business

98 'business' stories August 2010 - February 2014

Crowdsource update: SunSprite, the solar-powered wearable aimed at geeks

Ben Lovejoy Feb 25 2014 - 4:44 am PT

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZ8CGOUg2w]

With all the focus on skin cancer caused by too much exposure to sunlight, you might expect a UV-measurement gadget to be designed to warn you when you’ve spent too long in the sun. But no, the SunSprite has the opposite goal: it’s aimed at those who spend all their time indoors, and don’t get enough time in the sun. Or, to put it more concisely, geeks.

Sunlight plays a role in both mood and sleep patterns. The SunSprite measures exposure to both visible and UV light, and uses LEDs to indicate when you’ve met your daily goal of having spent enough time outside. It also communicates with a companion iPhone app. The retail price is a rather hefty $149, but early bird Indiegogo backers can get one for $89.

A neat thing about it is the same sunlight it measures also powers the device. The low energy requirements of the SunSprite mean that just a few minutes of sunlight provide enough energy to power the gadget for a week.

With some rumors suggesting that the iWatch may incorporate solar panels, perhaps this is one more health-based sensor Apple could include?

There’s a longer video that goes into more detail below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsePn7icDuw]

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

Ben Lovejoy Feb 19 2014 - 4:23 am PT

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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).

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

Ben Lovejoy Feb 18 2014 - 7:22 am PT

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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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As it struggles to keep up with demand, Apple offering discount on Mac Pro lease program to big buyers

Jordan Kahn Feb 11 2014 - 7:00 am PT

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While shipping times for the new Mac Pro through Apple’s online stores continue to slip and scalpers are doubling prices on Ebay, we’ve learned that Apple is offering a special discount on large orders of the Mac Pro for business customers.

Apple is reaching out to select companies with an offer of up to 20% off leases for the new Mac Pro through Apple Financial Services. The deal is only available to business customers in the U.S. on orders of $25,000 or more on a 24 month lease and it appears Apple is only sending out the notice (above) to certain partners. Depending on configurations that would of course require a handful of new Mac Pros or more, but the discount represents big savings for businesses and hosting services like MacProColo.net that require that many Mac Pros.

What’s not clear is if orders would ship before the estimated April delivery quoted for regular customers on Apple’s site…

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Amex updates iPad app with Mayday-like live video chat to customer care team

Ben Lovejoy Feb 11 2014 - 5:03 am PT

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American Express has updated its free Amex for iPad app to provide live video chat with a customer care rep somewhat similar to the latest Kindles and their Mayday functionality. The facility is available only when using wifi rather than mobile data.

The app description says that the video chat facility is limited to “eligible card members” – the definition of which Amex has not shared. I guess there’s one way to find out whether you’re eligible …

The app also allows customers to search for transactions, generate filtered statements, create expenditure charts, pay bills and manage rewards and offers.

Apple’s success in enterprise market “unbelieveable,” with more to come, promises Cook

Ben Lovejoy Jan 29 2014 - 4:55 am PT

13 Comments

Business Insider highlighted Cook’s celebration of Apple’s success in the enterprise market in the analyst call following its quarterly earnings report.

It’s up to unbelievable numbers. The iPhone is used in 97% of the Fortune 500, and 91% of the Global 500, and iPad is used in 98% of the Fortune 500 and 93% of the Global 500 […] 90% of tablet activations in corporations are iPads. And 95% of total app activations were on iOS …
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Using your own iPhone at work? Watch that it doesn’t get wiped when you leave …

Ben Lovejoy Jan 22 2014 - 3:57 am PT

29 Comments

Employees who use their own electronic devices at work under a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) arrangement may have unwittingly authorised their employer to remotely wipe their device when they leave the company, reports the WSJ.

In early October, Michael Irvin stood up to leave a New York City restaurant when he glanced at his iPhone and noticed it was powering off. When he turned it back on again, all of his information—email programs, contacts, family photos, apps and music he had downloaded—had vanished […]

It wasn’t a malfunction. The device had been wiped clean by AlphaCare of New York, the client he had been working for full-time since April. Mr. Irvin received an email from his AlphaCare address that day confirming the phone had been remotely erased.

A survey found that 21 percent of companies perform a remote wipe of employee-owned devices registered on the company network, with employees ostensibly agreeing to this when they connect to the company network.

Many employers have a pro forma user agreement that pops up when employees connect to an email or network server via a personal device, he added. But even if these documents explicitly state that the company may perform remote wipes, workers often don’t take the time to read it before clicking the “I agree” button.

The legality of the practice has reportedly not yet been tested in court.

In principle, an iCloud or iTunes backup should allow wiped iPhones to be restored, but you may want to pay a little more attention to the small-print next time one of those corporate messages pops up on your screen, to find out what it is you’ve been agreeing to …

Update: Several readers have pointed out that the remote wipe would be performed via the company’s Exchange servers, so removing the Exchange account the day before you leave would be a good precaution.

CES 2014: Otterbox announces new ‘Symmetry’ cases for iPhone 5s and 5c

Benjamin Mayo Jan 7 2014 - 11:07 am PT

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At CES, Otterbox has unveiled its new range of iPhone cases called the ‘Symmetry’ series. According to Otterbox, these cases are a “fusion of protection and style”.

The protective cases are thin, combining two materials into a single piece. Otterbox calls the series one of the slimmest, most protective cases in its class. They have a raised edge on the front to protect the touchscreen glass and use synthetic rubber in a honeycomb coring on the back to absorb shock to defend against drop damage.

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Apple issues Preliminary Proxy Statement, urges shareholders to vote against Icahn proposal & Human Rights Board committee

Mark Gurman Dec 27 2013 - 2:49 pm PT

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Apple today issued its Preliminary Proxy Statement via its Investor Relations website. As a publicly traded company, Apple issues this document annually, and it discusses pay packages for both executive team members and board members, company practices, and topics which shareholders will vote on at the upcoming shareholder meeting. Apple says that the next shareholder meeting will take place on February 28, 2014. Some interesting tidbits include that Apple’s board met seven times in 2013 with 75%+ attendance during each meeting. Additionally (to be voted on), a shareholder wants Apple to create a board committee related to human rights. Apple says that it is against this additional committee:

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Alongside Final Cut, Compressor and Motion get 4K support and other improvements

Benjamin Mayo Dec 19 2013 - 1:00 am PT

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Alongside the update to Final Cut, sister apps Compressor and Motion have also been updated with various improvements, such as 4K content sharing and performance optimisations to take advantage of the dual GPU’s in the newly-released Mac Pro.

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Apple’s new store in Dusseldorf, Germany, opens on 14th December

Ben Lovejoy Dec 10 2013 - 6:03 am PT

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Photo: macerkopf.de

Apple’s site confirms that its new store in Dusseldorf – its 13th German store – will open at 10am on Saturday. The first 1000 visitors to the store will reportedly receive an Apple t-shirt.

German site Macerkopf first spotted job listings for the store back in February following rumors dating back to May 2011.

The store is located in Dusseldorf Köbogen, a brand-new upmarket shopping center with stores featuring a number of luxury brands, at Königsallee 2.

Apple’s retail stores must qualify as one of the world’s most successuful risky gambles, earning more per square foot than any other retail company in the world – beating even Tiffany and Harrods. Apple has over 400 stores worldwide, and plans to open a further 30 next year.

Thanks for the many tips on this

BlackBerry implosion generating even bigger enterprise gains for iPad, says analyst

Ben Lovejoy Dec 3 2013 - 5:42 am PT

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Concerns about the future viability of Blackberry – once the default choice of mobile device for the enterprise market – have further boosted iPad penetration in businesses, according to an analyst quoted by AllThingsD.

Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair theorizes that BlackBerry’s ill-starred attempt to sell itself inflamed concerns about the future viability of the company’s platform and gave corporations good reason to migrate their employees to other devices. That opened up a significant opportunity for Apple — particularly since Android continues to struggle for gains in enterprise […]

Said Blair, “Our recent work points to tremendous momentum for iPad in the enterprise over the last few months and we believe that this may be one of the most important trends for Apple as we move into the New Year.”

Steve Jobs said shortly after the launch of the iPad that Apple didn’t need to market the device to businesses as “it’s being grabbed out of our hands, anyways” …
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AAPL stock approaches its year high of $549 (Market cap closes in on $500B) after a tumultuous year

Benjamin Mayo Nov 27 2013 - 9:59 am PT

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After a year of volatility and investments from players Einhorn and Icahn, AAPL stock is approaching its high for the year of $549/share.
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Apple Stores to celebrate holidays with magical front window display

Nov 18 2013 - 9:07 am PT

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For this upcoming holiday season, Apple will be celebrating with a front Apple Store window display that several Apple Retail employees have described as spectacular. A photo of the display, sent in by a source, is above. The display highlights both the iPad Air and iPhone 5c and is made up of several LED lights shaped into snow flakes. The design is simple, but unique and impressive…

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Apple to promote Mac Apps for education and enterprise with new volume purchase program

Mark Gurman Oct 3 2013 - 3:05 pm PT

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Apple’s current iOS-exclusive program

Apple has informed Mac developers that it is preparing to launch the ability for educational institutions and developers to purchase apps from the Mac App Store in volume for a discount. The upcoming feature was announced in an email:

We’re pleased to announce that Mac apps will soon be eligible to participate in the Volume Purchase Program for Business and Education. The Volume Purchase Program allows businesses or educational institutions to purchase multiple copies of your app at once.

You may also offer a discount to educational institutions for multiple purchases. If you choose to offer a volume discount for an app, institutions that purchase 20 or more copies of that app in a single order will receive a 50-percent discount.

Your existing Mac apps will not be automatically enrolled in the discount for educational institutions. If you would like to offer your existing Mac apps at a discount for the Educational Volume Purchase Program, check “Discount for Educational Institutions” in the Rights and Pricing section of the Manage Your Apps module on iTunes Connect.

For orders of 20 copies, a discount of 50% to the total order will be applied. This option will not be enabled for developers automatically, but the app sellers will need to enable the feature in iTunes Connect.

Apple launched volume purchase functionality for iOS applications in 2011.

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iPhone as standalone business would be bigger than Microsoft, Coca-Cola, McDonalds & more

Ben Lovejoy Sep 26 2013 - 4:20 am PT

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Businessweek has a fun chart showing that Apple’s iPhone business alone would make it the 9th largest stock in the Dow Jones top 30 companies, ahead of such giants as Microsoft, Coca-Cola and McDonalds.

It’s not a terribly surprising fact – the iPhone represents the bulk of Apple’s business, with its $88.4B sales greater than all of Apple’s other products and services combined ($81B), but it is quite a graphic illustration of the strength of that one product line. Apple, of course, just announced that it sold 9M iPhones in the first three days of the 5s and 5c.

Perhaps more surprising is the company that just scrapes ahead of that nominal iPhone business: IBM. While giving every impression of an out-of-date business model, the company is still making billions from large-scale IT infrastructure products, services and software. Including, I kid you not, mainframes.

How-to: Use iOS’s Guided Access feature

Sarah Guarino Sep 8 2013 - 9:01 am PT

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iOS devices are built with all users in mind: they come with several accessibility features for low-vision or legally blind users, settings for hard-of-hearing or deaf users, settings for individuals who have physical and motor difficulties, and settings for individuals with learning difficulties.

In this accessibility segment, I will be discussing how to use Guided Access.

Guided Access is an accessibility feature that came out with iOS 6. Guided Access enables you to set up the iOS device so that you cannot leave apps, and you are able to control which features of the app you are allowed to use or not use. There are a lot of great benefits and applications for this (listed in no particular order):

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Apple Stores to push Macs to businesses with new Parallels/Windows 8 demos

Mark Gurman Aug 17 2013 - 6:06 pm PT

18 Comments

Apple is pushing its business-focused Apple Retail salespeople to sell Macs to businesses currently running in Windows environments, according to Apple retail employees briefed on the new initiative. Apple Retail Stores, in their business/professional sections, will now have a 27-inch iMac prepared with the Parallels Virtualization Software and Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system.

Select Apple Retail employees will also be trained on the Parallels and Windows software, and special Parallels demos have been created for Apple Stores. The goal of this new initiative is to push employees to be able to show businesses that currently work on Windows that all purposes of Windows could either be replaced or used (with Parallels) on a Mac computer.

For a number of years, Apple has pushed reasons how a Mac could replace a PC. This was heralded mainly via Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads. This new retail campaign, instead, focuses on the Mac operating system and Windows working together. Apple wants to leave no room for business customers to not know that they could switch to a Mac computer…

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Apple starts new campaign to push businesses to convert tools to iPad apps

Mark Gurman Aug 17 2013 - 12:02 am PT

1 Comment

Apple has replaced its iPad in Business apps website with a new site that is much simpler and more direct. The new page highlights multiple specific use cases for which a business could use an iPad, then presents specific applications to complete those tasks. The old website was more cluttered and less specific. The iPhone version of Apple’s business apps website still showcases the older format…

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Apple promotes enterprise features on new ‘iOS 7 and business’ webpage

Ben Lovejoy Jun 26 2013 - 7:05 am PT

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Apple last night added a new webpage focusing on the enterprise features offered in iOS 7, covering everything from configuration to data security.

iOS 7 provides enhanced security, powerful new ways to configure and deploy devices at scale, and features to help businesses purchase, distribute, and manage apps with ease. Features including per app VPN, enterprise single sign on, App Store license management, and new mobile device management (MDM) configuration options are just some of the new capabilities in iOS 7 that provide more for organizations of all sizes…
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Pegatron CEO says Bloomberg reporter made up report of ‘falling iPad mini demand’

Jordan Kahn May 9 2013 - 6:28 am PT

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Yesterday we decided not to run with a story published by Bloomberg that Pegatron’s forecasted 25 percent to 30 percent drop for second-quarter revenue was due to “falling iPad mini demand.” It seemed a little far fetched that an Apple supplier would be giving up specific information on product demand, something we know suppliers in Apple’s circle typically remain tight-lipped on. Today CEO of Pegatron Jason Cheng has confirmed our suspicions in an email to Fortune claiming that Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan made the iPad mini angle up.

While quoting an analyst’s expectations for iPad mini demand in Q2, Bloomberg’s Tim Culpan offered the following quote from Pegatron Chief Executive Officer Jason Cheng as proof:

A decline in revenue from the iPad Mini “is more on demand, while price has been stable. Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles, almost every item is moving in a negative direction.”

Pegatron chief Jason Cheng says he wasn’t referring to iPad mini specifically, but rather all of its products including all tablets and game consoles, while noting that “clearly refused” to answer Culpan’s questions related to specific products. Here’s what he had to say about the Bloomberg piece:
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Facebook Pages Manager for iOS rebuilt for speed, gains emojis, photo filters, and stickers

Mark Gurman May 8 2013 - 5:02 pm PT

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Facebook has updated its Pages Manager application for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch by re-building the core of the app. By re-writing the app for speed, the application is now faster for scrolling through page timelines, loading photographs, and more. Facebook previously re-built its other iOS apps for speed, shunning web-based technologies and using more native Objective-C code.

Facebook Page Manager is an app that makes the management of Facebook Pages easy on-the-go. The application originally launched approximately one year ago, and it also includes helpful analytics information for Page owners.

Today’s update also brings improvements to photo uploads such as filter and auto-enhance support.

Facebook’s Stickers and emojis are now accessible for use in messages from this app as well.

The app update is free on the App Store.

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Following acquisition, Pulse iOS news app updated with sharing to LinkedIn

Mark Gurman May 8 2013 - 2:06 pm PT

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The free Pulse news-reading app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch has been updated with support for sharing articles to social network LinkedIn. Of course, this update should come as little surprise as Linkedin acquired Pulse last month for $90 million. Additionally, the new update includes sharing to the Evernote service.

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Readdle’s PDF Expert iPad app updated with improved annotating, more

Mark Gurman May 8 2013 - 9:38 am PT

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Readdle has updated its popular iPad document storing and annotating app, PDF Expert, with several new features for annotating.

-Сopy and Paste Annotations

-Move, resize and change properties of multiple annotation

-New layout in annotations toolbar for rect/oval/line/arrow

-Improvement in Text Highlight tool

Additionally, the update includes various other enhancements:

-New Day/Time keyboard for form filling

-New layout in annotations toolbar for rect/oval/line/arrow

-Added save/discard changes prompt to Save as -> Flatten

-Sync folders are supported in pdfefile:// scheme

-Increased timeout for move pages with tap & hold

I’ve been using PDF Expert for a while, and it is truly a powerful, easy-to-use solution for managing PDFs. Today’s update is free, but the app costs $9.99 on the App Store. There is a separate iPhone version as well for the same price.

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