With the debut of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple brought over Notification Center from iOS. Unfortunately, they’ve still chosen to go with the now familiar dark grey linen background. Looking to change it? Well, you’re in luck, because in this video, I’ll show you how to do just that.
Not long go, we reported to you that the FPS Dead Trigger had given up the fight and gone free on Android, due to an “unbelievably high” piracy rate. Today, it appears that Madfinger Games, the developers behind Dead Trigger have given in and made the game free on iOS as well.
Quite a bit of chatter has arisen over Apple’s newest “Genius” television ads. Some have called them “embarrassing.” Others? “Ehhh?” Even Ken Segall, one of Apple’s former advertising creative directors has given the ads a big thumbs down.
But are they really so terrible? If you take a look back, you’ll see rather quickly that Apple has produced much worse. In fact, I’d go as far to say that some of Apple’s previous ads make the new ones seem not just good, but absolutely amazing.
Don’t believe me? Check out this gallery I compiled of what I believe to be the top 10 worst Apple ads of all time. Watch out- some of them are pretty shocking.
Although OS X Mountain Lion has been just recently released, Apple today seeded to registered developers a new build of OS X Lion, version 10.7.5. This new seed has a build number of 11G30.
You might know who Ken Segall is from his appearance on The CultCast. Ken was a Creative Director at TBWA/Chiat/Day for many years, and worked closely with Steve Jobs, even helping to develop the iconic “Think Different” ad campaign. Now Ken is speaking out about Apple’s new “Genius” ads, and he has some harsh words towards the TV spots.
Tonight during the Olympics, Apple aired several new Mac focused ads. The spots are drastically different than the kind of style Apple has been using in its TV ads for products like Siri and the iPad.
One features a man on a plane receiving assistance from a Genius with iMovie on his Mac, and another features a conversation between the same Genius and a customer who has just been tricked into buying “basically a Mac.” The third ad shows a scene in which a frantic dad explores iPhoto with a Genius.
Excited for Mountain Lion but haven’t been able to get your hands on it quite yet? No problem, we put together a video of 30 of Mountain Lion’s new features and crammed them all into just two minutes for your viewing pleasure.
You can catch the video after the break. What feature are you most excited about?
With the release of OS X Mountain Lion today, Apple also released Safari 6.0 for Mac. As noted by some, the Windows version of Safari didn’t see the update, and in fact, disappeared from Apple’s site altogether.
While a direct download is still available, speculation has arisen that perhaps Safari for Windows had been completely discontinued.
According to Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer, iPhone and iPad rumors are continuing to affect sales of the devices.
We’re reading the same rumors and speculation about a new iPhone as you are, and we think this has affected sales.
It’s no surprise that consumers are scared away by rumors, after all, details about the new products often get leaked months in advanced, causing consumers to think twice about buying.
Apple CEO TIm Cook announced some interesting numbers during today’s Q3 earnings call. Apple’s “hobby” the Apple TV, sold a surprising 1.3M units just last quarter, totaling 4M so far this fiscal year.
With all this growth, Apple is still calling the Apple TV a hobby, although Tim Cook hinted at future plans, saying that Apple will “continue to pull the string and see where it takes them.”
Apple has stuck in the Apple TV game for quite a while, and it looks like it is starting to finally pay off for them.
As part of Apple’s Q3 earnings press release today, CEO TIm Cook has announced that OS X Mountain Lion will be launching tomorrow, available only in the Mac App Store.
We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.
OS X Mountain Lion is set to cost $19.99, down from the previous $29.99 for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard.
Source: Apple
If you’ve been watching the App Store, you may have noticed iTranslate Voice, a translation tool that looks a lot like Siri, rise to the top. iTranslate Voice does just what you’d expect: you speak into your phone, and it magically outputs what you’ve said into the language of your choice.
Starting today, iTranslate Voice is now available on the iPad as well.
Apple is set to announce its quarterly earnings today and host a conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, so naturally, analysts have been making last minute predictions about what they think today’s results may bring.
To make sense of all these predictions, Phillip Elmer-Dewitt has compiled a list of predications from 68 analysts over at CNNMoney. The results? Divided expectations.
As you’ve likely heard, Google recently acquired Sparrow, the popular email app for both the Mac and iPhone. Along with the acquisition, Google made it clear that no further updates or changes would be pushed to the Mac and iPhone, and that the Sparrow team will be merging with the Gmail team.
People never like change, though, and the Google-Sparrow acquisition is no exception. Within just days of the announcement, a petition to keep Sparrow alive has popped up on the web.
Following other recent celebrity Siri promos, film director Martin Scorsese has made his way into Apple’s latest TV spot. Scorsese is seen rapid-firing questions at Siri in a taxi cab, asking about appointments, the traffic, and where to find one of his friends.
This new ad follows much the same format of Apple’s other ads featuring Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich, and the infamous Zooey Deschanel “Is that rain?” ad.
You can view the newest ad after the break.
An interesting report comes from All Things D today, detailing a argument from Google against Apple. Unsurprisingly, the discussion revolves around patents, particularly standard essential patents (SEP). Basically, Google is suggesting that when technologies become popular enough, even if they are proprietary, they should become public standards, available to everyone.
All public companies are required to file congressional lobbying disclosure reports, which were released today for the second quarter of 2012. Interestingly enough, Google has once again outspent Apple by a margin of nearly 10 to 1.
As revealed by the reports, Google spent just shy of $4 million, coming in at $3,920,000, while Apple spent only $470,000 in Q2.
If you thought the iOS App Store had issues with piracy, think again. The Google Play store, home to over 500,000 Android apps, is in a much worse position. Apparently, piracy on the Android platform is such an issue that developers are, in a sense, beginning to give up.
The developers behind Dead Trigger, an FPS available on both Android and iOS, have decided to give up the fight, and are now making the popular game completely free on Google Play, due to the outrageous piracy.
Apple’s reach in the consumer market is certainly great, but it turns out that they are just as influential when it comes to the retail world. This is pretty clear initially, when looking at how companies like Microsoft and Samsung blatantly rip off Apple’s retail store design.
Looking a little deeper, though, Apple also has a great amount of influence on salesmen themselves. Many companies are adopting Apple’s retail strategies due to the amazing success of the Apple Store.
Intel’s attempt to knock the MacBook Air down a peg seems to be failing them. Some depressing sales figures were released that show how little of an impact the Ultrabooks have had on the MacBook Air. In Q2, only 500,000 total Ultrabooks were shipped, compared to 2.8 million MacBooks. Ouch.
Not too far back, we brought you the news that Apple would soon be adding a Food and Drink category to the App Store. Today, Apple has pushed the new category live, and you can go check it out for yourself.
The iPhone 4S has a great 1080p camera, but unfortunately, getting great video with it is still a challenge, due to the lack of stabilization options available for it. Tripod accessories have become more widespread within the last year, but there’s still been no good way to get creative, professional looking shots with the iPhone. With the iStabilizer dolly, all that changes.
By now, you’ve probably heard that Apple has a large data center in North Carolina which powers much of the iCloud ecosystem that Apple debuted in 2011. What you may not know, though, is that the small town of Maiden, North Carolina almost lost the contract with Apple. Thanks to GigaOm, we now know how it all went down.
According to the New York Times, Tim Cook has been the talk of the town in Idaho, making an appearance at the Allen & Co. Media Conference held annually in Sun Valley. Some have even called him “Mr Popular,” since Apple so rarely attends events such as these.
Cook has also lined up meetings with many executives, and is looking to make deals, apparently.
In yet another another analyst forecast, Mac sales are expected to decline as demand for the iPad continues to increase. According to a report by BMO analyst Keith Bachman, the last two quarters of 2012 will be “challenging” for Apple, due to increased iPad demand and the expectation of a new iPhone.
Bachman has lowered his Mac sales forecast by 1.6 million units, while raising iPad sales expectations by 3.8 million. In fact, for the next six quarters, Bachman predicts a reduction in Mac sales by 40% of the increased iPad sales.
