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.
Apple appears to have taken to Tumblr to start up a new advertising campaign for the iPhone 5c. The campaign is called “Every color has a story,” and the webpage called “ISee5c” appeared within the past couple of days.
The advertisements are videos portraying different iPhone 5c phone colors and case colors. Each roughly 15 second video plays a different song and showcases the dots featured on the rear of the iPhone 5c official cases and on the iOS 7 dynamic wallpapers…
<a href="https://twitter.com/setteBIT/status/439458564189335552">Image via SetteB.it</a>
This morning, Apple is holding its 2014 official shareholders meeting from its Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, California. The proceedings are just beginning, and Apple executives are expected (per usual) to field questions from attending shareholders.
One of the orders of business at this meeting is voting to approve or reject both proposals from Apple’s management and shareholders. Bloomberg‘s Jon Erlichman reports that shareholders have rejected every proposal created by other shareholders while all proposals from Apple management have been approved…
It’s safe to say that Mail in OS X Mavericks has been the new operating system’s least impressive point. Since launch, users have been complaining about issues relating to Gmail accounts, stability, and overall synchronization. Apple first attempted to patch up these bugs with a fix in early November of last year…
Following an extensive developer beta process, Apple has just released OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 to end users. The update brings a few new features and enhancements, including:
FaceTime Audio in the FaceTime and Messages apps
Contact blocking for FaceTime and iMessage
Mail app improvements
Autofill fixes for Safari
Audio fixes
VPN fixes
VoiceOver fixes
The release notes do not make mention of the SSL security bug that was squashed on iOS late last week, but a fix is present in this new OS X update. The update is available on the Mac App Store in the Software Update tab.
A day following the arrival of WWE on Apple TV, users of the Apple set-top-box in Sweden today received access to TV4. TV4 is one of Sweden’s largest television networks with both live and scheduled programming.
Full episodes of TV4 content are available for seven days following the original air date and certain older content will always be available:
With ‘TV4 Play’ on Apple TV, full episodes of current TV4 Group shows are available to watch for up to 7 days after their original air date. ‘TV4 Play Premium’ subscribers in Sweden can access an extensive library of additional content with most current and previously aired episodes available for a longer time period. The ‘TV4 Play’ experience on Apple TV also includes play queue support, easy access to a personalised list of favourite shows, and a “resume play” option allowing viewers to pick up watching an episode right where they left off. Select shows are available in HD only through ‘TV4 Play’ on Apple TV, with the number of available HD shows expected to increase rapidly over the coming months.
HD content is currently limited, but TV4 says a larger rollout of higher-quality video content will occur in the coming months.
Apple’s new sapphire crystal component producer GT-Advanced announced its Q4 2013 earnings results yesterday, and in addition to talking about the past quarter, the company shared some details about its future and its well-publicized partnership with Apple.
The Apple Store iPhone Reuse and Recycling trade-in program is launching in Canada in the coming weeks, according to a source with knowledge of the initiative’s expansion. The source says that training for Apple Store employees in Canada will begin this upcoming week…
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi-Kuo, who has a strong Apple product prediction track record, is out with a new report today with his expectations for the iPad line in 2014:
In January, we exclusively detailed a major upcoming Apple initiative: Healthbook. Healthbook is the working codename of an app currently planned to ship with iOS 8. It is an app that stores and reads health and fitness data from wearable devices (such as the sensor-laden “iWatch” Apple is developing).
Since our initial report, some more speculation and mockups have emerged online about the app. Above are a pair of mockups posted to Behance earlier today. The mockups follow some of the details presented in our original article:
The “Healthbook” application is said to take multiple user interface cues from Apple’s own Passbook app, which is software for storing loyalty cards, coupons, and other materials normally stored in physical wallets.
The new health and fitness application’s interface is a stack of cards that can be easily swiped between. Each card represents a different fitness or health data point. The prototype logo for “Healthbook” is similar to Passbook’s icon, but it is adorned with graphics representing vital signs.
According to sources, the mockups are “vaguely” the right idea. Of course, Apple is likely testing multiple different user-interfaces for this software, and since we are several months out from an official introduction, things can and likely will change (even drastically)…
Rita Lane, Apple’s vice president of operations for the iPad, Mac desktops, and Mac accessories, has retired from the company, according to her public LinkedIn profile. As vice president of operations, Lane was in charge of the supply chain and manufacturing for iPads, computers like the iMac, and Apple’s Mac accessories.
Due to her position, Lane was likely instrumental in the iPad’s rapid growth as a product and emergence in society over the past few years, making the departure a significant loss for Apple. However, the company likely has other experienced operations managers who could fill Lane’s role. Her exact successor is unknown…
Apple has finally taken its iTunes Radio streaming music service internationally: starting with Australia. The service, which launched in the United States late last year, works on iPads, iPhones, iPods running iOS 7, the Apple TV, and on iTunes 11 on the Mac or PC.
Apple® today announced iTunes Radio™ is now available to music fans in Australia. iTunes Radio is a free Internet radio service featuring over 100 stations and an incredible catalog of music from the iTunes Store®, combined with features only iTunes® can deliver. When you tune into iTunes Radio on your iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, Mac®, PC or Apple TV®, you’ll have access to stations inspired by the music you already listen to, Featured Stations curated by Apple and genre-focused stations that are personalized just for you. iTunes Radio evolves based on the music you play and download. The more you use iTunes Radio and iTunes, the more it knows what you like to listen to and the more personalized your experience becomes. iTunes Radio also gives you access to exclusive “First Play” premieres from top selling artists, plus the ability to tag or buy anything you hear with just one click.
Like in the United States, iTunes Radio in Australia is supported by advertisements. However, iTunes Match subscribers can listen to iTunes Radio without ads. Apple is yet to announce any other international iTunes Radio countries, but evidence and reports suggest that Canada, New Zealand, and some European countries will be gaining the feature soon.
We reported last fall that a revamped Apple TV set-top-box is in the works, and then we learned earlier this year that the new box would likely be introduced in the first half of 2014. Sources said at the time that the new model would be redesigned (at least on the inside) and would sport new content (perhaps a true App Store or gaming functionality). Since that time, sources indicated that internal prototypes for the new device include AirPort Express-like functionality, a form of enhanced iOS gaming integration, and a TV tuner component for connecting to existing cable setups.
Now, we have located a reference to the next-generation Apple TV inside of iOS 7 software builds:
While recent reports are pegging a launch sooner than later, reliable sources say that Apple is currently planning to ship iOS 7.1, the first significant update to iOS 7, in March. The iOS 7.1 update is said to not have any “secret features,” and it will basically be what we have been told to expect by the past five betas: some user-interface tweaks in the Phone app, an improved Calendar app, speed improvements, and numerous bug-fixes. It wouldn’t be surprising for Apple to talk iOS 7.1 at an event in March (a month in which Apple has held events in the past), which would possibly be centered around the next-generation Apple TV.
New Apple hires on both the senior executive and standard engineering levels have expertise in fashion, wearable product industrial design, retail, blood-reading sensors, medical device product management, hardware engineering, software vision, and fitness.
As the rumored launch of the “iWatch” approaches, we have compiled an up-to-date list (into categories of leadership, fashion, fitness, and health) of all known and pertinent recent Apple hires to provide a clearer picture of what Apple’s future wearable technologies could offer to consumers…
One week after the previous beta, Apple has provided registered Mac developers with OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 build 13C53 to developers. Previous 10.9.2 builds added FaceTime Audio functionality to the Mac’s Messages and FaceTime applications. Other new functionality includes the ability to block contacts/phone numbers in both FaceTime and Messages.
Last year, Apple and GT Advanced struck a deal to open and operate a manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona related to sapphire crystal components.
Earlier this year, we learned that Apple is “aggressively” pushing to make the facility operational by February 2014 and that the building would produce a “critical” and “new” sub-component for future Apple devices. Due to the vagueness and secrecy surrounding Apple and GT Advanced’s plans, there has been little to no confirmation regarding what exactly the partnership will yield for future Apple products.
But, thanks to new documents and information that we have uncovered with help of analyst Matt Margolis, we have a clearer picture of Apple’s plans…
Apple has published a job listing on its website seeking physiologists and engineers to run tests related to health and fitness data. This job will require the employees to “design and run user studies related to cardiovascular fitness & energy expenditure, including calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking and other key physiological measurements…”
Approximately two weeks following the previous seed, Apple has released iOS 7.1 beta 5 to developers. The new beta is currently available for those running earlier versions of 7.1 via Software Update in Settings.
Previous betas revealed some minor user-interface changes in the Phone application. Release notes for this new beta indicate some Siri improvements for international users. “This seed adds new natural-sounding Siri voices for English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Japanese, and Chinese (Mandarin – China),” according to the release notes provided by a developer.
We’ll update this post as more details about the new beta come to light:
Since OS X Maverick’s launch last year, there have been complaints from users of the official Mac Mail app with Gmail accounts. Apple has fixed up many of the bugs in various patches, but one of the still recurring bugs prevents the Mail app from loading up new messages.
Instead of releasing another patch today, Apple has outlined a fix on its support website:
Apple has its sights set on another industry ripe for reinvention: the mobile healthcare and fitness world. Apple currently plans to release a new version of the iPhone operating system this year with health and fitness tracking integration as its headline feature, according to sources briefed on the plans. Apple’s work on such an operating system likely indicates that Apple is nearing the introduction of its long-awaited, sensor-laden “iWatch,” which sources say is well into development…
A week following the previous seed, Apple has provided build 13C48 of OS X 10.9.2 beta to registered developers. The new beta has yet to appear on the Apple online developer portal, but it is available in Software Update on the Mac App Store. The previous build was labeled 13C44, so this new build is only a few builds newer. This indicates that Apple is nearing a public release. OS X 10.9.2 brings FaceTime Audio and blocking for iMessage and FaceTime to the Mac.
