Apple

Is the end of the iFactory Girl upon us?

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

Despite ongoing criticism of poor labor conditions at its factories (sometimes likened to sweatshops), especially following The New York Times' iEconomy series, the world's largest assembler of electronics Foxconn could still be interested in replacing some of its one million low-wage workers with advanced industrial robots. Such an unprecedented switch wouldn't be without pitfalls. Robots promise to make gadget manufacturing faster, way more reliable and potentially cheaper, but also render a ton of human workers obsolete in the process...

Thoughts: iPad mini could be big with women

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

We told you yesterday that The New York Times joined The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in backing the rumor calling for a smaller, cheaper iPad, affectionately dubbed by the media the iPad mini. But the smaller $249-$299 iPad wouldn't just give Google's $199 Nexus 7 tablet a run for its money, it might strike a chord with women similarly to how the first iPod mini music player with its five attractive colors (silver, gold, pink, blue and green) had become big with female buyers...

Is Siri’s magic wearing off?

Cody Lee ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

When Apple unveiled Siri last fall, the tech world seemed genuinely excited. Sure, other platforms like Android and Windows Phone already had voice control, but Apple's assistant seemed to be on another level.

Over the next few months, however, that excitement slowly began to wear off. Siri's beta roots started showing with service outages, and a noticeable drop in accuracy. And then the lawsuits started to appear...

icloud.com email addresses now available for iCloud mail users

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

As pointed out by MacRumors, Apple today began a long-expected transition from old @me.com email addresses hosted at the discontinued MobileMe service over to new iCloud addresses. People who are signing up for new Apple IDs will automatically get an @icloud.com email address. Those with a @me.com email address will also get a matching iCloud email, provided their devices run the just-released iOS 6 Beta 3...

Samsung widens lead over Apple, sells 50M smartphones in June quarter

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Samsung, the maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets, has widened its lead over Apple in the second quarter of this year, according to a non-scientific poll conducted by Reuters. It is estimated that Samsung sold 50 million smartphones in the June quarter while Apple is seeing selling 30.5 million iPhones.

Of course, the South Korean conglomerate recently launched the Galaxy S III smartphone, its flagship product backed with an aggressive advertising campaign, while Apple is left to fight with the nine-months-old iPhone 4S as the new iPhone won't arrive until September or October...

Apple seeds iOS 6 Beta 3 to registered developers

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

Apple has just issued a third beta build of iOS 6 to developers. The new software has not yet appeared on Apple’s iOS Developer Center though devices running iOS 6 Beta 2 can update over-the-air (go to Settings > General > Software Update). The update prompt mentions only "bug fixes and improvements" so we're doing some digging as we speak and will update when we find out more...

Jobs’ advice to Yelp CEO: don’t go Google

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

It was one of those classic Jobs moments Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman will never forget. He was in a middle of a conference call with venture capitalists as Steve Jobs called in to offer a word of advice regarding a takeover bid from Google. In hindsight, Jobs wanted Yelp to stay independent as Apple had big plans with iOS 6 Maps and Siri that included Yelp...

BioLite CampStove lets you charge your iOS device by burning stuff

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

Say what you will, but all day long performance is a pipe dream with today's power-hungry iOS devices. Because these are mini computers, iOS devices require lots of juice to run. Unfortunately, space constraints and today's battery technology just can't keep up with the realities of mobile computing (yet).

Folks tackle the problem with battery packs, but that's just another item to lug around while out and about. And guess what, a battery pack is one item that routinely gets forgotten in my camping preparations. But I never forget a camp stove.

Enter BioLite's CampStove, an awesome new 'accessory', basically a special camp stove which lets you burn stuff - be it wood and pine or twigs and leaves or other bio mass - to convert heat to energy via its built-in thermoelectric generator, so you can charge your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. The campfire will never be the same. A cool promo video follows right below...

Google in a state of IP denial over Android, warns patent expert

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

Dispelling a notion that rivals are taking Google to court out of frustration over their inability to slow down the Android freight train, patent expert Florian Müeller makes a point in a post over at his FOSS Patents blog that a collective market capitalization of the various corporations suing Google is approximately $1.06 trillion versus Google's $188 billion market cap.

More important than that, he says, "the companies who claim that Google's Android infringes on their intellectual property are too diverse to believe in a conspiracy". Müeller also notes that the Japanese giant Fujifilm, which mostly played defensive role in litigation, has also sued Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility for Android's alleged infringement of four of its patents...

Apple starts blocking Russian servers that authenticate in-app content for free

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 16, 2012

Making good on its promise, Apple has started to block Russian servers which authenticate paid in-app content for free, The Next Web reports. The company is blocking IP addresses that host the rogue in-appstore.com domain by issuing takedown notices to hosting companies. PayPal has also intervened to block a private account through which donations had been collected, citing violation of its terms of service.

Despite this, hacker Alexey V. Borodin, the brains behind this controversial method, has already moved the servers to another country in an attempt to evade Apple’s legal requests...

3 reasons to get excited about this year’s iPhone

Cody Lee ∙ July 16, 2012

It's October 4th, 2011, and Apple is hosting its highly anticipated iPhone event. SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller is on stage, and after about 5 minutes of discussing changes to the iPod line, he utters the words that everyone has been waiting to hear: "Next, iPhone."

A sense of disappointment spread throughout the tech world as Schiller went on to unveil a familiar-looking iPhone 4S. Where was this teardrop-shaped iPhone 5 that we had been hearing so much about? With the bigger screen, and LTE? What about all of those leaked cases?

Of course, the 4S would go on to be a huge hit for Apple. But the whole experience has left a lot of consumers with low expectations for this year's iPhone release. Well it's time to raise them. There are actually a few reasons why you should be excited about Apple's next handset...

DisplayMate CEO on why Apple’s TV set will have a Retina display

Cody Lee ∙ July 16, 2012

Just because the rumor mill is focused on the next iPhone and iPad Mini right now, doesn't mean it's forgotten about the Apple television. The consensus still seems to be that the Cupertino company is working on a TV set.

The latest bit of speculation on the topic comes from DisplayMate's Raymond Soneira. The CEO says that he believes that the rumored Apple television will feature a display with its popular Retina technology...