Customers in China aren't lining up for the iPhone like they once were. Photo: Apple
Apple has announced its earnings for this past holiday quarter, and the results are a doozy. The company reported $57.6 billion in revenue, which is an all-time record. 51 million iPhones and 26 million iPads were sold, which are both records as well.
This quarter’s results are particularly important for Apple because of all the new hardware it announced before Christmas. The iPhone is obviously selling well, but the iPad’s growth is insane when you consider that Apple only sold 14 million units in Q1 of 2013.
Tim Cook has pushed the green agenda during his time as Apple CEO.
Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer are set to get on the phones at 2 p.m. Pacific to tell investors all about Apple’s incredible holiday-quarter earnings. We’ll be right here, liveblogging the whole thing.
Rather than busting out a tsunami of posts, Alex Heath and I are going to test out the new Cult of Mac liveblog. Bookmark this page, come back, and grip up for what’s sure to be one of Apple’s best quarters ever.
We all know someone who is still complaining about the UI changes made in iOS 7, but iOS 7’s growth has remained strong with the latest measurements from the App Store boasting that iOS 7 adoption just reach 80%.
If Apple sticks to pattern, the iPhone 6 will be unveiled in September this year, and it’ll be the first major redesign of the flagship smartphone since 2011. So what does Apple have in store for us this year?
Most rumors so far have focused on the possibility of a larger display size, but a new rumor suggests that there might be more that is new about the screen than that: not only might the iPhone 6 feature a sapphire glass display, but it could also charge just by being laid out in the sun.
When Jony Ive ousted Scott Forstall as Design King of iOS, he made a lot of changes, most of them for the better. One of the tinier — and for the worse — changes, though, was removing the ‘Now Playing’ icon from the iOS 7 status bar. Now a new jailbreak tweaks brings it back.
Grab a great deal on a refurbished MacBook Pro Ivy i5 Dual 13" Laptop. Photo: Cult of Mac
The Retina MacBook Pro comes in both 13-inch and 15-inch varieties, but when will the MacBook Air go Retina? Analyst Daniel Matte speculates that it could happen soon, and when it does, there will be three MacBooks with Retina Displays: the 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and a 12-inch MacBook Air with Retina Display. Twelve?
If you’re a skier or a snowboarder, there’s nothing better than hitting the slopes before anyone else does, being the first one to lay down your tracks on the freshly-fallen snow.
There’s an app for that. Called First Tracks, it’s an alarm app that will wake you up earlier if it snows. And it’s useful even if you don’t like to ski too!
One of Jobs’ most famous photos ever graced the cover of the very first issue of Macworld. In it, Jobs stood in front of three newly unveiled Macintosh computers in a pinstriped suit. Is anyone surprised that the photograph was almost impossible to get?
There are very few computers in history more famous than the Macintosh 128K. As a result, it’s pretty hard to unearth any new information about it.
Fortunately, that is exactly what Time.com has managed to do, having discovered a video of Steve Jobs and the Mac team discussing the Macintosh shortly after its 1984 launch.
A new Kickstarter project is aiming to build minimal charging docks designed to hold Apple’s 8-pin Lightning Cable. The underside of each “MikroDok” features a Mikro-suction adhesive backing, which allows the doc to be securely positioned and also moved multiple times.
Google has beaten out Facebook to acquire London-based Artificial Intelligence company DeepMind — for an amount alleged to be in excess of $500 million.
DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist and chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, as well as Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg. While it is unknown exactly what the company is working on, it describes itself as a “a cutting edge artificial intelligence company” to build general-purpose learning algorithms for simulations, e-commerce, and games.
While Tweetbot has added a feature that allows timelines to stream to iPhone and iPad, this is currently limited to Wi-Fi only.
Thanks to a new jailbreak tweak called Tweetbot 3 Stream 3G/LTE, however, the ultra-useful feature can now be carried over to 4G LTE and 3G cellular data networks.
Readability, the oft-overlooked but competent rival to Instapaper and Pocket, has reached v2.0, and added an iOS 7 makeover, plus a few neat new features.
This must be just about the worst gadget ever, which of course makes it the most fun to write about gadget ever. It’s a love-detecting bra, which will only open its front clasp if “true love” is detected. Where “true love” means “iPhone” and “detected” means Bluetooth.
Virgin Mobile has been competitive with its iPhone pricing ever since it came out of the gate, and that trend doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
In the U.S., Virgin Mobile has reduced its unsubsidized iPhone prices by 10 percent in a time-limited, Web exclusive offer — meaning that you can pick up a 16gB iPhone 5s for $494.99: representing $154 less than the unsubsidized handset cost from Apple’s Online Store.
In Germany, bank cards come with NFC chips that let you make small payments just by tapping your wallet onto the POS machine. You pre-load the chip with money from your bank account (only small amounts are allowed, because if you lose the card you lose the money) and spend it as cash.
So I finally see the point of NFC in a phone. And now I can have NFC in my iPhone, thanks to Incipio’s Cashwrap case.
Cortex Camera fixes one big deficiency with the iPhone’s camera: low-light noise. Or more specifically, the iPhone has no way to avoid cranking the ISO when shooting in low light. With a regular camera, you can just choose a longer shutter speed to keep the ISO low, steady the camera on a tripod or other sturdy base, and enjoy noise-free pictures taken in the dark.
And now you can (kinda) do this with your iPhone, using this sweet and simple app.
Today brings a big update for users of Pushpin, the already-excellent Pinboard bookmarking client for iOS. V 3.0 brings a sweet iOS-friendly look (it really does look great), plus a proper iPad interface, plus… well, a lot. Let’s taker a quick look.
Macminicolo has been around for nine years, plugging Mac Minis into its data center and letting you use them as your own. Thy can work as servers, or just as 24/7 automation machines. Now, the folks at Macminicolo have launched Macprocolo (Mac Pro Co-location). You can probably guess what it is.
For the 30th Anniversary of the Mac, it’s not just Cupertino that is getting in on the celebration: Apple retail stores have also been marking the occasion with a special 30th anniversay window display, commemorative black t-shirts, and even special name badges for the employees.
Check out some pictures of the t-shirt and name badges below.
On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled the Mac, a personal computer which changed the world. You’d expect Steve Jobs to have his customary swagger as he unveiled the computer which would change everything: in fact, he seemed kind of nervous. He was, after all, still basically a kid.
In this recently discovered footage of Jobs’ second time showing off the Mac — this time in front of the Boston Computer Society six days later, on January 30, 1984 — things are different. Jobs seems like just as much of a showman as he did when he unveiled the iPhone. It’s impressive stuff, and a fitting way to remember the man on the 30th anniversary of the most famous PC ever.
If you’d like more information about the presentation, check out Techland write-up.
Some of the original Mac dev team, who are gathering to celebrate the Mac's 30th birthday.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — The Cult of Mac team is heading down to Cupertino to cover the special 30th anniversary celebration of the Mac, which promises to feature many of the original members of the Mac dev team.
Hit the jump for our liveblog of the evening’s events. We’ll start posting at about 5.30PM PST, about 30 minutes before the event is scheduled to start.
The Mac 30th Anniversary Celebration is being held at Cupertino’s Flint Center; the same 2,400-seat venue where Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac on January 24, 1984.
It was organized by Steve Jobs’ old friend Daniel Kottke, and filmmaker Gabreal Franklin, an early Mac software developer who is making a video documentary about the era.
There will be music, unreleased photos and video, and a big group photo. The event will feature three panel discussions:
Conception — Daniel Kottke, Larry Tesler, Rod Holt, Jerry Manock, Marc LeBrun, and Bill Fernandez will talk about the origins of the Mac.
The Birth of the Mac — Bill Atkinson, Randy Wigginton, Andy Hertzfeld, Bruce Horn, George Crow and Caroline Rose will tell their first-hand stories about creating the Macintosh.
Coming of Age of Mac — 3rd party software developers including Charlie Jackson, Jim Rea, Heidi Roizen, Ty Roberts, David Bunnell, Marc Canter, Maryline Delbourg Delphis, Adam Hertz and Steve Jasik will talk about the software that gave the Mac critical mass.
During the evening, Apple’s original angel investor and 2nd CEO, Mike Markkula, will gather 100 members of the dev team on stage for a group photo.
If you’re in the area, tickets start at $109.75 each and are available via Ticketmaster. Yeah, it’s pricey, but after expenses, all proceeds will be donated to charity, organizers say.
128K of RAM? Who could use it all?! We celebrate 30 years of Mac and remember some vintage models of yore on our newest CultCast. Plus, Google Contacts will make you a cuter nerd; Beats music has a feature others should copy; Jailbreaking is losing its luster; and a trusty iOS app makes watching unsupported video formats a cinch.
Enjoy a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.
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@Susan Kare. Her four sketches for the Cult of Mac Magazine cover. Which one do you prefer?
This week, we’re all about the Mac. Cult of Mac Magazine fetes the 30 year anniversary of the Macintosh, arguably the first Apple product to gain a large (dare we say cult?) following.
To do it right, we’ve got an exclusive cover created by Mac icon designer Susan Kare; the final version you’ll find in Newsstand was picked from the four sketches above by Cult of Mac readers who voted on Twitter and Facebook.
The issue focuses on the impact of the Mac and includes a Q&A by Cult of Mac publisher Leander Kahney with Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki plus recollections straight from the 80s of Macworld founder Dave Bunnell. Along with the birthday celebrations, we’ll also feature our weekly picks from iTunes and the App store along with advice from an actual Apple store Genius.
This week also marks the debut of latest version of our app, brought to you by the smarties over at XOXCO using Packagr, a multi-platform digital publishing tool. We think it’s pretty great. But if you run into any problems downloading the mag, email me directly or hit the “send” tab top right and we’ll sort it out for ‘ya.
