Apple

New Adobe apps: Digital Editions e-book reader and PaintCan for turning photos into paintings

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 30, 2015

Adobe has published a pair of new applications on the App Store, Adobe Digital Editions and PaintCan. The former allows you to access and manage e-reading material in Adobe's DRM-protected format on your iPad, with editions for Windows and Mac PCs also available for achieving cross-platform nirvana.

The latter, as the name suggest, is an easy-to-use painting software for creating nice-looking artworks from your favorite photos using either one of the preset brushes with different textures or your own brushes customized to your liking.

Photos of Apple’s Chongqing store, opening tomorrow ahead of Chinese New Year

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 30, 2015

Apple is scheduled to open a new flagship retail store in Jiefangbei Square in Chongqing, China, its second store in the city.

The beautiful structure borrows Apple's Pudong store design in Shanghai: an above-ground all-glass cylinder with an Apple logo and a hand-painted mural conceals the actual store located under street level.

Apple invited select members of the press on a tour of the Chongqing store ahead of the grand opening tomorrow at 10am local time and Chinese blog MacX posted a series of images showing the store's deceptively large underground interior.

AOL shutting down popular Apple blog TUAW

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 30, 2015

Sad news in the Apple publishing community today. Word on the street is that AOL, amid a new round of lay-offs, is going to shut down TUAW, one of the longest-standing publications and among the most successful blogs in the Weblogs, Inc. portfolio.

TUAW, which derived its name from the acronym for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, was founded in 2004 to cover tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.

According to TechCrunch, AOL will be folding both TUAW and Jostiq, a video gaming blog founded in 2004, into Engadget, another high-profile publication it acquired as part of the 2005 purchase of Weblogs, Inc. and its network of about 90 blogs.

Facebook launches new Place Tips feature in your News Feed, rolls out Facebook Bluetooth Beacons

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 30, 2015

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new feature in the hope of fending off threat posed by Foursquare and Yelp, both of which rule the crowd-sourced location discovery market.

Place Tips, as it's called, injects useful information about the place you're right at, including your friends’ recommendations and “fun, useful and relevant info,” right inside your News Feed.

But don't your worry, you can turn it off at anytime!

Opinion: neither the iPad Pro nor 12-inch MacBook Air make much sense to me

Oliver Haslam ∙ January 30, 2015

There's a lot going on at Apple right now. Record quarters aside, there is a lot to be hopeful for as 2015 gets into full swing, and not just because the fabled Apple Watch is finally on the horizon. If the rumors are to be believed we could see both the iPad Pro and 12-inch MacBook Air some time in the next eleven months, and both have plenty of people excited.

The iPad Pro story is one that has gone on for years now, and with photos of supposed parts for the new tablet starting to crop up, it's looking more and more likely that not only is the thing real, but it's not too far away either.

The same can be said about the 12-inch MacBook Air. Again, photographs of what it is claimed are parts for the unannounced product have started to circulate around the internet, and the noises that it might only have one USB Type-C connector rather than a MagSafe for power have meant that there have been plenty of column inches and podcast hours afforded to the subject.

But what is all the excitement really about, and more importantly, is it justified?

iTunes 12.1 update introduces a widget for Notification Center

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 11, 2018

Apple this evening posted the first notable update for iTunes 12 since the music management app was refreshed for OS X Yosemite back in October of last year. The release comes labeled as iTunes 12.1, and it includes a new media control widget for Notification Center.

The widget includes back, forward and pause buttons, much like the buttons on the Lock screen and in Control Center of iOS, as well as track information. And, when playing iTunes Radio, the widget allows you to favorite songs and purchase the currently playing song.

Sign of the times: Apple stops reporting iPod sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

The original iPod music player debuted on October 23, 2001, about eight and a half months after iTunes for OS X was released. The inaugural model was the size of a standard deck of cards, measuring 2.4 inches wide, four inches tall and 0.78 inches thick.

The music player had a tiny hard drive with only five gigabytes of storage, a monochromatic LCD screen, a mechanical click wheel interface for going through your music and a price tag of $399.

It took some time, but the iPod and the iTunes Music Store eventually went on to change the entire music industry and rebrand Apple as a music company. And now, after thirteen years, 400 million units sold and $65 billion in cumulative revenue, the iPod has quietly disappeared from Apple’s public reports.

‘ProCam 2’ goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple has just named Samer Azzam's ‘‘ProCam 2" its App of the Week for this week. This means that from now through next Thursday, you’ll be able to download the popular photo and video editor for iPhone and iPad for free—a solid savings of $1.99.

The app offers features such as Night mode, Burst mode, anti-shake, and a self-timer. It also has face detection, intelligent HDR, dozens of photo filters to choose from, and a variety of other tools that make taking and editing great photos and videos a breeze.

Revamped Yahoo for iPhone brings interactive magazines, Weather and News Digest

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 29, 2015

Ever since Marissa Mayer took the CEO job in the summer of 2012, mobile software and digital magazines have been a big part of her turnaround efforts at Yahoo.

Having released new apps like News Digest and revamped key ones such as Mail, Search and Weather, the pioneering Internet company's focus now sharpens on its namesake mobile app.

Now available in the App Store, the new Yahoo 6.0 sports a redesigned appearance with fresh new features that make it more in line with Yahoo's new digital strategy while resembling Flipboard in certain functional aspects.

While Apple is reaching new heights, Samsung is hitting new lows

Sébastien Page ∙ January 29, 2015

Apple and Samsung might be sharing the crown for top smartphone maker, with both companies reportedly shipping 74.5 million units in the last quarter, there are still wide discrepancies between the financials of the two giants. While Apple is reaching new heights following the record-smashing financial results for the last quarter it reported on Tuesday, Samsung is reaching new lows as its mobile division is crumbling to turn a profit, a situation that is the result of two very different strategies.

Tim Cook: switchers are buying iPhones in droves

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 4, 2017

Though massive, the iPhone business has plenty of room to grow because only a small fraction of Apple's installed base upgraded to the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 models. Fewer than fifteen percent of recent Apple buyers had an iPhone, with the remaining 85 percent of sales coming from switchers who used to own a non-Apple handset, in most cases Android.

That's the gist of an interview Apple CEO Tim Cook gave to the Wall Street Journal's last evening. In other words, the vast majority of new iPhones were purchased by former Android users.