Steve Jobs’ hand-picked biographer, Walter Isaacson, has a new book out this month. Titled The Codebreaker, it’s the story of Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of DNA gene-editing system CRISPR.
She was also one of the pioneers in the discovery of RNA, the molecule behind the COVID-19 vaccines currently rolling out around the world.
At the conclusion of Black History Month, Apple this weekend debuted a new Shot on iPhone video filmed by 21-year-old director Philip Youmans, the first African-American filmmaker to win the Founders Prize at Tribeca Film Festival.
The five-minute video “follows a number of our image-makers as they each celebrate the Black experience, Black excellence, love, and imagination.” It features the work of photographers Lawrence Agyei, Gabriella Angotti-Jones, Lauren Woods, and Julien James. Check it out below:
Apple TV+ has picked up its first Golden Globes win, rewarding Jason Sudeikis for his lead role in the excellent comedy series Ted Lasso.
Sudeikis won the award in a ceremony Sunday night. He received the award virtually from London. This is the first time Apple TV+ has won at the Golden Globes, although last year it received its first nominations for the series The Morning Show.
A politician in the UK is being blasted for spending public money on personalized AirPods, despite far cheaper wireless earbuds being available.
Labour politician Angela Rayner spent more than $3,300 on Apple gadgets at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This was as part of new home-working measures. Politicians were allowed to claim money to pay for technology they required to do their job.
Lyxo is an ultra-realistic game about bounced light. It’s also one of the most aesthetically beautiful games to arrive in the App Store for quite a while. And, yes, it’s possible to be both at once.
“I first had the idea while lying in bed one morning,” Tobias Sturn, the one-person development studio known as Emoak, told Cult of Mac. “I saw a beam of light falling beautifully into the room, and cutting through the shadows. Immediately, I thought of a game where the player uses mirrors to guide a beam of light through a completely dark room.”
Jump forward a little over a year, and this week Lyxo launched on iOS. Sturn took us through the game’s creation, including opening up his sketchbooks, and explained his crash course in physics to build the game engine.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, one of the many, many impacts of the spread was the delaying of Apple’s iPhone 12 series. While Apple and its suppliers were able to claw back some of the lost time, the iPhone 12 devices were ultimately pushed back to late October and early November, rather than the usual September release.
But while this might have been frustrating for Apple and customers alike, a new piece of research suggests it may have actually been a net positive. According to Counterpoint Research, the delay could turn out to have been a prudent move for Apple. It reports:
Antitrust investigators in the Netherlands are reportedly coming to the end of a “years-long” investigation into Apple and its control of the App Store.
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been investigating this matter since 2019. It focuses on Apple’s “payments system” in the App Store, which charges developers 15% to 30% in commission. With its impending decision, it could become the first antitrust authority to rule on this contentious issue.
Apple is not developing a coronavirus vaccine passport with Google, despite European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s assertion that such an app is in the works.
On Thursday, von der Leyen told reporters Apple and Google were developing a potentially travel-boosting solution for the World Health Organization. However, “a person familiar with Apple’s position” says the EC boss is mistaken.
The will-they-won’t-they drama involving Apple and Kia’s possible team-up to build an Apple car is on again.
Shares in the automaker rose by up to 8.1% Friday, after rumors abounded that there is still a chance that they will work with Apple on an electric vehicle. Even if it turns out to be a slightly different vehicle to the one some are expecting.
Apple is donating $1 million, along with iPads and other products, to Encircle, a Utah-based nonprofit dedicated to building safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth and their families.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is serving as honorary co-chair.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, will join the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy, the state said Wednesday.
The council will focus on “expanding the green economy and building a diverse workforce” while supporting clean energy initiatives and anti-climate change goals.
Apple carved out a massive 52.6% of the smartphone market in Japan in the last quarter of 2020. That’s according to the latest figures released by International Data Corporation (IDC), highlighting just how far ahead of the competition Apple is.
In the fourth quarter of the year, Apple reportedly shipped more than 6 million units to Japan, increasing 13.8% year-over-year. The next closest rival, Sharp, shipped only 1.4 million phones for a 12.4% share. Samsung, Apple’s biggest competitor worldwide, managed only 781,000 units for 6.8% of the market.
Fry’s Electronics, a brick-and-mortar retailer and Silicon Valley institution since the mid-1980s, has shut its doors. And, while it might be hyperbolic to say Apple killed the quirky electronics superstore, Cupertino certainly hammered a nail or three in Fry’s coffin.
The chain — which stocked a sprawling selection of TVs, stereos and other electronics alongside computer components, DVDs, groceries and less-savory items — became a go-to for geeks as personal computers took off.
But even with crazy themed stores that made it the “Walt Disney World of electronics stores,” Fry’s couldn’t compete in the sleek new retail world Apple created.
For the first time since the iMac G3 in the late 1990s, Apple’s all-in-one desktop computer might come in a range of color options, Apple leaker Jon Prosser says.
In a video published Wednesday, Prosser says 2021’s redesigned Apple Silicon iMac will come in black, white, green, blue and rose gold colors. Those are the same color options the latest iPad Air comes in.
Tim Cook has tweeted about Steve Jobs on what would have been his former boss’s 66th birthday. Jobs passed away 10 years ago this year, the same period of time that Cook has now been running Apple.
“Celebrating Steve on what would have been his 66th birthday,” Cook wrote. “Especially in a year where so much kept us apart, technology brought us together in limitless ways. That’s a testament to Steve’s life and the legacy he left, which continue to inspire me every day.”
“Made in India” iPads are one step closer, as the country’s government has approved an incentive plan that could benefit the likes of Apple, Reuters reports.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Scott Forstall, Apple’s former SVP of iOS software, was being talked about as a possible CEO successor to Steve Jobs. Then came the disastrous Apple Maps launch in 2012, and Forstall’s subsequent departure from the company.
Forstall has shown up a couple of times since then, but otherwise maintained a low profile. Now, as unearthed by the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit, the Cupertino company says it doesn’t even have a current phone number for Forstall — only a Twitter account and P.O. Box reference.
Another report published Tuesday adds more volume to the number of stories claiming that the next-gen iPad Pro will boast a mini-LED display.
The report, from Digitimes, notes that Taiwanese company Ennostar is gearing up to begin production of mini-LED backlight units. This will reportedly start at the end of the first quarter or second quarter of 2021.
Today, the Apple logo is up there with the Nike “swoosh” as one of the world’s most recognizable corporate icons. But, back in 1978, it was the just another logo belonging to an early stage startup that had recently released its first mass-market product, the Apple II computer.
Memorabilia from these early days of Apple is few and far between. However, if you want to get your hands on a piece, an early Apple Retail sign has just come up for auction. It’s not cheap, but it would certainly make a nice addition to any Apple collection.
After booming during lockdown in 2020, the App Store isn’t likely to slow down over the next five years, according to a new report.
App analytics platform Sensor Tower’s projections indicate App Store spending could hit $185 billion per year in the next half-decade. That’s compared to $72 billion in 2020.
From the sound of things, Apple is going back to the past for its next-gen MacBook Pro — and, depending on who you ask, that could be a very good thing.
The next MacBook Pro is already rumored to bring back the MagSafe charger and kill off the LED Touch Bar in favor of a row of physical keys.
Now, in a new note to clients, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says this year’s pro laptop will come with a built-in SD card reader and an HDMI port. These have been MIA since 2016, when Apple went all in on USB-C — and started ditching MacBook ports like they were going out of style.
The first wave of malware written specifically for Apple Silicon Macs is starting to appear. And Apple’s already playing Whac-A-Mole to try and stop it.
The malware in question, called “Silver Sparrow,” is reportedly a malicious package that can exploit a vulnerability in the macOS Installer JavaScript API as a way to execute dodgy commands. While it remains unclear how big of a threat Silver Sparrow poses, Apple nonetheless took steps to stop its spread.
Users who don’t get on board with WhatsApp’s terms and conditions will be unable to send or receive messages after May 15. While calls and notifications will continue to work for a short while, this will supposedly only be for a period of a “few weeks.”
WhatsApp first announced the changing privacy policies in January. The changed policy notes that, “As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies.”