News - page 2055

Following the release of Lion on Wednesday, Apple has updated some of the keys on its standalone keyboard to reflect their new functions in the latest Mac OS X operating system.

In a bit of pre-emptive posturing, PC maker Acer charges Apple “started the patent war,” warning any losses should be seen as the cost of doing business. What patent war? Acer is among a number of Android-backers worried a recent Apple patent court win could result in more lawsuits.

Apple’s new Mac mini has been available for two days now, and so it’s time for the company’s smallest desktop to get the iFixit teardown treatment. Though little has changed inside its svelte aluminum shell, Apple’s decision to remove the optical drive means there’s plenty of room for to double your storage… or even speed up your Mac mini dramatically.

Apple’s line of MacBook Airs never shipped with an optical drive and now the Mac Mini has joined the party. The new Mac Mini, released this week, no longer includes one of these drives either. If you want an optical drive to use with these Macs you have to purchase an external USB SuperDrive. Now the arrival of the new MacBook Air and Mac Mini herald the death of the USB thumb drive.

You might be surprised to find out that neither these systems ship with a set of  DVDs or a USB thumb drive that you can use to restore, repair or reinstall Mac OS X.

Instead Apple has come up with something new.

Apple’s fast on the track of becoming the most valuable company on Earth, and as such, they’ve been expanding. As the number of their employees grow, however, so does Apple’s need for office space, which is why they just opened a new office for 1300 employees, and why they are going to be building a huge new spaceship campus that is bigger than the Pentagon.

But how will Apple employees get back and forth between all of these campuses for meetings and the like? Simple: meet the iBike, the only way to get between the mothership and 1 Infinite Loop endorsed by Steve Jobs.

Apple’s second U.S. carrier partner announced iPhone 4 activation numbers suggesting AT&T is still preferred by owners of the tech giant’s iconic handset. Verizon Wireless activated 2.3 million iPhone 4s during June, below the figure AT&T announced yesterday.

Lodsys has gained plenty of fame (even infamy) in recent months for its continued pursuit of a number iOS and Android developers for their alleged infringement on patents that cover in-app purchases and upgrade links. Dissatisfied with its results so far, it now takes aim at some of the big names in gaming… but has Lodsys now bitten off more than it can chew?

To underline how important China has become in Apple’s overall sales, the tech giant’s new iPhone 5 will be sold by that nation’s three top mobile carriers by year’s end, according to a Friday report.

Shortly after OS X Lion hit the Mac App Store, Adobe promptly blamed Apple’s new operating system for a number of issues with its applications that users are experiencing after upgrading. One of its claims was that Lion disables hardware video acceleration, which has a huge impact on its Flash Player and results in it eating up a whole lot more of your processing power than it previously did.

It hasn’t taken long for Adobe to issue a retraction on that claim.

There’s not much else to go on, but according to 9to5Mac, Asian iPhone repair shops are already hawking replacement front panels for the next iPod Touch… and they’re white.

Apple’s abundance of available cash is certainly no secret. With $76.2 billion in the bank at the end of the June quarter, the company has more money then the gross domestic product of almost two-thirds of the world’s countries. But what will it do with all that cash? Just sit on it in case of an (incredibly) rainy day?

Of course not. To begin with, it may just be about to buy Hulu.

Apple’s new OS X Lion operating system has been available for just under two days now, and continues to bathe in a multitude of positive reviews. However, not all of its one million new users are enjoying their new purchase, and have discovered a number of new gestures that the majority of us may never stumble upon.

Here are a few Lion gestures that Apple doesn’t tell you about…

Apple’s eighth major release of the Mac OS X operating system finally hit the Mac App Store on Wednesday, after what seemed like a painfully long wait since it was teased at WWDC in June. Its $29 price tag, coupled with over 250 awesome new features, makes it a ‘no-brainer’ upgrade for anyone using a compatible Mac, and its launch day download numbers certainly prove that.

A police investigation looking to recover stolen goods found a pile of iPhones and iPods at the bottom of a California lake.

Sgt. David Watts of the Big Bear Police Department said the divers spent four hours in the murky water of Four Island Lake in Central California.

As if there weren’t enough capacitive styli out there for the iPad, here’s another one from Kickstarter success Adonit (who make the Adonit Writer we previewed here in a Kickstarter Macworld story — review coming soon) called the Jot. Ah, but this one’s different.

Apple’s new 11-inch MacBook Air is simply incredible. Of course you probably already knew this puppy was light, and gorgeous, but the power that this tiny machine packs is truly breathtaking. Optimized for speed and portability, the new MacBook Air improves on its predecessor to prove that it’s the best notebook computer Apple’s ever made.

The boys over at iFixIt have started their teardown of the 2011 13-inch MacBook Air, and while much of the construction is similar to last year’s models, there is some good news for DIY upgraders: contrary to rumors, the SSDs have not been soldered to the board, meaning that you can upgrade your Air’s storage down the line.

Otherwise, iFixIt doesn’t have much to report this time around, except for an explanation of the omission of a FaceTime HD webcam in the Air: the thinness of the display makes it pretty much impossible to put a beefier camera in there at this time. Good to know.

Well, that’s one way to end an argument about last month’s AT&T bill. A New York man has apparently been arrested after trying to ram his girlfriend’s iPhone down her throat.

As Apple eagerly awaits to begin construction on its new mothership campus, the folks in Cupertino are also leasing another office complex to accomodate Apple’s growing work force.

The “Results Way Corporate Center” on 5 Results Way is now home to about 1,300 Apple employees. Apple’s main 1 Infinite Loop campus can no longer handle the company’s “remarkable growth.”

Well, here’s an interesting little factoid: with $76.2 billion in the bank in cash as of the June quarter, Apple now has more money than the gross domestic product of almost two-thirds of the world’s countries… and more than the GDP of the world’s fiftiest poorest countries combined.

Wondering why your laptop’s battery life has dropped and its CPU temperature has gone through the roof now that you’ve installed OS X Lion, especially when watching YouTube videos or browsing Flash-heavy sites?

Surprise, surprise: Adobe Flash is having more problems post-Lion, as Apple’s favorite punching bag has sheepishly admitted that there seems to be an issue with Flash Player under OS X 10.7.

Despite sliding almost 30 percent, Apple’s iPad still leads triple-digit growth in tablet demand, finds research released Thursday. Android-based rivals, although growing to 30 percent of tablet sales, still offer only ‘patchy’ alternatives.

The tarnished crown of embattled cell phone king Nokia apparently has been replaced by overwhelming debt and plummeting popularity as Apple’s iPhone dominates smartphone sales.

A consortium that included Apple won an auction for a collection of Nortel patents earlier this month with a bid of $4.5 billion. According to the company’s 10-Q quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple’s contribution was a hefty $2.6 billion.

How has the waiting game for a new iPhone affected activations at initial carrier AT&T? The company announced Thursday it activated 3.6 million iPhones in the June quarter, more than half of the total 5.6 million smartphones sold during the period. That mirrors AT&T’s March quarter, placing all eyes on Verizon Wireless, Apple’s second U.S. iPhone carrier.