Apple has begun dressing the Moscone Center in its first WWDC 2012 banners. The image above, first posted by MacRumors, shows a banner being installed that reads "WWDC2012: Where great ideas go on to do great things." There's not a lot, if anything, the banner gives away. It highlights some of the more popular iOS apps like Netflix, Facebook, Evernote, and Temple Run, but beyond some app icons, there's not much to look at. You can see the high-res image posted by MacRumors here. WWDC 2012 starts in just five days -- on Monday June 11th.The first WWDC 2012 banners go on display originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Moscone Center-Macrumors-Wwdc
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Free Performances-Itunes Festival
Apple has announced some details on the 2012 iTunes Festival in London. This 30-day music event will take place at The Roundhouse and feature free performances by Usher, Emeli Sandé, Jack White, Norah Jones and One Direction among others. Tickets will be distributed via lottery, and fans in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands can vie for a seat. Apple will stream performances to computers running iTunes and iPhones, iPod touches and iPads with the iTunes Festival app installed. The fun starts on September 1 and runs for the whole month.Apple's iTunes Festival scheduled for September originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Password Gate-Kickstarter-App Store
Republique is an upcoming iOS title that's made a lot of noise by getting funded on Kickstarter recently, to the tune of half a million dollars, but I've had one nagging question about it: How exactly are they going to distribute the app to all of their backers? The most obvious solution would be to put a password gate inside of an app, but Apple doesn't allow that. If you have to lock content in your app, then you're clearly selling it outside of the App Store, which means you're dodging Apple's 30% cut. So what's their plan? Republique hasn't yet said, only that it's still being decided. Fortunately, however, here's the answer. The folks behind Zombies, Run! say that all they had to do to distribute an app for Kickstarter backers was ... ask. Apple agreed to let them have two versions of the app on the store -- one just for sale, and another that was free with a password gate in it. There were two limits, however: There had to be at least some content in the password-closed app, so people who just randomly came across it weren't confused. And Apple made the app developers take down any preorders once the app went live, so that Apple didn't lose any sales of its own. Good to hear that distribution this way is possible -- there are a few other Kickstarter projects that will need to make use of a plan like this when they are released. The key, according to Six to Start, is to get in touch with Apple early, and keep that communication flowing.How to distribute Kickstarter apps: Ask Apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 16 May 2012 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Friday, 18 May 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Laptop Upgrades-Macbook Pro-Bloomberg
Bloomberg reports that Apple is preparing laptop upgrades with models that are thinner than the existing Pro units; the new machines are expected to run on Intel's Ivy Bridge processors. This follows on rumors from earlier today that a new MacBook Pro and iMac appeared on the Geekbench benchmarking tool. The machines, which Bloomberg says are to be announced during WWDC, are also expected to sport Retina or HiDPI displays and a flash memory subsystem to speed up boot times. All those details are in line with a post from 9to5 Mac earlier today. Bloomberg also says that Apple might announce Mountain Lion's release date during WWDC as well.Bloomberg: Apple will debut new laptop lineup at WWDC originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 14 May 2012 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Travis County Commissioners Court-Unofficial Apple Weblog-Disagreement
Apple's plans to bring 3,600 jobs to Austin, Texas are being delayed due to a disagreement between the company and the Travis County Commissioners Court over the terms of an economic incentive package. Apple is hoping to establish an Americas Operations Center in Austin, which would run most of the company's business operations for North and South America. Key to the deal to invest $304 million in the center is a package which would provide the company with almost $36 million in incentives over the next 10 to 15 years. The sticking point in the negotiations is with the Travis County Commissioners Court, which would provide anywhere from $5.4 to $6.4 million of the incentive. Opponents of the deal raised their objections at a Tuesday meeting of the Court, with Bill Aleshire (an attorney and former Travis County judge) and Ed Wendler (an Austin developer) picking through the details of the contract between the county and Apple. Aleshire said "I'm not sorry that Apple is frustrated ... That's a sorry contract." He felt that Apple "had it rigged so they could not comply with the contract yet end up with county staff basically renegotiating the terms that they would have to comply with." There's hope that the negotiations will end in a positive vote for Apple's expansion plans next Tuesday, May 1, 2012. If not, there are plenty of other cities in the U.S. that would be more than happy to welcome Apple with open arms.Apple's plans for Texas construction delayed due to disagreement with county originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Earnings Release Conference-Unofficial Apple Weblog
What is arguably the most anticipated earnings call on Wall Street every quarter will take place next Tuesday, April 24th at 2pm PT/5pm ET. That's when Apple will release its earnings report for the second quarter, which ended March 31st. There's lots of speculation about whether Apple will hit consensus estimates for their Mac products -- notably iMacs and MacBook Pros, which have not seen major updates in almost a year. However it's generally assumed that the launch of the new iPad in this quarter will help Apple offset any missed Mac numbers. In the run up to the earnings call this week, Apple's stock has swung wildly, having its largest ever point drop on Monday, followed by its largest ever point gain on Tuesday, before falling over 3% again on Wednesday. AAPL shares are up 45% YTD. TUAW will have complete coverage of next Tuesday's financial results.Apple will webcast Q212 earnings release conference call on April 24 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Flashback Infections
According to Symantec, the OSX.Flashback.K infection is declining each day. The current number of infected Macs is now around 140,000, down from 600,000 a week ago. If you think you may be infected, you can run a Flashback removal tool from either Kapersky or F-Secure. Apple also has a tool for Lion users without Java installed. OS X users should install the latest Java update from Apple which will protect you from a future infection.Flashback infections down from over half a million to under 150,000 in eight days originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Friday, 20 April 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Vice Presidents-Paper Manuals-Continental-Vp Of Sales
AllThingsD notes that Apple has hired away Zane Rowe, United Continental's executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, to work as a new Vice President of Sales for the company. Rowe, 40, had been with Continental since 1993. In 2003, he was appointed as a Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis at the airline and in 2008 became Continental's CFO. With the merger of UAL and Continental in 2010 United Continental, the worlds largest airline, was formed with Rowe becoming the new company's CFO. There's no word yet on exactly which sales division Rowe will be in charge of at Apple, but the Cupertino company did release a short statement to AllThingsD about Rowe's hiring: "We are thrilled that Zane Rowe will be joining us as one of our vice presidents of sales. He built a great team at United and we think he is going to do a fantastic job at Apple." Interestingly in August 2011 United Continental decided to start giving all their 11,000 pilots iPads loaded with electronic documentation. Each iPad saved the airline 38 pounds of documentation per flight, which over the long run will help reduce fuel costs. There's no word if Rowe was specifically involved in this decision, but its possible this is how he came to the attention of Apple.Apple hires United Continental CFO as VP of Sales (after airline replaces paper manuals with iPads) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Snow Leopard-Free Upgrade-Mobileme
In an effort to get the remaining MobileMe customers upgraded to Lion and iCloud, Apple is offering a free upgrade to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for those still running OS X 10.5 Leopard. Macgasm posted pictures of the missive, which directs MobileMe customers to this link. After signing in, those who need a copy of Snow Leopard can get an installation DVD after filling out mailing information. Snow Leopard retails for $29. Those who take advantage of the offer will still have to pay $29.99 to upgrade to Lion. The Snow Leopard upgrade program expires on June 15, a couple weeks shy of MobileMe's shutdown date of June 30. Apple is giving away Snow Leopard to MobileMe customers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
North Carolina Data Center-Environmentally Friendly-Unofficial Apple Weblog-Clean Power
Environmental reports can be all over the place these days -- at times, it seems like these reports tend to be more about politics than the environment. But while Apple has always said it's leading the charge on being environmentally friendly, Greenpeace apparently isn't so sure. The group has called out Apple in a recent report for not using environmentally friendly sources to power Apple's North Carolina data center. Google, Yahoo, and Facebook all got good marks from Greenpeace's report, because their buildings are in areas that use "clean" power like wind and solar power. But Apple's center uses mostly coal and nuclear electricity, which Greenpeace looks negatively on. Apple does deserve some credit. It leads the industry in using green power, even if this specific plant, according to this report, isn't doing what Greenpeace wants. Apple also got bad marks for transparency. The company says it uses clean power, but apparently it doesn't always share the specific evidence that Greenpeace wants. At any rate, there's probably fair points on both sides here. Apple does a lot to use "green" energy in all of its work, and of course, as Greenpeace suggests, there's always more that can be done. The North Carolina data center, as you know if you've ever used iCloud or Siri, is nice to have. But it would be even nicer if it was run on power that did not as negatively affect the environment.Greenpeace: Apple falling short of sourcing clean power originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Patent Infringement Case-Unofficial Apple Weblog-Intel Provide Source-Patent Battle
Apple has some unusual bedfellows, Intel and Qualcomm, in a patent infringement case that it's fighting with Samsung in Australia. According to a Bloomberg report, Intel and Qualcomm agreed to provide the Australian court with source code that'll prove Apple isn't infringing on patents held by Samsung. The trial is slated to begin July 9 and will run through October 12. The Sydney Federal Court is expecting the trial to be a blockbuster affair and may assign a second judge and a court-appointed expert to serve at the trial.Qualcomm, Intel provide source code in patent battle originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Friday, 6 April 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Website Usability-Safari
Software Update just alerted me that Safari 5.1.5 is available. As noted on the screenshot above, the only information from Apple was that the update "contains a fix for an issue that could affect website usability when running Safari in 32-bit mode. The update is small -- only 46.4 MB -- and does not require a restart.Safari 5.1.5 update fixes issue when running in 32-bit mode originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Carrier Options-Apple Updates-Apple Store-App Store
Apple has updated its official Apple Store app, now available for free on the App Store. The new update allows for options to manage your account and billing right on the phone. You can also browse through all of the various carriers available for Apple's iPhone. For those of you in the Netherlands, the app is available for you now, too. Apple has pushed up the requirements for the app, so you'll need iOS 4.3.3 or higher to run it. We're all at least up to 5.0 by now, right? You can find the update in Apple's official App Store app. So... you can update Apple's Apple Store app by using Apple's App Store app. Sheesh.Apple updates Apple Store app, adds account and carrier options originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Iphoto-Ipad
Besides the updates to iWork, iMovie and GarageBand, Apple also announced iPhoto for the iPad! iPhoto will let you browse and edit photos on the iPad, especially those nice ones you can take with the new 5-megapixel camera. iPhoto for the iPad will include tools like crop and auto-enhance. There's alos a variety of effects and multi-touch editing. For all your DSLR owners, it supports up to a 19-megapixel photo. As an added bonus, you can even beam photos directly between devices. It'll be available today from the iOS App Store for US$4.99. It's universal so you can install it on your iPad and your iPhone. It'll also run on the iPad 2, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Apple unveils iPhoto for the iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Itunes In The Cloud-Official Version-Itunes Store
Japanese Mac site Macotakara notes that the Japanese version of iTunes has been updated with a "Purchased" tab via iTunes in the Cloud, which also suggests that Apple is about to launch an official version of iTunes Match in Japan. iCloud has been up and running in Japan for some time, but only for sharing books and information across apps. iTunes in the Cloud will allow Apple's Japanese users to access purchased songs from the iTunes Store on any of their devices, and iTunes Match will allow users to "match" their music to iTunes Store for additional functionality. iTunes in the Cloud has reportedly already gone live in Japan, and it seems like Apple is on the brink of releasing iTunes Match in Japan. That could possibly mean that other new international markets aren't far behind.Apple reportedly readying iTunes Match for Japan originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-China Mobile-Iphone 4S
Here's a strange story for you: Apple has worked with China Mobile to resolve issues with the iPhone 4S on the Chinese carrier's network. What's strange about that? China Mobile doesn't officially carry the iPhone 4S... Electronista is reporting that some 4S users cannot activate SIM cards or make calls with a full signal. The issues appear to be due to the iPhone 4S only supporting the GSM P band (885 - 915 MHz) and not the E band (880 - 890 MHz), both of which are in use by China Mobile. The P band is primarily used for outdoor use, while E is designed for indoor areas -- train stations, conventions centers, and the like. When China Mobile users move into an area without P coverage, they still see full signal strength, but the connection is dropped. According to China Mobile, Apple has updated all iPhone 4S devices built after February 8th, 2012 to work properly with their network. China Mobile is also saying that Apple is planning to issue a firmware update for earlier 4S devices in the next few weeks. Penn-Olson reported that there are some 15 million unofficial iPhone users on the China Mobile network at this point -- people who love their carrier so much that they're willing to run the iPhones on a system that doesn't give them 3G service. China Mobile expects to become China's third iPhone carrier soon, and is hoping to build a 4G LTE network that may be useful with the next generation of iPhone.Apple addresses issue with iPhone 4S on China Mobile originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Thoughts On Messages, Facetime-Unofficial Apple Weblog-Messaging Service-Open Standard
So here is an interesting read for this weekend: It's about Messages, how they've just made it across to the desktop (in beta form, sure, but coming soon in final version form), and how they sort of "compete" against FaceTime in Apple's messaging domain. Writer Trevor Gilbert's suggestion is that Apple should combine those two protocols into one messaging service, and then here's the real kicker: Open them up, so that any platform, and essentially any app, could tag in and use those protocols. In that sense, they'd be very similar to ICQ or AIM, or any of the other chat services currently out there, except of course they'd be running on and licensed through Apple's technology. Gilbert makes a good case for consumers (and certainly, I'd appreciate using Messages and FaceTime with my friends and family who don't happen to have Macs or iPhones). But I don't think Apple's that keen to open up the standard like this: as it is now, Messages and FaceTime are both selling points for Apple devices, and big ones at that. Yes, it would be easier for consumers to use Messages across platforms, but Apple would be opening up the door for other platforms to take advantage of its services, rather than doing what Tim Cook and everyone else in Cupertino has said they want to do all along: sell more and more devices. Not to mention that Gilbert says the open message service would be "real-time, and free of charge." Real time is right -- Messages certainly works very well. But "free of charge" it is not for Apple at all, and opening up the service for almost anyone to use would definitely make it even more expensive than it already is. It's certainly an interesting idea, and it would have some big ramifications for the messaging market, no question. But right now, I think Messages and FaceTime both are where Apple wants them: extra, selling point services for Apple devices only.Thoughts on Messages, FaceTime and an open standard originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..