Apple is upping its use of OLED displays for this year’s iPhone refresh — and it wants a better deal as a result.
As was the case last year, this year’s iPhone displays will reportedly be manufactured by Samsung Display. Due to the numbers Apple is projecting for this year’s OLED iPhone orders, it wants Samsung to lower the costs it charges Apple by around 9 percent.
Apple continues to add to its collection of movies and TV shows, with the latest acquisition a documentary about Ed Sheeran called Songwriter.
At this point, Apple is paying for a dozen TV shows to be produced, though the company hasn’t said what it’s going to do with them.
The iPhone 8 is Apple’s best-selling model, and the larger 8 Plus is in second place. The controversial iPhone X is currently Apple’s third best-selling model, according to a market analysis firm.
Apple’s older models make up 40 percent of the company sales, a higher percentage than last year.
Apple is back with a new set of ads aiming to get Android users to switch to iPhone. The two new ads showcase Portrait Mode and Portrait Lightning on the newest iPhones, while also bragging about the App Store’s security compared to Google Play.
Watch them both:
Two Apple geeks were dating during Christmas 2007 when the young man of this story, Roberto Hoyos, made his girlfriend hand-sewn pillows that looked like Mac desktop icons.
A picture of the finished pillows went viral and orders began to flood Hoyos’ inbox. To meet the sudden demand, he started the company, Throwboy. To celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary, Hoyos has issued a second collection of icon pillows.
When people think of home automation, something like the Nest thermostat probably leaps to mind first. But not everyone needs something that elaborate. For those who needs are simpler, GE just launched a window AC unit that’s HomeKit compatible so it can be controlled by an iPhone.
More than 90 percent of iPhone X users like the design without a Home button, according to a scientific survey. That’s good news for Apple, as most of the 2018 models are expected to use a similar form factor.
That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement. The survey also pointed several aspects of the iPhone X that responders didn’t like as much.
Apple’s acquisition of Shazam is now under investigation by antitrust regulators in Europe.
The European Commission is concerned that the deal will give Apple an unfair advantage in stealing users from its rivals. It has promised to provide a decision by September 4.
Twitterrific 5, one of the best third-party Twitter clients for iOS, just got a new update that makes big improvements to direct messaging and keyboard support. Users can finally send images and videos, and it couldn’t be easier to insert them.
Tim Cook has been outspoken about Apple being a “force for good” in the world. However, when it comes to which tech giants have the most positive impact on society, the public has spoken — and the answer isn’t Apple, but rather Amazon.
Or, at least, that’s the response from a recent survey of 2,722 U.S. adults, who decided to hand the first place to the Jeff Bezos-run, high street-destroying retail leviathan. We’re not totally convinced, though.
Apple is closing the last of its remaining Apple Watch pop-up shops. Based in Tokyo, the last of the mini-stores is located in Shinjuku’s high-end Isetan department store. It will shut its door next month.
A message outside the store reads, “This is a notice that Apple Watch at Isetan Shinjuku will close as of Sunday, May 13. Thank you very much for your continuous patronage.”
Apple’s HomePod smart speaker isn’t off to the best start in terms of sales. A new report claims that lack of demand for the speakers has resulted in Apple cutting orders from 500,000 units per month to just 200,000.
Extrapolated over the course of a year that would mean that Apple expects to sell around 2.4 million HomePods in 12 months. That would put it on a level with the 2015 first year sales of the Amazon Echo, but would be highly disappointing given the relative maturity of the smart speaker market and Apple’s name recognition.
Facebook’s smart speaker will reportedly launch in October, a new report claims. The social media giant’s entry into the AI speaker market already home to Apple’s HomePod, Amazon’s Echo and Google Home was allegedly delayed several months as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
As a result, Facebook has cut its 2018 order volume by around 20 percent, although orders for 2019 will remain unchanged.
Apple admits that some MacBook Pro laptops have a problem that causes their batteries to swell up. The company is replacing these free of charge.
This affects only the non-touchbar version of the macOS laptop, and only models with a 13-inch screen. In addition, the device needs to have been produced in a specific timeframe.
This week has been big on big updates. Drafts, the best text-capture app for iOS, got a brand-new version. Cultured Code’s Things also received a big update (but still doesn’t allow drag-and-drop to task lists). And Dropbox finally did add drag-and-drop, just seven months after iOS 11 added the feature.
Well done!
The iOS App Store got a new look last fall, and the change has greatly benefited developers of third-party applications, as Apple intended. A new study found that getting named Game of the Day results in an 800 percent increase in downloads.
Inclusion in the other segments of the App Store Today screen brought improved performance as well.
The Department of Justice is investigating whether AT&T and Verizon colluded to subvert the primary goal of electronic SIMs. This new tech makes it easy to switch between service providers, something to two largest wireless carriers apparently wanted to prevent.
Apple uses an eSIM in the Apple Watch Series 3. And last year this company formally complained to the DoJ that the two carriers were pressuring an international standards body to make an anticompetitive change to this emerging tech.
Official details of the processor for the 2018 iPhone are months away, but we can already be confident the Apple A12 will be at least 20 percent faster than the current chip, while using 40 percent less power.
And this is the minimal performance improvement to be expected. Apple’s next devices will almost certainly be even speedier.
With smartphone sales plateauing, the iPhone can no longer propel Apple to the sort of stratospheric success the company (and its shareholders) enjoyed over the past decade.
Is Apple CEO Tim Cook clueless? Will Apple be caught flat-footed, unable to pivot and move to the next big thing? The latest prediction of Apple’s impending doom sounds particularly dire.
Apple’s Newton MessagePad is one of the most intriguing Apple products in history: a product people considered a flop, but which was actually years ahead of its time.
If you’re a fan of the device, then this weekend you’ve got the chance to attend an exclusive screening of forthcoming documentary, Love Notes to Newton. It tells the story of the rise, fall, and rise again of one of Apple’s most fascinating (and misunderstood) product lines.
Check out the trailer below.
Apple is expected to deliver a new iPhone SE next month, complete with refreshed internals that make it significantly snappier. But it may not be all good news for fans of Apple’s smallest smartphone.
A new report claims one hugely popular feature will be missing.
Apple is having a tough time trying to diversify iPhone screen suppliers and break away from Samsung.
LG Display was lined up to become a second supplier of OLED displays for this year’s iPhone lineup, but after running into manufacturing troubles, it may not be able to meet Apple’s demands.
Apple Store logos have begun going green in celebration of Earth Day, the annual event intended to show support for environmental protection. While Earth Day doesn’t actually take place until this Sunday, this year — as in previous years — Apple has tweaked the logo on its stores two days early.
The recolored logo includes a green leaf in place of the usual all-white logo. Staff at the Apple Stores also wear green shirts for the days, instead of their usual blue ones.
Apple has open-sourced FoundationDB, the NoSQL database it bought back in 2015. The goal? Building an open community that will allow FoundationDB to become “the foundation of the next generation of distributed databases.”
There’s no more famous name in computer icon design than Susan Kare, who remains best known for creating the famous icons for the original Macintosh.
Having spent three decades working in the tech space, Kare is now being honored with an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) medal, whose previous winners have included the likes of Paul Rand, and Charles and Ray Eames.