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iPhone 6 availability in the Bay Area

I’ve been querying Apple’s iPhone availability JSON feeds for 20 Apple Stores in the Bay Area for a couple of weeks now. Below you find the data starting on October 10th1. Note that this right now only includes AT&T and T-Mobile models of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as these were the ones I was originally interested in before planning to have a closer look at this data for this purpose. I was using the data only for a small iOS app that notifies me when a given iPhone model becomes available at a chosen nearby Apple Store. The Verizon and Sprint models are included in my dataset starting today. I’m also working on including the availability data from Apple Germany. I’ll have to revisit these at a later date. Below you find the numbers grouped by model, day and availability2. My raw data also includes all variations, e.g. Apple Store, model (iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus), color (space grey, silver and gold) and capacity (16, 64 and 128 GB) based on the separate SKUs.

iPhone 6

iPhone 6 AT&T unavailable

iPhone 6 AT&T available

iPhone 6 T-Mobile unavailable

iPhone 6 T-Mobile available

For the iPhone 6 the worst available variants are the 64 GB models, no matter what color or carrier. The 16 GB iPhone 6 on the other side are comparatively widely available.

iPhone 6 Plus

iPhone 6 Plus AT&T unavailable

iPhone 6 Plus AT&T available

iPhone 6 Plus T-Mobile unavailable

iPhone 6 Plus T-Mobile available

As you can see by the numbers, actually being able to get an iPhone 6 Plus in an Apple Store is a totally different story compared to the iPhone 6. Worst are the 128 GB models, except only recently the silver model has become a little bit more available. But overall the numbers I got back from Apple’s JSON throughout the past 2 weeks are way smaller compared to the iPhone 6. I’m also tracking the iPad Air 2 data for all available models, but that’s something to look at in another post. Early data however shows that the new iPad Air 2 isn’t hard to get. All models seem to be available for pickup in every of my 20 tested stores.

  • I have data leading back to September 20, but there were some problems gathering data in end of September/early October, so I decided to start the charts on October 10. ↩
  • I’m aware that the numbers for October 16 and 17 are missing. I left them out because I couldn’t get reliable data from Apple for those two days. ↩

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    Adobe releases new creative apps for iOS, updates Creative Cloud, various CC apps

    Adobe today released a slew of updates for their Creative Cloud apps. While the main Creative Cloud app promises OS X Yosemite compatibility and battery life savings, apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects include “expanded support for HiDPI displays”. These updates can be found in the Creative Cloud app.

    As part of Adobe MAX, Adobe’s annual conference, they also released a couple of new and updated apps for iOS that work hand in hand with Adobe’s desktop apps. Among them two apps for Illustration (Illustrator Line and Illustrator Draw) and Premiere Clip that – as the name implies – is a simple version of Premiere Pro. Clip is Adobe’s first video editing app for iOS.

    On the Imaging side Adobe released Photoshop Sketch, as well as updates for Photoshop Mix and Lightroom for iPad and iPhone. While Photoshop Mix is now also compatible with the iPhone, Lightroom mobile gains a few new social features and the ability to sync GPS information between Lightroom for iPhone and the desktop app.

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    iPhone 6 Plus camera review: Iceland

    Photographer Austin Mann takes the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (and an iPhone 5s) along for a trip to Iceland (via Darren Murph):

    The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus pack in new innovations that make the camera experience better and more fun. What I love most about these innovations is they focus on enabling iPhone users to better capture and share life rather than just beefing up tech specs. The Apple team clearly understands their user base very well and incessantly strives to create devices that solve technical challenges and simplify experiences and they’ve done that yet again with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

    Amazing how far mobile phone cameras have come in the past few years. And amazing to see how much of a difference a year between the old and new iPhone makes.

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    Two step authentication, app-specific passwords available on iCloud.com

    After several bad news in the past weeks and months concerning Apple’s security, specifically for iCloud, the company is now offering some ways to enhance the protection of their users against intruders that might try to guess your password. Signing in to iCloud.com now requires you to enter a four-digit PIN to get access to your mail, contacts, calendar, etc.

    This PIN can either be sent to you via SMS or directly to an iOS device. There’s no specific app needed to use your iOS device for this, the feature is integrated in iOS. The four-digit number will show up on your device via push notification.

    Phone numbers and iOS devices can be registered and verified on your Apple ID profile.

    This is also where Apple now lets you create app-specific passwords, for example if you’re using Outlook, or other 3rd party clients that need access to your data on iCloud.com. Starting on October 1st, these will become a requirement for iCloud users.

    More information about app-specific passwords can be found on Apple’s support site. There’s also a Two-Step Verification FAQ available.

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    Using Amazon’s Route 53 as your own dynamic DNS service

    As of a few months ago I used DynDNS as my provider when it came to attaching a hostname to my dynamic IP address that every now and then changed. For a while they have been cutting down their free services. I wanted to eliminate the middle man as they were only offering their choice of domains.

    The goal was to use only my own domain/hostname and not rely on some service that seemed it would go away any day now. Amazon’s Route 53 was the obvious choice for me. Amazon isn’t going anywhere and I’m already using other parts of Amazon’s web services. It isn’t free, but you also get more freedom to do things. Plus there’s a lot of development happening around AWS.

    Continue reading “Using Amazon’s Route 53 as your own dynamic DNS service”
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    National Park Service prohibits unmanned aircrafts

    National Park Service Press Release – Unmanned Aircraft to be Prohibited in America’s National Parks:

    National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis today signed a policy memorandum that directs superintendents nationwide to prohibit launching, landing, or operating unmanned aircraft on lands and waters administered by the National Park Service.
    “We embrace many activities in national parks because they enhance visitor experiences with the iconic natural, historic and cultural landscapes in our care,” Jarvis said. “However, we have serious concerns about the negative impact that flying unmanned aircraft is having in parks, so we are prohibiting their use until we can determine the most appropriate policy that will protect park resources and provide all visitors with a rich experience.”
    Unmanned aircraft have already been prohibited at several national parks. These parks initiated bans after noise and nuisance complaints from park visitors, an incident in which park wildlife were harassed, and park visitor safety concerns.

    (via Gizmodo, who should learn to give sources along with their articles)

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    Making Of: Time’s Panorama View from 1 WTC

    Richard Lacayo for Time – The Making of the One World Trade Center Panorama:

    Beginning with crude bar-napkin sketches and eventually moving to mechanical engineers working in AutoCAD and then to welders in Asheville, N.C., an eight-month process of design and construction resulted in a 13-ft.-long aluminum jib calibrated to adhere to the base of the beacon at the top of the tower’s 408-ft. spire. To that rotating arm was attached a Canon 5D Mark II with a 100-mm lens. Over a five-hour span of orbital shooting on Sept. 28, 2013, the camera produced 567 pictures that were then stitched together digitally into a single massive—and zoomable—image of everything the eye can see in all directions. This is how that amazing image came to be.

    (via Gizmodo)

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    Apple releases OS X 10.9.2, fixes serious SSL issue

    Even though Apple’s release notes don’t mention the nasty SSL bug, the update for OS X Mavericks now closes that gaping hole which was first patched for iOS and Apple TV last Friday. The security issues fixed in 10.9.2 (and for OS X 10.7 and 10.8) are listed in a separate support document.

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    goto fail: Apple’s SSL/TLS bug – Update your devices now

    This is an ugly one as Adam Langley over at imperialviolet.org describes:

    Yesterday, Apple pushed a rather spooky security update for iOS that suggested that something was horribly wrong with SSL/TLS in iOS but gave no details. Since the answer is at the top of the Hacker News thread, I guess the cat’s out of the bag already and we’re into the misinformation-quashing stage now.

    You can check if your browser is vulnerable over at gotofail.com.

    Currently there are updates for iOS 7 – in form of iOS 7.0.6 – and iOS 6 – iOS 6.1.6. Both are available as OTA updates now. Apple even updated Apple TV to take care of that bug. The description of the bug is rather short though.

    Google Chrome for iOS or OS X isn’t vulnerable. Safari for OS X 10.9+ (even the most recent 10.9.2 build) and iOS is – unless you update to iOS 7.0.6. It’s likely that Apple will provide an update for OS X and the beta builds in the (very) near future.

    Do yourself a favor and update your iOS devices now.

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    Apple’s two-step verification available in Germany (and Canada, France, Japan, Italy, and Spain)

    Apple has finally made two-step verification available in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain. Enabling this feature will greatly improve the security for your Apple ID.

    Apple doesn’t use an authenticator app like Authy or Google Authenticator to send their 4 digit codes to iOS devices. The code is either send directly to your iOS device or alternatively you can add a phone number that will receive a SMS containing the code. Additonally you get a recovery key in case you aren’t able to access any of your devices or forget your password.

    Once Apple requires a code to authenticate yourself you can then decide on what registered device you want that code to show up. A few seconds later you get the code and you just have to enter it on your screen.

    You can enable two-step verification for your account on Apple’s My Apple ID page. From there go to Password and Security.

    Additional information about two-step verification can be found in Apple’s Frequently asked questions about two-step verification for Apple ID.