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Carl Icahn: not fighting Apple leadership, won’t walk away from his investment

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Some people question Carl Icahn's motives and wonder what if the billionaire activist investor will stop at nothing in order to push Apple into burying itself in debt, just to fund his massive $150 billion stock buyback proposal so he could put a nice little profit into his pocket.

I'm not afraid of Icahn, but understand why some watchers are. And rightfully so, as Icahn is notorious for pushing for CEO and board room changes to have his way, often with little regard for a company's well being afterwards. So, what's the size of Icahn's investment in Apple, does he have a leverage over Tim Cook and what exactly is he up to?

OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 to fix remaining Mail bugs and refine graphics performance

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 18, 2013

Apple released its OS X 10.9 Mavericks as a free Mac App Store upgrade on October 22.

As is the norm with new OS releases, while these things tend to address complaints and issues from the previous version they frequently introduce new ones as well.

For example, immediately after Mavericks went live a bunch of people started complaining about a new and annoying Gmail issue in the stock Mail app.

This past Friday, the company supplied its registered Mac developers with the first beta release of what would become the OS X 10.9.1 software update. The software focuses on graphics enhancements and is said to squash the remaining Mail bugs...

Apple posts new Apple TV software beta with iPad mirroring improvements

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 18, 2013

Apple has just released the first beta of what would become the major iOS 7.1 software update containing a bunch of fixes and tweaks, including the updated Yahoo logo, performance improvements, a new HDR Auto feature in the Camera app and more. To go along with the software, the Cupertino company also posted an accompanying Apple TV beta software which contains an interesting iPad content mirroring feature. Jump past the fold for the full reveal...

Mesmerizing front-window displays going up at Apple Stores ahead of holidays

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 18, 2013

With the start of the 2013 holiday season officially less than two weeks away, Tim Cook and his lieutenants are adamant to turn Apple Stores into the best place to experience the magic of iPhone and iPad devices, Macs and other gear - all over again.

As is Apple's wont, part of the upcoming festivities is a holiday-themed interior design and fitting tweaks, including this mesmerizing front window display.

Take a closer look after the break and tell us what you though about it down in the comments...

Appeals court gives Apple another chance to ban Samsung devices

Cody Lee ∙ November 18, 2013

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated Judge Lucy Koh's earlier denial of Apple's request to ban 26 Samsung devices that infringed on its patent. The move will give Apple another chance to permanently halt the sales of these devices in the US.

Now the issue will be sent back to Koh's court, where Apple's lawyers will no longer have to prove that the patented features in Samsung's products were the sole reason for driving sales, but only that there is some connection between the features and demand for Samsung devices...

Best Buy and Sprint giving students 12 months of free talk, text and data with phone purchase

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 4, 2017

If you're a student on the lookout for an iPhone this holiday season, look no further than Best Buy and Sprint which teamed up for a cool smartphone promotion. Beginning today and valid until January 4, eligible students who purchase an eligible Sprint phone at Best Buy stores, at the student-activated price, and sign up for one of Sprint's plans will received twelve months of free service which includes unlimited talk, text and one gigabyte of data.

This normally costs $70 per month so the free year of service could save you a total of $840. Jump past the fold for the full reveal...

Retina iPad mini has inferior color gamut to iPad Air

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 18, 2013

Apple's latest iPad mini with Retina display went unexpectedly on sale last Friday. As is the case with any Apple product launch, this one, too, came with its share of teething issues.

Some early adopters may have bought a device with Sharp-made IGZO screen which apparently exhibits slight image retention issue, for example.

I was deep into AnanandTech's exhaustive Retina iPad mini review the other day and stumbled upon a section which describes the device's Retina display as actually showing fewer colors compared to the iPad Air. Not that an untrained eye will notice any difference, but I've decided to post this anyway for purely academic purposes...

Apple launches trade-in program in India to make older iPhones less expensive

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 4, 2016

India is home to 1.24 billion people. As such, the second most-populous nation (after China) is among the fast-growing markets for smartphones. Brazil, Russia, India and China have a collective population of nearly three billion people and as such these so-called BRIC markets are estimated to each overtake the United States in smartphone sales by 2018.

India is particularly important to Apple so Tim Cook & Co. in past few months rolled out a series of initiatives aimed at making it easier for cash-strapped consumers to purchase an iPhone. Apple's premium pricing strategy coupled with high import taxes and low average pay put the iPhone out of reach for many average Indians so the firm is now launching a new smartphone trade-in program in co-operation with local resellers...

Rumor: Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant stops iPhone 5c production

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 4, 2016

The world's top contract manufacturer, Taiwan-based Foxconn, is responsible for approximately one-third of total iPhone 5c volume and now the company is allegedly winding down handset production at its factory in Zhengzhou, northern China, and shifting capacity to the flagship iPhone 5s, according to "industry sources" who spoke to DigiTimes, an industry publication with a mixed track record.

The story somewhat corroborates last week's article by a Chinese blog which said another iPhone 5c manufacturer, Pegatron, slashed iPhone 5c production significantly because the flagship iPhone 5s was selling better to early adopters than the iPhone 5c, which is basically the last year's iPhone 5 repackaged in colorful cases...

Vimeo gets AirDrop sharing, new Incoming feed and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Vimeo, the popular YouTube alternative founded by Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein in November 2004, has an excellent iPhone and iPad app which a year ago received a major makeover and has been the choice of many videographers who demand higher quality with less restrictions than Google's video sharing service.

The company today pushed another interesting feature update finally bringing AirDrop video sharing between compatible devices, plus a new Incoming feed. As you could imagine, there are usual bug fixes and performance improvements in this update and a useful option where you can choose to have Vimeo use Wi-Fi or cellular connection when syncing videos...

Fantastical 2 updated with sound for notifications, badge options, and more

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Fantastical 2, one of the apps that many of us agree is an absolute must have, has been updated with tons of improvements, bug fixes, and optimizations. If you have automatic updates enabled for your iOS device and you already own Fantastical 2, you may have already received the update. Otherwise, you can head over to the App Store to download it now.

Coming in at 16.3 MB, version 2.0.1 of Fantastical 2 adds sound to notifications, brings additional app icon badge options, and lends iPhone 4 users a performance boost. Those are among the many additional changes and fixes added in with version 2.0.1. Check inside for a rundown of the full change log.

Deemo: a hybrid of music rhythm game and urban fantasy

Lory Gil ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Gaming has come a long way since Guitar Hero, but people still love to play games that require you to tap out a rhythm to score points. These days, you don’t use a fake guitar to rock out.

Deemo is a musically driven rhythm game that also includes a deep storyline to give you more reasons to play well than just becoming a rock star in your own mind…