Luke Dormehl - page 312

If you’ve ever visited the subway platforms in the Big Apple, you know they’re plastered with advertisements. That’s where a free new app called NO AD comes in.

The work of Re+Public, a team of devs who use technology to “alter the current expectations of urban media,” NO AD is an augmented-reality app that strips the New York City subway system of its ads — and replaces them with art.

Just point your iPhone camera at a billboard and, hey presto, you’ll see it vanish and a piece of street art will seamlessly appear where there was once corporate propaganda.

Pretty neat, huh?

School spirit is seemingly alive and well at Tim Cook’s alma mater of Auburn University, courtesy of a, err, T-shirt Gatling gun.

The video appeared on YouTube, via Wall Street Journal Apple reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi, and shows free t-shirts being fired into the crowd at a recent Auburn Tigers game.

Two things leap out from the video. The first one: we hope no-one was hurt by what looks to be a military barrage of clothing. Secondly: was the above video shot using the new dazzling 240fps slo-mo feature of the iPhone 6?

Microsoft has copied (or “been inspired by”) many, many Apple innovations over the years, and now it’s set to copy the location of its most famous Apple Store of all.

That’s right: the Windows maker is set to open up shop with a retail store just blocks from Apple’s iconic Fifth Avenue glass cube. The new “flagship” Microsoft Store will move into a location previously occupied by Fendi.

“This is a goal we’ve had since day one — we were only waiting for the right location,” Microsoft’s corporate vice president for retail stores said in a statement. “And now we have it.”

Regulators are set to break down the reason tax deals given to Apple in Ireland violate EU laws, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European Commission began formal investigations into the tax avoidance issue back in June, and plans to publish its findings as early as today — with the claim that tax deals between Apple and the Irish government could fall under the heading of illegal state aid.

While Apple has yet to make a comment on the matter, the Irish government has spoken up; describing its position as “confident” that the Apple deal represents “no breach of state-aid rules.” It claims that it has already submitted a formal response to the European Commission, in which it addresses in detail “the concerns and some misunderstandings.”

Apple has given Foxconn record revenues thanks to “unprecedented” orders for its iPhone 6 devices, but Foxconn is trying to spread its wings away from Cupertino.

According to a new report from Digitimes, citing upstream supply chain sources, Foxconn Electronics has been aggressively aiding China-based smartphone clients such as Xiaomi, Meitu, Oppo and Meizu with boosting their sales.

Due to challenges receiving regulatory approval, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus has yet to make it into China through official channels.

That’s not enough to stop the New York Times running a story claiming that scalpers have already exhausted demand for Apple’s next gen handsets in the country that may one day overtake the U.S. in terms of iPhone sales, however.

The article notes that, despite the fact that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will not officially go on sale for a few weeks (October 10, according to a leaked memo), the gray market has “already dried up” — with wholesalers who smuggled tens of thousands of iPhones into the country being forced to “[slash] prices to move inventory.”

Apple’s 32-foot Fifth Avenue Apple Store is its most iconic retail outlet– and one which Steve Jobs dearly loved. But did you know that Jobs’ originally wanted to have the building substantially bigger?

A new book entitled The Liar’s Ball: The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World’s Toughest Tycoons recounts the story of how real estate guru George Macklowe sold Steve Jobs on the more compact design. After pestering former Apple VP Real Estate George Blankenship for a meeting with Jobs, Macklowe clashed with the late CEO over what size the cube should be.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus may have been available to buy for a week now in the U.S. and other primary markets, but it’s still a hot enough ticket that it’s causing major lines this weekend, as eager shoppers try to grab Apple’s next-gen handsets.

In various cities around the world, a constant queue could be seen for much of the weekend, with many customers having to wait well over an hour.

Like a person with a new gym membership, Apple’s been on a health kick all year.

First we had the announcement of HealthKit at WWDC, then a fitness-oriented iPhone 5s ad in June, followed by Apple’s entry into the fitness-tracking market with the Apple Watch unveiling, and now the App Store’s been updated with a new “Apps for Health” section.

This section continues Apple’s trend for using human curation in the App Store by highlighting 14 apps which take advantage of iOS 8’s Health app by bringing health and fitness data into one centralized apps for access by users.

Apple is still supporting the iPhone 4s when it comes to new software, despite the fact that it is now outdated by several generations. But while iOS 8 is technically usable by iPhone 4s owners, just how fast can it run compared to iOS 7?

Finding the answer to this question is the basis of a new video by YouTube user kabriolett, who staged a speed comparison between an iPhone 4s running iOS 7.1.2 and one running iOS 8.0.2.

The results are surprising.

A massive new Apple Store planned for downtown San Francisco is being held up by… tulip trees?

The site in question overlooks Union Square, with Apple planning to demolish a large existing building and replace it with a giant, two-storey glass structure reminiscent of the iconic New York Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. However, in order for work to commence on the building Apple needs to bring in the right equipment, which necessitates the removal of seven tulip trees currently blocking the path.

Trouble is, things aren’t as straightforward as they might seem.

The iPhone 6 Plus bends because it’s thin and aluminium, right? Wrong, according to a poster on Imgur, who has analysed photos of the contorting iPhone phablet and places the blame instead on a badly-designed metal reinforcement.

Chuck Jones has an interesting post up on the Forbes site, in which he theorizes about how much ‘bendgate’ could wind up costing Apple — with an (unlikely) maximum hit potentially being in the hundreds of millions.

Jones weighs up the different ways Apple and customers may respond to the meme, including consumers potentially being put off buying the new iPhone 6 Plus, to Apple undergoing a full-on redesign.

Almost everyone is happy about iOS 8’s recent privacy upgrade, which means that Apple can’t unlock your phone as part of an investigation. Almost everyone, that is, except for the FBI.

Speaking with reporters Thursday, FBI director James Comey described himself as “very concerned” by steps tech companies like Apple are taking to strengthen privacy on mobile devices.

“I am a huge believer in the rule of law, but I am also a believer that no one in this country is beyond the law,” Comey said. “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law.”

From Need for Speed Most Wanted to Real Racing 3, there are some great driving-based games for iOS. None are quite like Torque Burnout, though.

Promising to combine the most fun bits of every racing game ever into a standalone title, the forthcoming mobile game from developer League of Monkeys is basically an excuse to just do donuts… over and over again.

While customers in the U.S. have been playing with (and bending) their iPhone 6 devices for a week now, today marks the sales debut of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 22 secondary markets.

These include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

Due to time zone differences, New Zealand customers have had their handsets for a full day already, while Twitter’s now buzzing with reports from plenty more excited customers in Europe and elsewhere.

The iPhone 6 originally launched in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK on September 19, racking up a massive 10 million+ sales during its first weekend.

We’ll have to wait and see how it does in today’s 22 new markets, but judging from the below pictures there’s no shortage of enthusiasm.

Apple was aware of the iCloud vulnerability which resulted in dozens of nude celebrity images being leaked earlier this month.

According to emails between Apple and noted security expert Ibrahim Balic, Cupertino was given information of a similar security flaw as early as March of this year. In an email from that month, Balic informed an Apple official that he had successfully bypassed the feature designed to stop a so-called “brute-force” attack taking place.

Five top Apple execs — including Tim Cook and Phil Schiller — unloaded $143 million AAPL shares as part of a 10b5-1 planned sale, according to a new report from Barron’s.

Cook sold 348,425 Apple shares for $35,250,297, while Schiller dropped 348,846 shares for $35,256,000.

Other Apple higher-ups who did the same include CFO Luca Maestri, who sold his entire direct holdings for $1,631,286; Jeffrey E. Williams, senior vice president of operations, who raked in $35,233,446; and Bruce D. Sewell, general counsel and senior vice president of legal and government affairs, who made $35,393,915 on the deal.

In the business world, Apple entering your product category is a little bit like a tsunami crashing into a home aquarium. What had previously seemed like a nice, small and self-contained ecosystem suddenly runs the risk of being obliterated by a giant wave-maker.

When Tim Cook announced the Apple Watch at Apple’s recent media event, the crowd went wild. But exciting as it was for consumers, it represents a seismic shift for the currently $330 million wearable tech industry.

Devices that can serve up smartphone notifications, track fitness goals and even advise us on health matters have the potential to be huge — but they’re not yet. That’s about to change, according to Juniper Research, which forecasts that wearable devices like smartwatches could hit sales of $19 billion by 2018.

What happens to Apple’s marketplace rivals as this sea change takes place? Cult of Mac did some digging to find out how companies like Jawbone and Fitbit plan to survive Apple’s smartwatch revolution.

Aside from the fact that it features a “flexible Retina display” and is capable of “reading” both soft and hard presses, Apple hasn’t let much out of the bag about the sapphire display for its eagerly-anticipated Apple Watch.

A new report from research firm NPD DisplaySearch has a bit more to say, however — including the price Apple is apparently paying for the sapphire laminate panels it’s using for its wearables debut.

G-funk might have made Dr. Dre famous, but Beats made him wealthy to the tune of $620 million in pre-tax earnings, according to Forbes‘ recently published “Hip-Hop Cash Kings” list, which officially named the former rapper/producer the richest person in rap this year.

Off the back of Apple’s $3 billion acquisition, Dre’s so rich, in fact, that his wealth outstrips the other 24 “Cash Kings” on the list put together — which includes names like Jay Z and P-Diddy, who each took home $60 million from a combination of music, live concerts and endorsements.

Late last week, former NBA player Rex Chapman was arrested by police in Scottsdale, Arizona, after being charged with theft and trafficking in stolen property as a result of stealing over $14,000 worth of equipment from his local Apple Store over the course of nine visits between May and early August.

As can be seen from the below security footage, Chapman picked up various items from the store, pretended to pay for them using Apple’s EasyPay app, before popping the goods into an Apple carrier bag, at which point he headed off to a local pawnshop to sell them:

Apple has cemented its place atop the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a sort of Michelin guide for customer service, for the eleventh straight year.

In a new report released by ACSI, Apple continued its lead over big name rivals such as Dell, Acer, Hewlett-Packard and the catch-all “All Others” when it comes to satisfaction with computing devices — including desktops, laptops and tablets. Scores are based on everything from pre-sale customer expectations, to perceived value and quality, customer complaint incidents and overall consumer loyalty.

Former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash has praised U2’s poorly received iTunes album giveaway as a clever marketing strategy.

“There’s a lot less opportunities in the record business to get a deal and get a record out there, and there’s not a lot of radio play for it,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock magazine.

Describing the music business in 2014 as “like the wild, wild west,” he continued that this was “one of those kind of tactics that only U2 could really get away with doing.”