Apple’s Chief Operating Office Jeff Williams and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri both dumped large amounts of AAPL stock this month — prompting speculation that those inside Apple aren’t confident that the share price is bouncing back to all-time high levels any time soon.
Although, as usual, such fears are almost certainly greatly exaggerated.
Hit-and-miss Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster (a.k.a. the “Apple television set is coming” guy) has a somewhat wacky theory in his latest note to clients: that Apple will not only announce its own virtual reality project at some point in the future, but that this will prove to be the real iPhone killer.
And that Apple’s totally okay with that.
Just bought a new iPhone SE to fit your small hands, and now worrying about what subtle messages others will read into it? No problem: cover it in 24K gold and a slathering of Swarovski crystals.
Because reasons.
The iPhone SE may have been one of the big announcements at Apple’s keynote event this week, but despite the fanfare it seems Apple isn’t banking on its 4-inch handset to come close to the sales its bigger brothers make.
According to a new report, citing component makers in the iPhone supply chain, Apple is playing it conservatively with orders for the new iPhone SE — with total shipments of the device likely to come in around 15 million units in the remainder 2016.
Apple has been clear about its belief that the super-charged iPad Pro is designed as a replacement for notebooks and desktops for a large number of users.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the company is giving buyers of the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro the option of picking up a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 as part of their pre-order.
Are you excited about Apple’s newly-announced 4-inch iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro? Well, the time for talking is through, and the time for pre-ordering is here!
Available to ship next Thursday, March 31st, the iPhone SE is available in 16GB and 64GB configurations. Prices start at $399, or $13.30 a month with carrier financing. The new iPad Pro, meanwhile, is available in 32GB, 128GB and — for the first time ever — 256GB configurations, with prices starting at $599.
Both devices are available in silver, gold, rose gold and space gray options.
To help promote Apple’s ongoing Renew program — which encourages users to recycle their old Apple devices — Cupertino today released three new iOS 9 wallpapers to promote its mission.
Designed by graphic artist Anthony Burrill, the wallpapers are entitled “Nature in Balance,” “Nature in Harmony,” and “Nature in Us,” and are available to download in sizes customized for iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad Pro, and iPhone.
Apple plans to ship 4 million of its freshly-announced 9.7-inch iPad Pro, suggesting that sales of the company’s brand new tablet are projected to be promising — although this is unlikely to be the device which turns around Apple’s slowing iPad business.
As anyone who has read my coverage of the superb iOS game Monument Valley will know, I’m a huge sucker for beautiful puzzle games.
Well, it seems that 2016’s going to be a good year for me (and plenty of likeminded gamers), since a new trailer showing off an upcoming iOS game called Mekorama, built by the developer behind the very engaging Odd Bot Out, has just been released. And, boy, does it look great!
Check it out below.
Are you a budding photographer, who owns (or has access to) an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? If so, you may be interested in entering this year’s IPPAwards, a.k.a. The iPhone Photography Awards.
Entrants are competing for the prestigious IPPA Photographer of the Year Award title, along with a assortment of other prizes.
Cybersecurity legend John McAfee has denied suggestions that he’s helping the FBI to crack the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting case, but hinted that he knows which party is involved. And, according to McAfee, it’s not good news for Apple.
“Apple and Tim Cook are not going to be happy with what the FBI has come up with,” he told CNBC in an interview. “It’s not worse than a universal master key, but it’s much much easier to get into a phone with it.”
Apple hasn’t done enough to publicly present its side of the current privacy standoff with the FBI, concerning whether or not it should build an iPhone backdoor, claims Andrea “Andy” Cunningham, Steve Jobs’ former publicist.
“I think [Steve] would’ve spent more time framing the issue for the [public] than I think [Apple under Tim Cook has] done so far,” Cunningham says.
I was wrong. I can admit that now.
When I first wrote about the rumors that Apple would launch a new, improved 4-inch iPhone way back in 2014, I was skeptical that there was enough of a market to make Apple rush back to the 4-inch form factor so soon after abandoning it with the 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Readers immediately wrote to correct me: They (or, often, their wives, girlfriends or children) wanted nothing more than a small iPhone they could easily clutch in the palm of their hands. Well, we got exactly that!
So, now that the iPhone SE has been announced, how do you feel about it?
Apple is reportedly in “advanced talks” to acquire Imagination Technologies, the British chip design company which creates the PowerVR graphics chips Apple uses for its iOS devices.
If it is able to acquire the company, it would mean that Apple would be able to bring GPU design in-house, much as it has done with its internally-developed ARM-based CPU cores.
Are you a third-party dev, advertiser, or Apple employee hoping to use targeted ads or personalized recommenders based on Apple customer data? There’s an app for that. Good luck with that!
That’s according to a new report, which states that Apple has an internal committee consisting of three expert “privacy czars,” who have have to sign off on any and all collection of Apple user data.
And if you thought the App Store review process could drag on, you’ve got another thing coming: debates over individual uses of data at Apple can, in some cases, continue for upwards of one year.
Phil Schiller called the Apple Pencil “the greatest accessory Apple has ever made” during yesterday’s keynote event, and now Apple’s giving you the chance to keep your official Cupertino stylus alive for a bit longer — thanks to a new pack of four extra Apple Pencil tips.
Apple is always talking about how many professions increasingly rely on the iPad for work, and developers Onshape have just added another: Computer-Aided Design (CAD) modelers.
Onshape’s new app lets iPad Pro owners carry out the compute-intensive calculations and graphics for 3D solid modeling from their supercharged tablet, using their trusty Apple Pencil.
In some sad news, Andy Grove, a.k.a. one of the founders and former CEOs of Intel, passed away yesterday at the age of 79.
The Budapest-born Grove was a mentor to many people in Silicon Valley, including Steve Jobs, who once noted that he was one of the only people Jobs would willingly work for. Grove famously arrived in the United States with less than $20 and rose to turn Intel from a startup into one of the world’s largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers.
In a Twitter tribute, Tim Cook wrote that Grove, “was one of the giants of the technology world. He loved our country and epitomized America at its best.”
Forget the iPad Air 3. Apple’s new 9.7-inch tablet will be a scaled-down version of its supercharged 12.9-inch iPad Pro — called (drumroll, please) the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
The new, smaller iPad Pro features four-speaker audio, a rear flash, Apple Pencil support, a Smart Connector for an all-new 9.7-inch Smart Keyboard, Apple’s most advanced iPad camera yet, and some very, very cool True Tone technology for matching the ambient light wherever you are.
Oh, and a fancy new 256GB storage option.
Apple is planning a major flagship retail store in India, with a design reminiscent of its Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York, according to a new report.
The FBI was reportedly “stunned” when it first got to see what Apple had planned for iPhone encryption, after it received early access to iOS 8 (where Apple introduced its new, stronger iPhone encryption) so that it could examine how its evidence-gathering techniques would have to change.
The Apple Online Store has temporarily gone down in advance of today’s Apple keynote.
When it returns, we’re expecting to see a new 4-inch iPhone SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, additional Apple Watch straps, and more — although you probably won’t be able to order them right away.
Steve Wozniak sure likes to wax lyrical about the Apple II, and now he can do so with his very own wax figure (sorry for the awful pun!) — which was unveiled over the weekend at the first ever Silicon Valley Comic Con at the San Jose Convention Center.
“I am so honored. I have always wanted to be in a wax museum due to characters we idolize like our superheroes. You live on forever,” said Woz.
There are plenty of rumors that Apple plans to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack connector for the iPhone 7 — and now we’ve got our first (possible) photo of the company’s next-gen EarPods, complete with Lightning connector.
The picture first appeared on Chinese social network Weibo over the weekend. Check it out below.
Happy Sunday everyone!
If you’re looking to kick back and relax, we’ve got you covered when it comes to the apps you need to download to enjoy the rest of your hard-earned weekend — and the 7 days to come.
From nifty adventure games for your iPhone to a great music app for Apple Watch, check out our picks for awesome apps of the week below.