Apple

Apple to hold iPhone SE media event during the week of March 21?

Kara Swisher of Re/code shot down the March 18 date for an Apple media event which was originally reported by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac. According to Swisher, Apple's next product event is going to be held during the week of March 21, not on March 15.

Gurman originally claimed the event would be held on March 15, a Tuesday, ahead of the iPhone SE and iPad Air 3 launch on Friday, March 18.

“Or to put it another way, it’s not going to be on March 15, the time frame that other outlets previously reported,” she wrote, citing several sources familiar with the plans.

Recent OS X security update has disabled Ethernet port on some iMacs and MacBook Pros

In squashing software bugs, you inevitably introduce new ones—that's a fact of life. According to a thread on Reddit, Apple's recent OS X security update has inadvertently disabled the Ethernet port for some owners of Apple's all-in-one desktop and the MacBook Pro notebook.

Making matter worse is the fact that Apple pushed this security update via the silent updating mechanism, according to a poster on Reddit who probably enabled the option in System Preferences → App Store that prompts OS X to automatically install system data files and security updates.

Leaked iPhone SE screen assembly lacks 3D Touch

Just as so-called 'iPhone SE' is about to enter mass production, we have become exposed to its very first claimed component leak. Saturday, the reliable French blog NowhereElse.fr posted a purported image of the iPhone SE's screen assembly which supports the thesis that 3D Touch will remain exclusive to the iPhone 6s as a differentiating feature.

3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus uses an additional layer with 96 pressure-sensing sensors and is found between the display itself and the backlight module. No such layer could be identified in the leaked image.

KGI: iPhone SE will have 12MP iSight camera, iPhone 5s to go half price

Apple's upcoming four-inch 'iPhone SE' will cost between $300 and $400 in the United States, it will have a twelve-megapixel camera on the back rather than an eight-megapixel shooter, as previously rumored, and is entering mass production soon. Moreover, the existing iPhone 5s is slated to be discounted by fifty percent.

That's the gist of a note KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo sent to clients, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider.

Apple’s $120 million patent victory against Samsung overturned

An appeals court on Friday ruled that Samsung won’t have to pay Apple $119.6 million for infringing its patents, reports Bloomberg. The court found two of Apple's patents, including one for its slide-to-unlock feature, to be invalid and a third wasn’t infringed.

Today's ruling overturns a verdict reached by a California jury in May 2014, which found Samsung devices to infringe on Apple's patents. It also upholds a decision to make Apple pay Samsung $158,400 in damages for infringing on its video compression patent.

Tim Cook on Apple Car: ‘it’s going to be Christmas Eve for a while’

Don't expect the Apple Car to start hitting stores anytime soon, says Tim Cook. During Apple's annual shareholders meeting on Friday, the CEO responded to a question regarding the rumored vehicle, suggesting the project is far from launching.

Business Insider has Cook's full response from the Q&A session: "Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve it was so exciting, you weren't sure what was going to be downstairs? Well, it's going to be Christmas Eve for a while."

How to repair Mac disk errors in macOS Recovery Mode

macOS on your Mac includes a disk-repairing app, called Disk Utility, which you can use to scan your connected drives for errors, erase a disk, repair disk permissions, check the disk's structure for physical errors and more.

But what can you do, if anything, should your Mac experience issues preventing it from starting up properly? Not to worry, our friends, because macOS lets you launch a standalone version of Disk Utility from your Mac's built in recovery partition.

In other words, macOS' Recovery Mode gives you a chance to repair a malfunctioning startup disk that prevents your Mac from booting properly.

A compilation of iPhone 7 concept renderings

We're still more than six months away from the official introduction of Apple's next iPhone, meaning substantial leaks probably won't appear until late summer. That's not stopping 3D artists from imagining the iPhone 7 and its features.

We are being tipped about iPhone 7 concepts almost on a daily basis, but most of the concepts we review are too outrageous or futuristic to showcase on iDB.

Some of them are, however, quite plausible, if not intriguing. My colleague Andrew has put together a nice video compilation of the top five iPhone 7 concept renderings that we think you might like. 

Apple’s 4-inch iPhone refresh to be named ‘iPhone SE’?

Forget about the rumored 'iPhone 5SE' name that has been floating around for weeks now, it seems that Apple will call its upcoming four-inch iPhone refresh an 'iPhone SE,' according to 9to5Mac's reliable Mark Gurman (we called it, actually). If true, the planned name change will mark the first iPhone upgrade without a number in its name.

The iPhone SE is expected to replace the existing iPhone 5s and will take its price points, claim Gurman's unnamed sources. These sources also say that “the dropping of the '5' from the name simplifies the iPhone lineup as bringing back an iPhone '5' variant amid the iPhone '6' lifecycle could potentially confuse customers,” reads the report.

tvOS App Store now lists four times more Apple TV apps in Top Paid, Free and Grossing categories

In addition to a dozen new categories, including Catalogs and Utilities, that have been added to the App Store on the fourth-generation Apple TV earlier this week, Apple has made another change to the store that should make app discovery easier.

As reported by German blog iTopnews.de, now each Top Charts section available on the tvOS App Store includes 200 apps instead of just 50 like before.

WSJ: iPhone contract manufacturer Foxconn is delaying the signing of Sharp takeover agreement

As previously reported, Apple's favorite contract manufacturer Foxconn has made a $6.2 billion bid to acquire the ailing Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp, which has been in the business for a cool 103 years now. Although Sharp’s board has made the decision to accept the offer last Thursday, it seems the acquisition is not a done deal after all.

As reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal, Foxconn is reportedly delaying the signing of the takeover agreement after it had been “surprised” by new information Sharp had disclosed just a day before.