Here are your Apple Rumors for today:
China: Apple (AAPL) is planning to open five new retail stores in China, reports 9to5Mac. The company is planning to open five new stores in China before the Chinese New Year, which takes place in five weeks. Two of the five new locations will be in Hangzhou and Zhengzhou. It’s unknown where the other three locations will be opening up at. The company has also opened up job listings for 15 new locations in the country. Apple wants to have 40 of its stores in the country in the next two years.
iBooks: Apple is seeing 1 million new iBooks users a week since the launch of iOS 8, MacRumors notes. Apple included iBooks as a default app on iOS 8 when it launched. The decision to add the app as a default to iOS 8 likely helped it rise in popularity. Since the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the company has noted that it’s seen an increase in eBook sales through the platform to smartphones. Other new features recently added to the iBooks app, such as Family Sharing, have also likely helped it become more popular with users.
Patent: A new patent granted to Apple shows more possible uses for the Touch ID feature, reports AppleInisder. The patent was granted to the company by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is titled “”Multi-Function Input Device”. The patent shows that the Touch ID button could be used to offer addition control over devices. Once such type of control would be a joystick mode that would allow users to pop the button out with a click to become a joystick. This would offer users additional ways to play games on the device.
