Earlier this year, Texas Instruments announced a major shift in its business strategy: it's going to be moving its focus away from smartphone and tablet processors, and towards embedded applications like in-car computer systems.
As a result of this new strategy, the company said that it would be laying off a staggering 1,700 employees — one of the biggest RIFs of the year. But don't feel too bad, the word is that some of them have found new homes at Apple...
Earlier today, we passed along a report that Apple was going to be holding an iTunes event in Moscow tomorrow to celebrate the launch of its music store in Russia. Rumors have been circulating for some months now that iTunes Music was on its way to the country, and it appears they were dead on. Ahead of tomorrow's event, users in Russia are seeing the iTunes Music Store populate...
Apple revolutionized the music industry when it first introduced the iTunes Music Store back in 2003. At the time, people were either spending $10-$15 for a CD, or pirating their music from a p2p service like BearShare. And iTunes came in and changed all that.
Since then, Apple has really turned the Store into a media empire. It added TV shows in 2005, movies in 2006, apps in 2008 and then books and magazines shortly after. Today, Apple's iTunes business ranks among some of the world's largest media companies...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UkJZxC9uA
SMS - or what's now commonly referred to as 'texting' - is twenty years old today. Begun December 3, 1992 in London, SMS grew from one 160-character message every couple months to an astounding seven trillion texts per year. As we send tweets from iPhones and iPads connected across the globe, its time to look back at the grandfather of iMessage - and it all began over a pizza.
The whole idea of SMS was created in 1984 when three engineers at a Danish pizzeria discussed how great it would be to send text messages over the GSM network. Less than a decade later, UK's Vodafone went to work on SMS software. The first message sent: "Merry Christmas" from a Sema Group engineer to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis. The message travelled the huge distance of 30 miles...
iOS 6.1 beta 3 has been released to developers, and as we always do, we show you how to jailbreak it. This jailbreak is a tethered jailbreak, and works with pre-A5 devices like the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, or iPod touch 4th gen. It also should be reiterated that the jailbreak is for developers only.
Take a look inside as we showcase on video how to jailbreak iOS 6.1 beta 3.
Better late than never, as we say in French. Over two months after the iPhone 5 was launched in the US, Starbucks finally blessed us with an update that supports the device's taller screen.
Besides the iPhone 5 support and the usual bug fixes, this updated version added an option to turn On/Off the annoying sound of the stars dropping in the cup after completing a purchase...
Will Samsung once more take advantage of the looming Super Bowl opportunity to ridicule Apple, like it did last year launching a campaign which poked fun of the folks who'd wait in line for the iPhone? Given the fifty different lawsuits spread across four continents, it's difficult to imagine otherwise. Samsung has already secured a spot in the big game, but Apple, unfortunately, has again passed on the opportunity to convey its message to Super Bowl's huge audience.
Ad prices have increased every year, with advertisers paying as much as $3.5 million for a thirty-second spot during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012. But ad rates don't concern Apple and Samsung, both big spenders when it comes to advertising. SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller revealed during the Apple v. Samsung trial that Apple in fiscal 2010 spent to the tune of $346.6 million advertising the iPhone and iPad in the United States.
That's peanuts compared to what Samsung spends advertising its gadgets. The Galaxy maker, according to independent analyst Horace Dediu, has an annual budget of nearly $12 billion for advertising, commissions and sales promotions...
Samsung reigns supreme in handsets, but Apple's iPhone continues to pique consumer interest like no other gadget. The easiest way to figure out what consumers want is to comb through logs of major web search properties. Yahoo is out today with their annual top searches and the results are hardly surprising.
The iPhone 5 was the top searched for gadget in 2012: it's managed to beat Kim Kardashian for the most searched for term overall in 2012. Matter of fact, three of Apple's gadgets landed at the top of Yahoo's year in review list. Looking beyond units sold, it's clear where the public’s heart lies...
USB Fever joins the Lightning fever, so to speak, with an iPhone 5 focused dock that has a pass-through music jack and costs less than twenty bucks. In addition to a Lightning port, the dock is shaped for the iPhone 5 and is a nice option for those condemning Apple for not providing its own dock for the device. A pricier variant is also available with a pass-through audio jack which lets you feed audio out directly from your iPhone 5 via the dock to other music players using a standard 3.5mm jack while charging the device at the same time. As a bonus, the accessory has an additional 30-pin dock connector on the back...
Apple might need to rethink its decision to roll-out older iPhones at cheaper prices at the same time it introduces its latest version.
Compared to previous roll-outs, the iPhone 5 accounted for a smaller percentage of overall iPhone sales, according to one market observer.
The iPhone 5 comprised just 68 percent of overall iPhone sales, compared to as much as 90 percent for the iPhone 4S when it was released in October of last year. And as a result of more lower-priced iPhones selling, Apple could face a smaller profit margin - and nervous Wall Street investors...
Apple has seeded a third beta of iOS 6.1 to developers this morning. The update, which includes "bug fixes and other improvements," comes nearly three weeks after beta 2. The new firmware is now available via an OTA update or through Apple’s developer portal...
AT&T, the nation's leading carrier, Monday morning announced its fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network is now available in Albuquerque, Reading, Salt Lake City and Puerto Rico markets, with the latter including Yauco, San German -Cabo Rojo and Guayama. Consumer Reports last week ranked AT&T worst of major U.S. carriers when it comes to voice and data service quality.
However, AT&T emerged as the nation's leading carrier in terms of LTE deployment, though Verizon still has the most robust 4G network. AT&T doubled its LTE coverage in 2012, which as of mid-November covered more than 150 million people in a total of 103 markets. And as part of the ambitious $14 billion LTE network expansion project, AT&T’s LTE will expand to 250 million people by year-end 2013 and to 300 million by year-end 2014...