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.
You still have time to raise some scratch if you want to put in a bid on Charitybuzz’s annual auctioning-off of lunch with Tim Cook. The bidding is just barely into sextuple digits with a little under 10 days to go.
In addition to an epic meal time with the Apple CEO for a winner and their plus-one, the prize package also includes VIP passes to an Apple keynote. And of course, your donation will go to Cook’s favorite charity.
Revolv smart hubs will no longer be supported as of May 15. Even though subscribers have known this was coming since February, there wasn’t a lot of attention until an author’s highly critical piece was published on Medium.
That story has spurred conversations questioning investment in the Internet of Things, or IoT, and prompted Nest to consider compensating users who were early investors in the Revolv hub.
Apple’s push to become a great company for large companies as well as consumers is getting a big boost this week with the hiring of former Box employee Karen Appleton who has joined the company in an enterprise-focused role.
Appleton revealed last week that she was leaving Box after working with the company since 2007 as employee number 8, but she hasn’t said what exactly she will be doing for Apple.
The closing of the iBook Store and iTunes movies in China might be the country’s first steps toward shutting Apple out, according to a leading expert on global political risks for corporations.
China has already become the second largest market for Apple in terms of sales, but the iPhone-maker could find itself banned from the country just like Facebook due to its privacy strategy that has already come under fire from government regulators.
Make the most of your Instagram feed with these eight killer Instagram tips and tricks that will make you an Insta-master.
Learn how to put together video in the Instagram app itself, keep stalkers off your Instagram feed, find amazing photos near your current location, and much more.
Two new iPhone 6s ads are zooming in on super high-def video and the power of your fingerprint.
While one is fairly straightforward and informative, the other is kind of … out there. We’re not entirely sure what to do with it, really. The entire Cult of Mac staff just watched it and had no words. But we really can’t stay mad at Neil Patrick Harris, who shows up at the end.
Check out the videos below.
Typing with one hand on the gigantic iPhone 6s Plus just got a whole lot easier thanks to one of Apple’s biggest rivals.
Microsoft revealed today that its new one-handed keyboard app “Word Flow” for iOS is finally ready for primetime after a week in public beta, and it does a lot more than just one-handed typing.
Full details of the iPhone 7 aren’t expected to be revealed until early this Fall, but thanks to the Apple rumor mill we may already know two of the device’s biggest features, and they could be more major than expected.
Apple will supposedly make its next iPhone both waterproof and dustproof, according to supply chain sources in China that also indicate the home button could get its biggest upgrade since the addition of Touch ID.
Faster processors, speedier memory, longer battery life and a rose gold finish — what more do we need from a new MacBook? We love Apple gear, but it’s possible we’re getting addicted to the “wow” factor.
Add that to Prince’s untimely death, and the dearth of streaming options for listening to his music, and we’ve got a lot to talk about. It’s all in this week’s free Cult of Mac Magazine, along with reviews of Amazon’s new Echo smart speakers and 12 awesome Apple Watch tricks that prove Cupertino’s wearable doesn’t need a “killer app.”
Here are this week’s top stories.
Samsung will launch its next-generation Gear S3 smartwatch later this year, according to a new report, and the company has teamed up with a Swiss jeweler to create a luxury version that could take the fight to the all-gold Apple Watch Edition.
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.
This week on The CultCast: Why the new iPad Pro screen is “practically perfect”; stories from The Cult of Mac; our most anticipated WWDC 2016 announcements; a look at Apple’s newly updated MacBooks; Apple’s secret plan to create hit TV shows; and, have you ever wondered how rich you’d be if you invested in Apple’s IPO instead of buying its computers? We break down the numbers.
Our thanks to Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small-business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.
Most fitness apps seem obsessed with calories. Go for a run, and your Apple Watch tells you how many calories you burned. Scan a barcode and MyFitnessPal tells you how many calories are in the food you are about to eat.
So what exactly are calories, and does counting them really help you achieve your fitness goals?
Court filings from several law enforcement organizations say that people may just stop helping with police with their investigations if Apple gets its way in an iPhone encryption case in Brooklyn.
The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Association of Prosecutor Attorneys, and the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York all presented their arguments to try to convince the presiding judge that the iPhone maker is subverting centuries of law by refusing to help in a drug case.
Cupertino is about to crack down on non-native Apple Watch apps.
The company posted a new requirement on its developer site that says that in the near future, all new apps must run natively on the device and originate in the watchOS 2 development kit. This new policy could finally get us some Apple Watch apps that work as well as we’d like them to.
You know, instead of some of the ones we have no, which kind of don’t.