News - page 1215

Given Apple’s tendency to only do major redesigns for its iPhones every other year, we’re most likely not going to get a bold new iPhone form factor until late 2016.

With that said, however, Jony Ive’s design team don’t take too many days off — which means that there are constantly new ideas being churned out that may well radically change how we think of an iPhone looking. A new Apple patent application published today shows off an iPhone with a wraparound display, resembling something not a million miles away from a fourth- or fifth-generation iPod nano.

Until now, Apple’s been dead-set on making every iPhone thinner than the last, but the company’s proposed “wrap-around display” makes it seem like that strategy may no longer be on the cards.

Thanks to the wonder of drones, we’ve had a few airborne glimpses of Apple’s forthcoming Apple 2 campus in Cupertino. Until now, however, ground-level pictures have been in decidedly short supply.

That changed yesterday, when Apple gave reporters from San Francisco news outlet KQED an up-close-and-personal glimpse at its flying saucer-shaped headquarters, which will eventually house up to 15,000 employees.

Along with photos showing the development, the reporters also heard a few environmentally friendly factoids about the campus — such as the fact that it will use recycled water to flush toilets, solar arrays to meet the majority of energy needs, and that the older buildings Apple inherited when it bought the land were broken down and recycled for new building materials.

You can check out the images after the jump:

I’m not what you would consider a “gamer.” I dabble in mobile titles like Monument Valley and occasionally play Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart with friends, but few games manage to grab my attention for very long.

Yet there’s a new iPhone game I haven’t been able to put down for the past two weeks.

It’s called King of Thieves, and it’s from ZeptoLab, the maker of the hit App Store game Cut the Rope.

If you’re a Pinterest user with an eye on app discovery, Apple has the perfect deal for you. The companies have partnered to create “App Pins,” allowing users to install iOS apps without having to leave the Pinterest app.

App Pins work like regular pins on Pinterest’s virtual pinboard, only with the added functionality of an “Install” button next to the regular “Pin it,” alongside an extra “view this on the App Store” option. App Pins can be spotted by way of a small “App Store” badge that incorporates Apple’s logo.

“We can be a really powerful service for app discovery, which is a problem that still really hasn’t been solved,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp told The New York Times. “Our specialty is really connecting people to the things they want to do.”

Some U.S. carriers have historically been more lenient about unlocking phones than others, but starting today they are all mandated to provide unlocking once a customer’s contract is up.

Legislation put in place by the Federal Communications Commission back in 2013 takes full effect today, and carriers must comply with new policies on unlocking.

What if you had to pay a month’s wages up front just to get a job?

It’s a concept that’s largely foreign to Western culture, but bonded servitude is still rampant in other parts of the world, namely Asia. That also happens to be where much of Apple’s supply chain is located, and starting today the company is cracking down on the corrupt practice.

It’s hard to truly understand Apple’s astronomical size until you put things into context. With $178 billion in cash as of last quarter, you can start easily comparing the company to the gross domestic product (GDP) of large countries.

In fact, Apple would be the world’s 55th richest country right now, according to the latest data from World Bank.

Shares of Apple stock closed at an all-time high today of $124.88, bringing the company’s marketcap to a staggering 711.59 billion. Tim Cook couldn’t be happier with his company’s performance, but according to famous billionaire investor Carl Icahn, Apple’s stock should really be worth double.

In a letter posted to his Twitter followers, Carl Icahn said his firm has increased AAPL’s forecasted earnings per share in 2015 and believe the market should value Apple at $216. That’s not a price target. That’s what Ichan thinks they should be worth today.

According to Carl, the rest of the market still hasn’t caught on because they’re giving the company a significantly discounted multiple on its P/E ratio compared to the S&P 500.

What could possibly make the treacly, soft-focus trailer for the upcoming movie Fifty Shades of Grey any better than Steve Buscemi?

Nothing, that’s what. Unfortunately, even the googly-eyed, wacky-toothed character actor can’t save the awful trailer, as we can see here in this fan-made recut of the original Fifty Shades trailer.

Called “50 Shades of Buscemi,” even a shot of Buscemi waggling a big rubber dildo at someone off-camera (below) can’t make me want to see the film.

Google-owned robotics firm Boston Dynamics is no stranger to creating robotic beasts that can do freakish feats, but their latest robotic quadruped — a 160-pound doglike machine named Spot — takes the crazy factor to an all new level with a smaller, nimbler, more-kickable form factor.

To be perfectly honest, Spot scares the hell out of me. When Elon Musk warned about the possibility of humans becoming slaves to AI, this is what I imagined — legions of weird-looking robots that can go anywhere to hunt you down and put you in your place. Spot doesn’t feature any futuristic weapons to punish his human masters, but the cybernetic canine has some serious skills when it comes to exploring difficult terrain and balancing.

If you don’t think the robot threat is real, here are six GIFs of Spot in action that might change your mind:

We still don’t know the exact launch date of the Apple Watch, but if you just can’t wait to load up on accessories for your Apple wearable, the first Apple Watch dock is already available on Kickstarter.

ChronosDock, a “luxury” bedside dock, is the first Apple Watch accessory we’ve seen launch so far. Its makers, Kickshark, say it’s “the most indulgent, opulent piece of docking jewelry” they could imagine. It only costs $99, but they insist it’s “excessive in the extreme” to satisfy all you high-end fashionistas.

We think it looks kind of boring, but take a look for yourself:

Tim Cook made a big stand for climate change yesterday by announcing Apple’s plan to invest $850 million in a solar farm that will power the company’s Cupertino campus as well as all retail operations in California.

“We know at Apple that climate change is real,” Cook said yesterday. “Our view is that the time for talk is past and the time for action is now.”

Apple has already put its money where its mouth is by powering all data centers with renewable energy, but the Monterey solar farm is the biggest thing Apple’s ever done in renewable energy, and breaks the record as the biggest-ever solar procurement deal for a company that’s isn’t a utility.

Apple has a reputation for not being afraid to move on.

Buy a new iPhone, and you’re lucky if iOS supports your device just four years down the line. Buy a Mac? Apple’s constantly making older models obsolete with every new OS X release. Heck, there’s an entire ocean of old PowerPC apps that were orphaned by Apple when they migrated to Intel.

Yet Apple isn’t without loyalty to the gadgets that once made it great. Case in point: If you plug a first-gen iPod into your modern-day Mac, iTunes 12 will still sync with it.

Bad news, jailbreakers. Apple has stopped signing iOS 8.1.2, the last jailbreakable version of the iOS 8 operating system. That means that unless you already have iOS 8.1.2 installed, you won’t be able to jailbreak using existing methods until another exploit comes down the pipeline.

Anyone who enjoys old-school games will most likely have experienced the crushing disappointment of finding a favorite title in the App Store — only to discover that whichever company ported the game to iOS took no care whatsoever in doing so.

Fortunately, one game series you could absolutely never throw that accusation at is the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, thanks to the remastering efforts of fans Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley. For anyone interested in game restoration and porting, their story is kind of inspirational.

It looks like we might be witnessing the end of an era. Apple is apparently taking down the iconic atom symbol signs from behind the Genius Bars of many of their Apple Stores, removing one of the most whimsical and fun branding elements from their retail presence.

The bigger the screen, the more data you use. That’s the maxim that anyone looking to min-max their data plan every month should follow if they want to keep their bills low.

As highly-desirable and premium-priced tech goodies, it’s no surprise that iPhones have previously been among the most stolen items we carry around on a regular basis. In fact, police have even correlated spikes in crime rate to the launch of new iPhone models — suggesting that it’s not just upstanding citizens who keep an eye on the blogosphere.

That all changed when Apple added its Activation Lock feature with iOS 7, allowing users to locate, lock and even wipe their iPhones remotely in the event that they are stolen. Based on that, a new report claims that the number of stolen iPhones fell significantly in major cities around the world between September 2013, when Activation Lock was introduced, and one year later.

Take that, iCriminals!

One of the big selling points of wearable devices is that they will be able to help us keep track of various fitness metrics.

However, a new report claims smartphones are just as good (if not slightly better) at tracking physical activity as the most popular wearables on the market.

Flipboard has taken the leap from mobile to desktop. What started as one of the first iPad apps is now accessible through any modern browser via Flipboard.com, a beautiful web interface for consuming online content.

Like the iPad and iPhone app, you can not only read articles from sites you follow, but also create custom “magazines” based on sources you choose.

Blind dates can be full of surprises, but few ever end with the man crapping his pants – and with cameras rolling.

Such are the scenes in a Ford Motor Company promo video for the 2015 Mustang, in which a hidden-camera captures a gorgeous blonde stunt driver and her unsuspecting dates.

The video, which has racked up more than a quarter-million views since it was posted to YouTube late last week, runs just under three and half minutes. It shows technicians installing tiny cameras in the car’s dash.

Life at Apple has been phenomenal ever since Tim Cook took over as CEO. AAPL shares are up 120 percent. 750 million iOS devices have been sold. $100 billion was returned to shareholders. And Apple just became the first $700 billion company in history.

To celebrate a successful 2014 campaign, Cook sat down with Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn today to talk about how Apple achieved its unbelievable results, as well as what other tricks the company has up its sleeves.

Here are the 12 biggest revelations from Cook’s Goldman Sachs tech conference appearance:

Boom! That’s the sound of AAPL stock hitting yet another all-time high Tuesday, making Apple the first $700 billion company in history.

Microsoft made history in 2000 when it became the first company to close at $600 billion, so this feat must make Tim Cook and the entire Apple team incredibly proud.

Apple is building a massive new solar farm in California to power the company’s upcoming spaceship campus and other facilities, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday.

The solar farm will occupy 1,300 acres in Monterey, California. Cook said the move is a testament to Apple’s commitment to environmental responsibility.

How does Apple defy the law of large numbers as the company posts ever-increasing iPhone sales?

That’s one of the first questions Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked at today’s Goldman Sachs technology conference. While Apple posted a record 74.5 million iPhone sales last quarter, Cook says he sees no reason why that number can’t keep growing.