Year: 2014

Rumors: power draw issues plaguing iWatch, sapphire screen exclusive to 5.5″ iPhone 6

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 30, 2017

It was just yesterday that analyst Matt Margolis speculated that Apple and its manufacturing partner GT Advanced - which operates a sophisticated sapphire plant in Arizona - can produce enough sapphire glass for both iPhone 6 models and now comes word that's not really the case.

Taiwan's Economic Daily News is out with a report claiming that only the larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 model incorporates a sapphire-strengthened screen as Apple and GT continue to cope with yield issues and production limitations. As for Apple's rumored iWatch, the paper says current prototypes of the wearable device are plagued with energy consumption issues related to its OLED screen...

iPhone 6 manufacturing mockup shows off Space Grey finish

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 29, 2016

Earlier this morning, we showed you new photos of a meticulously designed iPad Air 2 dummy unit with Touch ID incorporated into its Home button.

And now, a fresh batch of purported iPhone 6 manufacturing mockups has surfaced, depicting what a Space Gray variant of Apple's upcoming bigger and thinner iPhone model could look like.

Credited to sources in Japan and Korea, the images show the purported mockup next to an iPhone 5s and HTC's One smartphone...

Apple reaches settlement in $840 million e-books antitrust lawsuit

Joe Rossignol ∙ June 17, 2014

Apple has settled with U.S. states and consumers that were seeking damages for alleged price fixing on e-books, protecting itself from a trial where it could have faced up to $840 million in claims. Bloomberg was first to report on the news, claiming that a trial had been set for July after Apple was found to be conspiring with book publishers to raise e-book prices as part of an illegal scheme…

FiftyThree teases Surface Pressure coming to Pencil this Fall with iOS 8

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 17, 2014

Fans of the awesome Paper drawing app for the iPad by FiftyThree and owners of the startup's companion Pencil stylus will no doubt be looking forward to upgrading to iOS 8 in order to take advantage of a new Surface Pressure feature coming to Pencil and Paper this Fall.

Billed as an industry-first feature, Surface Pressure taps iOS 8's variable touch sizing and leverages Pencil’s uniquely-designed tip to vary the pressure, thickness and width of lines you create, mimicking the behavior of real-life artistic drawing tools such as dry pastel chalks and charcoals...

Sunrise Calendar introduces apps: Evernote, Tripit, Songkick, Asana and Github

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2018

The popular and elegant replacement for the stock iOS Calendar app, Sunrise Calendar by Sunrise Atelier, Inc., just recently has expanded its reach and is now available across iOS and Android mobile platforms and on the web, with a consistent feature set and unified design.

Now available free of charge in the App Store, the new version 2.4 brings support for select third-party applications. That's right, you can now connect apps like Songkick, Evernote, Tripit, Github and Asana directly in Sunrise and make your life a little easier...

Meticulously designed dummy shows what the next iPad Air with Touch ID might look like

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 17, 2014

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the next wave of iOS devices will adopt Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor across the board. As I recently reported, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is adamant that Touch ID will be deployed across new iPhones and iPads coming later this year.

That the iOS 8 SDK which Apple unveiled earlier this month has opened up the sophisticated fingerprint scanner to third-party developers won't hurt either. Based on the rumor-mill talk and supposed specifications, a Japanese website has posted images of a next-generation iPad Air dummy unit with Touch ID...

Nest Protect smoke alarm returns on store shelves, now just $99

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 17, 2014

Nest Labs, which Google is acquiring for $3.2 billion in cash, has resumed sales of its Nest Protect after recalling about 40,000 units in April over a safety bug with the smoke and carbon monoxide detector's Protect Wave feature potentially preventing the alarm from sounding.

The company has now disabled Protect Wave on existing devices via a software update while re-releasing a slightly tweaked device at a discounted price of $99 each, down from the previous price of $129...

Parallels Access now lets you access remote desktop via iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Parallels Access was released last August as an iPad-only application allowing users of the popular desktop virtualization software Parallels to access remote computers on their Apple tablet.

It instantly became indispensable to mobile warriors who want to run Mac or Windows apps remotely and need to access desktop files and documents wherever they are.

Today, the free Parallels Access app has been updated with native support for the iPhone and iPod touch so users can now access their desktop on the go and use their PC and Mac applications in full-screen mode like they were made for their handset...

Apple announces filmmaking and storytelling focused Summer 2014 Workshops for kids

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 17, 2014

Apple Retail is kicking off its annual free summer camps for kids eight to twelve years old. This time around, three-day workshops will center around filmmaking and interactive storytelling with apps like iMovie and iBooks Author on Macs and iPads.

Apple wants to educate youngsters on the basics of making movies and creating interactive books, complete with their own illustrations and sound effects. Each workshop, according to the firm, ends with the Apple Camp Showcase "so campers can share their finished projects"...

Let’s Talk iOS 033: Tantrums at the Apple Store

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated March 20, 2018

Episode 33: Jeff rejoins Sebastien and Cody for a debate on the look of the iPhone 6 mockups and shell casings, its upcoming size and display changes, Apple store etiquette, sketchy Lightning cable quality, and, of course, the joke(s) of the week.

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Unicode 7.0 includes 250 new emoji icons that could come to future iOS update

Joe Rossignol ∙ June 16, 2014

The Unicode Consortium announced today that Unicode 7.0 is now available, adding currency symbols for the Russian ruble and Azerbaijani manat, historic scripts and other new symbols. But as reported by MacRumors, the bigger news for iPhone and iPad users is the addition of approximately 250 new emoji icons. Before you get too excited, Apple still has to update iOS to support the new Unicode standard first…

Jony Ive and Tim Cook on Apple’s design process, new materials, revamping software and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 14, 2018

Apple's design guru Jonathan Ive rarely gave any interviews under the Steve Jobs regime. But this are different now, this is Tim Cook's Apple. In another sign of much-welcomed openness signaling that the Cupertino firm has changed its ways when it comes to public relations, it's increasingly making its key executives available to media.

The New York Times just published a must-read interview with Ive, following its extensive profile of Tim Cook yesterday.

The fascinating read touches upon a number of interesting topics dealing with Apple's design process, giving us valuable insight into what it was like to brainstorm products with Steve Jobs watching over your back, especially contrasted to Tim Cook's more relaxed approach which delegates much of Jobs's multi-faceted work to Ive and several new executives...