Apple

iPad to keep losing ground until new models arrive

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 29, 2016

During the June quarter, sales of Apple's iPads declined fourteen percent from a year earlier. And as Mac and iPod shipments dropped, too, the iPhone stood out as Apple's lone booming product - the company sold twenty percent more handsets than a year earlier.

Analysts and suppliers now speculate iPad shipments will keep on falling due to stiff competition in the table sector and the aging lineup - at least until Apple's blockbuster Fall brings us an iPad 5, a cheaper iPad mini and maybe even a Retina iPad mini...

Apple could have to pay nearly $500 million in ebook case

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

According to a new report, Apple could have to pay half a billion in damages in its ebook pricing case. That amount is based on the settlements the book publishers, named in the case, have already paid.

For those who haven't been keeping up with the ordeal, federal judge Denise Cote found Apple guilty earlier this month, of colluding with five publishers to fix ebook prices at the launch of its iBookstore...

Joy of Tech jokes about Dev Center outage

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

It's been more than a week now since a security researcher tapped an iAd Workbench vulnerability, prompting an unprecedented shutdown of Dev Center, but Apple is still struggling to bring all of the fifteen different services back up (only Bug Reporter and iTunes Connect were live at post time).

The outage isn't alarming (yet) - at least compared to the PSN breach - and Apple assured no credit card data or iTunes accounts was compromised.

But tell that to frustrated Apple developers who are unable to access their documentation, beta code and development tools. You can tell the unnerving situation is getting out of hand when satirists start joking about it...

iPhoto beware: native Google+ Photos app heading to Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 26, 2017

Despite its pedestrian and overly geeky interface, I still find myself using Google's Picasa Mac app to geotag my photos, find duplicates and organize image files in folders prior to importing the images into iPhoto. Picasa may not win any beauty contest, but it sure is lightning fast and gets the job done.

Now, once Google retired Picasa Web Albums and doubled-down on Google+ Photos, I could tell the desktop Picasa software was heading to the technology graveyard. But some good will come out of this: according to a Google-focused blog, the Internet giant may be replacing Picasa soon with an upcoming desktop Google+ Photos app for Mac, Windows and Linux...

Now iTunes activation servers are experiencing outage

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 25, 2013

Just when I thought Apple has started to recover from the Dev Center breach and that the brouhaha couldn't get any worse, now comes word that iTunes activation servers have been experiencing an extended outage for the past few hours. No matter how you look at this, it's another blunder for Apple.

Without iTunes servers working, customers are unable to activate their handsets. Apple's servers used to melt under heavy load before, but it always happened shortly after a new iPhone had gone on sale (2007/2008/2009 iPhone launches), never mid-cycle like today.

It was unclear at post time whether this development had anything to do with a breach last Thursday which prompted Apple to take the entire Dev Center down...

New in iOS 7: smart ‘send from’ in Mail

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 25, 2013

Just a quick note regarding a nice little feature discovery in Apple's stock Mail app in iOS 7 that I haven't seen reported on thus far.

Prior to iOS 7, creating a new message in the stock Mail app would normally default to your 'send from' email address specified in the Settings app. iOS 7 has changed this behavior, for the better.

You see, Mail in iOS 7 is smart enough to over time learn who you're emailing and changes the 'send from' value accordingly to match the recipient's domain. I've included screenshots and the full description right after the break...

As Apple misses a beat, Amazon is Retina-fying Kindle lineup

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 25, 2013

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Google event which saw, among other goodies, introduction of the second-generation Nexus 7 tablet with an improved 1,920-by-1,200 screen, the Kindle maker Amazon is now said to be refreshing its Fire tablet family around higher-resolution displays, too.

And as Apple and its Asian suppliers scramble to solve manufacturing challenges that continue to plague a second-generation iPad mini, Amazon's top-of-the-line Kindle reportedly features a significantly overhauled display that packs 30 percent more pixels than the Retina iPad, into a smaller 8.9-inch screen compared to Apple's 9.7-inch device. Ouch!

Apple issues charger advisory in China

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 25, 2013

Following a widely reported fatality involving a Chinese stewardess who got electrocuted by her iPhone charger (just weeks from her wedding), Apple has posted a statement to its China web site recommending customers use only authorized chargers.

Ten days ago, a Chinese newspaper reported that 23-year-old China Airlines flight attendant Ma Ailun suffered a fatal electric shock when she answered a call using her iPhone that was recharging. Major media outlets picked up the report, creating another PR nightmare in Apple's "most important market" (Cook's words from earlier this year)...

Apple’s latest major acquisition: Apple

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, writing for Fortune:

Last quarter, Apple finally made a major acquisition. And what did it buy?

It bought Apple.

By my calculation, the company spent $16 billion last quarter ($4 billion in cash, $12 billion through the so-called accelerated share repurchase program) to purchase 36 million of its own shares at an average price of just over $444.

For that amount, Apple could have bought three Nokias or three BlackBerrys...

New Apple invention detects usage patterns to save iPhone battery life

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 3, 2017

Longer battery life is one of those things that's usually at the top of people's smartphone feature wish list. I know it is mine. But unfortunately, there hasn't been any major new developments in mobile battery tech over the last few years.

Companies like Motorola are figuring it out though. The Google-owned maker just introduced a new handset with a staggering 48-hour battery life. And according to this patent application just published by the USPTO, Apple is too...

Amid continuing outage, Apple launches Dev Center status dashboard

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 24, 2013

Seven days into the Dev Center outage and there's no end in sight to this major blunder. Developers use Apple's Dev Center to access technical documentation, download iOS 7 and OS X beta builds, file bug reports, give feedback, use web tools to manage their code and much more.

Therefore, this downtime is entirely unacceptable and it's become totally conceivable now that such a significant downtime might spoil Apple's blockbuster Fall. Realizing as much, the firm on Wednesday posted a notice outlining its steps going forward.

And, a brand new dashboard status page charts Apple's recovery from the hack...

Apple’s Q4 guidance suggests we’ll see a new iPhone in September

Cody Lee ∙ July 24, 2013

During Apple's quarterly earnings call yesterday afternoon, Tim Cook said something along the lines of "Apple has some great stuff coming in the fall." While the comment is vague, Apple's Q4 guidance may shine some light on when exactly we can expect to see new products.

Apple said that it expects revenue of $34 billion to $37 billion in the September quarter, with gross margins between 36 and 37%. And, according to BTIG analyst Walt Piecyk, those numbers only make sense if the company introduces some new hardware in September...