The iPhone 6 will be available starting September 19 or for preorder starting September 12.

Apple also unveiled its new wearable device, Apple Watch, which runs iOS. Among its capabilities, it can measure biometric information to feed into Apple’s HealthKit service and Health app. Introducing the Apple watch, CEO Tim Cook referred to it as “the next chapter in Apple’s story.”