To say Samsung and Apple have a strained relationship would be quite the understatement. A once symbiotic partnership has turned into an all out war over claims of patent infringement and design copying. Their global legal battles have disgusted enough judges and consumers to spawn serious debate over the current status of our patent system and a call for reform.
One is an ugly ex-con with a face that looks like it weathered the apocalypse who is known for his gruff demeanor and insatiable appetite for ultra-violence. The other is a cuddly teddy bear of a man and co-founder of Apple.
It might seem unbelievable, but Machete star Danny Trejo and the lovable Steve Wozniak are apparently teaming up in a video game to promote Trejo’s upcoming movie, Vengeance. It’s called Vengeance: Woz With A Coz. And it looks like it’s coming to iPhone. What the heck is going on here?
As they do every year, Apple has posted their annual holiday gift guide, a well-designed and laid-out section of the Apple.com online store that is dedicated to gift ideas for the loved ones in your life.
It’s a pretty page, but there’s no deals to be had here. Apple does usually offer some Black Friday savings, but they’re pretty conservative, usually topping out between 5-10% on select Macs, iDevices and accessories. We should start seeing those deals leaking out later this week or early next ahead of Black Friday, November 23rd.
Source: Apple.com
Thanks: Pedro
At a Techonomy conference today, two of the four panelists called out Apple as “most likely to succeed” at a session discussing how advertising could affect existing media companies.
While the session itself didn’t spend a lot of time on Apple, according to Techcrunch, the panel ended with an answer to moderator Dave Morgan’s question on predictiong the world’s most powerful media company in 2020. Digital agency AKQA’s Tom Bedecarre said that Apple would take the top spot, due to the several media delivery platforms that it owns or controls.
Another panelist and CEO of SocialFlow, Frank Speiser, agreed, adding that the time was ripe for a company like Facebook or Twitter to team up with Apple to help improve discovery, thus giving the partnering company a leg up in the media landscape.
Throughout 2012 Tim Cook has continued to put his stamp on Apple and its culture. One move that we haven’t heard much until now is his decision earlier this year to allow certain employees to spend 20% of their work time pursuing new projects that may help Apple.
20% time has become a prominent employee incentive at other companies throughout Silicon Valley as it has been popularized by Google who got the idea from 3M. The incentive allows employees to spend 20% of their time on side projects, but it hasn’t been adopted by Apple until now.
If you’ve been following the back-and-forth over Apple’s court-mandated “apology” to Samsung in the UK, you know it’s been Cupertino at its cheekiest.
It’s also been Cupertino at its most dishonest, according to a London High Court, and they’re had enough, slamming Apple for false and misleading statements about the trial… and ordering Apple to pay all of Samsung’s legal bills on top of things.
Samsung has dealt Apple a nasty blow by increasing the price of its mobile processors — the ones built into every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — by 20%. According to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies, Apple initially disapproved the price hike, but was forced to accept it with no replacement supplier available.
Not everyone wants to code.
Whether that’s because of time constraints or simply because of a lack of interest, it’s a fact that coding isn’t going to be on everyone’s agenda. But what if you want to build a powerful and beautiful website without having to have some coding knowledge? This is where this Cult of Mac Deals offer comes to the rescue.
We’re offering RapidWeaver 5 – which can do exactly what you’re looking for – for just $49! And we’re throwing in the Nobility Theme for good measure, meaning that your newly built website will look great as soon as you publish it.
After years of battling in courtrooms around the world, Apple and HTC have reached an agreement over patent licensing that will be in effect for the next 10 years. Both companies have spent millions of dollars in ongoing lawsuits relating specifically to smartphone patents for the iPhone and HTC’s Android devices.
HTC was sued first by Apple back in 2010 with more than a dozen iPhone-related patents, and HTC then sued Apple a year later with infringement claims relating to not only the iPhone, but also the iPad and Mac.
Apple’s joint press release with HTC today announces the end of a long and tedious battle over patent litigation:
A couple of days ago, Cult of Mac reported that Apple had been successfully sued by an internet security software company, resulting in a $368.2 million damages award due the patent holders. Apparently, that award sum just wasn’t enough, as VirnetX has filed another complaint, claiming that Apple willfully infringed four patents.
As if another suit isn’t enough of a craziness, these are the same exact patents that were involved in the first suit. This time, the suing company says, they complaint includes the iPhone 5, the iPad mini, and the latest iPod touch, products that were not yet released when the initial complaint was filed.
A coalition of higher education IT folks petitioned Apple last August to make Bonjour, AirPlay, and AirPrint work better on large campus networks. The petition currently has 750 signatures, which may have helped Apple take notice.
This week, the Cupertino-based tech company responded to the petition by proposing a new industry standard that will fix issues with its “zero-configuration” networking technology–Bonjour–to let it scale better and be more secure across larger networks. At an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Atlanta, Apple and other vendors, including IBM, claimed support for the creation of a new working group to improve the current networking protocols, of which Bonjour is one.
Thanks to our friends over at Digiarty, Cult of Mac Deals is able to hook you up with a Mac app that allows those of you who are still ripping DVDs – say for backing up data or preparing home movies for the grandparents – to rip DVD to video/audio formats on Mac OS.
With MacX DVD Ripper Pro, you can back up DVDs in multiple formats to ensure you don’t lose precious memories or costly software, and you can even rip encrypted DVD to a slew of iOS devices in minutes without compromising quality!
And the best part is that you can get this Cult of Mac Deals offer for free!
It’s been a couple of months since Apple released Lightning, and in two months, Apple has refreshed every iDevice that uses the old 30-Pin Dock Connector short of the iPod Classic. Despite this aggressive move to ditch the connector of the past, though, there has yet to be a single third-party accessory that supports Lightning.
Why? Because third-parties need to go through Apple for MFi (or Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod) certification, and the guidelines for getting that certification didn’t get announced until very recently at a secret meeting between Apple and accessory-makers in Shenzhen, China.
What’s going on at that meeting? According to a new intriguing report, Apple is making any accessory-maker who signs on for MFi certification to embrace their own supplier code, which should force accessory makers to manufacture their devices a lot more ethically.
Last month, Apple failed to make its own self-imposed deadline to release iTunes 11 by the end of October.
iTunes 11 is a radical overhaul of Apple’s media management, shopping and syncing software for the Mac and PC that seemingly addresses the numerous complaints of bloat and convolutedness that have been leveled at the app over the years. It also has a much more attractive and modern design.
Consequently, numerous Apple fans — including ourselves — were disappointed when Cupertino quietly announced they were pushing back iTunes 11’s release by a month, into November. But when in November?
We have no inside information on when, exactly, iTunes 11 will be released, but we think there’s an excellent chance that it will be released by no later than the end of next week, and most likely next Wednesday. Here’s why.
Still looking for an iPhone 5 dock that isn’t just your iPhone 4 dock, a Lightning adapter and a cable tie? Me too. Or I was, until Chris Jung from Braeburn Acoustics mailed me about his cool-looking acoustic amplifying iPhone stand.
We’ve hit peak Apple – there’s nowhere to go but downhill now, a former employee claimed in a UK newspaper today.
Apple has added the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the software that powers it, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, to an existing lawsuit against Samsung in California. The Cupertino company told U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewel on Tuesday that both are guilty of infringing patents owned by Apple.
You’ve got yourself a new iPhone 5 and are looking for something that just won’t show it off – but will show it off with style. You also want to offer it some protection at the same time and have it stand out from the crowd.
If that’s what you’re looking for, then look no further because the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer will leave you and your iPhone 5, well…glowing. We’re offering a limited quantity of Glow Gel Combos to our continental US readers for only $24 – and they won’t last long at that price.
Thankfully, it’s been some time since I’ve written about an Apple patent lawsuit, however, that doesn’t mean they’ve magically disappeared. The latest in Apple’s crusade against Google (via Motorola Mobility), leads us to a U.S. District Court in Madison, Wisconsin. Apple was slated to go up against Motorola Mobility with allegations of unfair licensing practices, however, Judge Barbara Crabb has dismissed Apple’s lawsuit with prejudice — meaning the case is over at the trial court level.
Finding the right kind of earbuds for your ears – and provide great sound to boot – can be a real chore. Even when you do wade through all of the options out there, they often only fit one of those criteria and in that rare instance that they do sound and feel good, the price would give anyone pause. Yes, the reason they are more money is because they’ll also last for years – but wouldn’t it be great if you could get all of those features (looks great, feels great, will last a long time) at a cost that won’t put a serious dent in your wallet?
Well, this Cult of Mac Deals offer – which is winding down – “fits” the bill because we’re offering some great earbuds for only $45!
As someone who is involved in public speaking on a regular basis – and not being a fan of PowerPoint – I’ve really embraced Apple’s Keynote application. I’ve gleaned a ton of tips on delivering a great talk from experts like Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte, but when it comes to dealing with Keynote, I’ve had to learn in bits and pieces as I’ve gone along. In my case, I’ve had the time to learn it – and I’ve taken my time to as well. But if you’re a startup with a fresh idea that you want to get out in front of people who will pay for it, then this Cult of Mac Deals offer is just what you need.
And we’re offering this course — normally valued at $39 — for absolutely free.
A lot of discussion is raging around the iPad mini display, with pundits and tech-savvy consumers alike taking to Twitter, Facebook, and gadget review sites to villify the iPad mini display screen.
With a pixel density of *only* 163 pixels per inch, the iPad mini looks to be, on numbers alone, far lower in resolution than, say, an iPad 4. Which is the truth. But how does that stand up under the microscope? And, since tons of folks are saying the iPad mini is a shrunken-down iPad 2, how do the two screens compare when looked at as closely as possible?
The fine researchers at the Repair Labs blog decided to find out, placing all the currently released iPads, from the first generation to the mini, under the scrutiny of a microscope. What they found may surprise you.
The iPad mini already seems to be a huge hit with buyers, with Apple’s diminutive little tablet already selling out at the 5th Avenue Apple Store. You know, the one in New York City, a town ravaged by Hurricane Sandy that it is still half-flooded and half without power? Even a natural disaster can’t seem to keep people away.
This week at Apple, two important executives just got picked off the tree, and on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you what the departure of long time exec Scott Forstall and the just-hired John Browett means for iOS, OS X, Apple Stores, and all the great Apple products you adore. Plus, Jony Ive’s about to get even more design control over all the Macs you love to own, but the question is, is that a good thing?
Then, get out your lightsabers and prepare the X-Wings, we’re diving deep into the Disney acquisition of LucasFilm and what that means for everyone’s favorite space movies.
If this doesn’t end in another Spaceballs movie, we’re gonna be upset.
Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App. And please note, if episode 40 isn’t yet showing up for you, subscribing will fix that problem right quick.
Read on for the show notes!
Starting November 2nd, Apple fans will finally be able to buy themselves an iPad mini, Apple’s diminutive new 7.9-inch tablet with an A5 chip, a 1024 x 768 display, a 5MP camera and that comes in the usual flavors of between 16 and 64 gigabytes and in white or black.
So which iPad mini is right for you?
We’ll make it easy for you. Across the board, for almost everyone, the cheapest iPad mini — the $329 Wi-Fi only model in black — is the one most worth considering. There are some exceptions worth considering though. Here’s why.