Apple

6,153 'Apple News' stories November 2008 - March 2013

See All Stories

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

Apple Store smash-and-grab Canadian style with bear spray

Jordan Kahn Mar 5 2013 - 6:52 am PT

The Vancouver Sun reported police in Vancouver, British Columbia are currently on the lookout for three suspects involved in a robbery of the Oakridge Mall Apple Store on Monday night. The suspects apparently entered the store at 7 p.m. “blasting bear spray then taking off with a number of items” while around 40 customers were still in the store:

Five customers were treated at the scene by paramedics for inhaling the powerful spray, the release said.

“Officers arrived and searched the area for the suspects with the help of a police K-9 unit,” VPD spokesman Const. Brian Montague said in a news release. “Some of the stolen items were recovered, but police were not able to find the three men responsible.”

Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Vancouver Police Department. There’s no word on what exactly the suspects got away with.

#Vancouver Police responding to Oakridge Mall after 2 males robbed the Apple Store. Suspects used bear mace and fled through the mall.

— ScanBC (@ScanBC) March 5, 2013

(image via CTV)

Verizon CFO talks iPhone: Free iPhone gains, incentivizing employees to sell lower subsidy devices & Share Everything plans

Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2013 - 2:41 pm PT

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo spoke at the Duetsche Bank Annual Media, Internet & Telecom conference this morning, where he was asked a few questions related to the iPhone. Verizon reported its fourth quarter 2012 earnings last month with 9.8 million smartphone activations—a record 6.2 million of which were iPhone. We knew about half, or 3.1 million, of those iPhone sales were driven by the first full quarter with the iPhone 5, but today Shammo talked about just how important getting the free iPhone 4 was during the quarter:

But this past fourth quarter you had a couple — you had really one thing happen that never happened before, especially with Verizon Wireless, and that was for the first time ever, because of the iPhone 5 launch, we had the 4 at free. So it was the first time ever you could get a free iPhone on the

Verizon Wireless network. So that produced a lot of volume for us. We had a lot of new customers come into Verizon who took that free phone, and that was great for us because again if you think about — we sold a lot of LTE product in the fourth quarter. We sold a lot of 3G product from the iPhone products in the fourth quarter.

But that is key for us, because if you think about our two networks it is important for me as I migrate people into the 4G network I still have this very large 3G network that operates very efficiently. We are not investing any more capital in that network other than to keep it up and running, so no more coverage capital, no more capacity capital. If I can keep that network up and running that just generates more contribution margins for us. So it is critical for us to balance that. But, again, I think you had one point in time where you had a free phone, a free Apple phone that never happened before with us and that generated a lot of volume.

While noting that 53 percent of the carrier’s smartphone activations were iPhones in 2012, Shammo was asked about the opportunity to incentivize employees to sell non-Apple devices that would also come with lower subsidies for Verizon:

The answer is, no, we don’t and it is critical that we don’t do that. The reason for that is because what is more important for us is when a customer walks into a store that customer walks out with a phone that they will be happy with and not return under our 30-day guarantee. Because the worst thing that can happen for us is for me to incentivise a salesperson to get you into a phone that you walk out the door with thinking you are going to like and in three days you come back because you don’t like it. Therefore, now I’ve just subsidized two smartphones because that phone you used I can’t resell as a new phone.

You can read more from Shammo’s presentation and where he discusses the growth of Share Everything plans, tablets, and more here.

Poll — What’s likely to come out first from Apple: an iWatch or an iTV?

Élyse Betters Mar 4 2013 - 12:57 pm PT

Rumors on Apple’s upcoming product launches are swirling around, whether it comes to a wristwatch-like device or even the elusive Apple “iTV” television set, but the question comes down to which device would the company most likely launch first.

Bloomberg published a new report on Monday that claimed Apple will launch its watch product in 2013, equipped with the ability to take calls, view maps, and record health data, etc., while Piper Jaffray’s Apple analyst Gene Munster yet again said in January that Apple will release a full-fledged television this year with a new remote.

Expand
Expanding
Close

iPhone concept imagines a 4.8-inch bezel-less display (Gallery)

Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2013 - 9:58 am PT

Nowhereelse.fr posted another set of high-quality renders from designer Martin Hajek today that seem to be the illegitimate lovechild of a Samsung Galaxy device and the iPhone 5. In the images below, we get the designer’s take on a 4.8-inch “iPhone 6” with a super thin bezel and black and silver anodized backs. He’s also included a 4-inch version of the concept that clearly takes cues from Samsung’s Galaxy devices.

More images at Nowhereelse.fr.

Apple could upgrade the little computer in the Lightning HDMI adapter to do better 1080p

Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2013 - 6:26 am PT

We reported over the weekend that there was some confusion over exactly how Apple’s new Lightning digital AV adapter works and why it lacks the ability to carry a native 1080p signal. One theory is that Apple was using an AirPlay wireless streaming protocol, but we’ve since learned that is not the case. According to a post that purports to be from an anonymous Apple engineer explaining how the cables function, Apple does not use Airplay protocol. It instead uses the same H.264 encoding technology as AirPlay to encode the output into the ARM SoC. From there, the data is decoded and sent over HDMI:

It’s vastly the same thing with the HDMI adapter. Lightning doesn’t have anything to do with HDMI at all. Again, it’s just a high speed serial interface. Airplay uses a bunch of hardware h264 encoding technology that we’ve already got access to, so what happens here is that we use the same hardware to encode an output stream on the fly and fire it down the Lightning cable straight into the ARM SoC the guys at Panic discovered. Airplay itself (the network protocol) is NOT involved in this process. The encoded data is transferred as packetized data across the Lightning bus, where it is decoded by the ARM SoC and pushed out over HDMI.

Perhaps even more interesting is that Apple could improve the quality with future software updates since the firmware is stored in RAM as opposed to ROM. The poster noted that Apple deemed the quality “suitably acceptable” but *will* make improvements with future iOS updates:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Bloomberg: Apple to release its iWatch within 9 months

Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2013 - 5:34 am PT

Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Apple had a team of over 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device. At the time, we noted that all the recent rumors and intel surrounding the iWatch seemed like the lead up to an impending product launch. Bloomberg is out with a new report today, claiming Apple will indeed launch its watch product in 2013:

Apple seeks to introduce the device as soon as this year, this person said. Apple has filed at least 79 patent applications that include the word “wrist,” including one for a device with a flexible screen, powered by kinetic energy… The watch business is experiencing a renaissance reminiscent of the cell phone industry before the iPhone.

The report added information about some of the potential features of the device that we had also heard of previously, including the ability to receive incoming calls, view maps, and record health data via various sensors:

Features under consideration include letting users make calls, see the identity of incoming callers and check map coordinates, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. It would also house a pedometer for counting steps and sensors for monitoring health-related data, such as heart rates, this person said.

Citigroup Inc. analyst Oliver Chen estimated Apple could generate $6 billion of the approximately $60 million in sales he expects the global watch industry to bring in during 2013. As pointed out by Bloomberg, gross margins are roughly four times bigger than TVs, which would only bring about $1.79 billion in gross profit for the company compared to $3.6 billion for watches.

Former creative director at Nike Scott Wilson told Bloomberg that Apple’s Jonathan Ive “has long had an interest in watches.”
Expand
Expanding
Close

The Lightning Digital AV Adapter doesn’t do native 1080P out, possibly because it is an AirPlay receiver

9to5 Staff Mar 1 2013 - 6:40 pm PT

The hacked apart cable costs as much as a Roku because it has the same kind of horsepower

The fine software developers over at Panic are working on some new AV software, and they are investigating Apple’s new-ish Lightning Digital AV Adapter. What they found is that unlike the earlier 30-pin module, the Lightning adapter doesn’t carry a native 1080p signal. In fact, when mirroring, Apple says the optimum resolution is 1,600-by-900, and, when that signal is shown on a 1080p display, it is likely up-converted, showing artifacts consistent with streaming and uncompressing video data

Before it is ripped apart, via Amazon

What’s more interesting is that they split open the cable and found a full ARM processor with 256MB of RAM to process video signals inside the adapter cable. We knew way back in September that the 8-pin adapter wouldn’t carry video natively, but Apple was able to build a cable. How? Panic thinks that it is actually streaming an AirPlay network signal through the cable, and the ARM processor is decoding it.

Why would Apple do this? It’s likely Apple wants to move people to AirPlay wireless streaming to Apple TV, so this is just a stopgap solution. Rather than making a larger Lightning cable, it sacrificed on wired video-out quality and HDMI (And VGA?) cable costs.

Update: Our friends at Braeburn and an anonymous Apple Engineer sent along their takes on the situation below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Yet another Java vulnerability discovered, researchers recommend disabling browser plug-in

Jordan Kahn Mar 1 2013 - 11:28 am PT

Following an attack on a smaller number of corporate Macs that exploited a flaw in the Java browser plug-in, researchers from security firm FireEye warned users of yet another new Java zero-day vulnerability. According to a blog post published yesterday (via IDG), browsers running Java v1.6 Update 41 and Java v1.7 Update 15 are now vulnerable to a malware attack that installs a remote access tool known as McRAT. The exploit is reportedly different from the one used to attack Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and several other companies last month. Following the earlier attack, Apple released an update to Java for users to version 1.6.0_41. These recent vulnerabilities come after several updates over the last year to Java addressing exploits.

FireEye recommended users disable Java until Oracle addresses the issue:

We have notified Oracle and will continue to work with Oracle on this in-the-wild discovery. Since this exploit affects the latest Java 6u41 and Java 7u15 versions, we urge users to disable Java in your browser until a patch has been released; alternatively, set your Java security settings to “High” and do not execute any unknown Java applets outside of your organization.

Oracle provided the instructions below for uninstalling Java on Mac:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s iPads are the hardest tablets to fix, but also need repairs the least

Jordan Kahn Mar 1 2013 - 7:32 am PT

iFixit, the repair guide site that has been vocal about the lack of repairability in Apple’s devices, has released a new report that compares the repairability of tablets currently on the market. With the exception of the Microsoft Surface Pro, Apple’s iPad lineup lands at the bottom of the list with a 2/10 repairability score.

Among the issues with repairability for iPads: hidden screws complicate disassembly, excessive amounts of adhesive, difficulty removing batteries, and, for some models, a “high chance of cracking the glass during disassembly.”

The good news? Apple’s iPads are also the most reliable according to several studies, meaning there is much less of a chance that you’ll need a repair in the first place.

Coming out on top of iFixit’s list is the Dell XPS 10 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. iFixit explained its methodology:

A device with a perfect score will be relatively inexpensive to repair because it is easy to disassemble and has a service manual available. Points are docked based on the difficulty of opening the device, the types of fasteners found inside, and the complexity involved in replacing major components. Points are awarded for upgradability, use of non-proprietary tools for servicing, and component modularity.

Stream David Bowie’s new album free on iTunes until its March 12 release

Jordan Kahn Mar 1 2013 - 7:05 am PT

It’s been a long time since the release of David Bowie’s last album in 2003 but today, to mark his return, his upcoming release is available to stream in its entirety for free on iTunes. The new album, The Next Day, will release March 12 with 14 tracks and 3 bonus songs. A single titled ‘Where Are We Now?’ is available to purchase on iTunes now.

iCloud hasn’t had its coffee yet today folks, multiple services remain down

Jordan Kahn Feb 28 2013 - 5:55 am PT

After experiencing some outages earlier this month, iCloud users continued to experience service disruptions across a number of services today. Earlier this morning, Apple reported on its System Status page, which at the moment appears to be experiencing some hiccups, that 11 percent of iCloud users were affected, and it listed all iCloud services as impacted by the outage (pictured above).

Apple later updated the system status page and listed only three services with outages: Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud, and Backup. It also changed the 11 percent of users affected for all services to “Multiple iCloud Services- Some users affected.”

Unfortunately, Apple’s system status page doesn’t seem to be functioning properly, and it is not displaying values for outages tracked for each hour of the day. As witnessed on Twitter, many users continue to experience issues with several iCloud services including some not currently listed as being down by Apple.

Spotify, Tweetbot, PanoPerfect for iPad, Waze, Bad Piggies, AppHero 2.0, more

Jordan Kahn Feb 27 2013 - 7:39 am PT

In addition to a new Cloud Player app for iPad from Amazon and the roll out of iTunes in the Cloud features to new countries, below we have put together our usual list of notable apps and updates hitting the store today:

Spotify version 0.6.0: Perhaps the biggest update today goes to the Spotify iOS app which, on top of receiving a “shiny new interface” equipped with a sidebar, includes a “Now Playing” bar, a new Track menu, and a number of other new features and fixes:

• New: Shiny new interface. You can navigate around the app with a new sidebar. Check it out by swiping left-to-right, or by pressing the ≣ button in the top left of the app.
• New: Now Playing bar. You’ll always see what you’re listening to along the bottom of Spotify. To switch tracks, just swipe along it. Tap or drag to see more information about the current track. Tap the cover art in the extended view to use AirPlay, and disable/enable shuffle and repeat.
• New: Track menu. Tap the … button on any track to see a redesigned context menu.
• Fixed: “Track only available online” issues. This would sometimes appear after start-up, or when you’d been offline for a little while. Not any more.
• Fixed: Lock screen will now always display the correct track.
• Fixed: Shuffle now switches off after you’ve used “Shuffle Play” on an album or playlist.

Waze version 3.6: Waze, one of Apple’s Maps partners and an app CEO Tim Cook recommended as an alternative during the iOS 6 Maps controversy, gets some nice new features today. Among the new features is real-time road closure reporting and routing, a refined map with only relevant road names, and much more:

✓ Report road closures in real time. Waze will close off the road and route others around it
✓ Report pins tilted on map to better indicate direction of event
✓ Reduced map clutter by showing only relevant road names
✓ New moods!
✓ New inbox with multiple message selection
✓ Update gas prices popup: When in gas station users prompted to update price (Europe only)
✓ Optimized performance and multiple bug fixes

PanoPerfect for iPad: We’ve told you about the PanoPerfect app before– an Instagram type experience designed specifically for sharing panorama shots. Today the developers have released its first iPad version of the app and also revamped the iPhone app.

PanoPerfect is a free, fun, and simple way to share beautiful panoramic photos on your iPhone. Find, follow, and share gorgeous panoramic photos with friends. Panorama’s go into a stream where you can comment and like your favorite ones.

Bad Piggies version 1.2.0: Rovio’s popular Bad Piggies franchise gets updated today with 30 new “Flight in the Night levels,” 6 Road Hogs levels, new achievements and much more. The free apps and HD iPad versions receive the same update today.

Tweetbot version 2.7.3: The iOS versions of the Tweetbot apps get a few tweaks. The iPad version gets the same update:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple rolls out iTunes in the Cloud movies and TV shows in France, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Sweden & Holland? (Update: Apple confirms)

Jordan Kahn Feb 27 2013 - 6:06 am PT

Update: TNW confirmed with Apple that a total of 12 countries have received access to movies in the Cloud, while France is the only to get TV shows today:

Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have all received the service, which allows access to previously downloaded movies. Apple confirmed with us by email that France was the only country in this batch to receive iTunes in the Cloud for TV shows.

As first reported by French website iGen.fr, Apple appears to be rolling out iCloud access to TV shows and movies in France. The feature allows users to download content purchased through iTunes to various Apple devices, and it has been available in the United States and elsewhere since 2011. The site first noticed access to the movies and TV show sections in the iTunes desktop app but confirmed the content is also accessible from Apple TV in the country.

As noted by TNW, a small number of users on Twitter are also reporting that access to TV shows and movies in the cloud is also now available in Holland and Sweden.

Other readers have said the feature is also available in Denmark, Greece, and Norway:

@9to5mac You can count Denmark among the countries where at least movies shows up in "the cloud".

— Jimmy Selgen Nielsen (@jimmyselgen) February 27, 2013

https://twitter.com/piratxmac/status/306775203080437761

It’s not clear if Apple has officially launched the feature or access has mistakenly been opened up temporarily. Apple has yet to update its iTunes in the Cloud availability page to reflect the rollouts.

Samsung steals Apple’s wallet

Jordan Kahn Feb 27 2013 - 5:53 am PT

.
From 9to5Google:

Samsung is today officially unveiling its “Samsung Wallet” mobile app solution, and it is quickly gaining attention for similarities to Apple’s iOS 6 ticket, card, and coupon solution known as Passbook. For those familiar with Apple’s app, Samsung Wallet appears to work much the same way. The app will allow users to store event tickets, membership cards, coupons, and boarding passes in one central app. From there, users will be able to present the digital passes. Companies supporting the standard can also scan a barcode included for each digital ticket.

Full story and video of the app in action is available on 9to5Google.

MLB increasing Passbook support from 4 to almost half of all Major League stadiums in 2013

Jordan Kahn Feb 27 2013 - 5:28 am PT

On top of just recently updating its At Bat 13 iOS app for Spring Training with a ton of new features, MLB announced at an event last night in New York that it will increase the number of stadiums accepting Passbook this season. According to a report from GigaOm, the number of stadiums accepting tickets through Apple’s wallet app will increase from just four to 13:

The teams that will start accepting Passbook tickets for the first time are the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs. The New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals, which began accepting Passbook last September, will again offer the service this season. MLB says there are three more teams that will enable iOS tickets this season, but that are not yet ready to make an official announcement.

CEO of MLB’s Advanced Media Office Bob Bowman told GigaOm that iOS users currently make up approximately 70 percent of all At Bat users and around 85 percent of paid subscribers. The updated iOS At Bat app includes a classic games video library archive, re-architected app navigation, and searchable video highlight library expansion to include access to complete video archives.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Judge upholds $368M VirnetX verdict over Apple, AAPL stock expected to take a small hit

9to5 Staff Feb 27 2013 - 5:03 am PT

As reported at Seeking Alpha:

The parties are ordered to get together between themselves for “royalty” mediation settlement for future use of the technologies in dispute or the judge has stated that he will make a ruling if not reached within 45 days.

Patent troll, East Texas kangaroo court, lawyers making a lot of money over ideas that seem obvious (transparent VPN and DNS). AAPL is down slightly in pre-trading this morning.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Hands-on with AnoStyle gold iPhone — and $50 promo code! (Photos)

Élyse Betters Feb 26 2013 - 6:34 pm PT

A company called AnoStyle offers a unique method of anodization that permanently alters the color of an iPhone 5 or iPad mini, and it just became available internationally last week, so I decided to give it a whirl and turn my black iPhone into gold.

There isn’t much to report besides everything turned out great and I love the result. It feels and looks like my iPhone, only in gold. The only con to AnoStyle, at least for the gold color option, is that the text below “iPhone” on the back is now extremely faint. Other than that, I feel like I own a limited edition iPhone (dusts shoulder off), and at least four people have asked me how I managed to snag a gold iPhone.

There is clearly a huge, untapped interest in colorful iPhones. Numerous reports in recent months suggested Apple could soon introduce a new iPhone in colors other than black and white. The news isn’t really that surprising, as Apple already offers a line of aluminum iPod touches in multiple colors. From my experience in the last 24 hours, varied color options would certainly be a standout and attractive feature (especially if the company were to launch an “S” iPhone instead of a full refresh this year).

In the meantime, however, there is AnoStyle: it costs $249 for the iPhone 5 and $299 for the iPad mini. The steep price is a bit of a hurdle for some, but it’s still perfectly worth the money and a great way to customize an iOS device.

More information about the AnoStyle process, as well as information about the resale value and which companies still offer top dollar for iOS devices despite modification, is below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

US Defense Department confirms plans to roll out 100K iOS and Android devices by next year

Jordan Kahn Feb 26 2013 - 11:38 am PT

We heard reports in October that the U.S. Department of Defense was preparing to approve a large number of iOS and Android devices for use on government networks. Those reports were followed earlier this month with news that CACI International Inc. was modifying thousands of iPads for use in U.S. government agencies. The Pentagon confirmed in a statement today that it plans to open its networks to 100,000 new devices from Apple and Google by February of next year:

The Pentagon said it wants employees to have the flexibility to use commercial products on classified and unclassified networks. It plans to create a military mobile applications store and hire a contractor to build a system that may eventually handle as many as 8 million devices.

The move comes as iPad and other iOS devices continue to be adopted by government agencies over BlackBerry. Documents from October revealed the U.S. Department of Defense planned to deploy up to 8 millions devices partially made up of iOS devices, while a number of other U.S. agencies also switched from BlackBerry to iPhones over the last year. As for the App Store and system for managing the up to 8 million devices, the DOD will select one or more companies by summer to develop the necessary software:
Expand
Expanding
Close

AAPL share price spikes on rumors of imminent stock split announcement

Feb 26 2013 - 11:05 am PT

Apple’s stock share price has risen today, after being down this morning, due to a rumor of an imminent stock split announcement. SeekingAlpha points to a tweet from The Street’s Doug Kass that seems to be the original source of the rumor. Apple’s next shareholder meeting will be held tomorrow, and this is where the announcement is rumored to take place.

We’d caution that this is just a rumor (if reliable, why didn’t he post it on the Street.com?)at this point and Kass’s past hits include things such as:

“I am also hearing that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has already begun low-level discussions with several Apple board members regarding his role as a possible temporary replacement to Steve Jobs should the options-backdating issues intensify at legal levels.”

Also Kass has a big personal interest in AAPL’s share price:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Clear + Leap Motion, Runtastic, DataMan Pro, Orbitz for iPad, Adobe Muse, deals, more

Jordan Kahn Feb 26 2013 - 9:43 am PT

http://vimeo.com/60564626

News:

Clear for Mac + Leap Motion: We’ve brought you a couple hands-on demos of the Leap Motion controller before, and today popular productivity app Clear for Mac announced it is working on bringing support for Leap Motion to Clear. There’s no timeframe yet, but Realmac Software provided the short preview above.

Updates:

Runtastic version 2.10.1: Personal fitness tracking app Runtastic gets a nice update today that brings more Sport types, improved Facebook integration, and number of other bug fixes and performance enhancements.

DataMan Pro version 6.3: After some trouble getting by Apple review guidelines with its last update, DataMan Pro is back on the App Store today and is 50% off for a limited time to celebrate. The app has also been completely redesigned:

The resurrected DataMan Pro has been completely reinvented to feature a stunning new interface, an intelligent real-time data usage forecast, and most advanced app tracking… The powerful App Watch technology that users love is also back. You can see the usage statistics for all apps. This amazing capability empowers you to root out data-hungry apps… The new DataMan Pro includes Smart Forecast and the beautiful interface that were recently introduced in DataMan Next. Combined with precise real-time tracking, you can say goodbye to overage.

Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars 3.0: Yesterday Orbitz launched its first “fully native, in-app search and book experience” for the iPad with an update to its Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars app that brings support for the larger screen and new iPad-specific features:

Our award-winning app (App Store Editors’ Choice & Hall of Fame inductee) is now also optimized for iPad and iPad mini! iPad users enjoy *all* the same app features as iPhone users, plus iPad-exclusives like a dual list/map view of hotels and the ability to compare details of multiple flights, rental cars, or hotels from a single screen.

Adobe Muse: Adobe announced today that it is updating Adobe Muse with some highly requested new features:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Steve Jobs’ ad man Ken Segall says Apple’s advertising has lost momentum to Samsung

Jordan Kahn Feb 26 2013 - 6:09 am PT

[ooyala code=”9wc3FtOTpudZkeXdJrtb8gXF-WmHpm1i”]

In the video above, Bloomberg West speaks with 72andSunny’s partner and creative director Jason Norcross about the thinking behind some of Samsung’s latest campaigns.

If there is one person qualified to discuss the state of Apple’s current marketing efforts, it’s Ken Segall. Working alongside Steve Jobs’ creative team for more than a decade, Segall, the man who put the “i” in iMac, served as creative director at ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. He created some of Apple’s most iconic ads such as the legendary Think Different campaign. Segall took some time on his Observatory blog today to share his thoughts on how “momentum has been lost” for Apple’s marketing department at the hands of none other than the company’s biggest rival, Samsung:

While you can still argue that Macs and i-devices have a ton of appeal, you can’t argue that Apple is still untouchable when it comes to advertising…The fact is, it is being touched — often and effectively — by none other than Samsung…Samsung has made remarkable inroads in a very short time, for two big reasons.

According to Segall, the two big reasons Samsung’s advertising has eclipsed Apple’s is due to Sammy’s massive advertising budget and willingness to “bash away at Apple, delivering ads that are well produced, well written and seem to be striking a nerve.” Specifically, Segall pointed to Samsung’s decision to run creative new ads at the Super Bowl and Oscars:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple settles in-app purchasing class action, agrees to pay $5 iTunes credit or cash refund

Jordan Kahn Feb 25 2013 - 4:01 pm PT

[vodpod id=Video.15797906&w=1000&h=350&]

Last time we checked in on the in-app purchase class-action lawsuit against Apple, courts refused Apple’s request to throw out the case brought on by parents arguing the iOS freemium model, i.e. in-app purchases, allowed children to easily rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars. Today, Law360 (via GigaOM) reported Apple has agreed to pay a settlement and will be contacting 23 million iTunes users that “made a Game Currency purchase in one or more Qualified Apps.”

According to the report, Apple will pay $5 in iTunes credit to those who claim in-app content was purchased by a minor without their permission. For purchases above $30, users will be able to request a full refund. However, credits will likely not get to users until early 2014 when the settlement meets regulatory approval:
Expand
Expanding
Close

iOS developer cleverly adds Street View app as a routing source for iOS 6 Maps

Jordan Kahn Feb 25 2013 - 11:09 am PT

Recently launched on the App Store, a 99-cent app from developers FutureTap called simply “Street View” will allow users to quickly access Google Street View from seemingly within the stock iOS 6 Maps app.

When Apple first launched its new Maps app with iOS 6, one of the features many users missed was Street View’s 360-degree panoramas made popular by Google Maps. Things got a little better with the introduction of the Google Maps iOS app months later, but there are still a few reasons why many have not completely migrated away from Apple’s stock Maps app.

The biggest (at least for non-jailbroken users) is the inability to use third-party apps as the default mapping application. That means when tapping links for addresses or using Siri, for example, Apple will still default to its stock iOS 6 Maps app. Thankfully, with the 99-cent Street View app, you can continue using Maps and still be able to quickly pull up Street View without ever feeling like you’ve left the app.

Here’s how it works:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple renews efforts in India with increased distribution, marketing & installment plans

Jordan Kahn Feb 25 2013 - 6:49 am PT

Despite comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook last year about India remaining a lower priority than many other emerging markets, a report from Reuters today detailed how Apple is “aggressively pushing” the iPhone in India through payment plans and a new marketing campaign. Cook suggested last year that India wasn’t the biggest international focus for Apple and multi-layer distribution in the country “really adds to the cost of getting products to market.” According to Reuters, on top of an aggressive marketing campaign and payment plans, Apple also aims to increase the distribution channels Cook mentioned last year:
Expand
Expanding
Close