Apple

Walmart shaves $100 off iPad 2, now $299

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 28, 2017

The unreasonably priced iPad 2 with sixteen gigabytes of storage and no cellular sells for $399. You'd be hard-pressed to justify buying a 2011 tablet at that price when $399 can buy you the latest iPad mini with Retina display instead. On the other hand, some customers such as schools and businesses clearly see the value or Apple otherwise wouldn't be keeping the device on the market at that price.

If for any reason you're in the market for a second-generation iPad, Walmart has a sweet deal for you in the form of an electronic $100 Walmart gift card...

Apple renews contract with its mobile GPU provider, Imagination Technologies

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 28, 2016

The fabless semiconductor maker, Imagination Technologies, has been providing Apple's iPad and iPhone with its graphics and video hardware since 2007. On Thursday, the UK-based company announced extending its licensing agreement with Apple, giving the iPhone maker multi-year access to Imagination's current and future PowerVR-branded graphics and video GPU blueprints.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Both Apple and Intel are investors in Imagination, with the former holding a ten percent ownership stake in the company...

Job ad confirms Apple testing health/fitness wearables

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 6, 2014

A new job ad discovered on Apple's website Thursday has pretty much confirmed that the firm is working on and testing some kind of a health and fitness related wearable device. It's the first semi-official confirmation of the rumored iWatch project if I ever saw one. I'm not sure if this is an unintentional slip up and why Apple would want to make this particular call for job applicants public.

Regardless, it's now clear that Tim Cook & Co. have been staffing up with a lot of wearable experts from medical, fitness and biosensing fields. The job description mentions expertise in such health activities as cardiovascular fitness and energy expenditure, including “calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking” and more...

Apple pulls Bitcoin wallet app Blockchain from App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

Apple on Thursday pulled from its App Store the last remaining Bitcoin wallet app that allowed transactions. Blockchain, the only Bitcoin trading and storage iOS app, has been downloaded 120,000 times. It can no longer be found on the App Store following the removal over an "unresolved issue".

Nicolas Cary, the CEO of London-based Blockchain.info which developed the app, told Bloomberg he didn't understand Apple's reasoning as his app's been on the App Store for two years.

Apple previously pulled Bitcoin-compatible apps from the App Store or asked their developers to remove the transfer feature because it's illegal in some countries...

Apple posts new ‘On the runway with iPhone 5s’ video

Cody Lee ∙ February 5, 2014

Apple has added a new video to both its YouTube channel and iPhone marketing page called 'On the runway with iPhone 5s.' The clip contains footage from the Burberry Womenswear Spring/Summer 2014 fashion show from last September.

For those who missed our original post on the fashion show, Apple handed out then-pre-release iPhone 5s units to Burberry employees to cover the event. Their footage highlighted the handset's image quality and new slow-motion feature...

Collection of every Apple reference ever made in The Simpsons and Futurama

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 16, 2018

A comprehensive list of all the Apple references ever made in popular animated TV shows The Simpsons and Futurama has been compiled by the folks over at TUAW. And knowing what a huge following the two shows have, I thought it was worth sharing.

The series have a combined 33 seasons between them, and were both created by Matt Groening. Groening has a well-documented affinity for Apple, and even wrote some copy for the company in the 80's, so as you'd imagine, it gets mentioned quite often...

Major update to Tempo Smart Calendar adds People Insights, Smart Alerts and lots more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

We were pretty ecstatic when Tempo Smart Calendar launched last Spring. Here was a comprehensive app that dared to think differently about what calendar apps for the iPhone should be like.

If you're not familiar with Tempo, the app couples your typical to-dos and calendar items with phone, email and SMS functionality while providing the smart-assistant functionality to look up flight statuses, extract meeting data from emails (Mailbox is supported) and more.

In today's update, Tempo has brought out three major new features and a whole bunch of nice-to-haves, adding up to its arsenal of the already strong productivity features...

Samsung asks Olympians to hide Apple logo on iPhones during opening ceremony

Cody Lee ∙ February 5, 2014

This is kind of interesting. Ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which is scheduled to begin in two days, Samsung has requested that athletes participating in the Games hide the Apple logos on their iPhones while taking photos and recording video.

It appears that Samsung, a major sponsor of this year's Olympics, is particularly concerned with the opening ceremony. And it's asked that any athlete who plans to use Apple's handset to record the widely-broadcasted event to keep the logo hidden...

iWatch to tap LG Chem’s energy efficient stepped batteries, rumor has it

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

As Apple continues to build up its team of world-class sleep researchers, medical device experts and biosensing ace engineers for the iWatch team, the rumor-mill is in full swing with related chatter originating from the company's vast network of Taiwanese suppliers and contract manufacturers.

The latest rumor: the company is tackling battery challenges said to plague the project by using so-called stepped batteries, a technology offering better longevity and enhanced energy density versus the traditional solutions.

Stepped batteries can be applied to different shapes and, as a bonus, boost capacity by as much as sixteen percent. Conveniently, Apple recently filed for a patent detailing a flexible battery design that specifically mentions wearable devices...

Apple bands together with fellow tech titans to fight patent trolls of this world

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 5, 2014

Apple, along with Silicon Valley technology giants Google, Yahoo, Intel, Cisco and Facebook, is going after patent trolls - that is, companies whose only "products" are patents bought solely as a litigation weapon against others who actually use them in their own products.

Apple and others are now asking the United States Supreme Court to allow stiffer penalties for patent trolls who bring frivolous lawsuits, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Apple has a backlog of over 200 pending patent cases, most of them frivolous claims, and in every one of such lawsuits the company has been forced to bear its legal fees...

BlackBerry rolling out Find Friends feature to BBM for iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 5, 2014

Troubled handset vendor BlackBerry today issued an update for its cross-platform messaging software, BBM, bringing out a new Find Friends feature.

Whereas previously you had to punch in a person's BlackBerry ID or email address to add him or her to your list of BBM contacts, today's update simplifies the process by detecting which contacts in your iPhone's Contacts are already using BBM, so you can quickly send them an invite to join your BBM contact list.

The free update is going live in the App Store later today so make sure to grab it (if you're still using BBM, that is)...

German patent troll hits Apple with $2+ billion claim over standards-essential patent

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 24, 2017

Apple and its billions are definitely the favorite target of patent trolls around the world and this newest case just exemplifies the fact. IPCom GmbH, a German patent holding firm, is suing Apple for patent infringement and is seeking north of $2 billion in damages over the use of a standards-essential wireless patent pertaining to an emergency service standard.

The use of the emergency service standard is required by law in many countries around the world! A trial in this case is scheduled for Tuesday, February 11, before Germany's Mannheim Regional Court...