Becoming a supplier for an Apple product is big competition among Asia Pacific suppliers, but Apple will rely on just one supplier to make all of its Apple Watch displays this year, reports J.P. Morgan analyst J.J. Park.
LG Display will be the sole supplier of the p-OLED display for the Apple Watch, according to Park’s recent note to investors. His firm also predicts LG’s stock could jump as much as 25% because of the new deal.
Apple is making iMessage and FaceTime harder to hack by turning on two-step verification for both services in an effort to tighten security for iOS and Mac users.
The extra security goes into effect today and gives users an extra layer of protection against hackers or anyone else trying to log in to your iMessage account to either impersonate you or steal data.
Apple Watch will borrow a lot of tech from the iPhone when it ships in April, but according to a new rumor from supply chain sources in China, Apple is planning to bring one of its wearable’s coolest features to the next iPhone.
The Economic Daily News has reported that Apple is considering adding ‘3D touch’ technology to the iPhone 6s, similar to Apple Watch’s Force Touch. According to the sources, Apple’s is planning to tap US-based Avago Tech as the main supplier for the iPhone 6S 3D touch technology.
When it comes to dying, who’s going to take over my Facebook account isn’t one of my biggest worries, but if you want to ensure that you’re killing it on social media from the grave, Facebook just rolled out a new feature that lets you give your account to someone when the Grim Reaper comes knocking.
Shares of Apple stock closed at an all-time high today of $124.88, bringing the company’s marketcap to a staggering 711.59 billion. Tim Cook couldn’t be happier with his company’s performance, but according to famous billionaire investor Carl Icahn, Apple’s stock should really be worth double.
In a letter posted to his Twitter followers, Carl Icahn said his firm has increased AAPL’s forecasted earnings per share in 2015 and believe the market should value Apple at $216. That’s not a price target. That’s what Ichan thinks they should be worth today.
According to Carl, the rest of the market still hasn’t caught on because they’re giving the company a significantly discounted multiple on its P/E ratio compared to the S&P 500.
Google-owned robotics firm Boston Dynamics is no stranger to creating robotic beasts that can do freakish feats, but their latest robotic quadruped — a 160-pound doglike machine named Spot — takes the crazy factor to an all new level with a smaller, nimbler, more-kickable form factor.
To be perfectly honest, Spot scares the hell out of me. When Elon Musk warned about the possibility of humans becoming slaves to AI, this is what I imagined — legions of weird-looking robots that can go anywhere to hunt you down and put you in your place. Spot doesn’t feature any futuristic weapons to punish his human masters, but the cybernetic canine has some serious skills when it comes to exploring difficult terrain and balancing.
If you don’t think the robot threat is real, here are six GIFs of Spot in action that might change your mind:
We still don’t know the exact launch date of the Apple Watch, but if you just can’t wait to load up on accessories for your Apple wearable, the first Apple Watch dock is already available on Kickstarter.
ChronosDock, a “luxury” bedside dock, is the first Apple Watch accessory we’ve seen launch so far. Its makers, Kickshark, say it’s “the most indulgent, opulent piece of docking jewelry” they could imagine. It only costs $99, but they insist it’s “excessive in the extreme” to satisfy all you high-end fashionistas.
We think it looks kind of boring, but take a look for yourself:
Tim Cook made a big stand for climate change yesterday by announcing Apple’s plan to invest $850 million in a solar farm that will power the company’s Cupertino campus as well as all retail operations in California.
“We know at Apple that climate change is real,” Cook said yesterday. “Our view is that the time for talk is past and the time for action is now.”
Apple has already put its money where its mouth is by powering all data centers with renewable energy, but the Monterey solar farm is the biggest thing Apple’s ever done in renewable energy, and breaks the record as the biggest-ever solar procurement deal for a company that’s isn’t a utility.
Life at Apple has been phenomenal ever since Tim Cook took over as CEO. AAPL shares are up 120 percent. 750 million iOS devices have been sold. $100 billion was returned to shareholders. And Apple just became the first $700 billion company in history.
To celebrate a successful 2014 campaign, Cook sat down with Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn today to talk about how Apple achieved its unbelievable results, as well as what other tricks the company has up its sleeves.
Here are the 12 biggest revelations from Cook’s Goldman Sachs tech conference appearance:
Apple is building a massive new solar farm in California to power the company’s upcoming spaceship campus and other facilities, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday.
The solar farm will occupy 1,300 acres in Monterey, California. Cook said the move is a testament to Apple’s commitment to environmental responsibility.
How does Apple defy the law of large numbers as the company posts ever-increasing iPhone sales?
That’s one of the first questions Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked at today’s Goldman Sachs technology conference. While Apple posted a record 74.5 million iPhone sales last quarter, Cook says he sees no reason why that number can’t keep growing.
Going to college is supposed to be all about going to parties, drinking heavily, hooking up and maybe squeezing in a few classes if you find the time. But when it comes to college students today, it turns out what they really want most is an iPhone.
Researchers at Student Monitor asked 1,200 U.S. undergraduates last fall to choose “what’s in” among students from a list of 77 options. Not only did students rank the iPhone as more popular than coffee, texting, drinking beer and college football, but Apple’s smartphone somehow managed to top the collegiate tradition of “hooking up” to take the No. 1 spot.
The iPad didn’t do too bad in the survey either, topping Instagram, laptops and selfies. Here’s the rundown on what college students ranked as most important:
Touch ID is going to get a big upgrade in the next iPhone, according to a new rumor from reputable Apple analyst Ming Chi-Kuo.
In his latest note to investors, Kuo says Apple plans to upgrade the fingerprint scanning technology in its Touch ID module this year to reduce the number of reading errors and offer a “better and safer Apple Pay user experience.”
Tim Cook doesn’t make many speaking appearances at non-Apple events, but the Apple CEO is in San Francisco today to speak at Goldman Sachs’ technology and Internet conference.
Cook attended the conference in 2013 and 2012, but skipped the event last year. Apple fans can listen to streaming audio from the conference, which starts at 12:30 p.m. Pacific.
It’s no secret that Apple has given some thought to wearable cameras. The company already has a patent that would crush GoPro if it ever decided to make sports cameras, but there’s not enough money in the market for Apple to even bother.
We’ll probably never get to see what Jony Ive’s perfectly designed answer to GoPro would have looked like, but our friends at Curved have been busy dreaming up the perfect action cam that works seamlessly with the iPhone and Apple Watch. Their answer is called the iPro: an action cam that looks so good, you’ll never want to beat it up.
Take a closer look:
Apple Pay has already become the fastest growing mobile wallet but the only thing holding it back is the limited number of retailers that accept it. A new study has found that PayPal is still leading the mobile payments race with 13% of retailers accepting it more than any other alternative payment type.
Boston Retail Partners surveyed the top 500 retailers in North America and found that only 8% currently accept Apple Pay, but Apple’s mobile wallet is expected to make a big push this year and take the top spot with nearly 40% of big shops in the U.S. accepting Apple Pay by the end of 2015.
Here’s the full breakdown:
Imagine cruising low around South Africa in your small plane at 105 knots. You’re enjoying the scenery below when all the sudden your plane’s canopy pops open just wide enough to send your bag with a MacBook Air plummeting 1,000 feet to its death.
That’s exactly what happened to one pilot, only lucky for him, the MacBook Air miraculously survived. Redditor av80r posted pictures of his still-functioning MacBook Air after it fell out of his plane mid-flight. According to his story, the farmer who found it claims he heard a whistling sound. He looked up and saw a bag hurtling towards him and took one step to the left and watched it land near where he was standing.
Despite the crash landing, the MacBook Air still works. Although the cooling system is damaged and the glass on the trackpad was busted into a million fragments, the display is hanging on like a champion.
Here’s a view from the side:
Apple’s release notes for the first iOS 8.3 beta don’t mention any new features, but we’ve combed through the just-released update to discover a number of goodies.
iOS 8.3 won’t overwhelm you with new features, but if you love CarPlay, emojis and Apple Pay, you’ll enjoy a couple surprises.
Here’s everything that’s new in iOS 8.3:
iOS 8.2 hasn’t even been released to the public yet, but Apple is already moving on to the next version. The first beta build of iOS 8.3 was seeded to developers this morning while iOS 8.2 beta 5 is still being tested.
The software update was made available today in the iOS Dev Center. Along with iOS 8.3, Apple has also released a beta build of Xcode 6.3 that includes Swift 1.2. The release notes don’t mention any new features, but we’ll tell you about all the goodies we find as soon as it’s installed on our iPhones.
In the meantime, here are the direct download links:
Apple is sitting on more cash than King Midas could dream of, but instead of bringing that money back to the U.S. to fund stock buybacks, Apple is reportedly looking to exploit Switzerland’s low interest rates with a Swiss Franc bond sale.
Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have been hired to manage the potential sale, reports the Wall Street Journal, which says the new bond sale could come as soon as Tuesday.
Things couldn’t be going better for Apple on the iPhone front. The company just posted the most profitable quarter ever in the history of corporations thanks to strong iPhone sales. And according to the latest report from Cannacord, Apple is basically the only company in the world making money off smartphones.
Apple accounted for 93% of smartphone profits in Q4 2014 reports Canaccord Genuity’s Mike Walkley who has also raised his target price on AAPL shares up to $145. That’s bad news for LG, Samsung, HTC and anyone else that makes smartphones, and to make it even worse, Cannacord estimates one third of all smartphone users will own an iPhone by the end of 2018.
See the full breakdown of profits per company below:
Dr. Dre became one of the most iconic figures in tech last year when Apple acquired his company, Beats Electronics. But before the doctor was making billions off overpriced headphones, he started a revolution in the music world with his pals Ice Cube, M.C. Ren and Eazy-E. Now there’s a movie coming out to tell his story.
Biopic Straight Outta Compton follows the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A. in the mid-1980s. The film was produced by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and is set to premiere August 14. To celebrate the upcoming film, Dre and Cube got together to ride around Compton and reminisce about the music they created before introducing their movie’s first NSFW trailer.
Watch the full red-band trailer below:
Dish’s new Sling TV service has been dubbed as a cord-cutters dream. It finally gives non-cable subscribers the ability to tune into ESPN and other premium channels for just $20 a monthly, but the company just revealed its new channel packages that will nearly double your monthly deal.
Sling TV opened up early access to users today and announced that along with the channels that come in the standard $20 Sling TV package, Sling TV will also offer three other additional channel packages priced at an extra $5 per month a piece. The extras include more channels for sports fans, kids, and the news.
Sling TV is offering the first subscribers a free 7-day trial period with access to the $20 per month “Best of Live TV” package that includes ESPN, ESPN 2, TNT, TBS, the Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ABC Family, and CNN.
For an extra $15 here’s what else you can get:
Jimmy Fallon is backed by the best band on late night TV, but when it came time for the Tonight Show host to get funky performing a hip-hop classic with Will Smith, Jimmy ditched The Roots and busted out his iPad once again.
Fallon has been no stranger to kicking out tasty jams with music legends on an iPad. He created an phenomenal doo-wop number last year with Billy Joel, but with the Fresh Prince in his guest chair, Jimmy decided to kick it old school and created an beatbox version of “It Takes Too” on the spot.
Check out the duo’s awesome beatboxing in the video below:
Apple’s promise to bring more racially diverse emojis to iOS and OS X has been nearly a year in the making, but in yesterday’s OS X 10.10.3 beta the company snuck in some code that finally paves the way for the emojis of the future.
While everyone else was playing with the new Photos beta, Sachin Patel noticed Apple made some big changes to the “Emoji & Symbols” palette that can be accessed from the Edit menu in most apps or by pressing Control + Command + Space. Along with renaming the Special Characters menu option Apple also added a new drop down arrow on all the human emojis that lets you select between five different skin tones.