Apple Inc. - page 96

The new iPad is here, fellow Apple enthusiasts, in all its retina display glory. And on episode 3 of The CultCast, we get into the nitty-gritty covering all its new features. We’ll also tell you if it’s worth upgrading from the iPad 2.

But we go deeper than that. This was Tim Cook’s first major Apple keynote — do the Apple events still hold the magic they did when Steve Jobs was on stage?

We cover all that and more on this episode of The CultCast — the best 30 minute Apple conversation you’re going to hear all week long. Subscribe to The CultCast now in iTunes to get episode 3 and we’ll send you a fresh new episode every Thursday night!

You have to hand it to the people that file lawsuits these days; they sure can be creative. A New Yorker by the name of Frank M. Fazio has sued Apple because Siri on his iPhone 4S is, “at best, a work-in-progress.” Fazio has accused Apple of false advertising in the Siri TV commercials it airs demonstrating making calls, finding directions, sending texts, etc. with the digital assistant.

The commercials convey a “misleading and deceptive message,” according to Fazio. He thinks Siri sucks in real life.

It’s been rumored for many months that Apple is working on a TV subscription service for delivering streaming video content. The Cupertino company hasn’t been able to make progress for quite some time due to licensing deals and revenue concerns from Hollywood studios.

A recent report reveals that CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said no to providing content to Apple about a year ago. Not only that, but Moonves told Steve Jobs that he didn’t know anything about the TV business. What Moonves really meant was that Apple is planning to disrupt the way the world consumes video content, and that scares CBS to death.

With shipping estimates starting to slip for the new iPad around the world since the tablet became available for pre-order on March 7th, it was only a matter of time before Apple sold out of its pre-order stock entirely. Shipping estimates for the U.K. and U.S. slipped to March 19th this past Friday.

Apple has confirmed in an official statement that it has now completely sold out of its pre-order iPad stock in less than 5 days.

Apple isn’t giving any love to SXSW this year, but that’s not keeping the company from investing $304 million in a new campus to create 3,600 jobs. The campus won’t be responsible for the new new iPad, but instead focus on administrative responsibilities and customer support.

An App Store app called iTether got a lot of attention a few months ago for allowing free 3G tethering from any iPhone. Despite the fact that carriers don’t officially support such activity apart from their exorbitant data plans, Apple originally approved iTether. The app shot to the top of the charts before it was pulled less than a day later. If you didn’t get your hands on it then, you were out of luck.

The creators of iTether are announcing something big today. Tether is launching a new HTML5 web app for the iPhone that lets you tether your 3G-enabled iPhone or iPad to any wireless-enabled device. No monthly fee. No jailbreak required.

Apple included a list of new features in the release notes for iOS 5.1, which became available on Wednesday alongside the announcement of the new iPad. It seems that Apple included some unannounced features as well – some of which enable more iOS device security and management when paired with a mobile device management (MDM) suite or with Apple’s new Apple Configurator tool for iOS.

The new management features seem to be primarily related to Siri on the iPhone 4S and they include the ability to prevent any use of Siri while an iPhone 4S is locked as well as the ability to filter out profanity. Additionally, as noted by the Intrepidus Group, a security consulting firm, is the ability to block location services on any iOS device.

Episode 3 of The CultCast just landed in iTunes friends, and there’s no doubt it is entertainment of the highest caliber!

In this episode, we talk all things “new” iPad. Find out which new features are our favorites, which ones surprised and delighted us, and which we are baffled are not included. Plus, should you upgrade from the iPad 2? All that and more if you can believe it. More!

You can download episode 3 right now in iTunes or subscribe and we’ll deliver a fresh new episode delivered to you every Thursday night. One click, it’s that easy!

A common complaint that I heard earlier this week at the CITE conference in San Francisco was that Apple wasn’t a “real” enterprise vendor. IT professionals have whined and moaned about the fact that Apple doesn’t behave like most enterprise vendors for years (as a long time Mac and Apple IT professional myself, I’ve probably muttered under my breath about Apple’s approach to the enterprise many more times than most of the CITE attendees). What’s changed, however, is that CIOs and other IT leaders can no longer simply say “no” anytime Apple or an Apple product is mentioned.

This week, Apple even reiterated the point by dropping Apple Configurator, a completely new free tool for managing iOS devices in business. It’s a tool that offers new workflows when it comes to how businesses work with iPads (and to a lesser extent iPhones) and Apple released without telling its mobile management partners or its enterprise customers.

To all those IT folks bitching and complaining that Apple doesn’t publish 18-month roadmaps and doesn’t reach out to every enterprise months in advance of a product upgrade or cancelation, I have to say this: deal with it.

Want to catch up on all the new iPad news but don’t have time to watch the entire 85 minute keynote? We compressed the entire thing down into just 90 seconds for your viewing pleasure. Catch the video after the break.

Apple is getting really serious about using the iPad in large organizations. School and workplace admin people are going to be very pleased with Apple Configurator, a new Mac app which lets you — surprise! — configure multiple iPads at once, all from the comfort of your own computer screen.

Thousands of Apple fans let their jaws hit the floor earlier today when Apple announced “the new iPad.” There was no “iPad 3,” no “iPad HD,” no “iPad Epic Pro Super X 4G LTE Touch.” Just iPad. Apple broke the numbering scheme and went back to the basics.

Why? Apple VP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller revealed the answer after today’s keynote.

A very interesting factoid has been revealed in the newly-released iPhoto for iOS: Apple isn’t using Google Maps. More specifically, Apple is using its own mapping technology to provide map tiles in its brand new photo editing app.

There have been rumors for many months saying that Apple is working on proprietary mapping technology to replace Google Maps, and it looks like the rumors are true.

In a move that would surely have Steve Jobs — the man willing to go thermonuclear war against Android — rolling over in his grave, Apple has apparently offered licensing deals to Samsung and Motorola in an attempt to settle ongoing and future patent suits. According to sources speaking with Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has offered licensing deals in the tune of $5 to $15 per device or the equivalent of 1% to 2.5% of net sales per device. Interestingly enough, these fees are on par with what Apple deemed “unreasonable” after attempts to license patents from Motorola.

It looks like Apple has made some subtle improvements to the App Store on the iPad. You won’t notice the changes at first or second (maybe even third) glance, but they are there all the same.

The “Top Charts” section of the iPad’s App Store has been updated with vertical scrolling and faster loading times, mirroring a similar update Apple made several months ago.

If there’s a buzzword for here at the first CITE Conference, it would have to be trust. Virtually every discussion I’ve had over the past two days has boiled down to the level of trust between IT and users.

Trust may be the foundation of all healthy human relationships, but it isn’t something that comes easily to IT professionals in the workplace. That’s the underlying tension that IT staffers have when it comes to the consumerization of IT. It isn’t about devices or public cloud services. It’s about trusting the users that you support.

Although bloggers and analysts refer to Apple’s rumored upcoming HDTV as the iTV just out of simplicity, there’s no actual indication that Apple would call it that. None. No one knows for sure if Apple’s even working on an HDTV, let alone what they’re going to call it.

The only evidence that Apple might call an HDTV the iTV is US Patent Patent No. 2011/0154394 A1, which has a solitary image indicating that Apple might, at least, be using the name iTV internally. But that’s not stopping the usual cadre of doofuses from trying to eke some payouts (or, at least, some free publicity) out of the whole thing. In this case, it’s American-based iTV Entertainment, who are threatening to crash tomorrow’s iPad 3 event to prevent Apple from releasing an HDTV with the same name.

The patent saga continues with U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner in Chicago ruling that Motorola and Google must provide Apple with information regarding Android development as well as information about the impending merger. It’s unclear exactly what specific “information” must be provided and while everyone goes ahead and assumes it’s some sort of top secret documentation, I’m betting it’s nothing of the sort and Apple won’t be gaining any trade secrets out of this. It’s all ridiculous and will only end as all of these patent suits have ended, with nothing more than a software update.

What if Apple launches the iPad 3 tomorrow and it doesn’t ship for another week and a half? The company could lose almost $1bn in sales. Here’s how:

Apple’s infamous 1984 advertising campaign for the original Macintosh needs little introduction from myself. The one-minute clip, which was inspired by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four novel and depicts IBM users as mindless followers, was a huge success. So much so that the marketing guru behind it, Regis McKenna, believes it was more successful than the Macintosh itself.

Did you know Cult of Mac has a brand new podcast? No lies! We’re calling it The CultCast, and it’s the best 30 minute conversation you’ll hear about Apple all week long.

And wouldn’t you know it, we just released episode two into the wild! Join Leander Kahney, Buster Heine, and me, Erfon Elijah, as we yay and nay our way though all the iPad 3 rumors you’ve been hearing; ponder how Apple’s stock price could make it to $1000 per share; and argue about whether AT&T should be allowed to throttle those of us with unlimited iPhone data plans.

Sound tasty? Well dig in my friend! You can subscribe to The CultCast right now in iTunes and listen to episode two on your way to work!

Apple said today that it is responsible for creating 514,000 jobs in the U.S. alone. Citing retail, customer support, transportation, healthcare, corporate, manufacturing, and developer jobs that have all been created “through innovation,” Apple claims responsibly for over a half million jobs spanning across 50 states.

The iPhone and iPad have been core players in the so-called consumerization of IT. This trend that is transforming whole industries is both a challenge and an opportunity for IT professionals, managers, and individuals in just about every field out there.

The first ever Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise (CITE) conference and expo as it kicks off this weekend in San Francisco. The conference is a unique opportunity to hear from IT and business leaders from every industry was well as vendors, experts, and end users that have jumped in and seized the reins of this new workplace phenomenon. On tap will be stories about innovation, case studies in successful mobile initiatives, and much more.

We’ve heard whispers of Apple launching a streaming video service in the iTunes Store before, and now a new report from The New York Post claims that the company is “pushing ahead” to get such a service off the ground by Christmas.

According to the report, Apple “point man” Eddy Cue has been in talks with leading content providers to negotiate distribution deals for what will presumably pave the way for the mystical iTV.

Another year, another title. Fortune announced their list of the world’s most admired companies this morning, and Apple swept away the competition for the fifth year in a row. Each year Fortune surveys the business community to find out which company has the best reputation in the eyes of their peers. Apple has ranked at the top of Fortune’s annual list for the last five years which ties them with General Electric for the number of most appearances in the top spot.