The tragic death at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters this week has been identified by police as 25-year-old software engineer Edward Thomas Mackowiak.
Police were called to Apple’s HQ at 8.35am on Wednesday, along with paramedics. Mackowiak was discovered dead in a conference room, reportedly as the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators have revealed that “no foul play” was involved, and that this was an “isolated incident.”
Investigators have deemed yesterday’s shock death of an employee at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters to be not suspicious, suggesting that it was the result of a suicide.
“After further investigation it appeared there was no foul play and no other individuals were involved,” Santa Clara County sheriff’s Sgt. Andrea Urena told the Los Angeles Times. “This appeared to be an isolated incident and no employees or members of the public are at risk.”
Despite disappointing earnings in other parts of the world, India is doing great for Apple right now — with iPhone sales up 56 percent over the past quarter, without Apple even having a brick-and-mortar retail store in the region.
Things may be about to get even better, however, as Apple’s plans to open Apple Stores in India have taken a leap forward as the country’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has recommended Apple be exempt from laws stating that foreign single-brand retailers must source at least 30 percent of their products locally.
The iTunes Store turns 13 year old today, having originally opened its virtual doors on April 28, 2003 — back when 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” was riding high in the music charts, Anger Management and Bulletproof Monk were in theaters, and Saddam Hussein had just been ousted from power.
Who could’ve guessed that, years later, it would become the largest music vendor in the world, with well over 25 billion songs sold worldwide? Steve Jobs, that’s who!
Check out Jobs’ original unveiling of what was originally called the iTunes Music Store below.
It’s pretty darn cool watching talented human musicians bust out music using an iPad, but one thing we’re all limited by is the ability to react perfectly to 120 frames of motion each second.
Which is why it’s awesome to see the work of YouTube user DenverFinn, who recently built a D.I.Y. robot with the express aim of breaking the record for iPad piano game Piano Tiles. With the aid of an iPhone and a homemade machine able to hammer a specific tile on the screen when asked to, DenverFinn’s robot shows prodigy levels of piano-playing excellence.
Check out the video below.
Apple today started rolling out CareKit, its recently-announced open-source mobile software framework for health apps.
Beginning today, CareKit will integrated within four iOS apps, including Glow Nurture, Glow Baby, depression medication-monitoring app Start, and diabetes tracker One Drop. More will follow over time.
After this week’s disappointing earnings report — which saw Apple’s profits decline year-over-year for the first time since 2003 — many people are speculating on when they can expect to see the iPhone decline turn around.
The answer? Certainly not this quarter, according to a new report which suggests that iPhone shipments are likely to fall to around 40 million units (compared to 51.19 million units) in the next three month period.
Following yesterday’s disappointing (but inevitable) Apple earnings call, shares in the company fell by more than 8 percent in after-hours trading. For those keeping track at home, that means that Apple’s market value plummeted by upwards of $40 billion — or the equivalent of the entire market value of Netflix.
Fortunately, things are recovering slightly and stock is currently trading down 6.55 percent priced $97.80.
The latest Windows 10 “Redstone” build looks like it’s “borrowing” a concept very similar to iOS and OS X’s Handoff feature — allowing users to seamlessly switch devices as they work, such as moving from a desktop to a smartphone.
Having developed the world’s first commercial antivirus software, John McAfee now wants to clean the malware out of politics — and he’s using one of Apple’s most iconic advertising mantras to do so.
Libertarian presidential candidate McAfee’s new ad encourages American citizens to “Vote Different,” and uses the same verbiage as Apple’s famous “Think Different” ads from 1997. But it features footage of figures like Ron Paul, Aaron Schwartz, Jeffrey Tucker, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk instead of the historical figures in Apple’s ad.
Is it enough to take him into the White House? Check it out below to make up your own mind!
The FBI has informed Apple of a vulnerability affecting older iPhones and Macs. It’s the first time such information has been shared with Apple by the feds under a White House “Vulnerability Equities Process” intended to disclose security weaknesses when they are discovered.
The Vulnerability Equities Process is designed to act as a balance between the desire of law enforcement and U.S. intelligence services to be able to hack into devices and the public interest in warning companies of weaknesses in their systems that may be exploited by criminals.
With its recent purchase of educational startup LearnSprout and its “Hour of Code” programming classes at Apple Stores, Apple has demonstrated that it’s pretty darn serious about education.
Proving this once again, CEO Tim Cook this week put his name to a petition asking the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts so as to allow every K-12 student in the United States to learn how to code.
Going back at least as far the iPhone 5c, some Apple products pick up unfair reputations as “flops” — despite the fact that they are selling in quantities that would make other companies (and my Samsung-loving Cult of Android colleague Killian Bell) turn green with envy.
The Apple Watch, which celebrated its first birthday this week, is just such a product. How much of an impact did the Apple Watch make in its debut year? Enough to bring in $1.5 billion more than Rolex did in 2015.
And more than one-quarter of all Swiss watch exports combined for the past year, just to hammer the point home!
All iPhones sold in India must feature a “panic button” from 2017, according to a new order signed into law by the country’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The law states that every phone must include a panic button and in-built global positioning system, designed to protect women.
Apple is set to face a hearing over its proposed 850 million euro ($960 million) data centre in Athenry, Ireland — one of Apple’s biggest projects in Europe to date, which is scheduled to open in 2017.
The hearing over the proposed data center, which will help power Apple Music, the App Store, iMessages, Maps and Siri, will be with An Bord Pleanála, an independent, statutory body that decides on appeals from planning decisions made by local authorities in Ireland.
Apple’s 13 years of astonishing growth is likely to come to a close today, with the company predicted to report its first quarterly revenue decline since 2003 — well before the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch were even faint glimmers in Apple execs’ eyes.
The company is expected to reveal that March quarter sales fell 10 percent year-over-year to around $52 billion. Apple first warned that sales would fall in its forecast back in January, although today we’ll find out the extent of that slide.
Apple is reportedly helping in the hunt for two 14-year-old boys who disappeared at sea last year, after one of their iPhones was discovered in non-working condition.
Both Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen were last seen on July 24. After their disappearance, the Coast Guard carried out an extensive eight-day search in the Atlantic, spanning 50,000 nautical miles, but the boys were never found. However, last month their boat was discovered 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda — with Austin’s iPhone on board.
Apple may have recently hired former Box employee Karen Appleton to focus on the company’s enterprise business, and former Tesla VP Chris Porritt as a product design administrator for its Apple Car project, but it seems that it is slowing down on its wider recruitment drive.
According to a new report, Apple has cut all of its contract recruiters over the past several weeks, and is also starting to get rid of some of its full-time recruitment staff. In total, the move could affect upwards of 100 people.
The Apple Watch celebrated its first birthday on Sunday and, while Apple has yet to publicly disclose sales figures, it seems that the company’s debut wearable device had quite the impressive debut year!
According to analysts, Apple likely sold around 12 million Apple Watches over the past year: around twice the number of iPhones it sold in the first twelve months of Apple’s breakthrough smartphone.
Released on Friday as a short-lived Tidal exclusive, Beyoncé’s latest album, entitled Lemonade, is now available to download via iTunes — comprising 12 music tracks, a one-hour film produced for HBO, and a “digital booklet.”
The $17.99 Lemonade has so far received strong critical reviews, although we’ll have to wait and see whether it can come close to achieving her last album’s record-breaking sales feat, which became the fastest-selling album in iTunes history.
Wall Street seemingly loves to be down on Apple, but if you want some figures to remind you of what a massive profit-generating giant the company is, look no further than the latest numbers collected by SiliconValley.com.
Analyzing the stats coming out of the top 150 Bay Area tech companies for 2015, Apple not only ranked number one in every important metric, but also recorded profits of $53.7 billion in 2015 — which translates to roughly 40 percent of the entire $133 billion Silicon Valley profit pool for the year.
And that’s not all.
Elon Musk has called the Apple Car an “open secret” and now, in a new interview, Ford CEO Mark Fields say that the automaker is acting on a “working assumption” that an Apple Car is not too far away.
Ford wouldn’t be willing to take on a contract manufacturing job, however — since it’s not into the “handset, commodity base business” as Fields puts it.
As the Apple supplier which came under fire a few years ago when one of its 15 year old workers died of pneumonia, iPhone manufacturer Pegatron has opened its doors to the media in an effort to show how much things have changed.
In the process, it sheds light on one of the hidden sides of iPhone production — and the means by which companies like Pegatron try and crack down on supply chain leaks about future Apple devices.
A billionaire serial entrepreneur from China, whose company LeEco offers an ecosystem of streaming video services, electric vehicles, television sets and smartphones, has lambasted Apple for failing to innovate — and says it is failing in China as a result.
“As an industry leader, Apple should be developing more cutting-edge products,” he said. “The iPhone was still a leader five years ago after being launched in 2008 but now the concept has fallen behind.”
Kind of funny considering that LeEco recently rushed to beat Apple to release a smartphone without a 3.5mm headphone jack!
After the craziness of the week, Sundays are the perfect day for kicking back and sampling some of the delights to have graced the App Store over the past week.
From self-destructing messaging keyboards to massive group chats to a fun zombie blasting game, we’ve combed through the recesses of the app marketplace to bring you the juiciest cuts that will make your remaining time until Monday as memorable as it can be.
Check out our picks below.