It turns out that his hobby 9to5Mac blog was always his favorite and in 2011 he went full time adding his Fortune Google followers to 9to5Google and adding the style and commerce component 9to5Toys gear and deals site. In 2013, Weintraub bought one of the Tesla’s first Model S EVs off the assembly line and so began his love affair with the Electric Vehicle and green energy which in 2014 turned into electrek.
In 2018, DroneDJ was born to cover the burgeoning world of drones and UAV’s led by China’s DJI.
From 1997-2007, Weintraub was a Global IT director and Web Developer for a number of companies with stints at multimedia and branding agencies in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Madrid and London before becoming a publisher/blogger.
Seth received a bachelors degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Multimedia and Creative Technology in 1997. In 2004, he received a Masters from NYU’s Tisch School of the Art’s ITP program.
Hobbies: Weintraub is a licensed single engine private pilot, certified open water scuba diver and spent over a year traveling to 60 cities in 23 countries. Whatever free time exists is now guaranteed to his lovely wife and two amazing sons.
The final dimensions of the new design are calculated to be: 4.33″ x 2.36″ and .27″ thickness at the top and .21″ at the bottom In comparison, the iPhone 4 dimensions are: 4.5″ x 2.31″ x .37″. So the new design is actually shorter than the existing iPhone 4, but slightly wider and thinner.
Apple passed Exxon today to become the most valuable company on earth. The excitemnt only lasted a few hours until the market rally at the end of the day put Exxon back on top, however. But, that didn’t stop people wondering: What’s next for Apple?
Enter Robert Cyran, Columnist for Reuters, who doesn’t understand why Apple isn’t headed straight towards being the first $1Trillion company.
Apple’s sales have been surging 80 percent a year, and its profit faster. What’s more, it trades roughly in line with the growing stock market — and at less than half the price-to-earnings multiple it fetched in 2006, when revenue growth was much slower. Apple now trades at about 11 times estimated earnings for the fiscal year ending September 2012. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is valued at about 10 times next year’s profit. But Apple’s sales growth is nearly 10 times faster than that of the average company. Apple also holds $76 billion of cash and investments.
So, what’s the deal? Apple, if put on the same P/E multiple it traded on in 2006, would be worth $900 billion.
Frankly, it feels like lawsuits are taking too much of our time and mind space lately – and they aren’t fun to think about. So here’s a roundup of the more exciting lawsuits news of the last hour:
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple and 5 of the 6 major book publishers, alleging they “colluded to increase prices for popular e-book titles to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing.”
On Lodsys (important if you are a App developer with an auto-updating app):
Apple insists to intervene in Lodsys lawsuit against app developers. Apple still requests a court hearing on its motion. Things may still take some more time, but there will be no more written pleadings unless the court asks the parties to address particular questions in more detail. At this stage it’s possible that the court decides very quickly, and I continue to be reasonably optimistic that Apple’s motion will be granted.
At some point, we should start referring to Lodsys by the name of its parent company, Intelectual Ventures.
Facebook isn’t fantastic at hiding secret stuff in their Apps. Just last month, its iPad ambitions were outed by some folks rummaging around in the App. Today, Facebook released their Messenger app and seconds later, we see that there is a video component to the application:
The video component would seem to work on both Android (yep) and iPhone and would likely tie in with their recently announced Skype desktop video conferencing service as well. The code looks very rudimentary at this point so it isn’t certain that the video can be enabled like the iPad version was with just a few tweeks. Thanks Caleb!
We’re getting images in from around the UK of Apple Stores having removed their inventory after closing of business. The concern is the ongoing riots that have plagued London and now the greater UK for the past 3 days.
Above: Due To The Riots In England, The Apple Store In Liverpool One have moved all stock up stairs from the show floor.
Even resellers are getting into the action. Canterbury, Kent, below:
Apple just passed Exxon in Market Cap to become the world’s most valuable company. Quite a turnaround for a company that was on its last legs just over a decade ago. AAPL passed the 400 mark last month on the back of monster earnings news but fell sharply as the US market plummeted over the last week. Luckily for Apple, it didn’t fall nearly as sharply as Exxon, in the face of lowered oil costs.
The markets are still open and volatile today but at this moment, 1:19PM EDT, Apple’s market cap is at $341.53B while Exxon Mobile’s is at $341.51B.
Congratulations Apple!
Update 2:00EDT: Apple is now on top by over $1B (image below)
Update2 4PM ET. AAPL closed at $346.74B, Exxon rallied at the end of the day to $348.32B
From the “I would be shocked if it was successful” department (literally – a quote from one of the execs near the situation), comes news from CNN that Tribune Company is exploring the idea of building a tablet that would compete against Apple’s iPad and tablets from other manufacturers.
Tribune owns a handful of major US daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun, along with 23 television stations.
Tribune aims to offer the tablet for free, or at a highly subsidized price, to people who agree to sign up for extended subscriptions to one of its papers and possibly a wireless-data plan with a partner cellular carrier, said five people briefed on the project.
The report states that this is the pet project of Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune’s chief executive, and they are working with manufacturing partners which may include Samsung.
The Tribune has faced threat of bankruptcy woes in recent years but it is noteworthy that only 8% of the US currently has a tablet, perhaps leaving the door open for other players.
Another suggestion: Subsidized iPad with subscription?
Macrumorsnotes that the boarded up Fifth Avenue Apple Store now reveals plans to improve the appearance of the cube by using “bigger, seamless” panes of glass. The number of panes will drop from 90 to just 15 (3 per side).
We’re simplifying the Fifth Avenue cube. By using larger, seamless pieces of glass, we’re using just 15 panes instead of 90.
The upgrade reportedly costs $6 million. We’d be very surprised if the renovation isn’t complete for the October iPhone 5 launch.
Optimum today released an app for iPhone and iPod touch which will allow Cablevision users in the US to watch and control their content from home on the 3.5-inch screen. Users of home VPN solutions will be able to take these services on the road with them as well.
“Our new Optimum App for iPhone and iPod touch extends Cablevision’s leadership in offering our full cable television service on new devices, functioning as televisions in the home,” said John Trierweiler, Cablevision’s executive vice president of product management.
“We are also pleased to maximize the value of our Optimum App as a navigation and programming discovery tool by incorporating controls for home TVs as well. The introduction of this remote control functionality will make it even easier for our customers to locate and view all of the content they already receive as part of their television subscription, whether they want to watch on conventional TVs or these Apple devices.”
Besides the iPhone and iPod touch functionality, Optimum’s iPad app also gets the following updates:
• Ability to schedule and manage DVR Plus recordings
• Your favorite channels (“Favorites”) now automatically appear in the Optimum App on all of your devices
• Parental controls automatically get re-applied when the Optimum App is re-installed – no need to re-setup your parental controls
• Use your device as a remote control and control your iO digital cable boxes
BGR posts a quick report on the launch of the next “Google Phone” which is said to carry Android 4.0 dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich”. According to their sources, Google is planning to launch the new device in the same window as the iPhone 5, which we’re hearing is slated to start pre-orders in early October.
We have been told that Google is looking to push up the release of Ice Cream Sandwich devices as Apple’s iPhone 5 is expected in September or October, and the Mountain View-based company doesn’t want potential customers coming out of contracts (especially original DROID owners) and “drooling over the iPhone 5.
While ‘Droid’ owners are on Verizon, which hasn’t traditionally carried the Nexus devices, Google will likely want to keep people from leaving its platform. Also with the iPhone 5 in its crosshairs is the Galaxy S2 from Samsung which is said to be coming to all four big US carriers in the coming months. Cross posted from 9to5Google.com Expand Expanding Close
These estimates are just on the Bloomberg machines now. We were expecting more RAM on this as yet non-existant iPhone 5. We’ll update when/if Bloomberg posts publicly…developing Expand Expanding Close
MICGadgetreports that some industrious Chinese smugglers devised an elaborate system to get iPads and iPhones across the border into the country where they were once built:
Hong Kong and Chinese customs have cracked an audacious smuggling operation that saw Apple goods ferried along a long cable straddling the border. The iPad and iPhones were transported over a small river that separates the booming city of Shenzhen from the rural northern part of Hong Kong using an elaborate pulley system. The cable was shot across the border using a crossbow [Batman?] and the Apple products were flying across at night, which store in black nylon bags. The cable was suspended to a high-rise building in the Chinese border town of Shenzhen, and goods were moved several hundred meters from a small village house located in Hong Kong
6 smugglers were arrested in the operation, 50’s iPad 2 and 50’s iPhone 4, which worth about three hundred thousand yuan (US$46,583) were seized.
It is startling that Chinese taxes make operations like this necessary, especially in the place where these things are actually produced! Expand Expanding Close
Yesterday, we broke the news that Apple was launching an ‘iMac for Education’ with downgraded specs to the education market for $999. It was originally scheduled to be released toward the middle of the month (August 16th was set to be release date – and it still is when they hit the streets), but with the cat out of the bag, Apple went public with the details today.
As per usual, our man Mr. X, was spot on with details revealing:
3.1GHz Intel Core i3 Dual-Core, 21.5-inch LCD
AMD Radeon HD 6750 with 256 MB, 2GB RAM
250GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive, OS X Lion
Some interesting notes about the machine:
It appears to be a hybrid between this year’s model and last year’s with slower processors and this year’s video card
No Thunderbolt underscores that these are aimed at labs and kiosk type situations. Even Apple’s $599 entry Mac Mini now has Thunderbolt
Half the RAM at a paltry 2GB seems absurdly low. Again, this screams “kiosk!” Interestingly, Apple says the upgrades are “only configurable at the Apple Store” but lists RAM modules to the sides (right).
We’re told that this is the Education price of 1 of these machines and there are additional price drops at volume with the machine quickly hitting $899 in bulk and below (EDUs talk to your Apple rep!)
For those jealous of the EDU-only pricing, Apple still offers the previous model refurbished with the exact same specs (but twice the RAM, older GPU) for just $929.
More patent fun today as a small Florida company that may or may not be an LG spinoff called OSS systems sues Apple according to Patently Apple. The Patent was originally filed by LG in 1999 and describes…
“A method for fast booting a computer system, comprising the steps of: A. performing a power on self test (POST) of basic input output system (BIOS) when the system is powered on or reset is requested; B. checking whether a boot configuration information including a system booting state which was created while executing a previous normal booting process exists or not; C. storing the boot configuration information from execution of the POST operation before loading a graphic interface (GUI) program, based on the checking result; and D. loading the graphic user interface (GUI) program.”
As far as Android competitors go, LG and Apple have a pretty cordial relationship having signed a $500 million display deal a few years ago. Displays in Apple’s popular devices, from 27-inch iMacs to retina iPhones are made by LG. LG could have spun the patent off as its own company, in an attempt to avoid locking horns with Apple in the courts. Apple has been suing what seems like every other Android manufacturer over patent disputes. Expand Expanding Close
There is a standalone of iOS 5 beta 5 build 9A5288d as well as a new delta update available via OTA which weighs in at 128mb. Xcode and iTunes also received updates today as well. Interestingly, to do the OTA, Apple says you’ll need to do a hard reset (though we’re hearing that is optional)
To install iOS 5 beta 5 using over the air software update, you must first erase all content and settings on your device by choosing Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Over the air software update can be initiated on devices running iOS 5 beta 3 and later by choosing Settings > General > Software Update.
While Google passed the 40% smartphone share (Microsoft must be happy!) in the US threshold, Apple continues to outpace the industry as a whole posting modest 1 point gains in the US smartphone category according to comScore. Apple moved up from 25.5% in March to 26.6% in June on the year old iPhone 4 model which also saw its US debut on Verizon.
Apple also moved up in the hardware category, below:
We’ve gotten word from some readers that AT&T is moving forward and removing unlimited plans for users who jailbreak iPhones to tether or hotspot off of AT&T’s unlimited data plans (for those grandfathered):
I was just informed that as of Thursday August 11th 2011, if you use MyWi or any tethering on the phone or using the phone as a modem, AT&T will automatically change ur unlimited plan to a 2Gb tethering plan for 45 dollars without the customers consent. This is for those who received emails or texts about the use of tethering without an AT&T tethering plan.
An AT&T spokesperson has confirmed this, but not August 11th as a hard cutoff date, saying:
Earlier this year, we began sending letters, emails, and text messages to a small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren’t on our required tethering plan. Our goal here is fairness for all of our customers. (This impacts a only small percentage of our smartphone customer base.)
The letters outline three choices:
1) Stop tethering and keep their current plan (including grandfathered unlimited plan)
2) Proactively call AT&T or visit our stores and move to the required tethering plan
3) Do nothing and we’ll go ahead and add the tethering plan on their behalf — after the dated noted in their customer notification
Is this fair of AT&T? Well, it is certainly fair that people pay for the data that they are using and unlimited tethering turns your iPhone into a data sucking monster. AT&T’s service to others is obviously affected, so they have to do something about it and this seems like a reasonable solution. The obvious retort is that some may have purchased their unlimited plans back when unlimited really meant unlimited, jailbroken or not.
The matter doesn’t appear up for debate however. MiWi users: get your free data this week and hope AT&T doesn’t decide to move you over early. Expand Expanding Close
Our good friends in Applecare alerted us to the fact that Lion USB keys were now available and in stock through AppleCare. While officially they will cost a lofty $69, it appears, at least from the wording above, that some customers that aren’t able to use Lion’s recovery tools may be eligible to receive the USB drive at no cost.
We’ve detailled how to make a Lion recovery key from a Snow Leopard Key (automated or on your own, cheap) so don’t put Apple though the hassle, OK?
Update: We’ve been debunked by the new AOLEngadget! Head below for details.
Three in Sweden is having a “half price sale” on the iPhone 3GS “while supplies last”. The free iPhone 3GS with the 99 Kroners a month ($15.42) plan works out to about US$370 for the entire contract and that is before minutes and the unlimited Internet (throttled after 1GB) are considered. That is incredibly cheap.
In the US, the price of an iPhone 3GS off contract is still over $400 and we’re used to some of the lowest prices on Apple products globally.
The move would seem to indicate that the iPhone 3GS is nearing its end of life (EOL) and prices may begin to drop in other countries as well.
The Swedish carrier’s move is interesting because we heard a report last month that the iPhone 3GS would continue to be offered next year at a sub-$350 prepaid option alongside the ‘iPhone 4S’.
Apple’s new iCloud Web apps are built using the same SproutCore Javascript engine that was used throughout MobileMe. If the favicon above doesn’t prove it, looking at the underlying code below seems to offer undeniable evidence.
SproutCore describes itself as an open-source framework for building blazingly fast, innovative user experiences on the web.
Here’s a nice interview with Charles Jolley, one of the founders of SproutCore and previous MobileMe Javascript Frameworks Manager. He left Apple about a year ago to start Strobe – a device agnostic Web publishing engine based on…you guessed it, SproutCore.
Interestingly, SproutCore lists Strobe Inc. as its parent company.
If you are a mainstream Chrome user, the first stable version of Chrome 13 is now available for auto upgrade. Why upgrade?
Google Instant Pages prefetches links so that page load times increase dramatically.
This means that sometimes when you click a Google search result in Chrome, the page will appear to load much faster than before. How much faster? In the video below, you can see a side by side comparison of Chrome with and without Instant Pages enabled.
Also, the omnibox, Chrome’s combination search box and address bar, has gotten much smarter in the latest release, making it even easier for you to get back to pages you’ve visited before. Just type part of the page’s address or title and look in the dropdown for matching pages from your history.
To manually upgrade, go to ‘About Chrome’ and hit the upgrade button (below): Expand Expanding Close
Half the RAM at a paltry 2GB seems absurdly low. Again, this screams “kiosk!” Interestingly, Apple says the upgrades are “only configurable at the Apple Store” but lists RAM modules to the sides (right).
