Apple

Apple now a lone holdout in the e-book price fixing suit

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 8, 2013

Last September, three of the nation’s top five book publishers settled with The United States Justice Department (DOJ) over alleged collusion in the pricing of e-books, despite Apple crying foul and accusing Amazon of assisting the government's agenda. Following DOJ's deal with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette, Penguin followed suite in December 2012 and today DOJ announced that Macmillan has stricken a similar settlement with Uncle Sam, leaving Apple as a lone holdout in the suit...

Apple updates Airport Utility for iOS with new features and improvements

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Good news this afternoon for those of you who own AirPort base stations—that includes the AirPort Express, Extreme, and Time Capsule—Apple has released updates for both the Mac and iOS versions of its AirPort Utility.

The app allows you to set up and manage all of your AirPort devices, and today it gets some much needed improvements and a few new features including the ability to add WPS-capable Wi-Fi printers to your network...

Apple responds to recent calls for it to return cash to shareholders

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 28, 2016

Apple has just issued a statement regarding its commitment to return some of its extremely large—now more than $130 billion— cash pile to shareholders, saying that the company and its Board of Directors are in "active discussions" on what to do with its money.

The comment follows a press release sent to Apple investors this morning by Greenlight Capital, a major Apple shareholder, calling for the Cupertino-based iPhone maker to stop 'hoarding its cash,' and start returning some of it to its large base of stock holders...

Apple’s ‘disappointing’ holiday quarter compared to other companies

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 8, 2016

When Apple announced the results for its 2012 holiday quarter, the reaction from Wall Street was extremely negative. Despite selling a record 48 million iPhones, and recording a record $54.5 billion in revenue, the company's stock dropped more than 10% following the news.

A lot of folks have tried to explain the phenomenon—investors are worried about its slowing growth, or its ability to handle stronger competition from the likes of Google and Samsung. But the truth is, Apple is performing better than it ever has, and better than everyone else...

Cut the Rope ‘Lantern’ box arrives in time for Chinese New Year

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 17, 2018

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwziSZJ7gpk

Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Ahead of the upcoming festivities which come with a seemingly endless stream of colorful lanterns being released in the sky, Cut the Rope maker Zeptolab and UK publisher Chillingo have issued a content update which brings a brand new Lantern box full of - you guessed right - floating paper lanterns. With the 25 new levels, Cut the Rope now has a total of 350 levels spread across fourteen different boxes. Not bad for a 99-cent game...

The Woz: Apple has fallen ‘somewhat behind with features in the smartphone business’

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 7, 2013

One needs not ask Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak twice to comment on Apple's moves. For better or worse, he always makes headlines, sometimes by dissing Siri or the iPhone 4S battery life and other times by firing pot shots at Apple for not building a phablet of its own. Speaking at the Business Week Best Brand Awards yesterday, the Apple employee #1 discussed the iPhone, Samsung and competition.

Though an Apple loyalists, Woz isn't gullible and certainly doesn't shy away from confessing that competition has caught up with Apple. Other vendors did pass the iPhone in certain features and Samsung, he says, is a big competitor now.

In fact, he openly says that the South Korean conglomerate currently makes "great products". But worry not: the top geek loves the company he co-founded and "if Apple made lousy products, I would not be in line". Jump past the fold for other noteworthy quotes and a nice video...

FreedomPop confirms LTE iPad clip, launches in H2 2013

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 7, 2013

Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom-backed FreedomPop startup made waves with its Freedom Hub Burst no-contract wireless appliance that serves one gigabyte of free 4G data each month to up to 10 wireless or wired devices simultaneously.

Monday, Forbes reported that FreedomPop could unveil an iPad sleeve with 4G data via Sprint’s LTE network. A new report out today sheds more light on the matter: a FreedomPop LTE clip compatible with iPads is indeed due in the second half of this year. We've got more tidbits right after the break...

Sprint sold record 2.2M iPhones during the holiday quarter

Ed Sutherland ∙ February 7, 2013

U.S. carrier Sprint, the latest wireless provider to offer the Apple iPhone, announced Thursday it sold a record 2.2 million during the holiday fourth-quarter. A total of 6.6 million iPhones were sold for all of 2012, according to the company. Despite complaints of losses due to high subsidies, the iPhone has improved Sprint's ability to attract new customers.

The company said 38 percent of iPhone buyers during the fourth quarter were new subscribers. That's just slightly below the 40 percent of iPhones purchased by new customers throughout the entire year, according to the firm...

Canalys: iPad accounted for 1 in 6 PCs in Q4 2012

Ed Sutherland ∙ February 7, 2013

Apple's iPad mini is doing the job exactly as the company planned: slowing a slipping market share. The 7.9-inch device is working so well one analyst credited it for preventing Apple's fourth-quarter share of the tablet market falling below 49 percent.

Another, even more striking tidbit: the iPad accounted for one-in-six PCs shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, per research firm Canalys. And if you counted tablets instead of PCs, demand during the fourth quarter would be up twelve percent to 134 million units. Instead, PC shipments fell by five percent in 2012, emphasizing how tablets such as the iPad could recharge a flagging industry...

Apple, Samsung took 103% of 2012 handset profits

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

We have often written how the handset market is essentially a duopoly of operating systems - iOS and Android - as well as brands: Apple and Samsung. Yesterday came even another way the two are dominating the mobile world - profits. Apple and Samsung accounted for 103 percent of handset profits in 2013, a figure made possible by the zero or negative growth by six of the eight leading handset makers. Apple held 69 percent of handset profits earned in all of 2012, more than double that of the South Korean Samsung, which hauled in 34 percent of phone profits last year, according to Canaccord Genuity...

Twitter refreshes its terrible iPhone app with revamped search, tweaks

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 6, 2013

The popular micro-blogging platform Twitter today announced a freshly redesigned search experience for its iOS/Android apps and the Twitter.com web interface. This helps you find relevant tweets, trends and people to follow in a single stream. Plus, the reorganized search is now available anywhere in the mobile apps via a new icon.

You can see your five most recent searches, tap them to redo the search and clear your recent search history. Twitter says the updated iOS client launches faster, especially on older iDevices. It's a nice, albeit way overdue refresh. If you're using Twitter's official client, you can update your devices now. I'm sticking with Tweetbot...

Apple awarded design patents for slide-to-unlock feature, iPhone 3GS

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone back in 2007, he had a blast showing off the handset to the Macworld audience. And one feature he particularly enjoyed demonstrating was the phone’s 'slide-to-unlock' unlocking mechanism.

Apple has since been extremely protective of the feature, going after both Motorola and Samsung for using similar unlock methods. And it's just strengthened its IP portfolio regarding the feature, with a newly granted design patent...