Apple - page 7

Here’s the scenario: You invite a date over to impress them with your cooking skills. The house is tidy and you look sharp. You’re slaving away in the kitchen when your date innocently asks to check their email and you absentmindedly oblige. Then it hits you… You left your download folder open! Yeah, that dreadfully unorganized file that looks more like your trash bin. You run to try and save your dignity, but it’s too late; you have been exposed and the date is a solid block away in a dead sprint.

Don’t worry, we’ve all been there before. Lucky for you we have a download manager that is here to put your worries at rest so you can move on with your life once and for all. Folx Pro packs a ton of nifty features to get you on the fast track literally and figuratively. Here is what you can get for 3 bucks:

Last chance for this great freebie for all you Cult of Mac fans. We have a slick looking WordPress theme designed to show off your new iOS app idea. Simple as that. A premium theme usually $37 now FREE for you for just a short time. So, go check out the theme for yourself and then come back and download it. Why? Because it’s free and I’m sure there is always a project that you can find a great theme for.

Speaking of free, you should definitely enter our iPhone 5 Giveaway. The rumors are heating up for the highly anticipated Apple phone and it sounds like it’s shaping up to be amazing! We’ll drop the cash and wait in line; you, simply make a couple clicks and keep your fingers crossed.

Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, told a financial writer a few months ago that Apple’s biggest challenge without founder Steve Jobs is that Apple lacks a “unified force.” In order to become unified again, Apple would need a “supernatural person” overseeing things.

But according to Thai Buddhists, they may have exactly that — the reincarnated spirit of Steve Jobs himself, who they say is living in a “mystical glass palace hovering above his old office at Apple’s Cupertino, California headquarters,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

I’ll tell you in this post more about Jobs’ so-called reincarnation, and also about several ghosts caught haunting various Apple products. (And I’m not talking about problems with the MacBook Pro Retina screens.)

Here’s all the spooky stuff that’s going on. 

Apple’s critics generously assign a variety of motives to Apple for filing lawsuits.

Apple sues because it wants to control the market, overcharge for its products, exclude competitors from the market or punish competitors for daring to not think different. It’s all part of Apple’s “quest for global tech domination.

But these aren’t actual motives. These are appeals to emotion. They’re legitimate perspectives, but expressed to negatively encapsulate spectacularly complex technical, legal and ethical issues into sound bites that make you want to agree with the author that Apple is bad and wrong.

Apple has only one motive for patent lawsuits, and I’m going to tell you what that motive is.

I wrote a column last week saying that the “smoking gun” document Apple submitted into evidence in the Samsung patent infringement lawsuit does not constitute proof of infringement by itself.

Still, it’s a remarkable document that does prove something: Samsung is very impressed with Apple. In fact, it’s clear that Samsung is a huge Apple fanboy. 

Apple is talking to the people behind social e-commerce site The Fancy, according to a report by Business Insider.

The Fancy is viewed by some as a rival to Pinterest, albeit a much smaller one. However, if Apple buys and promotes it among the gazillions of people who have their credit cards on file with Apple’s iTunes Store, the site could become a major hit overnight.

Business Insider also reported in July that in mid-June, Apple CEO Tim Cook had created an account on The Fancy and “fancied” seven items. Here’s Cook’s account.

Apple is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. No, wait. That was Stalinist Russia.

Whatever. The two are nearly identical in their abilities to keep secrets.

As an Apple observer myself, I’m keenly aware of the iron curtain of secrecy that prevents anyone from knowing what Apple is working on, what they’re planning and what their processes are for developing new technologies.

Rumors and speculation are always so easy to come by; unannounced facts are rare — even facts about the past.

That’s one of the great things about Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. It gave rare insight into the inner workings of Apple, to some degree.

And that’s what’s so great about the current jury trial in Silicon Valley, where Apple is suing Samsung and Samsung is suing Apple. It’s forcing Apple to reveal countless facts and events that it doesn’t want to reveal.

The lawsuit appears to be far from over. But already, it’s clear that Samsung is “winning.” Why? Because it’s a contest between a company that cares deeply about its secrets — even small ones — and a company that doesn’t care as much. So the discovery and revelation is punishing Apple.

Here are the 8 secrets Apple has been forced to reveal in court in the past couple of weeks. 

Apple announced its intention this week to buy AuthenTec for about $355 million.

If approved, the acquisition will bring several things to Apple, including the acceleration of its mobile wallet initiative; good technology for encrypting data and content, such as movies; and patent protection for several areas of mobile security.

The biggest thing Apple gets out of this is probably a strong play for using biometrics for identity in general — for online and brick-and-mortar purchases, for logging into web sites and even for digital signatures.

And it doesn’t hurt that taking AuthenTec out of the game as an independent company will be devastating to nearly all of Apple’s biggest competitors, including Google and its Android partners, and Microsoft and its OEM hardware partners. 

It must surely be a sign of the impending apocalypse that Microsoft’s operating systems have “more taste” than Apple’s.

I’m referring, of course, to Apple’s inexplicable use of skeuomorphic design in iOS and OS X apps, and contrasting that with Microsoft’s stark avoidance of such cheesy gimmickry in the Windows 8 and Windows Phone user interfaces.

A skeuomorphic design in software is one that “decorates” the interface with fake reality — say, analog knobs or torn paper.

The problem is worse than it sounds. 

The Dictionary.com site defines an “aristocracy” in part as “a class of persons holding exceptional rank and privileges.”

Scanning the news recently, I got to wondering: Is Apple creating a new aristocracy?

The #BoycottApple hashtag was trending hard on Google+ last week.

No, I’m not talking about the boycott-Apple-to-save-Chinese-workers, the boycott-Apple-because-they-discriminate-against-Iranians or even the boycott-Apple-because-they-support-gay-marriage movements.

I’m talking about the boycott-Apple-because-they’re-using-the-courts-to-compete-against-Android-devices movement.

Specifically, the call to boycott is based on anger over Apple’s successful attempt to ban both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. An appeals court temporarily lifted the ban on the phone yesterday, but upheld the tablet ban.

Here’s why the call for a boycott is misguided and futile. 

You’ve heard the predictions. We’re quickly slouching toward a world in which your every move, every purchase, every act of “content consumption” will be meticulously and automatically monitored, tracked and captured. Algorithms will constantly profile you so advertisers can make their advertising specific to your location, preferences, personality, social group, income and education level and more.

Facebook’s future depends on this idea. This is one reason why Google launched Google+. This is why Microsoft launched Bing. This is why investors are bullish on location-based services like Foursquare. This is why Amazon.com created its own web browser.

Every major technology company, it seems, is scrambling to get into the user-data harvesting racket.

Everyone except Apple.

Why didn’t Apple buy Facebook or Twitter? Why didn’t Apple launch its own social network? What is Apple’s strategy for harvesting data about users?

I’ve been puzzled by these questions, and wondering out loud on this site exactly when and how Apple would reveal its strategy for competing on the personal-data collection battlefield.

But this week, something shocking happened that made me think: Maybe Apple isn’t going to get into the data-harvesting business at all. Maybe Apple is going to fight it!

Apple’s developer release of iOS 6 created an instant mystery: Podcasts are missing from the iTunes app! Who dunnit?

At least, that’s the false meme that emerged. In fact, references to “Podcasts” are in there. Things have been re-arranged, and podcasts deemphasized. Something is going on.

The rumor and/or speculation is that Apple will spin podcasts out into a separate app (but keep it in the desktop version of iTunes). This prediction is supported both by funny business in the app, and also inside information from unnamed sources “close to the company.”

The prediction that Podcasts will get their own app sounds reasonable. But the interesting part is: Why?

Why would Apple put music, movies and TV shows all together in one app, but create an entirely separate app for podcasts?

Sounds dumb, right?

Actually, if Apple is doing what I think they’re doing, it’s a stroke of genius.

This single change could align Apple’s organization of services on iOS with multiple strategic objectives at once. Here’s what I think Apple intends to accomplish.

How would you like to win an entire library of 10 Apple-related books? Everything from Insanely Great to Steve Jobs: A Biography to Inside Steve’s Brain by our own fearless leader Leander Kahney? There’s even a chance to just win Leander’s book (one lucky winner a week!), and how does one achieve this awesome feat?

Well, then it’s all on the iApple Book Giveaway page here on Cult of Mac. Read on for all the details…

Google and Apple are the Athens and Sparta of the tech industry. It’s in the DNA of both companies to rule the tech world. They will battle each other for supremacy and, in the process, greatly diminish each other’s power and reach. United, they could accomplish anything. But they will not be united. They will become increasingly divided.

It’s a Greek tragedy unfolding before our very eyes.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

The lovefest known as the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference starts Monday. As with any such event that involves Apple announcing new products, the global outpouring of love will be matched by a rising outpouring of hate.

Some people hate Apple. Other people hate people who hate Apple. Many of these haters have turned pro, leading to a lucrative “hater industrial complex.”

I know, because I’ve been the target of hate from both sides. I’m on the hate list of both the most extreme anti-Apple haters and pro-Apple haters.

Passion in technology, flame-wars, fanboyism and its discontents are nothing new. But in the past couple of years, something new has happened: The loudest, most insistent hate is now coming from the anti-Apple crowd, rather than the pro-Apple people.

I’ll tell you why below.

Also, it needs to be said: Haters are rare. The vast majority of users — and the vast majority of bona fide fans — don’t fall into the “hater” category. But haters appear to be everywhere because they’re active and vocal, and their rants memorable.

But first, let’s understand once and for all who hates, how they hate, and why.

MG Siegler posted a scoop on TechCrunch yesterday about the “relationship status” of Apple and Facebook.

Now the echo chamber is talking like Facebook is suddenly BFFs with Apple, similar to Apple’s relationship with Twitter.

That’s not true, and would be bad news if it was true.

Facebook is a lousy partner for Apple. Here’s why.

One of the first things about the iPad that caught people’s attention was the touch screen, and it goes without saying that some of the first apps to start taking advantage of that touch screen were handwriting/note taking apps. Apps that let you write, draw, sketch—-and sometimes type–notes on your iPad. Something that combined technology with the age-old practice of scribbling notes on paper.

Since there are so many apps to choose from, and I’ve tried virtually all of them over the past couple years, I thought I’d give you a jump start on switching to virtual paper with my top 5 favourite note taking apps.

If you’re a freelance or independent developer, designer, content jockey or two-person startup, you may not even consider yourself a small business.

But the client data on your laptop and the banking you do with your iPhone leaves you wide open as a target for hackers — and lawyers.

For Neal O’Farrell, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Identity Theft Council, thinking you’re too small to get serious about security is about as dumb as you can get.

Talk to Beasty Design. Unfortunately they don’t actually slide to unlock. That’s patented.

Third wealthiest man in the world, Warren Buffett, known for his tremendous investment success as well as his high-end philanthropy, told a group of investors at the Berkshire annual meeting that he had no interest in investing in Apple (or Google), seeing them as risky investments.

Speculating about future Apple products is really hard to do well. That doesn’t keep everyone from trying. Even grizzled Apple-watching veterans often fail catastrophically with each new Apple announcement.

The reason it’s difficult is that “evidence,” which would normally be the best tool for predicting things, doesn’t work in Apple’s case.

The best criteria are strategic and cultural analyses. But even these are not perfectly reliable.

If you’ve struggled to accurately guess in the past what Apple will announce, don’t feel bad. Even Apple executives themselves don’t know until often very late in the game.

Here’s why predicting Apple products is so hard.

Everybody and their mother is trying to cash in on Apple’s success, or dictate the evolution of media and technology through the courts.

Shameless gold diggers, grand-standing government attorneys, vindictive rivals, patent trolls and, well, good old-fashioned morons are dragging the world’s most valuable company into court to try and get their piece of Apple’s $110 billion pile of cash.

You won’t believe some of the crazy lawsuits Apple is currently defending itself against.

Apple had a crazy earnings call this week. The company nearly doubled quarterly profits, vastly exceeding Wall Street expectations.

Apple’s stock price will probably now reverse course and head back into the stratosphere, and for one reason: China.

Apple sold 35.1 million phones during the quarter worldwide, which provided half the total revenue reported by the company. Half!

Chinese phone sales in the reported quarter were, incredibly, five times higher than the same quarter last year. What’s surprising about this growth is that Apple still hasn’t signed a long-awaited deal with China’s largest carrier — the world’s largest carrier — China Mobile.

So it has become clear to everyone that Apple’s highest-revenue product ever has enormous future sales potential in China.

Also: Apple feels that it has far fewer points of sale (stores) in China than it needs.

When the China Mobile deal happens and Apple builds more stores, watch out. China is likely to become Apple’s biggest handset market, far exceeding even the United States.

Overall revenue for China was $7.9 billion, three times higher than last year.

Another crazy milestone: Asia-Pacific revenue for the quarter was actually higher than European revenue for the first time ever. The relative importance of Asia over Europe is likely to continue indefinitely.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

A new report by the University of Manchester’s Center for Research on Socio-Cultural Change says Apple would be able to manufacture iPhones, iPads and all its computers in the United States and still maintain gross margins of 50%.

The report also concludes that Apple’s way of doing business, which involves “hoarding” cash is bad for America.

Read the report here.

(Picture courtesy of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center)