Apple

Tim Cook talks Apple’s environmental efforts at Climate Week NYC

Cody Lee ∙ September 22, 2014

Tim Cook turned up in Manhattan today, to help kickoff the Climate Week NYC 2014 conference. The CEO was invited to speak as part of the 'enterprise-focused global solutions' portion of the event, and he participated in a short on-stage interview regarding Apple's carbon footprint.

More specifically, Cook talked about the various things Apple is doing to reduce its carbon footprint. Not only is it working to ensure that many of its facilities are run on renewable energy, but it's also working to make impactful changes through its supply chain and at the product level.

iPhone 6 Plus has ‘top performing smartphone LCD,’ DisplayMate finds

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

It's official: the iPhone 6 Plus has raised the bar for LCD display performance up by a notch and earned itself the title of the Best Performing Smartphone LCD display “that we have ever tested”, as per a detailed display shootout conducted by DisplayMate Technologies, a professional video calibration equipment producer.

Note that the benchmark did not take into account OLED screens from Samsung, which use a different display technology from the Retina HD screen on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

In terms of the best overall smartphone display, which includes both LCD and OLED technologies, Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 with its Super AMOLED display still comes on top, leaving the iPhone 6 Plus with the “Best Performing Smartphone LCD display” designation.

The iPhone 6 also has “a very good display” which is somewhat held back by its lower resolution and pixel count compared to the iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple reportedly looking to shut down Beats Music [updated]

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

Apple is looking to shut down its Beats Music streaming service, according to a new report from TechCrunch. Citing "several prominent employees" at both companies, the outlet says that many Beats engineers have already been pulled off the product, and moved on to other projects.

If true, such a move would be interesting considering the public praise Apple and its execs—namely Tim Cook and Eddy Cue—have given the service. It also recently added Beats Music to the 'Apps by Apple' section in the App Store, and launched a new Beats Music channel on Apple TV.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smoke competition in benchmarks

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus powered by the Apple-designed A8 processor leave the vast majority of Android competition in the dust in terms of CPU performance and battery life, according to a series of performance benchmarks conducted by the reputable hardware review website AnandTech.

The website's founder Anand Lal Shimpi recently joined Apple for an undisclosed role.

Speaking of the handsets' graphics performance, the site has found the iPhone 6 Plus performing a hair slower versus the iPhone 5s due to the increased screen resolution. It's also approximately fifteen percent slower in GPU performance than the Nvidia Shield-based tablets. Despite this minor setback, performance gains across the board translate into “a pretty solid lead over the competition for the iPhone 6/A8,” wrote the site.

According to Apple, the A8 processor has two billion transistors, twice as much as the previous A7 chip. The piece of silicon incorporates twenty percent faster CPU and a cool fifty percent faster graphics while enabling up to 50 percent more energy efficiency than its A7 counterpart, as per Apple's official numbers.

U2’s Bono says Apple has 885 million iTunes accounts, talks new music format

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

Paul David Hewson aka Bono Vox (also known by his stage name Bono), the frontman of the Dublin-based rock band U2, revealed that Apple now has an astounding 885 million iTunes accounts in an interview Monday with Dave Fanning on the Irish radio station 2FM.

Moreover, he shed more light on the rumored new music format designed to revitalize stagnant digital downloads. The 54-year-old rocker also said he complained to Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs five years ago that the iTunes application “looks like a spreadsheet” and more.

Google updates Chrome for iOS with support for App Extensions in Share menu

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

The Internet giant Google on Monday issued a minor update to its Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad adding support for the new third-party App Extensions in iOS 8 using the multi-purpose Share sheet.

This allows you to download apps which advertise their own extensions and actions to the system, making them available in any app that makes use of the standard Share menu, Chrome included.

This edition of Google's web browser also includes iOS 8 compatibility as well as stability improvements and bug fixes.

Apple announces record-smashing ten million iPhone 6/Plus opening weekend sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

After announcing record pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus topping four million units in the first 24 hours, the Cupertino firm on Monday said it sold ten million units of both the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 during the opening weekend, including the four million units sold in the first 24 hours of preorder sales.

The figure breaks the previous record of nine million units in the first three days of availability held by the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c last year (the iPhone 5 sold five million unit during its opening weekend).

It must be noted that the iPhone 5s was not available for pre-order. On the other hand, unlike last year's iPhone launch, this time around the iPhone 6 has not launched immediately in China, Apple's second-largest market by revenue.

The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were announced on September 9 and Apple started accepting pre-orders on Friday, September 12. This past Friday, September 19, the handset hit Apple and carrier stores across the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Where did your iOS 8 Camera Roll go?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

Following Wednesday's public release of iOS 8 and today's launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Support Forums are already buzzing with disgruntled users who are venting their frustration with iOS 8 presumably removing some of their photos, a point driven home by the company's inexplicable removal of the Camera Roll album in iOS 8.

Indeed, it looks like Apple has introduced a major customer pain point by not elaborating whether the missing Camera Roll has anything to do with iOS 8's newly gained ability to access large photo libraries in iCloud within the Photos app.

So, where did your Camera Roll go and is there anything sensible to be done about it?

Apple updates iCloud for Windows utility with iCloud Drive integration in Windows Explorer

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 19, 2014

Apple on the iPhone 6 launch day Friday issued an updated version of its iCloud utility for Windows users with support for iCloud Drive and the ability to manage your cloud documents and upload/download files directly from Windows Explorer.

iCloud Drive can also be accessed in any desktop browser through the web interface at iCloud.com.

Photographer tests iPhone 6/Plus cameras, Focus Pixels, Exposure Control, OIS and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 19, 2014

As Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus hit store shelves in the United States and a few major markets around the world, first hands-on videos are appearing online (and let's not forget about torture tests, too).

Teaming up with The Verge, professional photographer Austin Mann put the handsets' enhanced cameras through the paces on beautiful locations in Iceland.

He took a series of photographs and videos that do an excellent job showing off improvements such as the new Focus Pixels, manual Exposure Control, higher-resolution Panorama photography, Slo-Mo video enhancements and Optical Image Stabilization.

The results are quite impressive: the more accurate sensor, Apple's enhanced signal image processor inside the A8 chip and iOS 8's software improvements enable noticeably sharper images, despite the same eight-megapixel camera resolution.

Google’s Search for iOS app gains Google Now traffic info and TV recommendations, more

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 19, 2014

The Internet giant Google on Friday refreshed its native Google Search application for the iPhone and iPad with enhancements to the built-in Google Now feature in the form of new cards for personalized TV recommendations and traffic information.

Furthermore, version 4.2 of Google Search for iOS now includes better Chromecast integration allowing owners of the $35 HDMI dongle to ask Google “what’s on Chromecast?” to open the Chromecast for iPhone app and start casting.

First iPhone 6 drop-test videos surface

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

As Apple Stores around the world opened this morning to the legions of fans and early adopters eager to get their hands on the company's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets, enthusiasts have already recorded first drop-test videos that provide non-scientific evidence as to whether the new phones are more easily damaged versus the previous models. I've included a nice drop-test video by YouTube users PhoneBuff who was among the first customers at Apple's retail store in Australia.

I've also put in another clip of a brand spanking new iPhone 6 slipping out of its packaging and slamming onto the concrete — as the cameras were rolling — much to the horror of its proud owner.