Alex Heath - page 67

Legendary entrepreneur and businessman Mark Cuban knows a thing or two about the TV industry. Besides owning the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban founded HDNet Movies and is subsequently the chairman of AXS TV on the HDTV network. He also appears in Shark Tank, a reality TV show starring prominent entrepreneurs and business executives.

It’s no secret that Apple has been trying to reach agreements with Hollywood to create a totally new kind of TV experience. Negotiations have reportedly been ongoing for quite some time. In a recent interview, Cuban explained how Apple’s software integration with the cable companies would be a “game over” move. The TV industry would never be the same.

“Where the heck is iTunes 11?!?” That’s the question many have been asking since it’s now the end of October and Apple has yet to fulfill its promise to release the new software. Back at the iPhone 5 media event last month, Apple unveiled the all-new iTunes 11 and said that it would arrive in October. The month has come and gone without a word from Apple… until now.

Apple has just confirmed via an official spokesperson that the release of iTunes 11 has been pushed back until November. Apparently there are some kinks that still need to be ironed out.

A not-so-crafty burglar in the U.K. incriminated himself by accidentally recording a home raid on his iPhone. The 23-year-old thief, Emmanuel Jerome, thought he was using his iPhone’s torch to light his way during a late-night burglary, but he was actually recording the whole thing.

After trying to break into three other properties, Jerome was caught and arrested by the local cops. Things got worse when the judge found out that Jerome had recorded an earlier burglary on his trusty iPhone.

Apple has announced its biggest executive shakeup since Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO.

The biggest surprise is the departure of Scott Forstall, a longtime Apple executive and the senior vice president of iOS Software. Forstall was the major architect of Apple’s mobile software and had been tipped as a possible future CEO. He will be leaving the company next year. He is serving as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook until his departure in 2013.

The other big surprise is the departure of Apple’s newest executive, John Browett, head of Apple ‘s retail division. Browett is leaving after running Apple’s stores for less than a year.

As part of the reshuffling, Apple’s head of design, Sir Jonathan, gets a major promotion. As well as leading Industrial Design, Ive will also run the company’s Human Interface department. Ive will be in charge of the all-important product interfaces in both hardware and software, a role previously fulfilled by the late Steve Jobs.

Microsoft gathered the press in San Francisco today to unveil Windows Phone 8, the next major iteration of its mobile platform. At today’s Windows Phone Summit, Steve Ballmer and co. unveiled the new operating system and all of its improvements. Initial reactions and early reviews are calling Windows Phone 8 a great update, but Microsoft still has a lot of catching up to do before it joins the ranks of Google and Apple in the smartphone space.

Around this time last year, it was revealed that Steve Jobs had been designing his very own luxury yacht before his death. Jobs had been collaborating with renowned French designer Philippe Starck on the project.

After six years of design and construction, Steve Jobs’s yacht has finally been finished at a shipyard in North Holland. The beautiful ship is called “Venus,” and Job’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, was there for the launch with Jobs’s three children.

By now you’ve probably heard that Apple is gearing up to launch an internet radio-type service next year that will compete with the likes of Pandora and Spotify. Apple has been working behind closed doors for quite some time to make the upcoming service a reality, but talks with the big record labels have continued to slow Apple’s plans.

Yesterday we told you that Apple was aiming to close deals with the labels by next month, and now a report claims that music executives are still not convinced that they should buy into what Apple is selling.

Apple hasn’t been very friendly to the DIY community in recent years. Every year Macs get harder and harder to take apart and repair/upgrade at home. iFixit called the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display the “least repairable” MacBook yet, and the 13-inch Retina MacBook didn’t score so well either.

That’s why it’s refreshing to hear that the 2012 Mac mini Apple announced Tuesday is actually very repairable. “The Mini continues to be one of the most repairable devices that Apple produces,” according to iFixit’s official teardown.

If Tim Cook is the operational brains behind Apple, then Phil Schiller is the showman. Since Steve Jobs passed away, Schiller has been the go-to guy for product unveilings at Apple’s high-profile media events. This past Tuesday, Schiller showed off a number of brand new products to the world, including the iPad mini and all-new iMac.

What does Apple’s marketing guru think about the company’s approach to designing products like the Mac?

Back in 2010, Steve Jobs famously compared the 7-inch tablet form factor to the practicality of sanding down someone’s fingers. To Jobs, the average human finger would have to be shrunk by about 25% in order to properly interact with 7-inch tablet apps. “This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps,” said Jobs. It was one of those classic moments that showed his intense commitment to Apple’s idea of the ultimate user experience.

Fast forward to today, and Apple still has a thing or two to say about 7-inch tablets. Don’t let the smallness of the iPad mini fool you, Apple is firmly against 7-inch tablets because they are vastly inferior to 8-inch tablets. Apparently one inch makes all the difference.

“We’re very proud to end a fantastic fiscal year with record September quarter results,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in today’s fourth quarter earnings report. “We’re entering this holiday season with the best iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod products ever, and we remain very confident in our new product pipeline.”

While Apple didn’t see a ‘blowout’ quarter this time around, things are still looking very good for the Cupertino company. Apple is still the most valuable company on earth, and its flagship products are seeing crazy growth in sales. We’ve collected all of the big numbers from today’s earnings call:

Apple CEO TIm Cook briefly touched on Microsoft’s new Surface tablet during his company’s earnings call today. When asked about the Surface, Cook admitted that he hasn’t played with it yet, but it looks like “a compromised, confusing product.”

“The toughest thing you do with a product is make hard trade-offs,” said Cook. To Apple, it obviously seems like Microsoft still hasn’t figured out a good tablet experience.

“I suppose you could design a car that flies and floats, but I don’t think it would do all those things very well,” quipped Cook.

During today’s fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reassured the press that Apple has “made a number of improvements to Maps in the past months, and will work non-stop until Maps reaches our high standards.” Apple’s new Maps application in iOS 6 came under heavy criticism out of the gate for being buggy and unreliable. Many expected Apple to release a mapping solution that was as good (if not better) than Google Maps, but iOS 6’s Maps still leaves much to be desired.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently issued a public apology for the Maps app, and Apple is temporarily recommending third-party mapping solutions in the App Store. Google is expected to launch a standalone Maps iOS app within the next few months.

Apple is currently holding its earnings call for Q4 2012, and now we’re hearing that many of you are experiencing iMessage problems around the world. Despite the fact that Apple is saying all systems are fine on its iCloud status page, it seems that many can’t send or receive iMessages. Game Center and FaceTime also seem to be down for many in different countries, namely areas in North America and Europe.

Apple just announced its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 ahead of its conferenced call in 30 minutes. The company has reported $36 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in profit. 29.9 million iPhones 14 million iPads and 4.9 million Macs were sold.

Apple expected to earn $34 billion in revenue, so it beat its own estimate met Wall Street’s average estimate of $35-$37 billion. All of Apple’s product sales are up when compared to Q4 of last year, but the Mac only grew 1%. iPad sales also suffered because everyone has been anticipating the iPad mini that was announced earlier this week.

Looking ahead to its next quarter, Apple expects a staggering $52 billion in revenue due to the holiday season.

Official press release from Apple:

Word on the street has been that Apple is preparing to launch its own Spotify/Pandora-killer in the near future, and a new report today from Bloomberg claims that the rumored internet radio service will launch in early 2013.

Apple has reportedly been in talks with many of the major music labels for quite some time, and deals will hopefully be reached by mid-November. The details of the upcoming service remain a mystery, but it looks like Apple isn’t settling for the status quo.

Apple announced two new iPads this week: the iPad mini and the updated fourth-gen Retina iPad. Both are going on sale November 2nd, and that means the value of your current iPad is dropping rapidly. Based on a new report, used iPad resales have increased over 700% since Apple’s event yesterday.

Every time Apple announces a new product, the value of the previous generation starts to deplete. If you plan on selling your current iPad to help cover the cost of a new purchase, you should be selling sooner rather than later.

Skype released a major update to both its Mac and Windows clients today. On the Mac, Skype 6.0 brings a number of enhancements, including the ability to open chats in multiple windows, Retina display support, and the ability to login with Facebook or a Microsoft account. In case you didn’t know, Microsoft owns Skype, so many of the new additions to the app tie Microsoft into the Skype experience.

At the 2012 National Association of Broadcasters show back in April, Apple promised a huge update to Final Cut Pro X before the end of the year. While Apple unveiled the iPad mini and a host of new products in San Jose yesterday, employees in Cupertino pushed out that update for Final Cut Pro X users in the Mac App Store.

Yesterday’s update is the biggest update to Final Cut Pro X ever, and it proves that Apple still cares about professionals.

You may know Loren Brichter for the app that made him a rockstar in the iOS development community, Tweetie. Brichter was so successful with Tweetie that Twitter ended up hiring him to make Tweetie the official Twitter client for iOS and the Mac. Twitter for Mac has since fallen by the wayside, but Twitter for iPhone and iPad both live on as a testament to Brichter’s legacy.

After spearheading the initial development of Twitter’s official clients for iOS and OS X, Brichter left the social network to do his own thing again. For the past several months he’s been working on Letterpress, a new iPhone and iPad game that’s now available in the App Store.

Apple has updated its YouTube channel with two new videos for the just-announced iPad mini and its Smart Cover. The first video features Apple design guru Jony Ive explaining the design process for the iPad mini, while the second video is a 37-second TV ad for the new tablet’s Smart Cover.

Ive talks about how the iPad mini is a “concentration, not a reduction.” If you have a friend who’s interested in learning about the iPad mini, then this is the video to show them. You’ll start seeing the second ad for the Smart Cover on TV.

Apple announced the next version of iBooks software at the iPad mini event earlier today, and version 3.0 has now gone live in the App Store. This major update to iBooks brings multiple enhancements, including continuos page scrolling, iCloud support, and integration with iOS 6’s sharing options. Publishers can now push out over-the-air updates for books purchased in the iBookstore as well.

The iPad mini is a totally new product for Apple. It represents a beautiful juxtaposition of the iPhone’s 4-inch display and the Retina iPad’s larger 10-inch canvas. While the rest of the industry has already shifted its focus to 7-inch tablets, Apple entered uncharted territory for itself today.

Based on what we’ve seen, the iPad mini looks like a very compelling device. I’m sure Apple will sell bazillions. What I don’t understand is Apple’s pitch for the iPad mini. What purpose does it serve, and what kind of customer is it intended for? There’s no denying that Apple unveiled a great product today, but the purpose of the iPad mini was muddled by a confusing pitch.

Today Apple announced that the iPad mini will be available for pre-order this Friday, October 26th and ship on Friday, November 2nd. What you may have missed is that this launch timeframe applies to Wi-Fi-only iPad mini models. If you want to buy an iPad mini that’s equipped with cellular data, then you’ll have to wait a few more weeks.

Per usual, Apple.com just got updated with everything that was announced at the iPad mini event moments ago. Dedicated pages are up for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, all-new iMac, 4th gen iPad and iPad mini. Apple has included all of the new features and specs for its new products, including lots of beautiful images and videos.

Head on over to Apple.com and take it all in. The Apple Store has also come back online with the new inventory.

Apple has also published press releases for the new iMac, iPad mini, and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Today’s keynote was live streamed, and you can watch it now online.