The removal of a game from Apple’s Chinese App Store has revealed that the Cupertino company has been failing to enforce government licensing laws introduced back in 2016 … The game Plague Inc was removed from the App Store last week after the Chinese government said that it was illegal. The game wasn’t in the best of taste, the idea being to design a plague that will spread and wipe out the population of the world....
ZDNet just published a story claiming Apple’s percentage of revenue has “been on the decline for years”. The story claims that percentage is currently 2.2 percent of sales which seems pretty low compared to other technology players (especially when Apple is so innovative). But this isn’t factoring in how items such as a reported $200 million investment in Siri technology, a new CEO, and investments in the company’s 175-acre Spaceship campus contribute to overall growth…...
Research firm IDC is out today with new data on the state of the tablet and 2-in-1 market in the first quarter of 2014. As you might expect after Apple’s most recent earnings report, Q1 unit shipments of iPad were down by 3 million from 19.5 million to 16.4 million between 2013 and 2014. For its part, Apple attributes its Q1 2013 iPad sales as inflated due to demand for iPad mini in Q4 2012 being fulfilled in the following quarter when supply was less constrained....
As noted by Bloomberg, The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has blocked Apple’s request for an emergency ban on U.S. imports of HTC devices. Earlier this month, Apple filed the request for the immediate ban related to an Apple patent for parsing out phone numbers within text in its mobile device operating system, iOS. Apple specifically named the fairly new and notable HTC One S, One X, Flyer, and EVO 4G in the ban request, though all HTC products running Google’s Android operating system are covered....
One of the most highly-antipcated shows in Apple’s arsenal of original content is a morning show drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. Variety reports today, however, that the show has undergone a leadership change due to creative differences… The report explains that Jay Carson had originally been serving as creator and showrunner, but has since parted ways with the unnamed series due to “creative differences.” Replacing Carson as showrunner is Kerry Ehrin, who has worked on shows such as Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and Bates Motel....
As we previously reported, Apple’s new MacBook Pro lineup is launching as early as next week. Today, we have all the details on the new notebooks and this looks to be a minor refresh with faster processors and more storage (for some models). The prices will be the same as the current model’s prices. New 13-inch MacBook Pros: 2.4 GHz dual-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive, SD card slot 2....
This app is definitely welcome for fans of Podcasts. It lets you subscribe to podcasts directly on your device without having to sync with iTunes on your computer. This will also make it easier for iDevice users who aren’t familiar with podcasts by providing an easier way to start discovering them. Right now, the app is currently featured in the Apple iTunes Store where you can download it. Start the app, and you get a cool radio dial interface you can scroll through to select different podcast categories....
Apple is making it easy for anyone, not just those part of its paid developer program, to access beta builds of OS X and in the process submit feedback to Apple. As noted by The Loop, Apple is kicking off a new OS X Beta Seed Program today for all customers that will allow anyone with an Apple ID to install beta builds of OS X starting with the latest OS X 10....
After rolling out a redesigned iCloud Photos app to the beta site earlier this month, today the updated experience is now available to all through iCloud.com. The refreshed Photos app, which includes an updated sidebar and scrubber to match the native Mac Photos app, first became available through the beta.icloud.com where Apple tests new features before releasing to all users. The new Photos app includes an updated toolbar with upload and download buttons along the the top of the interface....
Anil Sethi with his late sister Tania, the inspiration for his new startup Apple’s work in the health industry has been well reported thus far, but CNBC reports today that the person running Apple’s health efforts is leaving the company. Anil Sethi was originally named director of the health team last year, when Apple acquired his medical record startup Gliimpse… Prior to his announcement that he would be leaving Apple, Sethi had been on an extended leave of absence to care for his sister, Tania, who passed away from cancer in September....
Apple has launched the cheaper 16GB version of the iPod touch with a 5 megapixel iSight camera internationally. The new iPod also comes in the same Space Gray, Silver, Pink, Yellow, Blue, and (Product) RED models as the 32GB and 64GB configurations. The new 16GB player first launched in the United States last week, but today marks the first time that the units are available at Apple’s sales channels across the world....
The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is a program that ranks computers and displays based on environmental attributes in accordance with IEEE 1680.1-2009. According to Robert Frisbee, CEO of EPEAT, Apple asked the organization last month to pull its 39 certified desktop computers, monitors and laptops, which included past versions of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. The likely reason is the new Retina MacBook Pro. Its glass display is fused with the top of the case, while the batteries are glued to the bottom, making it extremely difficult to repair or recycle....
It had to happen — Intel introduced its Sandy Bridge processor this week and already intrepid Mac OS X hackers have managed to install Apple’s operating system on Intel’s new chip. Good news that it can be done must be tempered with reports as to how complex it is: it really is: indeed, it’s so complex developers at the tonymacx86 Blog, have published instructions. And these involve a patched kernel and the results?...
Apple closed all of its retail stores and offices in China on February 1 due to the coronavirus outbreak. The closures were scheduled to last for just one week, but now Apple says that all of its retail stores in China will have reopened as of Friday, March 12. Apple announced its closures in China on February 1 and said it planned to reopen stores on February 9, but that date ended up being extended....
According to a new report from the Irish Independent, Apple is planning to expand its presence in Ireland by creating 1,000 new jobs in Cork. Specifically, Apple plans to create a four-story office building and a 752-space car lot at its European headquarters in Cork. With this addition, Apple’s workforce in Cork will reach 6,000 and the company will be able to expand its workforce at the Holyhill development, while also continuing to support its economic development objective....
Apple declared its own operations 100% carbon neutral back in 2018, and last month said that it would achieve the same thing for its entire supply chain by 2030. That’s actually a far bigger promise, because Apple’s suppliers use more energy than the company itself. But steps toward this target have highlighted the workaround Apple uses to make its claims… Bloomberg this week noted this in a piece earlier this week....
Apple’s planned R&D center in Yokohama, Japan, appears to have fallen behind schedule. We got our first look at renders of the funky-looking building a little over a year ago, when the city’s mayor reported that construction would begin in 2015 and complete in 2016. But Japanese blog Macotakara now reports that a construction board outside the site says that it will instead complete in March 2017. We first learned of plans for the building back in 2014, when the Japanese prime minister said that the facility “will be on par with Apple’s biggest R&D centres in Asia....
Le Figaro, a well-respected 186-year-old French daily newspaper, just reported that Apple’s Vice President and General Manager for Europe, Middle East, and Africa Pascal Cagni resigned yesterday. During his 12 years at Apple, according to Le Figaro, the French executive stimulated Apple’s sales in hundreds of countries. He also engaged in the development of the iPod, iPhone, and the AppStore platform, while helping to expand Apple Stores. Cagni joined Apple as the Vice President of Europe in 2000, according to Apple’s website, and before that he worked at NEC/Packard Bell Europe as the Vice President of Consumer Products....
Yesterday, a bunch of people noticed that iCloud sharing links to their shortcuts were no longer working, instead reporting a ‘Shortcut Not Found’ error message. For people that have built up archives of hundreds of hundreds of shortcuts online, this was pretty concerning. Apple was not immediately responsive to the community and the issue persisted through all of yesterday with no official comment on the matter, leaving a few people to worry that the links would be broken indefinitely....
Apple has begun running two new television commercials for the iPad mini. The new ads build out a series that started with Apple’s iPad mini Garageband ad; a commercial that demonstrates the iPad mini’s equal software capabilities to the full-sized iPad. The new ads focus on iBooks and iPhoto. The first ad shows the iBooks application and reading on the iPad mini, and the second ad shows the iPad mini’s photo viewing capabilities and advanced editing functions via the iPhoto App Store app....
