If there’s one striking thing about those PRISM slides, other than their hideous aesthetics, it’s that Apple’s allocated yellow oval, instead of a date, has the words “(added Oct 2012)” underneath it. That difference is most striking when you consider the fact that Apple competitor Microsoft cooperated with the government a full five years earlier. → Read More
The MacBook Air was the only new Apple hardware to be announced and launched at WWDC this year (besides the new AirPort Extreme), and while it isn’t a big change from the previous version, it packs some crucial improvements that really cater to the Air’s existing strengths. The 2013 Air is really Apple pushing the envelope with its ultraportable, and that has helped make one of the best computers… → Read More
Apple posted a press release on its site reaffirming its “commitment to customer privacy” and stating that it first heard of the Prism program when questioned by news organizations on June 6. The company also said that it received between 4,000 to 5,000 requests from U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement for customer data between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013. → Read More
It was a big week in gadgets, and thus, a big TC Gadgets podcast it shall be. This week, we discuss developments at E3, including Xbox One and PS4 pricing, the death of Nokia’s Symbian OS, and of course, WWDC.
Will you buy a PS4 or an Xbox One? Does despair fill you from nose to navel when you remember the good old days of Symbian? Is the new iOS 7 design repelling, attractive, or some bizarre… → Read More
Apple has now taken another step to push app publishers to use its preferred ad tracking option, the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), with the debut of the iOS 7 beta. Confirming what many have suspected, Apple is eliminating an alternative option involving tracking by MAC addresses. This method had sprung up following a change to Apple’s Developer Documentation in 2011, announcing its… → Read More
Lisa Frank. Dayglo Barbie. Rainbow unicorn. Fisher Price. A mess, trouble, confusing. Marketing department. What are, “words used to describe the iOS 7 redesign,” Alex? Now that the Apple keynote beer goggles have worn off, the polarizing makeover of Apple’s iOS 7 operating system is starting to sink in. Surely, this is not it? This is not done, right? → Read More
Apple is looking at various changes to its iPhone lineup over the course of the next year, according to a new report from Reuters, including two sizes of larger smartphone devices, in both a 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch flavor. The “phablet” plans are also being considered alongside a less expensive iPhone model, which is slated to begin production next month, according to Reuters’ sources, after a brief… → Read More
Apple has just posted a lengthy, nearly 10 minute video (via 9to5Mac) about how apps built for its platform are used around the world to make changes that significantly impact people’s lives. It’s a very different approach from the typical Apple commercial, which is generally a short affair focusing on what apps are doing to add a little bit of levity or convenience to the average consumer’s life. → Read More
Apple had a great big belly laugh at the expense of near field communications (NFC) at its WWDC keynote this year, but it also quietly adopted a tech that has received an equal amount of general scorn (if not more): the QR code. Apple actually built a QR code reader into iOS 7 – yes, right into the OS – but in a way that makes clear its presence is more of a mildly unpleasant but useful tool… → Read More
Among his last advice he had for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what he would do. “Just do what’s right.”
That’s what Tim Cook told the audience of Apple employees at the memorial for Steve Jobs, following his passing in 2011. Now, nearly two years later, we’re starting to see that plan being executed. → Read More
Apple has been quietly growing its share of the U.S. e-book market according to its testimony during the current e-book price fixing court case against it, and now accounts for 20 percent of e-book sales overall stateside (via MacRumors). That’s about twice as much as has been speculated in the past by market-watchers, and it indicates that Apple, while nowhere near the dominant force that Amazon… → Read More
If you think QR codes are a bad joke then consider NFC. Near Field Communications’ evangelists have been trying to get smartphone owners to share stuff by bumping and grinding their phones for years. And progress has been painful, to put it mildly. The reality is NFC is an ugly wasteland of non-use. Ever seen anyone IRL tapping their phones together? It’s about as rare as hen’s teeth. → Read More
We’ve all been waiting restlessly for the release of the jOBS biopic, starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, but dismay overtook us when we heard its April release date had been pushed back.
But fear not, you Jobsian fanbois, for Open Road has finally revealed that jOBS will see a nationwide release on August 16.
Word comes by way of The Wrap, which got the scoop last night, and official… → Read More
Apple demonstrated that it will keep its iron grip on iOS 7, despite Tim Cook saying it’s time for Apple to start opening up. Rather than debut new opportunities for developers, Apple squelched them at WWDDC by building its own substitutes for widgets, phone modifications, and whole categories of existing apps. → Read More
Apple revealed a number of notable new features with the debut of iOS 7 yesterday, but there are many smaller features which are now leaking out as developers have had a chance to play around with the new operating system. Though most of these didn’t get a shout-out during Apple’s keynote and accompanying demo at WWDC, they are the “little touches,” which help to make iOS 7 something bigger than… → Read More
Apple’s WWDC Keynote yesterday left one impression on me above all others: the executive team seems much more comfortable and in sync under CEO Tim Cook now than they ever have before. Rarely has a keynote or event gone as smoothly as the one Apple delivered yesterday, and rarely has the ensemble cast approach (where different execs present different features and announcements) worked as well in… → Read More
Apple is no longer offering the “Genius” feature as a way to surface and discover new mobile applications in the iOS App Store in the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7. Instead, the spot that used to belong to “Genius” now goes to “Near Me,” a new feature demoed during yesterday’s keynote at WWDC, which recommends apps based on your location. → Read More
Apple debuted the next generation of iOS yesterday at WWDC and now you can watch Jony Ive’s 7 minute iOS 7 introduction video.
“True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absences of clutter or ornamentation,” Ive explains. “It’s about bringing order to complexity.” → Read More
Telemarketing spammers bothering you? Clingy exes calling in the middle of the night? iOS 7 will let you block calls from specific numbers to save your sanity. Rather than allow third-party developers to modify the native Phone app like on Android, Apple has chosen to offer this feature itself. → Read More
iOS 7 was announced today officially at WWDC 2013, and it brings a lot of visual changes to Apple’s mobile OS, plus a host of new features and functionality as well. The official release is still a few months off, but one enterprising developer, Brian Roizen, has posted a fairly extensive collection of screenshots from the new beta out today. The screens really just show a close-up view of what… → Read More
You may have heard that there was some Apple news today — a lot of it, in fact. So to make sense out of all the news that came out of the WWDC keynote in San Francisco this morning, we brought in Greg Kumparak and Darrell Etherington, two TechCrunch reporters who were at the event in person, to tell us all about the biggest takeaways. → Read More
iOS 7 hits iPhones this fall, but only the iPhone 5 and iPod touch will get all the features announced at WWDC. The iPhone 4 and 4S will only get the new iOS 7 look and a splattering of features. And forget about the iPhone 3GS and older iPhones. They will be stuck in the skeuomorphic world of iOS 6 forever. → Read More
Apple unveiled its long-rumored iRadio, er, iTunes Radio service this morning at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Now that we know the basics of the streaming music service (which is supposed to launch this fall), one of the obvious questions is: What does this mean for existing Internet radio/online music services like Pandora and Spotify?
Well, I emailed Pandora, Rdio, Slacker, and… → Read More
Users of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices got their first look at the company’s newest operating system, iOS 7, earlier today. Not only has Apple given iOS an entirely new look and feel, courtesy of head designer Jonathan Ive, but it has also revealed a revamped suite of core apps like Photos, Camera, Calendar, Weather and others, added new services like iTunes Radio and features like… → Read More
Today is the big day. The era of iOS 7, OS X Mavericks, the Mac Pro is upon us, even if we won’t actually enjoy these wonderful wares for another few months. That said, we’ve switched things up a bit and decided to do an extra, non-Friday TC Gadgets podcast to discuss how fundamentally all of our lives have changed. This week, the podcast features John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook… → Read More
It starts innocently. One day you find yourself replacing Apple Maps with Google Maps when it becomes available. Or maybe you fall in love with a new email application. You find, after not really using the default calendar app that there are more robust options out there. → Read More
Apple’s new Mac Pro is a radical departure from previous versions, and a redesign that in many ways has to be seen to believed. Which is why we’ve put together this gallery of the new pro desktop for power users, which is clad in black aluminum and houses not one but two workstation graphics cards along with PCI Express flash storage, Thunderbolt 2, Xeon processors and 4k video output for up to… → Read More
Sure, the WWDC 2013 Keynote just ended, but we’re going to just put this WWDC 2014 Live Blog placeholder post up one year in advance to get ahead of the Live Blog stampede BY A WHOLE YEAR. Consider this post that Moscone men’s bathroom up there, and you’re at the front of the line. → Read More
Apple’s keynote presentation at the Worldwide Developers conference this morning had a few moments of humor — and several of them came at the expense of skeuomorphism, the design philosophy that seemed to govern many of the earlier versions of iOS.
The move away from skeuomorphism has been exhaustively chronicled and debated in the tech press. When iOS exec Scott Forstall it last year, his… → Read More
Apple’s top brass has been busy these past two hours or so showing off OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a dramatically revamped iOS 7, and the gorgeous new Mac Pro, and the company has your back in case you missed watching the events unfold for yourself. As is now customary for Apple, the full 2 hour WWDC keynote address is now available on Apple’s events page for your perusal. → Read More
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