Apple

Apple, A123 Systems settling lawsuit over battery engineer poaching

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple and A123 Systems, maker of advanced batteries, submitted a court filing this week saying they are nearing a settlement regarding their engineer poaching lawsuit, reports the Boston Globe. They've "reached an agreement, signed a term sheet, and are in the process of drafting a final agreement."

The lawsuit made headlines earlier this year, when A123 claimed that Apple was hiring away its top scientists and engineers to build a competing battery business. The news broke amidst reports that the Cupertino firm had taken an interest in electric cars, and had begun work on larger battery packs.

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Consumer Reports won’t recommend Samsung Galaxy S6, paints it inferior to last-gen Galaxy S5

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 13, 2015

Consumer Reports, an influential U.S. magazine that publishes trusted and mostly unbiased reviews and comparisons of consumer products, has recommended Apple's iPhone in the past, but now they wouldn't recommend Samsung's latest Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone, which released a month ago, over the last-generation Galaxy S5.

You read that right, last year's Galaxy actually ranked higher than the Galaxy S6 in Consumer Reports’ ratings. Putting the S6 through its battery of scientific tests, the publications has made some surprising, if not controversial, conclusions.

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Facebook launches quick-loading, interactive ‘Instant Articles’ as an iPhone-exclusive feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 13, 2015

Facebook today announced a new ‘Instant Articles’ feature which is rolling out to its iPhone application later today. As the name implies, this iPhone-exclusive capability lets cherry-picked publishers craft versions of news stories for mobile screens that load in a fraction of a second.

The new, mobile-optimized reading experience includes interactive features from Facebook's Paper app, with support for rich media such as photos and video and other embeddable content types like multitouch maps and more.

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Samsung’s answer to Apple Watch’s Digital Crown: Rotating Bezel

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 13, 2015

The Digital Crown on the Apple Watch is quintessentially Apple. Engineered with the traditional watch vocabulary in mind, the Digital Crown makes it easy to magnify content on such a small-screen device while enabling precise control and quick adjustments.

Crucially, the Digital Crown lets you interact with the Apple Watch software and apps without your fingers obscuring on-screen content. If you thought that Samsung, Apple's arch rival, would respond by ripping off the Digital Crown wholesale, think again.

The South Korean company has seemingly engineered an innovative input method of its own in preparation for “the next generation Gear device.” As first reported by SamMobile, Samsung's solution corresponds nicely with the need to navigate content without obstructing the view.

Enter a rotating, round bezel — a new way to not touch the smartwatch screen.

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iOS 8 grows to 82 percent of devices in the wild

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2018

After passing the eighty percent mark two weeks ago on the heels of Apple Watch launch, and less than a month before WWDC 2015, Apple's mobile operating system has been found to now power 82 percent of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild.

The new data comes via the official App Store Distribution dashboard, which is publicly available on Apple's portal for developers. iOS 7 has kept its seventeen percent share from two weeks ago while older versions of the software continue to comprise about two percent of legacy hardware out there.

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Lock or unlock your Mac right from your wrist with MacID for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

MacID, a cool app by developer Kane Cheshire that lets you lock and unlock your Mac using Touch ID on your iPhone, or your passcode, is now available on the Apple Watch.

If you want to unlock your Mac right from your wrist, and own an Apple Watch, you should grab the new MacID 1.2 for iPhone, a $3.99 download from the App Store. You can even use the Apple Watch app to see what's playing on iTunes or Spotify, and start screensavers on your Mac.

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Apple TV picks up new channels in UK, Australia, Japan, Ireland and Scandinavia

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

After adding CBS Sports and USA NOW channels for Apple TV owners in the United States last week, Apple has now enabled four localized content sources for fans of its set-top box in the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Ireland and Scandinavia, 9to5Mac first noticed.

These newly added channels have been pushed silently over-the-air, but may not be available in your region yet as it typically takes a couple hours for the changes to propagate through the servers. You can also update your Apple TV manually by choosing Software Update in Settings.

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KGI on next iPhone: 2GB RAM, 12MP camera, Force Touch, rose gold, no new 4-inch model

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

Revered KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo arguably has the most prescient track record in forecasting Apple's plans. In a note issued to clients Tuesday, obtained by MacRumors, Kuo makes a number of predictions regarding the next iPhone refresh, many of which have already been rumored, but some never heard before.

He is expecting ‘iPhone 6s’ and ‘iPhone 6s Plus’ handsets to be powered by Apple's next-generation A9 processor with 2GB of RAM, twice as much as the current iPhone lineup. The RAM will be of a speedier LPDDR4 variety versus the LPDDR3 RAM in current iPhones. More RAM coupled with a faster, more power efficient processor, should result in smoother performance and better multitasking.

The camera is likely to receive a pixel upgrade and should be twelve megapixels while Force Touch pressure sensitive screen will be “the biggest upgraded selling point”.

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Apple again leads the pack in Greenpeace’s 2015 Clicking Clean report

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Greenpeace released a 2015 update for its 'Clicking Clean' report this morning, and Apple is once again leading the pack. The report gives tech companies a Clean Energy Index score based on factors like commitment to clean energy and energy transparency, and the Cupertino firm received a perfect score.

Apple scored 100% CEI, with A's across the board for its energy efficiency and deployment of renewable energy at its data centers and facilities around the world. Other companies didn't fair so well, though, with Google scoring a 46% CEI, Microsoft at 39%, Amazon at 23% and eBay all the way down at 10%.

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Paper by FiftyThree now lets you create diagrams, charts and wireframes

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

Keeping true to its promise, developer FiftyThree today updated its iPad drawing application Paper with support for a new set of drawing tools collectively dubbed the Think Kit.

With Think Kit, Paper users can take advantage of brand new Diagram, Cut, and Fill tools to create diagrams, charts and wireframes with ease. Think Kit is entirely free and comes as an automatic update for existing users of the Paper app.

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