Dark Sky, our favorite micro-weather app for iOS, has just gotten a beautiful update to the big three-point-oh. Dark Sky’s just as simple as it ever was, but gives you a little more information about weather farther than an hour away, the ability to submit a personal weather support and meteorological data for our friends over in the U.K. Neat!
Many of us have old MacBooks and PowerBooks collecting cobwebs and dust bunnies in the back of our closets. It seems an ignominous end to a computer that we not only loved, but probably spent a lot of money on. Did we waste our cash on something little better than a dust collector?
That’s what TNW co-founder Patrick de Laive wanted to know, so he ended up asking himself what would have happened if he’d bought Aple stock back in 2003 instead of spending $3,299 for the 17-inch PowerBook G4 back in April of 2003. The answer is that today, he could buy a starter home with the money he’d have earned on AAPL, while a PowerBook G4 on eBay can be had for under $50. Woof.
Source: The Next Web
Quora is a fantastic site in which members ask questions of experts in various fields, and for the past year or so, there’s an absolute fantastic thread going asking about how Apple keeps its secrets… and it contains not only some fantastic insight there on what lengths Apple will go to be secretive about new products, but about how information on new products leaks… like, say, the time the Pentagon leaked the 1998 iMac to the world.
Martin Hajek’s oft-shown iWatch model has been dusted off yet again, this time to show how the iWatch could act as a second-screen compass for Apple Maps running on an iPhone. Got to say, first obviously compelling use for an iWatch that I’ve seen yet.
Source: Flickr
By Silicon Valley standards, Apple doesn’t lobby much in Washington. Last year, they spent a little under $2 million on lobbying, a drop in the bucket to Google’s $18 million spent.
But scrutiny of Apple in Washington is starting to heat up, especially the company’s accounting methods. That’s why Apple is looking to double its lobbying spending this year to close to $4 million.
As originally pitched, iBooks looked as though it was going to dramatically shake up the way we read books: adding multimedia elements that would markedly separate it from the low-fi offering Amazon currently gives. Sadly it seems that iBooks have been somewhat forgotten in recent years. As Amazon moves into more areas that compete with Apple, it would be great to see Apple work to re-imagine a format that has stayed the same for years.
Innocent until proven guilty? Not for Cupertino. Apple’s e-book antitrust trial starts on June 3rd, but the U.S. District Judge in charge of the case is already openly expressing her belief that Apple engaged in a conspiracy.
This is interesting: along with their new redesign, in Germany, Apple has made it possible to pay for products ordered from their online store using PayPal.
In Germany, it is very rare for consumers to have credit cards, or even for brick-and-mortar businesses to take credit card orders. Allowing German consumers to pay for purchases with PayPal may make the Apple online store more accessible to them, or it could be the first sign of a global agreement between Apple and PayPal as another available payment option for consumers.
Nice spot by Macerkopf.
Source: Apple Store
Here’s something for you: a bendable but still rigid Lightning-to-USB cable that can function not just as a charging and sync cable for your iPhone, but also as a make-shift stand, propping up your device on a coffee table, desk or even when it’s in a wall charger. $19.95. None too shabby.
Everyone knows Aspyr Media for their numerous Mac ports of classic PC games like, for example, Bioware’s incredible Star Wars RPG, Knights Of The Old Republic. Now it looks like Aspyr could be bringing KOTOR to the iPad.
One of Intel’s biggest mistakes in the last decade was being blind-sided by the rise of mobile devices. Intel should have seen it coming: Apple asked Intel to make chips for the original iPhone, only to be turned down. Simultaneously, Cupertino was pressuring Intel to get the power-management of their chips under control. It’s not too far-fetched to say that if Intel had been paying attention to all the signals, then today they could be as dominant in mobile chips as they are in PCs and servers.
But Intel under former CEO Paul Otellini turned a blind-eye to mobile until it was too late. It’s a mistake new Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is determined not to repeat, which is why he has created a brand new “New Devices” division within Intel to focus on emerging trends, including “ultra-mobile devices.”
What’s an ultra-mobile device? Think wearable computing, like Google Glass or the iWatch.
U.S. Senator Rob Portman from Ohio has just raised a fascinating point at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc.
The American corporate tax system is so broken that Apple is at a competitive disadvantage against Samsung when it comes to the taxes it pays globally, and how easily it moves its money around.
Senator Claire McCaskill has just asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about the deal Apple forged with Ireland to pay only 2% taxes, and whether or not there will ever be a country that offers Apple such a great tax deal that they would pack up and move out of Cupertino to overseas.
John McCain ended his grilling of Apple CEO Tim Cook at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. with a nice little joke.
“Sir, there’s only one thing I wanted to ask you today: why do I keep on having to update all the apps on my iPhone? Can’t you guys fix that already?”
“Sir,” Tim cook laughed. “We’re working on making our products better all the time.”
“Do you feel that you’ve been bullied or harassed by this committee?” Senator John McCain has just asked Tim Cook at the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc.
“I feel good to be participating in this. I hope to help the process. I’d like comprehensive tax reform to be passed this year, and we will help in anyway we can.”
“I wasn’t dragged here, sir,” Tim Cook laughed.
“You’ve obviously taken advantage legally of a number of loopholes. Couldn’t you draw a conclusion that you have an unfair advantage over domestic companies?” asked McCain.
“No, it’s not the way I see it. Apple pays 30.5% of its profits in taxes on the United States. I would guess that’s high on the list of how it stacks up against other companies. We do have a low tax rate outside the U.S., but it’s for products we sell there, not within. So the way I look at this is there’s no shifting going on.”
Tim Cook is saying that because domestic companies operate only domestically, Apple has no advantage over them domestically: it only has an international advantage, which isn’t applicable in talking about “competitive advantage” in a U.S.-only context.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has just started his testimony in front of the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. in Washington, D.C.
“I am proud to represent Apple here. With Apple’s international revenues twice as large as domestic revenues, we are often asked ‘Does Apple still consider itself an American company? To that, I answer an emphatic yes. We are proud to be an
American company.”
Tim doesn’t look too happy, does he? And no wonder: the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. is a hostile room, and the experts are being very clear about the why and how Apple is dodging its U.S. tax burden. And so far, the only person defending Apple in the room is Rand Paul.
Tim Cook is expected to testify before the Senate Sub-Committee sometime this morning. We’ll be covering it live.
As part of expert testimony at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc., Professor J. Richard Harvey has made a compelling case that the tax system Apple is taking advantage of needs to have its loopholes closed.
Harvey — a distinguished Professor of Practice at Villanova University’s School of Law — says that while what Apple has done is acceptable under current International tax law, it still widely uses tax tricks and gimmicks to avoid paying what it fully owes.
Senator John McCain just laid out his case against Apple in Washington D.C. in a Senate hearing about Apple’s tax rates, and he’s out for blood.
According to McCain, although 95% of Apple’s research and development happens in the USA, they funnel most of their profits through overseas entities that are not tax residents in any country in the world.
Ireland is a big target for McCain here. Ireland has long had liberal tax policies in an attempt to attract foreign companies, but McCain says that Apple paid less than $10 million in taxes on $22 billion in earnings in Ireland, a tax rate of less than 1.20th of 1%.
External battery packs are one of the least sexy aspects of the mobile age. They’re the equivalent of the plastic gas can in the back of your trunk: stinky, unsexy, and probably empty when you need it.
Lenmar’s Helix battery pack isn’t particularly sexy, but it doesn’t smell (despite the “Undead Power” branding, which implies putrifying flesh) and it’s unlikely to be empty when you need it: it has a massive 11,000mAh battery inside, capable in theory of charging a third- or fourth-gen iPad from 0% to full. All in a battery pack not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.
There’s a lot of talk these days about Google Glass, Google’s new futuristic wearable computer that functions like a set of cyborg glasses, overlaying a HUD of Google products and search services over your life.
It certainly sounds impressive, and early reviews from the usual techno-nerds are positive. But what would Steve Jobs have thought of Google Glass?
He would have thought you were a dork for wearing one, and you needed to get laid.
Apple is well-known for its love of the so-called golden ratio, an “extreme and mean” mathematical ratio that designers as far back as the third-century B.C. identified as most likely to lead to harmonious design. The iCloud logo, for example, is designed with the golden ratio in mind … and it’s widely believed that the iconic Apple logo is also designed using the golden ratio.
It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? That Apple’s logo is constructed out of mathematically perfect circles and partial circles? Unfortunately, not only is it not true, but Apple has different logos it uses even in its own official materials: the Apple icon etched into the back of your iPad is very different than, say, the official Unicode symbol.
A fifteen year old boy has been gruesomely killed in Las Vegas while being robbed for his iPad.
Apple doesn’t like OLED displays. Across the board, Apple uses LCD IPS displays in its devices, which have better color accuracy than OLED. Theoretically, though, OLED is better than LCD when it comes to power consumption, though… which is why a new report is floating the possibility that Apple might switch to OLED for the iWatch… and that Foxconn is already building test runs.
“Intel Inside.” It’s been called one of the best campaigns to ever come out of Silicon Valley’s Mad Men, and it turned a relatively unknown maker of microprocessors into a $100 billion dollar company, and a household name. All this, thanks to a blue sticker slapped on every Intel PC or laptop.
Every Intel PC or laptop except Apple’s, that is. Even when Cupertino transitioned to Intel processors in 2006, Apple refused to put ‘Intel Inside’ stickers on their new Macs and MacBooks. And with characteristic bluntness, Steve Jobs had no problem explaining why when asked about it back in August 2007, right after the first aluminum iMac was introduced. For the latest updates and insights, check out Intel news today.
How much should Apple have to pay Sony if they use a song on iRadio, but a listener hates it so much that they immediately skip to the next track? A common sense answer would be ‘nothing’ but in the high stakes world of music industry legal mumbo jumbo, common sense doesn’t apply… and Apple and Sony Music’s disagreement over the matter might delay iRadio from launching with iOS 7.