Apple

Apple hires Nike’s design director for wearables

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

It's been barely a little more than a month since news broke of Apple hiring a prominent Nike FuelBand developer and now comes word that Tim Cook has managed to lure away another high-profile Nike executive. Ben Shaffer, Studio Director of Nike's research and development lab dubbed Innovation Kitchen, is working for Apple in unknown capacity.

It certainly doesn't take a genius to figure out Apple hired him for his expertise in wearables. Nike is Fast Company's 2013 most innovative company and the Innovation Kitchen is where Shaffer and his team conceived such wearable smash hits as the popular Nike Fuel Band and the Flyknit shoe...

Leaked schematics suggest iPad 5 is thinner than iPhone 5s, lighter than iPad 4

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 27, 2013

Earlier this week, high-quality photos surfaced picturing an alleged fifth-generation iPad shell in 'Space Grey', the very same finish Apple debuted with the iPhone 5s. Matching up with tons of previously leaked images and rumors, these piccies reinforce suggestions that the iPad 5 adopts the iPad mini's skinnier side bezels and overall design.

An Apple-focused blog today posted what appears to be legitimate iPad 5 schematics, providing a glimpse into the iPad 5's design. In months past, rumors have pointed to Apple shedding the fat by using a thinner display assembly and a smaller LED backlighting module.

Now, the most interesting aspect of today's leaked documentation deals with the iPad 5's thickness: the device appears significantly thinner and lighter than its predecessor, the iPad 4...

LA school security gets an ‘F’ as teens quickly bypass iPad restrictions

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 27, 2013

You just had to see this coming. Los Angeles is temporarily pulling the plug on plans to let students take home iPads issued by the school district. In a surprise move, tech-savvy teens cut through district security like a hot knife through butter, allowing them to check out websites, chat on Twitter or stream music, rather than stick to just school work.

In a memo to L.A. Unified School District officials, the police chief suggests delaying further home distribution of the Apple tablets. Earlier this year, the school district inked a $1 billion deal with Apple, providing as much as 31,000 iPads for all students...

Apple working on multitouch gestures for iOS keyboard, patent hints

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Although Apple's iOS is known for its gesture-based interface, the iPhone maker is notoriously hesitant about enhancing the virtual keyboard feature. A patent granted Tuesday reveals the company has been considering adopting multitouch keyboard from the moment the iPhone appeared. The patent filing entitled 'Swipe gestures for touch screen keyboards' outlines gestures to handle common keyboard tasks, such as deletion, punctuation and more...

Apple and fellow tech titans expand fight against patent trolls to EU

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 27, 2013

Apple and more than a dozen other titans of technology have written to European Union officials, expressing concern that a unified patent court system could encourage patent trolls to expand their lawsuits overseas.

New rules now being developed could create "significant opportunities for abuse" allowing patent owners to "extract substantial royalties," according to the letter obtained by the New York Times.

Starting in 2015 trolls could take infringement cases to non-member countries or nations without much experience, creating a European version of the Eastern District of Texas. Courts in that U.S. district are notorious for rulings favorable to companies suing tech firms, according to the letter...

Contract-free iPhone 5s/5c launching on Virgin Mobile next Tuesday

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 17, 2017

Along with nine regional United States wireless carriers who yesterday announced October 1 availability of new iPhones, Virgin Mobile on Friday teased that it too will start carrying both the flagship iPhone 5s and the colorful iPhone 5c models pretty soon, as early as next week.

Considering nine of its regional rivals will start carrying the devices next Tuesday, there's little reason to believe Virgin would risk falling behind that schedule. Virgin Mobile is Sprint's prepaid carrier so the telco should offer the new iPhones subsidized and contract-free...

Apple hasn’t lost its coolness, declare UK brand experts

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 27, 2013

Apple once again leads the list of brands viewed as cool in the UK. In its twelfth annual CoolBrands Top 20 survey suggesting an improving British economy, the iPhone ranks No. 1 among luxury brands such as Aston Martin, Rolex and Bang & Olufsen.

The California-based gadget maker was able to shrug off stiff competition from 10,000 independent brands to retain the top spot. Android's Google dropped to the fifth spot with YouTube and Twitter also falling position. Microsoft's Skype even dropped out of the top 20, according to the Coolbrands rankings...

Inside Apple’s A7: dual-core CPU, quad-core GPU, Secure Enclave has 3MB SRAM

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

Following their initial analysis of the iPhone 5s's innards, silicon experts at Chipworks have now taken a closer look at the handset's 64-bit A7 processor to reveal a number of interesting tidbits in their initial low-level chip analysis. Based on transistor-level images of the Apple-designed, Samsung-built package, Chipworks was able to determine that the A7 consists of a dual-core processing core and quad-core graphics, tentatively identified as the four cluster version of Imagination Technologies’s PowerVR Series 6, the G6430.

Apple, along with Intel, is of course an investor with a ten percent stake in Imagination Technologies, the UK-based fabless semiconductor maker. Chipworks also focused on a portion of the A7 chip called Secure Enclave where Apple says fingerprint profile is stored securely and walled off from the entire system, except the Touch ID circuitry...

Apple patent envisions digital autographs

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 27, 2013

Have you ever read a book or listened to music and wanted an autograph of the author or artist? For printed items, the wish is easily granted - not so for their electronic equivalent. Now Apple has filed to patent a method for embedding autographs in ebooks and other digital material.

The patent application, titled 'Embedding an autograph in an electronic book,' describes a way an author can use a special application to digitally sign an ebook, video, song or author content, then share it with owners of the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad devices...

Apple yet again is most-innovative company, leading Samsung and Google

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 27, 2013

Apple again was named the most-innovative company. For the ninth year in a row, the iPhone maker topped a survey of senior executives polled Boston Consulting Group.

South Korea-based rival Samsung was No. 2 and Android's Google was listed as No. 3. Microsoft and automaker Toyota rounded out the top five...

Apple updates iBookstore for authors with larger in-book images and more

Cody Lee ∙ September 27, 2013

Apple sent out an email to authors and publishers last night, announcing that it has updated the iBookstore with a number of backend improvements including versioning support and increased pixels limits for book images.

While the changes won't be readily noticeable to iBooks users, they will eventually lead to an enhanced shopping experience once content providers begin utilizing them in their content. We've got more details after the fold...

Samsung’s own Touch ID is at least a year away

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

Despite its unreal size, Samsung of South Korea is an extremely agile company, one that moves at a blistering pace. The conglomerate has been called many things and is perhaps best-known as a fast-follower. The press attached that nickname to the Samsung brand due to the company's ability to swiftly apply what others are doing to its own lineup and flood the market with countless products with small variations to them.

For example, Samsung announced its own gold Galaxy S4 variants merely two weeks following Apple's September 10 iPhone 5s/5c keynote. And just 48 hours into Apple's double iPhone announcement, Samsung co-CEO Kim Yoo-chul was quick to confirm his company's next smartphones will have 64-bit processing functionality, even if “not in the shortest time".

But now, Samsung has incomprehensibly decided to sit on the sidelines and watch instead how this fingerprint scanning thing on mobile unfolds...