Apple

Clearer circuit board photo reiterates iPad Air 2 may have faster A8X chip with 2GB of RAM

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Following a blurry shot posted by Taiwanese blog Apple.club.tw this weekend that purportedly depicts a claimed iPad Air 2 logic board with a chip labeled 'A8X', the same source Monday republished a much clearer image. It should be music to the ears of everyone hoping Apple will bump the forthcoming iPad Air 2 to two gigabytes of RAM. The RAM module appears to be built by Elpida, one of Apple's memory suppliers, as determined by the markings on the chip.

Doubling the amount of RAM would admittedly allow the tablet to keep more applications active and result in smoother multitasking, faster graphics and performance improvements across the board.

Apple not going to unveil Retina MacBook Air this Thursday, reliable report claims

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 10, 2017

Monday, Re/code's well-informed John Paczkowski poured cold water on rumors calling for a Retina MacBook Air introduction at Apple's upcoming media event this Thursday. The Cupertino company is not going to unveil a new MacBook Air model with a twelve-inch Retina display at the event, Paczkowski has learned from plugged-in sources.

“Sources familiar with Apple’s plans tell me that the company’s latest reimagining of the ultralight laptop won’t be shown off at its Thursday event,” he said. As Paczkowski previously reported, the forthcoming press conference — which Apple teased under the 'It's been way too long' tagline — should be about new iPads, OS X Yosemite and “a new hi-res iMac”.

Jonathan Mann’s new song has lyrics written by an iPhone, using iOS 8’s autocomplete feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Jonathan Mann, a musician, songwriter and unabashed Apple fan, has been churning out one song a day for nearly six years straight.

You may remember his iPhone Antenna song, posted to YouTube on the eve of the Antennagate presser.

Apple actually used it to open the event and Steve Jobs even danced to it. The song-a-day man also created a Siri duet not long after the iPhone 4s was released and another one to wish Siri a happy birthday.

He's back today with an entirely different experiment that somehow manages to sound catchy and listenable, which is remarkable given the meaningless lyrics were actually written by an iPhone using iOS 8's autocomplete function.

Poll: how often do you use Reachability?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

So I've finally managed to snag an iPhone 6 Plus this past weekend and boy does that 5.5-inch form factor take some getting used to.

Just ahead of the official announcement I, along with many other bloggers, was wondering whether a bigger iPhone might force Apple to rather unceremoniously abandon its unwavering principle of one-handed use.

Fortunately, Apple's smart engineers soothed our collective fears by creating a smart software feature dubbed Reachability, which lets you double tap the Touch ID button to slide the top half of the screen to the bottom half so you can reach touch targets in iOS positioned at the top, like Safari's address bar.

I've been loving Reachability a lot and using it on a daily basis. How about you?

Apple announces iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus expansion in 36 more countries

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 13, 2014

Apple announced in a media release Monday that its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets are coming to an additional 36 countries and territories across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa by the end of October.

Both new handsets will be available in a total of 69 countries and territories by the end of the month as Apple reiterated it's self-imposed goal to deliver the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in more than 115 countries by the end of the year, calling it “our fastest iPhone rollout ever”.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus pre-orders reportedly top 20 million in China

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 13, 2014

During a three-day period since the start of pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on October 10, Chinese carriers and e-commerce site Jingdong Mall (JD.com) have collected a combined total of an estimated 20 million units, according to a Tencent report [Google Translate] Monday relayed by Digitimes.

The country's three leading wireless operators — China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom — have collected about ten million pre-orders while Jingdong Mall processed about 9.5 million pre-orders, of which 4.66 million are for the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model and 4.82 million are for the bigger 5.5-inch handset.

Apple retail employees begin training on Apple Pay as launch nears

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

As Apple readies the launch of Apple Pay for later this month, it has initiated a mandatory, one hour training program for its retail employees and is coordinating with third-party retailers to ensure that stores will be able to complete transactions via Apple Pay starting on launch day.

Per a recent leak, screenshots indicate that Apple Pay establishment will be an option when setting up the rest of the device, and credit card details can be entered manually or scanned in with the device's camera. A new report by 9to5mac suggests that settings can be adjusted and additional credit cards can be added through an upcoming "Passbook & Apple Pay" tab in iOS's Settings app.

Apple revamps iTunes Store in iTunes 12 ahead of OS X Yosemite launch

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple has rolled out a revamped version of its desktop iTunes Store to iTunes 12 today. Folks with access to the developer preview or public beta of OS X Yosemite should see the new storefront with various changes including cleaner, flatter design elements.

As you can see in the image above, Apple has axed the 3D rotating carousel of featured content in favor of a new card-style layout. There's also no longer a backdrop shadow behind the album art, or in the navigation buttons, and the fonts have been changed.

Chinese carriers take in 1 million iPhone 6 pre-orders in 6 hours

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus officially began in China today, and it sounds like sales for the two handsets are doing well thus far. Tencent reports that the country's three major wireless carriers recorded more than 1 million pre-orders during first 6 hours of availability.

There's been no word on what sales looked like throughout the rest of the day, and the 1M figure doesn't include orders taken directly by Apple, or its 6,000 authorized resellers. It also doesn't account for the 9+ million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus reservations that were made last week.

Bose and Beats settle noise-canceling patent infringement suit

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Premium audio company Bose Corp. and the now Apple-owned Beats Electronics have settled their patent infringement suit, reports Bloomberg. The two companies a U.S. court in Delaware they’ve settled their claims, and asked the International Trade Commission to cease its investigation.

Bose originally filed the complaint against Beats in July, claiming that Beats Studio and Studio Wireless headphones, which both feature "adaptive noise cancelation," infringe on five of its noise-canceling patents. Clearly a settlement was reached here, but terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Apple to live stream October 16 iPad event

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Apple has posted a notice on its website this morning to confirm that it will be providing a live video stream of next week's iPad event. There's no countdown timer this time, but the company published the above image showing the stream will begin at 10am on October 16.

We're expecting Apple to unveil new iPads—at least a new iPad Air—with Touch ID support, thinner profile and possibly higher resolution displays. It's also believed that we'll finally see new iMacs with Retina displays, and of course OS X Yosemite will get some stage time.