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.
We’ve received word that Apple is building another enormous data center—this time in Hong Kong SAR, China.
Apple recently finalized a location in the New Territories region of Hong Kong near the Shenzhen China border for the data center. We spoke to a bidding contractor employee who, on the condition of anonymity, told us the planned data center’s scale is unprecedented for his business: “There is simply nothing to compare it to and therefore it is hard to make estimates on size based on the materials required.” We were told that construction is to begin in Q1 2013, and it will likely take over a year for operations to start in the data center. The aim is to have it operational by 2015, which is the same time that Apple’s Spaceship Campus 2 is scheduled to go online.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index is out today with its September report for appliances, computers, televisions and video players/recorders. Not surprisingly, Apple is able to maintain its lead among personal computers despite a drop of 1-point to 86 over previous reports. While the report noted Apple continued to lead the category by a margin of 5- to- 9 points, Apple’s lead is slightly smaller than previously, according to the report, “due to an across-the-board customer satisfaction increase for Windows-based computers.” Apple’s score comes as the PC industry as a whole gains 2.6-points and hit all-time high satisfaction score of 80.
Skipping past HP, Acer and Toshiba, the aggregate of smaller PC makers (including tablet producers Samsung and Amazon) improves customer satisfaction by 4% to 80 while simultaneously gaining market share at a pace that outstrips even Apple… “What may be occurring is that the defection of the least satisfied customers of traditional PC brands such as Dell, HP and Acer to Apple and other smaller tablet makers actually may be boosting customer satisfaction for all,” says Fornell. “The companies that lose market share will maintain their most loyal and happy customers, while those who migrate to other companies in search of new products are more pleased as well.”
Snapseed, which has some features of the hit iOS app Instagram in terms of jazzy vintage filters, is just one of many desktop and mobile photography apps that Nik Software develops. Snapseed launched on Apple’s iPad in June 2011, winning “iPad App of the Year” soon after, and then it landed on the iPhone in August 2011 and Mac OS just four months later. The app also boasts a Windows counterpart.
Today’s announced buyout could notably help Google’s budding social network, Google+, better combat direct rival Facebook, which recently acquired Instagram and its 100+ million users.
The Wall Street Journal has a story today on HP CEO Meg Whitman “taking a cue from Apple” and planning to release a redesigned line of PCs that could one day rival Apple. While mentioning the “brick” of a company laptop she received when taking over as CEO in September 2011, Whitman discussed the company’s struggle to keep up with Apple’s product design:
As part of her plan, Ms. Whitman is counting on better-looking PCs, hoping her company might one day rival Apple Inc. as the industry’s standard bearer for sleek design…”I don’t think we kept up with the innovation,” said the 56-year-old CEO. “The whole market has moved to something that is more beautiful… Apple taught us that design really matters,” she said. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress.”
HP executive Stacy Wolff is behind the new look, which he explained uses a common color palette, standard logo size, and reduced components “so that a computer’s chassis, for example, was a single piece of metal or plastic, instead of multiple pieces.”
Not only did the change make the products look better-built, but it sometimes made them cheaper or lighter…”We’re working on a cleaner, more minimalistic look,” he said.
We know Siri has a tendency to provide surprising answers that can cause a bit of controversy in some cases. Many reported earlier this year that Siri responded with “Nokia Lumia 900” when asked what the best smartphone is (an answer based on data from the Web). Apple quickly appeared to tweak the responses with answers that promoted the iPhone, such as: “The one you’re holding.” Now, PocketNow reported law student Sean DeVries is suing Apple over the “sponsored responses”:
Instead of actually providing information based on web search results and user reviews, Apple’s Siri software will provide a “sponsored answer” instead that advertises Apple’s products… of our law-student Pocketnow readers decided to sue Apple about this on-device false advertising simply out of principle. Sean DeVries’ goal is to get Apple to at least change their website and end user agreement to include this information though an indicator of “sponsored responses” would be best during Siri’s answers. Sean’s court date is scheduled for October 9th.
Look what just popped up on Amazon: A company called Nanotch is offering pre-orders for 30-pin to Lightning adapters. There had been concern when a report last month said the 9-pin adapters were only going to cost $10 each and Apple would be the sole manufacturer, but neither looks to be true.
The company listed the following features:
Lightning cable adapter for newest generation of Apple products.
Adapter to use your new Apple products with older accessories.
Use your iPhone 5 with older models of accessories.
Just as it did for the iPhone 5, Apple posted schematics for the new fifth-generation iPod touch and seventh-generation iPod nano—both of which will be available to customers in the coming weeks. The blueprints are certainly useful if you are in the accessory game. You can see the iPod touch above (get a look at where the Loop is and the top area that should not be obscured by metal) and the iPod nano past the break (also notice a Bluetooth antenna area):
Amazon just launched pre-order pages for the new iPod Touch,Nanos and Shuffles. They will ship probably right after Apple starts with sales tax in only some states.
Meanwhile. Best Buy is having a MacBook Sale this weekend with up to $200 off MacBooks. The new Airs with 4GB of RAM start out at $949 and many 13″ Airs/Pros are $100 off, which are the lowest prices we could find.
The former Google executive did offer high-end smartphones to most of its employees (if the memo BI received is legit) including the iPhone 5, three Androids and a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone. These are probably the top phones on the market today, and they will replace the BlackBerries that Yahoo! employees were given until this point.
The memo is below. Mayer was notorious for her use of Apple’s iPhone, even within the walls of Google.
We have a very exciting update to share with you today – we are announcing Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun! As of today, Yahoo is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries. A few weeks ago, we said that we would look into smartphone penetration rates globally and take those rates into account when deciding on corporate phones. Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.
Moving forward, we’ll offer you a choice of devices as well as provide monthly plans for the data and phone.
The smartphone choices that we are including in the program are:
* Apple iPhone 5
* Android:
– Samsung Galaxy S3
– HTC One X
– HTC EVO 4G LTE
* Windows Phone 8:
– Nokia Lumia 920
We’re getting started right away and taking orders starting now
Clearly, Yahoo will buy a lot of iPhone 5s for its employees if they truly have freewill in the decision.
You can say many things about Samsung, but one you cannot say it is slow (you could also say it leaked the rumored 1GB of RAM on the iPhone 5). However, a reader has taken an “S-pen” to the ad above:
Before I even start typing, I would like to note that this will probably be a little bit biased towards Apple.
So, I’m sure you’ve all seen Samsgun’s latest anti-Apple ad. If you haven’t, you can go and check it out here. Notice how they list a lot of features that the iPhone apparently doesn’t have. Well, here’s what they do.
NFC: Near field communication let’s your phone establish a connection with another phone that is touching it or very close to it. It can accomplish almost everything that Bluetooth can, but in a much closer proximity and without dealing with pairing.
Smart-stay: This feature aims to prevent the display backlight from turning off while you are looking at the phone’s display. Critics have said that this feature works fine in well-lit areas, but not in the dark.
S-Beam: This is a feature available in Ice Cream Sandwich, and uses NFC to transfer data between two phones that are held closely together. It does the same thing that the iPhone application Bump does.
Share Shot: This is an easy way to share photos with another S3 owner. It lets you upload pictures you’ve taken to another S3 decide through a WiFi network. The iPhone’s equivalent is Shared Photo-Streams, only Share Shot only works through WiFi.
Group Cast: Group Cast is designed for presentations. It lets users view and interact with PDF, PowerPoint, and image files through their phones.
Direct Call: This feature aims to know when you want to talk vs. when you want to text. For instance, if you’re composing a text message but decide to call the receiver instead, you simply hold your phone to your ear and it will dial their number. (Seems silly to me)
Smart Alert: This feature activates when you’ve been away from your phone. It vibrates to let you know that you have missed calls or text-messages. It seems like a much more annoying version of Notification Center, BUT you don’t have to manually check it– it automatically notifies you as oppose to you manually checking Notification Center.
Tilt-to-Zoom: This feature let’s you simply tilt the phone – as opposed to pinching and zooming – to zoom in on a picture or website.
Palm Swipe Capture: This feature lets you swipe your palm over your phone to take a screenshot. On the iPhone this is accomplished by simultaneously pressing the Home button and the Sleep-Wake button.
Palm touch to mute/pause: You can mute and pause media on the screen by covering the screen with your hand.
Picture-in-picture: This let’s you watch a video and normally use your phone at the same time by placing the video in a popup window.
Turn Over To Mute: Let’s you turn over your phone to mute incoming calls.
Shake To Update: Lets you shake your phone to update the information most apps are displaying. For instance, shaking your phone while in the Twitter app will load new tweets, etc.
Removable Battery: Pretty self explanatory. Lets you take out your battery.
Apple just won another ruling brought by Samsung, according to a U.S. International Trade Commission notice, in regards to patented technology found in iOS devices.
Apple Inc. (AAPL) won a round of a U.S. International Trade Commission case brought by Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) over patented technology in the iPhone and iPad tablet computer, its second U.S. legal victory in a month over its largest smartphone competitor.
Apple didn’t violate Samsung’s patent rights, ITC Judge James Gildea said in a notice posted on the agency’s website. The judge’s findings are subject to review by the full commission, which has the power to block imports of products that infringe U.S. patents.
…Gildea said there was no infringement of any of the four patents in the ITC case, and also determined that Samsung had not proven it had a domestic industry that used the patents, a requirement that is unique to the trade agency. The judge didn’t provide the reasons behind his findings. The opinion will be public after both sides get a chance to redact confidential information.
Apple is making a lot of progress with construction in and around its Maiden, N.C., data center. An almost-complete 100 acre solar farm is pictured in the above aerial shots provided to GigaOm by WCNC-TV.
We already knew T-Mobile had big plans for the iPhone in coming months when it announced plans to launch the Unlimited & Unlocked iPhone marketing initiative on the same day as the iPhone 5 launch. Today, we get confirmation from TmoNews that nano-SIMs are indeed on the way to T-Mobile for customers wishing to use the new iPhone on its network. The carrier expects the SIMs to arrive in October, but we are hearing they have already started arriving. You will, of course, first have to get your hands on an unlocked iPhone 5. Expand Expanding Close
Miller has a long list of epic hacks in his recent past: In 2007, he was the first to fully compromise the iPhone through its web browser. Six months later he won the Pwn2Own hacking competition in Vancouver by compromising a Macbook Air in two minutes. In 2009, he revealed a technique that would have allowed an attacker to hijack iPhones via text message, virally spreading from phone to phone. He’s found a method of infecting Macbooks with malware via their power adapter, and had his Apple developer license revoked for successfully sneaking an iOS app past Apple’s safeguards. Most recently he’s shifted his focus to Android, defeating Google’s “Bouncer” program for detecting malware in the Android Market and using near-field communications chips to wirelessly compromise Samsung and Nokia phones just by waving another device near them.
AT&T just ran out of Sept. 21 stock for the iPhone 5. The delivery page has now pushed sales to “14-21 business days,” which equals almost three to five weeks. Verizon ran out of stock earlier today, but it is hard to determine if this shows demand per carrier since AT&T is such a big legacy iPhone carrier and Apple obviously gave it a lot more stock than others.
Both big carriers have downsides: AT&T will not run FaceTime unless you buy a Mobile Share plan, while Verizon will run FaceTime on all of its iPhones—but new customers must sign up for a Mobile Share plan (no matter what). In addition, the CDMA version of the iPhone, which Verizon and Sprint both carry, will not support simultaneous talk and data. Speaking of Sprint, it is still advertising ship dates of Sept. 21.
The iCloud outage, which began Tuesday and affected roughly 2 percent of Apple’s 200 Million iCloud users, now appears to be over. However, some iCloud users wrote to tell us that Apple just dumped all of their email into the Inbox with 12/31/69 dates and jumbled Subject lines. One reader’s email now looks like this:
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An excerpt from his frustrated email is below. I hate to say this about a company that makes the best hardware and OS software in the world, but it would be hard to trust my junkmail to iCloud at this point.
For Australians wondering why turn-by-turn is not turned on in iOS Maps, or when it will turn on for that matter, a forwarded email from Apple Senior Vice President of iOS Scott Forstall may shed some light. The email is in response to the question of whether or not turn-by-turn “will be switched on for us Aussies in the near future?” Forstall responded:
Australia is definitely important to us. We first need to make sure our data is exceptional and qualified before turning on turn-by-turn.
Forstall’s reply seems to indicate it will pop up very soon.
Unlike Verizon’s lineup of LTE Android smartphones, we just confirmed with the carrier that the new iPhone 5 would not support simultaneous voice and data over its LTE network.
A Verizon spokesperson told us:
“The iPhone 5 was designed to allow customers to place a voice call on the Verizon Wireless network, while simultaneously letting customers access the Internet over the WiFi.”
We confirmed with AT&T, however, that the feature will work on its GSM model of the iPhone 5. AT&T told us:
“AT&T customers can talk and surf simultaneously on the new iPhone 5.”
J.D.Power and Associates is out with a 2012 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study and Apple is at the top of the list for customer satisfaction in four areas. Amazon is close behind:
The study measures tablet owner satisfaction among those who have owned their tablet for less than two years. Satisfaction is measured across five key factors. In order of importance, they are: performance (26%), ease of operation (22%), styling and design (19%), features (17%), and price (16%).
Apple ranks highest, achieving a score of 848, and performs well in four factors: performance; ease of operation; styling and design; and features. Amazon (841) closely follows Apple in the rankings and performs particularly well in the price factor.
TechCrunch did a panel at the Disrupt conference of ‘some folks’ who got to play with the iPhone 5 after Apple’s event. The running themes were the new iPhone’s light weight, the panoramic camera, and comparison to Android.
While Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller notably left out U.S. carriers when talking about the iPhone 5’s enhanced wideband audio at Apple’s event yesterday, we get clarification today from at least Sprint that the feature will not be supported. PhoneScoop reported that Sprint’s “HD Voice” service works on CDMA x1 technology, while the iPhone 5 and many other carriers around the world use WCDMA networks for the feature. Apple said the wideband audio feature would be available through 20 carriers at launch, but it only mentioned Deutsche Telekom and Orange.
A few apps updated, went on sale, or made announcements recently, and 9to5Mac gathered the most noteworthy ones in our regular round up below. Today’s crop includes game and productivity app updates, an Angry Birds game sale, and promo codes for an iPhone 5-optimized GPS app. Per usual, we will continue to update this list throughout the day.
Mass production of the screens for the iPhone 5, which Apple unveiled Wednesday, began earlier this week at Sharp’s factory in central Japan, the person said…That Sharp has started delivering screens could ease concerns about whether Apple will have enough components to meet global demand for the new iPhone. Sharp is one of the three suppliers of the screens, the others being Japan Display Inc. and South Korea’s LG Display Co…
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