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.
KGI Research’s Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the few analyst/firms with a respectable record on Apple forecasts, updated its iPhone sales expectation numbers this weekend for the holiday quarter and Q1 of 2015.
Strong iPhone shipments in 4Q14. We forecast overall iPhone shipments will surge 82% QoQ to 71.5mn units in 4Q14, given robust demand for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 Plus supply shortage implies not only robust demand, but also confirms our concerns regarding constraints within the supply chain. We believe 4Q14 iPhone shipments will be stronger if supply chain constraints are eased.
Kuo notes that the iPhone 5c and 4s which are still sold in emerging markets [like Virgin Mobile in the US?!] will be discontinued in 2015 after promotions that ironically will improve low end sales numbers in Q1 2015. Subsequently, average price per device sold will also drop significantly for Apple in Quarter 1… Expand Expanding Close
The developers of Handbrake just announced the 0.10 update to their extremely popular and useful Open Source video transcoding product. Originally focused on ripping DVDs, the product now can be used for transcribing many different types of files/codecs to almost any other. Today’s headliner updates include H.265 and VP8 encoding.
The LibAV AAC encoder is now the default as FAAC has been removed.
This encoder is adequate for most, but until it improves a bit further, we have enabled support for the FDK-AAC encoder also.
This FDK option is a temporary measure until the LibAV encoder improves.
Note that FDK-AAC is much slower and will likely bottleneck the encode process, but will produce better quality audio.
iFixit gave Apple’s iPhone 6 a repairability score of 7, the highest ever for Apple’s flagship and most popular device in their September teardown. That bodes well for folks who want to take their iPhone repairs into their own hands, though perhaps it’s best to give the Geniuses at Apple a chance to gift you an out of warranty repair before getting your hands dirty.
In any case, today iFixit announced an updated library of 21 repair guides for the iPhone 6 (and 14 for the 6 Plus). The new guides cover everything from replacing the battery to speakers to the glass panel and everything in between. The tutorials walk you through the process and also conveniently provide links to purchase any necessary tools you might not have (hit up their Amazon store for some hefty discounts).
As with any iPhone take-apart, be very careful and be prepared to forfeit your warranty if you screw up. Expand Expanding Close
These are just great. Many thanks to Myithz for sending these in every few weeks. Today’s video shows that the actual building of the structure has started after the foundation had been completed last time we checked in mid October. Expand Expanding Close
There are a lot of options for mounting your iPhone in your car. I’ve relied on the highly-rated Kensington suction cup windshield car mount for a few years without too much incident. However, I’ve never been too pleased about how it blocks a bit of my driving view and requires a non-elegant wire to go up my dashboard.
Introducing Prime Photos. Your cherished memories are safe in Amazon Cloud Drive and accessible anywhere you are. It’s like having a virtual album of every one of your photos that you can access at any time, no matter which device you use.
According to TechCrunch, a Mac app is in the works but for now the web uploader works as well.
Prime is Amazon’s all-in-one premium service which allows free streaming music, 500,000 free eBooks, free Netflix-like TV service, free 2 day shipping on goods and services bought at Amazon. It is $99/year but grabbing a 30-day free trial 1 month before the holiday shopping season starts isn’t a bad idea. Folks who don’t want to fork out the $99 can get a 5 GB of free storage on Amazon Cloud Drive which is the equivalent to up to 2,000 photos. Expand Expanding Close
<a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/17/ipad-pro-concept-imagines-an-edge-to-edge-12-9-inch-display-in-new-renders-gallery/" target="_blank">iPad Pro design render</a>
According to a new report by MacOtakara, the iPad Pro will represent a change over previous rumored specs. A list of publications including the Wall St. Journal and Bloomberg had pegged the display of the iPad Pro at 12.9-inches but today’s report says it is a smaller 12.2 inches (remarkably close to the rumored upcoming Retina MacBook Air).
The Japanese website compares the iPad Pro to Microsoft’s Surface implying that the preferred method of use will be landscape instead of portrait which has been the default iPad orientation since its 2010 inception. Indeed, the iPad Pro is said to have stereo speakers on the top/bottom or left right depending on orientation. The iSight camera, Lightning connector, and Touch ID home button position will not change however.
As for the “all important” thickness, it is said to be somewhere between the current iPad Air 2/iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which would put it near 7mm.
Interestingly, this chassis is compared to the upcoming Quanta built MacBook Air which could in fact share the same exact retina display.
Darwin forms the core set of components upon which OS X and iOS are based. It is mostly POSIX compatible, but has never, by itself, been certified as being compatible with any version of POSIX. (OS X, since Leopard, has been certified as compatible with the Single UNIX Specification version 3 (SUSv3).
Google invited us to check out their new line of Nexus products running Lollipop earlier today. The Motorola Nexus 6 is about the size of the iPhone 6 Plus with a slightly bigger screen and thicker/heavier profile. On the other hand, the HTC Nexus 9 is smaller than the iPad Air with a 9-inch display and stereo speakers. Both run Android 5.0 Lollipop which has a new Material Design. The new products will go up against Apple’s iOS devices for global electronics consumers’ holiday shopping money.
However, one set of devices won’t be competing for Apple users’ shopping dollars. An Android Wear project manager told me that there were no current plans to make Android Wear compatible with iOS but that they were continuing to evaluate other platforms because they wanted to get Wear devices into as many hands as they could. When I pressed and said something to the effect of “if ever there was a time to sell these to Apple users, it was the holiday season before the Apple Watch is released”, the product manager said something akin to “Our Christmas lineup of announcements is set and over”.
On one hand, it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard. After all, Google eventually got Google Glass to work on iOS devices.
Microsoft, on the other hand, just announced its new Fitness Band which will work with Android, iOS and of course Windows Phones.
Apple isn’t yet happy with the watch’s battery life, which isn’t going to break any industry standards. “It’s about a day right now,” said one, adding that Apple is working on various modifications ahead of the device’s 2015 launch to improve it. Reached for comment, Apple spokeswoman Nat Kerris declined to provide an estimate on expected battery life, but said the company expects users will charge their Apple Watches once daily. “There’s a lot of new technology packed into Apple Watch and we think people will love using it throughout the day,” Kerris said. “We anticipate that people will charge nightly which is why we designed an innovative charging solution that combines our MagSafe technology and inductive charging.”
I had also heard …some things… way back before the announcement.
MacMall ($5 off) tax only in CA, NY, IL, WI, MN, CO, TN, NC and GA
At the moment, MacMall appears to be a best bet when buying either (and they are already shipping), but numbers fluctuate. Keep an eye on 9to5mac.com/products for the latest best prices on Apple products or 9to5toysfor the best prices on accesories. .
I’m from Akron so I guess this should hit home for me (0:18 Swensons represent!). But the marriage between Apple and Beats still feels strange and writing about athlete endorsement videos is out of our usual scope. This is clearly the Beats creative doing what they do best.
It appears that most of the foundation is laid now in an update from a video taken by a drone two weeks ago.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called Apple’s Campus 2 the ‘Greenest in the World’. The controversial structure which will house 12,000 staff in 2.8M square feet on 176 acres and is estimated to be completed in 2016. Interestingly, even though Apple is covering the construction site with a high green wall, it is updating the 3D flyover of the location in Apple Maps somewhat frequently. The latest looks like it was taken earlier this summer.
An official updated aerial shot from Apple was also posted on the City of Cupertino’s website:
Seth Weintraub|9:53Here’s the streaming URL for You Windows/other users (sorry!) http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pounqefvoiubefvpiub10/refs/14pijbnoihjb10_sl_ref.mov
Seth Weintraub|9:52Live Stream is up. Only one sang playing at a time this time (cancel the Truck!)
Seth Weintraub|9:49
Having a laugh with Craig backstage. Just a few more minutes.
We’ll be running down the event coverage and pre-coverage right here with this auto-updating live blog so stay dialled in while we’ll do separate posts for new products/services/announcements as they happen… Expand Expanding Close
Dropbox updated its Mailbox app today with some necessary features and fixes. The update now includes the ability to customize your swipes. Also, new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners will appreciate the optimized UI for bigger displays. Finally, Dropbox has squashed some bugs in Push and otherwise improved the overall performance.
Dropbox’s Mailbox is still only currently for Gmail and iCloud accounts, but the company reminds us again that other email platforms are on the way.
In addition to the updated iPhone and iPad version, the beta version for the Mac is now open to anyone following a public beta coin system for testers before.
The developers of Handbrake just 
The Japanese website compares the iPad Pro to Microsoft’s Surface implying that the preferred method of use will be landscape instead of portrait which has been the default iPad orientation since its 2010 inception. Indeed, the iPad Pro is said to have stereo speakers on the top/bottom or left right depending on orientation. The iSight camera, Lightning connector, and Touch ID home button position will not change however.
As 
