An interesting feature by Katie Fehrenbacher of GigaOM has an insightful look at how Apple’s $1 billion data center in North Carolina came to be and how it almost didn’t get built. Luckily, officials were able to work out the deal and boy did it pay off. Because Apple is a powerful company, the iCloud data center gave Catawba County a much needed bargaining chip in convincing others to build their data centers there, too… Read More
Apple rolled out a significant update to its iCloud Beta website last night. The page, which only appears to be accessible by registered developers, now features web versions of Reminders and Notes.
As you may recall, these two new web apps were leaked back in May, as Apple was caught testing the iCloud Beta website a month ahead of WWDC. But now it’s live, and available for all developers… Read More
Following numerous warnings that it would discontinue its paid online services suite dubbed MobileMe, Apple issued the final warning a month ago. Cupertino said it would shutter the service July 1 and advised users to download all their files and image galleries and transfer their MobileMe accounts to iCloud, a replacement and free of charge service.
So we were a little surprised that Apple didn’t take down MobileMe on July 1. Instead, the company gave abandoned MobileMe users an extension. A new disclaimer on the website now informs users they have “a limited time” to transfer all their stuff to their computers or iCloud accounts… Read More
Late last year, we reported that Apple was preparing to give iTunes its first major overhaul in 10 years. The update would come in the form of iTunes 11, and feature a revamped UI and deeper iCloud integration.
Since then, the report has been independently confirmed by both TechCrunch and 9to5Mac, who are also hearing that such a change is on the way. And tonight, a major news outlet adds its weight to the story… Read More
A new report is out this afternoon claiming that Apple is looking to spend in upwards of $1 billion over the next 10 years to build a new data center and other facilities in Reno, Nevada.
Codenamed “Project Jonathan,” this would be Apple’s third data farm, as the company already has a digital hive in Maiden, North Carolina, and one in northern California… Read More
In line with several reports, readers are telling us that they are experiencing difficulties accessing iCloud and sending iMessages this afternoon. We are noticing similar problems on our own devices.
Judging by recent Twitter chatter, the outage appears to be world-wide, affecting a number of users. Apple has acknowledged the problem on its iCloud status page, but there’s no ETA for a fix… Read More
According to “numerous industry sources”, online retailer Amazon is negotiating deals that will soon enable it to match most of the music features offered by Apple’s iCloud.
Amazon shocked the industry by launching its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player last year without necessary licenses from the top labels.
They are now reportedly close to striking license deals that will let them offer a scan-and-match service akin to iTunes Match… Read More
Safari doesn’t look that different on iOS 6, but underneath the hood you’ll find some interesting changes aimed at improving your mobile browsing experience. First of all, there’s the ability to browse in full screen mode while in landscape on the iPhone. Secondly, there’s the ability to sync tabs across other iOS 6 devices using iCloud. Next up to bat is a new update to Reading List that allows you to read those items while offline.
Take a look at our video demonstration inside that showcases all of these new features and more. Have you found anything in addition to these items? If you do, be sure to let us know in the comments.
While we already know a ton about the major new features in iOS 6, we are still learning about the update’s lesser-known enhancements. Things that didn’t make it into Apple’s keynote yesterday.
The latest one we’ve come across, as pointed out by Gizmodo, is that your customized (personalized, whatever) dictionary gets the iCloud treatment in iOS 6, syncing it across all devices… Read More
Apple’s boss Tim Cook is about to take the stage at San Francisco’s Moscone West an hour from now to deliver Apple’s mobile and desktop strategy for the next twelve months. You’re probably on the edge of your seat as we are, wondering what will get announced and whether there will be an “one more thing” moment that will blow your pants off.
More importantly, all eyes are on Apple as the industry awaits to see how Cupertino responds to strong competition in the mobile space. So we just put together this little poll and are asking you, our readers, to pick one WWDC announcement that you’re most excited for… Read More
One of the big problems with the introduction of iCloud, was the inability to properly segregate it from iTunes accounts on a single iOS device. With iOS 5, you had one iTunes ID, and that same ID was used for iCloud.
While in many circumstances this posed no issue, (ad there are a few inconvenient work-arounds) it did cause problems for those whose purchases were tied up to a particular iTunes ID. I’m happy to report that this is no longer a problem in iOS 6, as it now allows you to log in with separate iTunes and iCloud IDs upon first setup… Read More
With iOS 6 being the main theme of tomorrow’s keynote, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, iOS boss Scott Forstall and marketing head honcho Phil Schiller (aka Mini-Me and Dr. No) will likely share stage time to announce the latest in Apple’s mobile operating system powering the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Feeling excited yet?
We’re also keeping our eyes peeled for the latest iPhone and Apple TV developments and are expecting shiny new commercials (hopefully they do better than latest celebrity adverts), plus the usual dose of Apple’s trademark one-liners, superlatives and hyperbolas.
Here’s what we’re looking forward to, some of the stuff we’ve been keeping our fingers crossed for and what the rumor-mill predicted would go down tomorrow… Read More
Apple’s plan to use renewable energy sources to power its $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina by the end of this year has received another important nod from The North Carolina Utilities Commission.
The agency just greenlighted a 4.5-megawatt fuel cell installation that will produce electricity from eco-friendly biogas in order to power a huge array of iCloud servers.
Not bad for a cloud that relies on “19th-century coal energy”… Read More
Apple doesn’t run the cleanest of clouds, we all know this. Fortunately, the company’s strides to reduce reliance on “19th-century coal energy”, as Greenpeace put it, have received a boost from The North Carolina Utilities Commission which has now approved plans for a massive solar farm to power Apple’s $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina.
It’s gonna provide 20 megawatts of power to power iCloud servers that host the iTunes infrastructure, your music, photos, contacts and iOS device backups, to name a few… Read More
Environmental friendliness has been an important subject for Apple over the past few years. It’s currently building one of the largest solar panel farms in the U.S. to power its North Carolina data center, and plans to do the same thing in Oregon.
But apparently that isn’t enough for the folks at Greenpeace. The environmental organization recently staged a major protest outside of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA, pleading with the company to increase its ‘Green’ efforts… Read More
Having problems accessing your iCloud email today? You aren’t alone. A simple search for ‘iCloud’ on Twitter returns 1000s of results, showing folks started experiencing problems with the service early this morning.
Apple has updated its iCloud System Status page, confirming the outage. And according to the Cupertino company, around 12% of users were unable to access parts of the cloud-based platform for almost two hours… Read More
According to the usually well-informed Wall Street Journal, Apple is readying an upgrade to its iCloud service that will expand on the basic features which sync content between iPhones, iPads, iPods and Mac or PC computers. iCloud also provides device backups in the cloud and supports other capabilities specific to Apple’s iOS devices.
Two new features will reportedly enable basic photo sharing features with other iCloud users and will include the ability to sync videos… Read More
Are you a developer? Have you visited the iCloud.com beta login page recently? In case you missed it, two new icons appeared at a beta login page for iCloud.com briefly before Apple took the beta page down. This clearly suggests Apple is working on bringing Notes and Reminders web apps to iCloud.
Folks also discovered references to an upcoming iOS 6 beta in the code strings for this iCloud beta page.
As we told you last week, Apple could be bringing iOS and Mac Notifications to the iCloud website. So it all makes sense now: Reminders and Notes apps, which are now available on iOS devices and are coming to Macs with Mountain Lion installed later this summer, will also be replicated on the iCloud web site along with web notifications.
Let’s hope Apple will take the resulting notifications conundrum seriously… Read More
A new feature is being tested by Apple, according to reports, that allows iOS banner notifications to be displayed on the iCloud website. It’s unknown whether this particular occurrence was only a one-time test or a sign of things to come.
While notifications on the iCloud website may prompt some to scratch their head, this could actually indicate Apple’s plans to roll out rich web apps to iCloud that would benefit from the ability to display notifications, much like Google’s Chrome lets web apps render unobtrusive notifications even when the browser is minimized… Read More
Itćs been officially confirmed today that Apple will use cutting-edge, power-efficient, eco-friendly fuel cells from California-based Bloom Energy startup to power its huge iCloud data center located in Maiden, North Carolina.
Hopefully this move will appease Greenpeace, whose recent report titled How Clean Is Your Cloud slammed Apple over the company’s use of “19th-century coal energy” for its data centers… Read More
