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6,154 'Apple News' stories November 2008 - February 2014
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Apple News and Brief History

Before you can properly understand Apple News, it’s important to know its history. Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. In 1977, Apple’s sales were growing with the success of its early computers. Within a few years, Jobs and Wozniak hired designers and a production line crew. Apple went public in 1980 and was an instant success. Over the next few years, Apple shipped new computers featuring new graphical user interfaces, such as the original Macintosh in 1984. As the market for personal computers expanded through the 1990s, Apple lost market share to the cheaper Microsoft Windows on PC clones. Eventually, Wozniak and Jobs both left Apple. Jobs would go on to found NeXT and would return to Apple when NeXT was acquired in the late 90s. Apple then began a journey to the great second act in the history of the business world.

Since the release of the iPod in 2001, Apple has become a major player once again in the technology industry. After releasing the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, and the Apple Watch in 2015, Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world. Apple’s worldwide annual revenue totaled $274.5 billion for its 2020 fiscal year.

Today, Apple operates retail stores all across the world, has a growing services division, and an ever-expanding hardware lineup. The technology industry follows Apple news to see where the company is headed in the future.

Keep reading for the latest Apple news

WWE Network comes to Apple TV with in-app subscriptions as service debuts

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Feb 24 2014 - 6:44 am PT
22 Comments
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Update: The WWE Apple TV app is now live for users in at least the US and Canada.

Following rumors back and forth regarding the new WWE network launching today, the company has just announced that the service will be available to Apple TV users. WWE confirmed to us in a statement that the Apple TV app will arrive today.

The Apple TV app will provide access to all 12 live WWE Pay-PerView events including WrestleMania, original programming from the network like reality shows and documentaries, as well as 24/7 programming from WWE and a ton of on-demand content.

The update appears to have hit Apple TVs (at least in the US or Canada) with the ability to access the network and purchase subscriptions. The subscription-based WWE network allows users to sign up for service directly within the Apple TV app using an iTunes account. The company notes that subscriptions purchased through Apple TV are “billed as a single charge of $59.99 (plus applicable tax) for the six month subscription period.”
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Reasons for delay in SSL fix to OS X unclear as a single line of code found responsible

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 24 2014 - 4:23 am PT
26 Comments
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Update: Apple issued OS X 10.9.2 the following day, which included a fix for the SSL bug.

After Apple fixed the SSL bug in iOS, it’s unclear why three days have passed without an OS X fix after it was revealed by Reuters that the vulnerability was created by an error in a single line of code.

The problem lies in the way the software recognizes the digital certificates used by banking sites, Google’s Gmail service, Facebook and others to establish encrypted connections. A single line in the program and an omitted bracket meant that those certificates were not authenticated at all, so that hackers can impersonate the website being sought and capture all the electronic traffic before passing it along to the real site.

As the bug is in Apple’s SSL authentication code, it leaves a whole range of apps vulnerable, not just Safari … 
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As Apple continues development of iWatch, Samsung releases two new second-gen Gear smartwatches

Avatar for Chance Miller Feb 22 2014 - 6:55 pm PT
12 Comments

Over the past year, many signs have emerged that Apple is working an iWatch centered around health and fitness features. The company has made a plethora of hires in the health field recently, and our sources have said that the device is already well into development. Samsung, on the other hand, albeit to incredibly poor reviews, released its Galaxy Gear smartwatch just five months ago. This evening, the Korean company has taken the wraps off of not one, but two new smartwatches: the Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo.  The difference between the two models is the lack of a camera on the Gear Neo. As rumored earlier this month, both of the models have ditched Android in favor of Samsung’s Tizen operating system.

According to Samsung, the switch to Tizen will offer many improvements to the end-user. First off, Tizen is much less power intensive, which means battery life has improved to 2-3 days, according to Samsung—much better than the one day life given by the original Gear. Tizen will also offer an “enriched application ecosystem” to the user.


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Apple acquires beta testing platform TestFlight through Burstly purchase

Avatar for Zac Hall Feb 21 2014 - 11:06 am PT
5 Comments
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Apple has acquired Burstly, the company behind the popular beta testing platform Test Flight, TechCrunch reported (now confirmed by Recode). TestFlight recently pulled its SDK as well as Android support  prompting speculation that big changes were on the horizon. Some speculated that an Apple acquisition could behind it all and would make sense considering the fragmented beta testing experience for app developers. While neither company has commented publicly confirming the acquisition, we were pointed to hints of the acquisition just before TechCrunch reported the rumor as likely and later updated its reporting to note that the acquisition had already occurred…
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Opinion: Will the spring launch of Amazon/Nexus/Apple TV signal the beginning of the end of live, broadcast TV?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 21 2014 - 8:01 am PT
32 Comments
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Streaming TV is heating-up. We’re expecting a new Apple TV box to be announced in April, Amazon looks set to launch its own box in March and Google is reputed to be not far behind with a Nexus-branded box.

So-called cord-cutting – people who give up their cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming content over the web – is growing in popularity. Mobile TV viewing on tablets is increasingly common.

All of which makes me wonder whether we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of live TV … ? 
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Review: iQi Mobile makes wireless charging a reality for iPhones, but is it worth the cost?

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Feb 21 2014 - 5:39 am PT
4 Comments

The iQi Mobile is an insert that enables wireless charging for the iPhone. At it’s core, it is a crowdfunded hack. It doesn’t have MFi certification and it looks like a branded DIY project. This is never going to be a mass-market accessory. There’s no need to beat around the bush — this is a geeky toy for people drawn in by the idea of wireless charging. But is it any good?

The iQi Mobile looks like a small matchbox-sized dog tag, with a Lightning connector on one end. The ribbon cable is bendy, but apparently it is a weak point. The accompanying warning notices clearly state that the cable will be damaged if it is bent completely 90° degrees.


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Amazon’s long-rumored Apple TV competitor to launch next month?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 21 2014 - 5:01 am PT
3 Comments
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Image: digitaltrends.com

Amazon’s TV box, which the company is believed to have been working on for around a year, is to be launched next month, according to unnamed content distribution sources cited by re/code – ahead of the new version of the Apple TV box expected to be unveiled in April.

People I’ve talked to who are partnering with Amazon believe the company is aiming for a March rollout […]

Sources tell me Amazon’s box will be powered by Google’s Android operating system, which is also not a surprise — Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets use a “forked” version of Android … 
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Mac users four times more likely to run latest OS than Windows users

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 21 2014 - 4:25 am PT
17 Comments

Some sums done by ComputerWorld show that Mac users are four times more likely to upgrade to the latest available version of the operating system than Windows users.

Microsoft has convinced just 11.6 percent of Windows users who acquired their system since 2001 and still actively use it to go online to migrate to the current edition of its operating system […]

Apple’s convinced 41.6 percent of Mac users who acquired their system since 2001 and still actively use them online to adopt the current edition of the OS.

A large part of it is cost, of course: Mavericks was a free upgrade, and previous upgrades have been priced far more competitively than Windows.

But Apple has also offered a simpler upgrade path, adding features rather than making major changes to the core user-interface. OS X also operates more efficiently, allowing Mavericks to run well on far older hardware than is the case for Windows 8.

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Analyst delivers the ultimate insult to Apple, calls it ‘the next Microsoft’

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 20 2014 - 7:36 am PT
18 Comments

Apple just might find itself shopping around for a new finance partner for its retail stores after Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes likened the company’s future potential to that of Microsoft.

Downgrading AAPL from a buy to a hold, Reitzes said that while he was excited by the iWatch and Apple television ideas as a consumer, he didn’t see either driving double-digit growth. Quoted by Business Insider, he said:

We look at a valuation analogy vs. Microsoft from 2000 to about 2010 and see no precedent that large-size tech companies simply start to broadly outperform again after a tough year or two if the law of large numbers is catching up to them and margins have peaked.

Ouch! Still, it appears his pessimism is not universally shared.

Fleksy opens free, public SDK for its alternative iOS keyboard

Avatar for Zac Hall Feb 20 2014 - 5:54 am PT
7 Comments
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Found in a number of well-crafted apps including Launch Center Pro and Wordbox, the iOS-friendly alternative keyboard Fleksy today announced the release of a public SDK allowing developers to easily integrate it with their own apps. Prior to the public SDK, support was  somewhat limited as it required a private partnership. Fleksy say a dozen new apps will gain support today expects new support to be frequent based on the volume of requests from developers to integrate the keyboard prior to the public SDK.
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The spaceship is on the way: aerial photo shows demolition work on Apple’s Campus 2 site

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 20 2014 - 4:56 am PT
7 Comments
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Apple’s new ‘spaceship’ headquarters has been a long time in the coming, with Steve Jobs presenting the plans to the Cupertino city council back in 2011, but work has finally begun. KCBS eye-in-the-sky reporter Ron Cervi took the above Instagram photo, showing that demolition work on the site is now underway.

While we heard last month that the demolition phase was starting, this is the first visible evidence we’ve seen. Apple also recently constructed a full-size mockup of one small section of the building in order to test construction methods and enable the company to see how the concrete elements would look in real life … 
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How app store scammers can make $10,000 a day from a $10 game template

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 20 2014 - 4:23 am PT
10 Comments
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TechCrunch has a fascinating insight into the world of App Store scammers, using the example of a game created from a $10 template that ended up making $10,000 a day.

The piece alleges that the developer of the paid version of Red Bouncing Balls Spikes used a network of around 20,000 fake Apple IDs to buy his own app in order to get it to the top of the charts, an up-front investment of $20k that would be repaid many times over … 
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Samsung mocks iPad Air & iPhone’s screen size in new Galaxy Tab Pro & Note 3 ads (Video)

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Feb 19 2014 - 7:41 am PT
116 Comments
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fThtsb-Yj0w]

Like it has done on several occasions in the past, Samsung is directly mocking Apple in its latest advertisement for the new Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1. The commercial, posted to Samsung’s YouTube page, is a clear parody of Apple’s Pencil ad for the iPad Air that has been airing on TV since Apple debuted it for the introduction of the new tablet in October of last year. Another ad for the Galaxy Note 3 (below) takes on the iPhone’s small screen size.

In the ad, Samsung mentions that Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 has an even thinner body than the iPad Air and also demos multitasking features that aren’t available on iOS. While Samsung doesn’t get into specifics in the video, we know the new Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 measures in at 7.3mm thick. That’ less than a millimeter thinner than the iPad Air at 7.5 mm. The ad also makes references to the Galaxy Tab’s  10.1-inch HD display, which comes in at a resolution of 2560-by-1600 at 299 ppi compared to the iPad Air’s 2048-by-1536 resolution at 264 ppi.
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Sketchy rumor suggests iWatch will have a curved, flexible display; mass production 2nd half of 2014

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 19 2014 - 6:34 am PT
8 Comments
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An unconfirmed report in China Times claims that Taiwan-based touch panel manufacturer TPK will be making flexible displays for the iWatch, with mass production expected in the second half of the year.

The report said the iWatch will come equipped with a flexible AMOLED display and 3D protective glass. The rumors also speculated that the iWatch will use silver nanowire touch screen technology developed by TPK in conjunction with Japan-based Nissha Printing.

Both the flexible AMOLED and silver nanowire suggest a curved display, but it should be noted that the China Times does not have the best of track records … 
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Apple bringing iTunes Festival to the US for the first time at SXSW, for five nights in March

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Feb 19 2014 - 5:44 am PT
2 Comments

Image via The Loop

Apple has announced that it is bringing the iTunes Festival to the United States for the first time, after being a UK-only event since it began in 2007. The festival will be held at SXSW from March 11th to March 15th, at the Moody Theater.

The show will feature chart-topping acts from Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull and ZEDD with more announcements to follow. Just like the UK event, anyone can stream the event for free from their iOS devices, Macs as well as Apple TV.

In the press release, Cue said that the event is a way of sharing Apple’s love of music with customers.


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Want to see who’s buying and selling AAPL? SEC filings provide the answer

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 19 2014 - 4:23 am PT
2 Comments

Tables compiled by Whale Wisdom from SEC filings show which hedge funds bought AAPL shares last quarter and which ones sold (via Fortune).

The numbers show that 1,010 funds bought AAPL stock, while 847 sold. Morgan Stanley led the bulls – those buying – with purchases of 1.36M shares. As Fortune observes, this is no surprise given Katy Huberty’s target price of $630 (against a current price of $546 at the time of writing).

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Apple’s market share in China started climbing even before China Mobile deal; Russian sales double

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 19 2014 - 4:05 am PT
1 Comment

Photo: readwrite.com

While smartphone growth is slowing in China, Apple managed to increase its market share from 6 to 7 percent in the final quarter of 2013, even before the China Mobile deal was struck. IDC figures reported by the WSJ show that Apple is now the fifth largest smartphone seller in the country, behind Samsung, Lenovo, Coolpad and Huawei. Xiaomi sits just behind Apple at 6 percent.

Apple’s share is likely to increase significantly in the current quarter, thanks to finally being sold through China’s largest carrier, China Mobile. The carrier has more than 760M subscribers, and analysts have estimated that the deal will generate between 15M and 30M additional iPhone sales in the course of 2014.

iPhone sales in Russia, meantime, doubled to 1.57M units with a total value of $1B, reports Bloomberg. Apple had struggled to persuade Russian carriers to sell the iPhone due to its high price and laws that forbid carriers from discounting up-front prices in return for signing up to lengthy contracts. After selling through electronics stores, however, three Russian carriers resumed selling iPhones within the past few months.

The so-called BRIC markets – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are of huge importance to Apple now that the U.S. and Europe have reached saturation point. While Apple will never compete in market share with the low-end Android handsets available in these markets, there is still significant growth potential at the high end. In an earlier WSJ interview, Tim Cook said:

I look at the mobile phone market as having three kinds of phones: feature phones, smartphones that function as or are used as feature phones, and real smartphones. I do care about the market share of the last category and you want to be relevant.

The importance of the BRIC markets was illustrated when it was revealed that Apple’s Asian sales had outstripped those of Europe even by Q1 of last year. Next quarter’s China numbers are going to make very interesting reading.

Taiwanese report reiterates 4.7 inch and 5.6 inch iPhones incoming, claims larger model will not use iPhone branding

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Feb 19 2014 - 3:02 am PT
23 Comments

A report published in Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, via Mac Otakara, reiterates the flurry of previous reporting that Apple will release two new iPhones this year with larger displays, around 4.7 and 5.6 inches respectively. This has been reported countless times in the past by multiple sources. It also says that Apple is targeting a release in the third-quarter, again unsurprising at this point.

However, the report goes onto say that only the larger of these two phones will feature sapphire-glass. According to this sketchy report, the 4.7 inch model will continue to use Corning’s Gorilla Glass like the current iPhone 5s and 5c.


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Madison Avenue execs describe Apple’s ad sales team as “slow, cocky and downright stingy”

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 18 2014 - 7:22 am PT
21 Comments
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Apple is missing out on iAd sales opportunities because the company is too “slow, cocky and downright stingy” according to Madison Avenue media buyers cited in a piece in Advertising Age.

One exec told Ad Age that Apple doesn’t even have official sales targets for its ad business.

Cary Tilds, chief innovation officer for GroupM, said that Apple doesn’t have a big sales team. “It’s not their main focus to tell everyone in the world how amazing advertising in iAd is,” she said. “It’s just not as loud” … 
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How big a thing could Touch ID mobile payment be? China alone hit $1.6 trillion last year

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 18 2014 - 5:09 am PT
5 Comments

With Tim Cook having as good as confirmed that mobile payment via Touch ID is on the way, numbers released by the People’s Bank of China and reported in TechNode provide an insight into just how big the mobile payment market could be. Total mobile payments in China last year hit 9.64 trillion yuan – equivalent to $1.59 trillion.

Mobile transactions on just one of China’s mobile payment services reached 25,000 per minute. While China has a population of 1.3B, contrasted with around 317M in the USA, and many of those in China use a mobile device as their primary Internet connection, it still illustrates what a huge opportunity iPhone-based payments could represent for Apple.

It’s been suggested that Apple’s approach may be to allow payment to be made via iTunes accounts, effectively turning Apple into a bank – a prediction I made last September. Using iTunes as a payment method would mean that customers would not have to hand over card details to retail stores. In the light of recent large scale card compromises at Neiman Marcus (1.1M cards) and Target (2M cards), this may well prove a strong reason for iPhone owners to use the service.

Via TNW

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Ending today! Get SnagIt, Flux 4, Tunes Cleaner, Boom, Mariner Write, Elite Keylogger Pro and more for $10

Avatar for 9to5 Staff Feb 18 2014 - 4:51 am PT
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From 9to5toys.com:

Stack Social’s ‘Name your own price bundle’ with some solid offerings starting at $10.31 and an email address ends today.

The bundle includes:

If you are feeling generous, 10% of all sales go to a charity of your choice, and get on the leaderboard (which qualifies you to enter a drawing for a MacBook Air).