We hear from Apple CEO Tim Cook during the company’s quarterly earnings calls, but lately the leader of Apple has been opening up in ways that non-analysts can understand. First he sat down with Fast Company, and on Monday an in-depth Washington Post interview on Cook’s 5-year anniversary as CEO offered more insight into the company’s past failures and future surprises.
A lot has changed in the last five years, Cook told the Post. Steve Jobs passed away just six weeks after Cook took the reins, which came as a shock, he said. Apple expanded its product lineup after Jobs’s death, and some of those devices were conceived of and developed entirely without Jobs’s input. Apple just sold its 1 billionth iPhone, even as analysts and investors fret over the smartphone’s declining revenue. There are bigger changes in store, Cook said, though he played coy as usual.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The iPad Pro is a productivity powerhouse—or at least, that’s what Apple wants it to be. The 12.9-inch Pro was released last November, and the 9.7-inch model debuted in March, so we weren’t expecting to see any new hardware at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. But we were hoping Apple would add some iPad-only features in iOS 10 that would fix a few problems and make the Pros even more awesome, or at least show off some new partner apps that take advantage of all that screen real estate.Alas, the iPad was a footnote in iOS 10’s parade of features. The device gets most of the good stuff, like the revamped Messages app, a new lock screen with rich notifications, and smarter Photos, but the iPad-only tweaks are just that: minor changes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Florida man has accused Apple of infringing a 1992 patent on an “electronic reading device” that, in our view, looks nothing like the iPhone. He’s asking for $10 billion in damages. No, this isn’t an article from The Onion. It’s real life.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
Thomas Ross included drawings of his device, a boxy rectangle with a screen and physical keyboard, in his court filing in Florida Southern District Court, which was obtained by The Telegraph. As you may recall, the original iPhone was the first smartphone without a physical keyboard. No matter, Ross says he was the first person “to have created a novel combination of media and communication tools.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple just added a big-league player to its executive lineup—literally. The company just named National Football League lobbyist Cynthia Hogan its vice president for public policy and government affairs in Washington DC, overseeing the Americas. Politico
Cynthia Hogan starts at Apple on April 29.
Before she joined the NFL, where she dealt with huge issues like concussion controversies and Deflategate, Hogan served as counsel to Vice President Joe Biden. It’s unclear if Hogan’s Biden connection will come in handy for Apple’s dealings with the White House, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook’s annual F8 conference in San Francisco is geared toward developers, but the company’s biggest announcements so far have been way more focused on new stuff for Facebook’s users to dig into, like a camera that shoots 360-degree video, Messenger chatbots, and a Save to Facebook button for reading articles later. But the company also shared some developer news, like tools that make iOS apps easier to build.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple and the FBI meet in court on Tuesday for the first hearing in the showdown over iPhone encryption, but this fight has been brewing since Apple introduced iOS 8 in June 2014.A new Bloomberg report reveals that the FBI and Apple both expected the White House to take their side before the fight went public.It all started with iOS 8
According to Bloomberg’s sources, Apple’s top lawyer, Bruce Sewell, met with officials in President Barack Obama’s administration shortly after the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2014 to discuss iOS 8’s security and privacy changes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s refusal to help the FBI get into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c is the most public, but the company is resisting similar court orders in 12 more cases.The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department is trying to compel Apple to help crack iPhones in a dozen cases that are all based on the centuries-old All Writs Act, the same law being used in the San Bernardino case. The details of the cases aren’t clear because they haven’t been made public, but the WSJ’s sources say they have nothing to do with terrorism.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you know enough about Steve Jobs, watching the new biopic Steve Jobs without bias is almost impossible. You can’t help think about Apple event keynotes, anecdotes from books about the late Apple CEO, the devices you use or have used that were guided by his vision.But try to leave all of that aside and appreciate Steve Jobs for what it is: entertainment. That’s where the movie succeeds, even as facts are fudged.Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (of The Social Network fame) constructed Steve Jobs around three major product launches: the Macintosh in 1984, the 1988 introduction of NeXT’s computer, and Jobs’s triumphant return to Apple with the iMac in 1998. Those three acts take place over 15 years of personal and professional strife in Jobs’s life, and that limited timeline by nature omits the growth he experienced both as a leader and as a person. This is a movie about Steve Jobs that doesn’t include the launch of the iPhone, what some might consider his greatest achievement, or even a mention of his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, and their three children together.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple is making it very clear how it uses your data with a revamp of its privacy policy, posted in full on the company’s website. In the process, Cupertino is also making it plain just how different it is from other tech companies.Apple affirmed its commitment to customer privacy a year ago, and Tuesday’s update covers everything new in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. The company isn’t just issuing platitudes about how great its privacy protections are—it dives into real detail about how its various services use and protect your data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple Pay was designed to replace your physical wallet, and with iOS 9, Apple is uniting Apple Pay and Passbook under a new umbrella called, appropriately, Wallet.
Announced during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote Monday, the new app will replace Passbook, but function in the same way: You’ll still store your concert tickets in Wallet alongside your Apple Pay card information. Your rewards cards for stores like Kohl’s and JCPenney will also hang out in Wallet, because Apple Pay will start supporting retail loyalty programs this fall.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple to Spotify: We’ll take it from here.
Apple’s long-awaited new streaming-music service, Apple Music, isn’t just a shot at the dominant player, which has 60 million active users. The new app challenges the way people get songs from Apple itself, which has long placed a high premium on its iTunes digital download storefront and emphasized how that platform revolutionized the music industry.
Apple’s new service, unveiled during Monday’s keynote at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, takes iTunes to the next level by making 30 million of the expansive catalog’s songs streamable. That’s millions of songs on demand, right alongside the music you already own. You can comb through the iTunes catalog to find tracks you like or want to save for later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference is always chock full of announcements. We’re guaranteed to see previews of the next versions of iOS and OS X—after all, that’s why developers flock to San Francisco for the event. But this year, substantiated rumors are swirling around a new streaming music service, a refreshed Apple TV, and truly game-changing new iOS features.And now that Apple Watch is finally here, we might even catch a glimpse of the future of Apple’s most personal device.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
Here are the five big reveals we expect at WWDC, which kicks off June 8 at 10 a.m. Pacific.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In case you missed it, Google launched a new mobile payment service at its annual I/O developers conference Thursday. It’s called Android Pay. But didn’t Google already have a mobile payment service? Yes, yes, Google Wallet. That’s not going away—in fact, it’s getting a reboot as a peer-to-peer payment service—but Android Pay works a lot more like Apple Pay than Google’s last attempt.That’s a good thing. Google Wallet required you to wake your phone, open the Wallet app, and enter a pin number if you decided to protect the app with a passcode, all before waving your phone near the payment terminal. That’s a lot of work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A bug in iOS 8 turns a string of Unicode characters into a phone-crashing catastrophe.If you receive a message with the characters, either as an iMessage or an SMS text from contacts on other platforms, your iPhone will crash—but only if you open it. If you receive a notification with the message on your lock screen, your phone will either reboot or lock you out of Messages altogether.MORE: iPhone 7 Rumor RollupThe bug doesn’t actually generate the message—some prankster with your phone number has to actually send the code to you. Let’s hope your friends aren’t jerks. If one of your contacts does send you a malicious message, its effects can be reversed with a follow-up message—or you can send yourself the fix from your Mac by replying to the original string in Messages on OS X, according to The Verge. (The bug only affects iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's too soon to tell if Apple Watch will be a smash hit, but CEO Tim Cook said in a new interview that the new device “will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.”Cook told Fast Company that the company hasn’t put any sales expectations on the watch because the need for an iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, or 6 Plus to work “creates a ceiling.”But the watch will be an important step forward for the industry, just as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were, because it will create a new computing experience.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
“The inputs that work for a phone, a tablet, or a Mac don’t work as well on a smaller screen,” Cook said. “Most of the companies who have done smartwatches haven’t thought that through, so they’re still using pinch-to-zoom and other gestures that we created for the iPhone.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While we count down the days until the Apple Watch is (presumably) revealed at Apple’s “Spring forward” event March 9, more details about the much-anticipated wearable continue to dribble out. For instance, the smartwatch was designed to be able to replace your car keys—though it’s unlikely that functionality will be turned on at launch.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Telegraph that when it ships, Apple Watch will let you filter messages, give you credits for meeting exercise goals, and accompany you in the shower. Cook also said the battery life will last all day and will take less time to charge than the iPhone using the new MagSafe-style wireless inductive charger. It’s unclear exactly how long the battery will last—recent reports indicate Apple is aiming for 19 hours of combined active and passive usage—or how long it will take to charge, but we’ll find out soon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, March 8. The following day, Apple is inviting us to “spring forward” at a “special event” in San Francisco. Hmm…could Apple be showing off a device that has something to do with setting the clock? Macworld will be in the audience to bring you the details at 10 a.m. Pacific.As is standard for Apple, the invite gave no details other than time, date, and location (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a larger venue than Town Hall in Cupertino, where Apple held its last event). But given the tag line and the timing, it’s a given that the company is finally launching Apple Watch after months of build-up.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks, the world listens—even if he’s speaking to a room full of bankers and other finance bigwigs at the annual Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.And he didn’t disappoint. Cook announced that Apple is partnering with First Solar to build an $850 million solar farm in Monterey County, Calif. The 1,300-acre farm will produce enough power for Apple’s new campus, currently under construction, along with the company’s data center, offices, and 52 retail stores in California.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Tim Cook's 2014 pay package dwarfed by new hire Ahrendts' +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Caitlin McGarry