For the past two years it’s seemed that the Mac was invulnerable to the sudden drop in PC sales that have plagued other OEMs, but things aren’t looking too rosy for the Mac anymore either.
A new study from NPD Group found that Mac sales were flat year-over-year during July, and if things keep going at this rate, Apple’s domestic Mac sales will be down 5% year over year for the September quarter.
This morning TiVo unveiled its newest lineup of DVRs, and rather than trying to kick your iOS device out of the living room, the new DVRs will stream TV straight to your iPad or iPhone, even if you’re not at home.
The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C are all but official at this point, but if you had any doubts that new iPhones are coming soon, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has told its supplier Hon Hai to start shipping the new iPhones in September.
Apple’s suppliers have been mass producing parts for the new iPhone since June, but are ready to ship them out this Fall. According to the report, Apple will announce both a high-end and low-end iPhone at an event in September, but the WSJ says it’s not clear whether they will launch on the same day, or if Apple will opt to showcase one device.
Apple is expected to announce the new iPhones at a media event on September 10th, as well as new iPads and the final version of iOS 7.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Apple announced today that some changes are coming to its Affiliate Program for digital content, as a new partnership has been forged to help the company expand the program into new countries.
The affiliate program — which allows partners to make money off iTunes content sales by directing users to certain pieces of content via affiliate links — will now be managed by two networks rather than four, as Apple has struck a deal with the Performance Horizon Group (PHG) to become a new affiliate platform partner and push the program into new territories in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Here’s the full announcement from Apple:
Rumors of Apple releasing a gold-colored iPhone have been hard for some to swallow, but according to AllThingsD’s sources, Apple plans to introduce a gold iPhone at the September 10th keynote.
While many Apple fans are worried that a gold iPhone would look too gaudy and doesn’t match the Apple design aesthetic, John Paczkowski’s sources says the gold iPhone will have a white face with a gold black plate and chamfered edging.
Rather than using a bold ingot gold tone many have feared, the gold iPhone will be more of a champagne color. No word on whether the gold iPhone will be priced differently than other models (we doubt it), but we’ll just have to wait and see the final product on September 10th.
Source: ATD
Barnes & Noble’s efforts to become America’s next great tablet maker haven’t really gone too well, so the company announced today that it’s ready to try something new: iOS apps.
This morning, Barnes & Noble announced it’s bringing the Nook Video service to iOS, Android and Roku devices, giving users access to a wide range of TV shows and movie just incase offerings from iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, WatchABC, WatchESPN, MaxGO, Showtime Anytime, and Crackle just aren’t enough to get the fix for your media addiction.
It seems hard to believe that Apple would come out with a gaudy-looking iPhone, but according to the rumor mill, Apple is set to release the iPhone 5S in black, white and gold. We haven’t seen any convincing evidence of the gold iPhone yet, but if MacBoutic is to believed, these are the first leaked photographs of the golden iPhone 5S shells.
The Apple logo and the word “iPhone” have been deliberately blurred out, but it looks like the anodized coloring has been applied to all metallic parts — something that’s not possible in a post-production paint job, but doesn’t rule out the possibility of Photoshop.
Even though we can’t verify the authenticity of the photos, they’re the best evidence we’ve seen so far. We’ll have to wait until the iPhone event on September 10 to see how real it is.
Source: MacBoutic
Via: Engadget
Syfy announced today that its iPhone and iPad apps have merged into one mega-nerd monster app called Syfy Now.
The new app now gives both iPhone and iPad users access to full episodes of favorite Syfy shows, with new episodes available the day after they air. You can add new shows to a watchlist to view episodes later or track a season, and Syfy Now syncs your watchlist across multiple devices via iCloud, so can pick up where you left off with any series on any device.
A cable subscription is required to view all the shows, but there are a select number of full episodes and clips you can still view without it.
The free app is available now in the App Store.
We weren’t expecting Apple to drop a new iOS 7 beta so soon, but Apple just dropped iOS 7 beta 6 in our laps this late Thursday afternoon. Developers can download the new beta build from the Dev Center or as an OTA update.
Once we dive into the beta we’ll let you know if there are any big changes, but it looks like it’s mostly just a fix for an issue with iTunes in the Cloud.
Here are the direct download links:
Before college football season gets underway, ESPN is pushing out an update for its WatchESPN app that lets users stay plugged in to more games than ever before. The update adds a new split-screen view so you can watch two games at once, while keeping tabs on game day with the new live tool bar that displays scores and video highlights.
ESPN is also beefing up the content on WatchESPN by adding “ESPN on ABC” events to the app, but you’ll be pulled over to the WatchABC app when you choose them. To top it all off, WatchESPN users who connect through a military or college network now get access to ESPN3 events automatically.
Here are the full release notes:
PopCap has finally gotten around to releasing the new zombie game that everyone and their grandmother has been waiting for — Plants vs Zombies 2: It’s About Time.
It’s been three long years since we were swept away with the original Plants vs Zombies, but we’re happy to say that Plants vs Zombies 2 is just as fun and addictive as ever, if not more so. Yes, you still plant sunflowers, harvest sun, and then use that to get more plants to destroy armies of zombies. But even though the gameplay is still the same, the adventure is more fun than ever.
The first major movie about Steve Jobs hits U.S. theaters in less than 24 hours. Reviews have been mixed, but if you’re not interested in plopping down your hard-earned cash to see Ashton doing his best El Jobso impersonation, Open Road Films CEO, Tom Ortenberg, says you’ll be able to watch it all from your couch soon enough.
Apple TV manages to grab most of the spotlight for streaming set-top boxes, but when it comes time to actually view content, Americans are using Roku far more frequently than Apple’s little hobby.
A new study from Parks Associates found that while the Apple TV is used by 24% of U.S. consumers with a streaming video device, Roku has managed to best that with a 37% usage rate among households with such devices.
Orbotix’s robotic ball, Sphero, has gotten so popular over the past two years, even Obama has been spotted driving one around, but it’s finally getting an upgrade, as Orbotix has just announced Sphero 2.0 will launch later this month.
With less a month to go until Apple unveils its new iPhones and the release date of iOS 7, the iCloud beta site just received a redesign to bring it more in-line with iOS 7’s UI.
Apple has replaced the old iCloud app icons for Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders, and Find My iPhone with their counterparts from iOS 7. Along with the new icons, Apple has redesigned the UI of each app with the updated look of iOS 7 as well.
Take a look:
Apple’s MagSafe power cord is one of the most underrated MacBook features ever, but unfortunately, they’re not very durable. We’ve all seen MagSafe cords become nearly unusable after a years’ worth of bending and wrapping, or if you’re like Toronto-based artist Brian Richer, your dog eats them.
After doing some tinkering, Brian found that his chewed MagSafe cords still passed enough power to light up some LEDs. Rather than tossing them in the trash, Richer has managed to salvage the cords to power his gorgeous, minimalist lamps.
Here are some close ups:
You can’t get music videos on MTV anymore, but that doesn’t mean the 60-inch TV strapped to your wall can’t get jiggy with Beyonce and Katy Perry’s newest music vids. VEVO announced today that it has added full AirPlay support to its iOS app, allowing users to stream audio and video to an Apple TV.
AAPL shares rose 5.6% in value today after word came out that billionaire investor Carl Icahn thinks the company is ‘extremely undervalued.’ The stock was trading above $493 a share after 3PM ET today — a nice $26 jump up from the stock’s closing price on Monday.
Icahn revealed on Twitter that he spoke briefly with Tim Cook today about the company’s future and that he’s decided to make a large position with Apple:
Apple’s added a lot of Yelp integration into iOS over the past two years, but despite providing copious amounts of reviews for every restaurant in the U.S., the app hasn’t let you actually write a review from your iPhone.
Yelp 7.0 was just pushed to the App Store and now gives users the ability to write reviews from their iPhone. Now you can trash a restaurant’s king salmon tartare on taro chips while waiting for your waitress to bring a check. Not finished with your praise? You can save a draft and publish it later, too.
The free update is available on the App Store now.
Source: iTunes
Tech pundits across the web have been arguing for years about whether Apple can succeed without Steve Jobs, but Steve’s close friend, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, says that we already know what the future holds for Apple.
In an upcoming interview with Charlie Rose on CBS, Ellison says we don’t need to postulate what’s going to happen to Apple because we’ve already seen the after-Jobs experiment:
Well, we already know. We saw — we conducted the experiment. I mean, it’s been done. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. We saw Apple without Steve Jobs. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. Now, we’re gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs.
Here’s a clip of the interview:
With college football, the NFL and the MLB post-season all knocking on the door, CBS has pushed out an update for its iPad app which allows users to stream live video of sporting events.
CBS has been streaming video to the iPhone for a while now, but it’s finally bringing it to the iPad with a full tablet experience. Now you can stream on-demand clips or live events to your iPad and push it to your TV via AirPlay via the free update.
Here are the release notes:
We’re less than a month away from seeing what the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S will look like—fingerprint sensor and all—but some artists on Dribble have been dreaming of a new feature for the iPhone: an infinite screen.
Claudio Guglieri’s iPhone 6 Infinity mockup and template sparked a mess of awesome rebounds from other artists who added their own bits of flair to the idea of an iPhone with a display that wraps completely around the device.
Take a look at these other great mockups:
Apple just sent developers an email stating all developer program services are finally back online.
The developer center went down on July 18th, which prevented developers from accessing documentation need to code apps for iOS and OS X, as well as beta builds for Apple’s platforms.
A Turkish security researcher by the name of Ibrahim Balic came forward shortly after the outage and claimed responsibility as the intruder that breached the Dev Center’s database. No personal data was stolen from users, but Apple decided the breach warranted a complete rebuild of the backend.
Getting into the psyche of any major historical figure is a difficult task, especially when you’ve never even met them, so to sympathize with Steve Jobs’ dick-ish behavior for his role in JOBS, Ashton Kutchers says he thought of Steve as kind of like a great football coach.
During an appearance on The Colbert Report, Kutcher says he can totally relate to why Steve Jobs berated people, because his high school football coach/uncle used to throw temper tantrums to make the team better too.
Kutcher told Colbert that he also thinks the way Steve sought love and appreciation from people was by obsessing about making perfect products for them, so that kind of justified being an asshole to people.
Here’s the full interview:
Apple is in the early stages of building a new R&D facility in Taiwan which will house an engineering development team to work on the next-generation iPhone, according to internal communications from Apple viewed by VR Zone.
Right now, the facility is just in the recruiting phase of the process, but rather than advertising the job listings, Apple has chosen to hunt for candidates via word of mouth alone. Apple is looking to hire a number of experienced and junior level engineers who will work out of Taipei on next-gen tech for the iPhone and report directly to the Apple spaceship in Cupertino.