Mark is an award-winning journalist who worked at 9to5Mac for over six years. He covers Apple and other topics related to the consumer technology industry.
Mark is regarded as one of the go-to reporters for all Apple-related matters, one of Wired‘s top 16 people to follow in technology, and one of TIME Magazine‘s top 25 bloggers of 2013. Mark has also been profiled by CNN Fortune multiple times, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, the Huffington Post, Business Insider, Columbia Journalism Review, Marketplace, Haaretz, and USA Today. Mark was also recently named to the 2015 Forbes 30 under 30 List.
In 2012, Mark published the first photos of the iPhone 5, broke the news about Apple’s switch to an in-house Maps application, revealed the first 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, forecasted that Apple would update the iPad’s software with Siri support, and accurately revealed the iPad mini’s higher-than expected price point.
In 2013, Mark published the first photos of the original iPad Air, provided the first details about Jony Ive’s end-to-end iPhone and iPad software update called iOS 7, provided information about OS X Mavericks, and detailed Apple’s early work on the Apple Watch.
In 2014, Mark revealed Apple’s work on a new Health application for iOS 8 and the Apple Watch, Ive’s redesign of OS X called Yosemite, and details about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Mark started out 2015 with a significant scoop detailing Apple’s yet-to-be-released 12-inch MacBook with a Retina display, thinner design, and more advanced trackpad and keyboard. He has continued the year by reporting on several details about iOS 9, including the new Proactive Assistant, redesigned Siri, upgraded Maps with transit functionality, new system font, split-screen iPad apps, Swift 2.0, as well as predicting a performance focus for both that software upgrade and OS X El Capitan. Mark finished the year by reporting the majority of the details about the new Apple TV, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, Apple Watch updates, the iPad Pro, the iPad mini 4, and iMacs.
Mark started out 2016 with exclusive reports on Apple’s work on a pair of completely wireless Beats headphones for the iPhone 7, details on the iPhone SE, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, Apple Watch updates, Apple’s March product event, new Apple retail initiatives, and Tim Cook’s Town Hall meeting with Apple employees.
Mark has also written long-form features on “Apple Anonymous,” a group of retail employees who discuss work over Twitter and the fascination of watches by Apple executives. Most significantly, in fall 2014, Mark published an extensive profile of Apple’s PR and Communications department that was compiled over two months into nine chapters. Mark also provides analysis on relevant technology industry topics, such as Apple’s recent executive shakeup. Mark kicked off his writing career at the end of 2009, and he had his first significant break in 2011 with a story detailing Siri and the iPhone 4S.
You can follow him on Twitter.
Apple has just posted a new iPhone 4 ad all about the amazing, magical, revolutionary, breathtaking, beautiful, gorgeous, and blow-away Retina Display. Check it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeDTJZtFfI0&w=640&h=385]
http://tweetcast.in/player-licensed-viral.swf
As we all know Steve Jobs had a liver transplant in 2009 that saved his life. Not everyone is as lucky as Jobs and was able to hop over to Tennessee where the line was shorter. Because of this, Jobs is on a mission for those in need. Here’s the video of him (via Cult of Mac) at a bill signing in California along with the Terminator and a few other California law makers. Jobs talk starts at around 9 mins in.
Apple has updated their estimated shipping time for the iPhone 4, on their online store. The store now quotes a shipping time of 5-7 business days and this is a significant improvement from the former ‘3 weeks’ quote. This not only shows that Apple may have cleared up their iPhone 4 production issues: getting them out of the factory, but also shows that the iPhone 4 is shipping quicker than the 3GS.
The iPhone 3GS currently lists a shipping time of 1-2 weeks which may mean a number of things. Is the 8 GB iPhone 3GS coming to a quick end? (probably not), are people buying all the $99 iPhones they can get their hands on? (maybe) Let us know the comments what you think’s going on with the 2nd fastest iPhone ever.
While you’re waiting to get your hands all over Apple TV’s AirPlay goodness, Netflix has thrown you a bone in their latest app update. Besides those infamous “bug fixes” which rarely mean anything, Netflix added video-out support. Video-support for Netflix allows you to hook up one of those fancy cables and enjoy Netflix’s wonderful content on the big screen.
If you’ve got an Apple TV this really means nothing, but if you don’t this is great.
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Oh, Apple, aren’t you so sneaky. Apple has apparently dropped AirPrint support for the 2nd generation iPod touch sometime between the press release and now. When looking back at the AirPrint press release, which we like 1000 other blogs copy/pasted from September 15th, it read “*AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (second generation and later).” Now it reads “*AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (third generation and later).”
out with the old (above), in with the new (below)
At least you 2nd generation iPod touch users still get to use Gamecenter :D
Amazon UK’s got a new book for us on iLife ’11 due in November. How convenient!
In case your German is a little rusty, that red band reads: “iPhoto, iMovie and more with apps for Mac, iPhone 4, iPod and iPad.”
That’s interesting. Does it mean that there are iLife apps for iOS or does it mean you can create apps for iOS with a new iLife Application? Or is this whole listing just a farce?
We’re expecting some new MacBooks of some sort during the next month or so, so an iLife ’11 introduction during that time would be a good fit.
Update: The German site has some more goodies (thanks commenter!)
One more surprise/contradiction below:
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Fortune reports that Microsoft today announced that they have filed legal action against Motorola due to patent infringements relating to their devices running Google’s Android operating system.
“Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.
We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones.”
As you can read in the statement, Motorola’s implementation of Android on their smartphones are accused of infringinging on Microsoft patents relating to e-mail, calendar, contact, and meeting time synchronization. Motorola also apparently infringes on patents for pulling cellular signal strength and device battery information. Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Horacio Gutierre, wrote a blog post about the situation that is surely worth a read. Gutierre perhaps best sums up this lawsuit with his closing statement in his post: “Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect.”
You can read the complete post after the break:
Apple has a little known “Reserve and Pick Up” website where you can check if a certain Apple product is in stock at a certain Apple Store. Apple has just added the Apple TV to this web portal and it’s now the perfect way to check if your local store has any of them in stock.
Unfortunately this site is U.S. only and you can click here to check your local store.
Note: This post is not showing you can reserve an Apple TV, this post is showing you that you can check if the Apple TV is available at you local store. Also, it’s a good idea to call your store first and not trust Apple’s website. BTW: Does not work in Google Chrome.
Yesterday we reported that Apple Stores would begin selling Bumpers again today. Here they are:
Yes, they are still $29. Thanks, Brendan for the picture!
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Apple today updated their MobileMe Gallery iOS app for full iPad support as a universal binary, Retina Display support for iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4, and support for iOS 4 quick-app-switching. Additionally, the update allows users without MobileMe accounts to view friend’s galleries through the app.
MobileMe Gallery allows MobileMe users to upload and share their photo albums with friends. The app is free as always and can be downloaded here. Release notes after the break:
The Apple TV has just been jailbroken by MuscleNerd via the SHAtter exploit but is not yet ready for primetime. MuscleNerd states that he is “not quite sure how to run apps yet!” but if past history repeats itself, the dev team should be able to get Apple TV apps working.
No word on when the Apple TV jailbreak will be ready for the public but at least we now know, for sure, that it is possible. Update: Video after the break!
According to sources close to the matter, Apple Stores across the nation will begin to start selling iPhone 4 Bumper cases again tomorrow, Friday October 1st. All Bumper colors will be available starting tomorrow at Apple’s retail stores. The Bumpers will be sold at their $29.00 price point and some stores may only have limited quantities. Note that colors will be subject to availability so it’s possible that your local store will not have all six colors tomorrow.
The main thing going on here is that you will finally be able to get a Bumper in any color you like, not just black. Hopefully for that $29 Apple will be selling the Bumpers in their usual packaging, not plastic bags.
This evening, Apple seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.5 to developers. 10.6.5 build seeding has been ramping up with the last seed coming just over two weeks ago. For those wondering, this latest build is 10H548 making it newer than the one seeded to iOS developers for AirPrint testing purposes which was build 10H542.
Oh, you need to grab this one from the Mac dev site, it’s yet to hit the iOS dev site and who knows if it ever will? The release notes for this build are after the break:
Google recently added gorgeous views of Antarctica to their popular Street View service and we just had to try it out on our iPhone. It looks pretty sweet for the few areas of Antarctica in which it works in. The interesting part is that Google’s imagery was taken by their Maps and Earth chief.
You know you want to check it out, so open this link on an iOS device. Unfortunately we can’t seem to see any penguins.. Reader, Ian found Penguins!:
Facebook CTO, Bret Taylor, at a dinner in New York last night said he is “very confident” that Apple and Facebook will figure out a way to work together on Ping. For those following the news about Ping, Facebook was pulled from the new music-oriented social network at launch. Recent reports also suggest that Apple and Facebook negotiated a Ping deal for 18 months before it obviously failed.
Apple has just updated the iPhone version of the App Store to include a re-designed gaming section. This updated games section has its own dedicated new games pane, a what’s hot (popular) section, a way to get into all the gaming categories (role playing, sports, etc.) and a Genius section just for games!
Check it out on the App Store on your iPhone. Thanks, Randall!
Update: It looks like Apple tried to push out this new section a little to quickly… It seems to have been removed to the App Store and has been replaced with the old gaming category. Oh, Genius isn’t working for some users we’ve talked to and Apple may be adding another categories pane to the featured section.
A tipster sent in some ninja pictures from his… Target store. Yep. They are selling iPads.
According to reports out of France (via HardMac) data carriers are currently in negotiations with Apple to allow for price subsidized sales of the iPad 3G. This would allow carriers to sell the 3G iPad model at lower costs for the customer if they agree to sign 1-2 year contracts. This would be an amazing thing for customers as they could potentially buy the higher end, 3G-rocking, iPad, get it for cheaper, and still get rid of it in a year when Apple releases their next iPad.
Apple is already wanting to get their 3G iPad into the hands of as many users as possible and this is evident through their data-pricing in the United States with AT&T. Users can have a 3G iPad but not use the 3G portion of it. They also pay month-to-month with no contract at all. The report also states that Apple may even already be in these negotiations with other European nations as well. Oh, could Apple being doing this because the Galaxy Tab is sold subsidized?
Back in July of this year, we told you about an Apple job description looking for someone to work on the team that is creating a “new and revolutionary core feature for Mac OS X” that has never been done before. Today, Patently Apple may have uncovered our first glimpse of this next-generation core feature. Apple’s patent filing details “virtual input devices” that tie into the future of iOS gaming and Mac OS multi-touch displays with 3D interactivity.
Essentially your input device will be transposed to your display in a virtual view. To break it down even further, your trackpad will be displayed on your computer monitor and you would control it via your monitor’s touch-screen. This of course gets into the patents and rumors of multi-touch iMacs. This does seem a bit counter-intuitive but there are many future-applications Apple could potentially use this patent for. One would be those touch iMacs with no physical input device, and another could possibly be a notebook with a second, smaller, display as the trackpad.
Getting into the 3D side of the patent, it seems that when an item or action is just waiting to be touched on your computer it will sit in the normal 2D mode, but when interacted with, 3D mode can come about. Think of 3D cover flow, or text popping out of your screen. Apple’s latest patent even hints at the future of iOS gaming with the aforementioned virtual input devices being used as game controls on an iPad, for example.
We already know Apple has a knack for throwing new features in with updates and today we discovered what looks like to be a future (or dropped?) iPhone 3GS feature. We all know and love that slick HDR photo capability on the iPhone 4 and the question has risen as to where HDR photo-taking is for older iPhone models. There have even been some hacks to allow HDR photography on the iPhone 3GS and now it looks like Apple has planned HDR photography for the iPhone 3GS all along.
As you can see in the visual above, there are two HDR icons within the SDK. As labeled, one is for the iPhone 4’s Retina Display, while the other is for an iPhone without a Retina Display. The iPhone 3GS is the only iPhone that is physically (hardware capabilities) able to capture HDR shots so we figure that non-Retina icon is for the 3GS not the original or 3G model. How do we know the other icon is not for the Retina Display? Apple has a very simple labeling process which places an “@2x” on image titles for the Retina Display and places nothing of that sort next to “iphone” on non-retina iPhones.
Also, by just looking at the image’s sharpness, you can tell one is for a much higher resolution screen, in this case the iPhone 4’s Retina Display. The question is no longer, did Apple plan HDR photography for the iPhone 3GS?, or is the iPhone 3GS capable of HDR photography?, but is when is Apple going to add HDR capability to the still-selling iPhone 3GS? On the other hand, HDR photography on the iPhone 3GS could be a feature Apple simply dropped from the public release.
Although Steve Jobs told a Swedish DJ that internet tethering (iPhone’s connection used for a WiFi iPad, in this case) wouldn’t be coming to the iPad, beta 2 of iOS 4.2 for iPad tells a different story. Hidden within the APN network settings on the iPad 3G is a new section dedicated to internet tethering. This tethering appears to be the type of tethering iPhones currently use versus tethering the iPhone’s internet to an iPad.
This section asks for the usual username and password to setup internet tethering, and this is similar to what the iPhone had before tethering got an official iOS interface. Because of this, we believe that internet tethering is in the iPad’s future and may even launch with iOS 4.2 in November.
One important thing to note is that we could not replicate this new settings pane on an iPad 3G running on AT&T’s network. This screenshot is from an iPad 3G running on 3’s network in Europe.
Thanks, Anton!
We’ve been waiting for years for Apple to include 3G chips in their notebooks and it looks like they’ve finally got a patent on it. The patent uncovered by Patently Apple sounds really confusing so we’ll break it down: It’s pretty much a patent for 3G antennas housed all around an Apple notebook.
Now, Apple, go make a MacBook Air with a high-res screen and 3G that launches in October, mk?
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YouTube has had a feature for sometime on their desktop web video upload client that allows video uploaders to choose whether their video is public, private, or unlisted. Public’s for the world to see, private is for you and your bros, and unlisted makes the video only viewable from a direct link or embed.
That feature has just arrived in iOS 4.2 beta 2 and hopefully it sticks around for the public launch… which it probably will.
The iPad got a new animation for quick-app-switching/multitasking in beta 2 of iOS 4.2. Here’s a video of it in action:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-QS-Mixng0&w=640&h=385]
