Tim Cook has been staunchly outspoken in his belief that it’s only a matter of time before China overtakes the U.S. as Apple’s biggest customer.
According to a new report from app analytics company App Annie, that benchmark has now been passed when it comes to app downloads — with China leading the way in the first quarter of 2015.
But which country is winning in the all-important revenue generating category?
Samsung has proven with the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge that it really can make a premium smartphone that looks and feels like it is worthy of a high price tag. The S6 Edge is so premium, in fact, that it costs more to make than the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
You’re in the green room, waiting for your curtain call. You can hear the throngs of rabid fans in the audience, just waiting for you and your group of rock and roll rebels to take the stage.
You and your bandmates head out, winding through backstage. You flirt with a cute blonde production assistant; a bearded roadie hands you your favorite axe. You step out onto a massive stage in front of a crowd of thousands. You totally suck at playing the guitar. The crowd, fickle as ever, turns on you.
No, this isn’t that anxiety dream you’ve been having ever since you were a teenager, this is the new Guitar Hero, a new video game with a familiar name and a very different experience.
Apple’s Russian version of Siri launched earlier this month, and while the presence of the virtual assistant in Russia is certainly welcome, its early bigoted views were not.
According to one YouTube user, Siri not only refused to answer questions about gay bars but went a step further, providing downright homophobic responses. In the video, Siri supposedly claims to be embarrassed by the topic, suggesting that gay marriage is a bit of a downer.
Apple’s unveiling of ResearchKit was one of the biggest surprises at event in March. The software framework is designed to help doctors and scientists with medical and health research, and starting today, Apple is opening up ResearchKit to everyone.
The first five ResearchKit apps that study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease already enrolled over 60,000 iPhone users in the first few weeks. Now medical researchers all over the world will be able to tap into the same software that researchers at Stanford and Oxford University used to develop their medical apps.
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The iPhone is more advanced than it’s ever been, but there’s one thing Apple’s smartphone can do no better than the Nokia 3310 I had when I was a teenager: stop you getting calls at inappropriate times.
That may be about to change, however, as a newly-published patent describes an Instant Message-type system whereby future iPhones could automatically broadcast their user’s status — essentially advising others on whether it’s a good time to ring or not.
If you’re lucky enough to get an invite to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this June, make sure you don’t turn up at Moscone West with your selfie stick.
Apple’s information page for the event confirms that selfie sticks and similar apparatus will not be allowed inside the venue or within the Yerba Buena Gardens, so if you really must take pictures of your own face, you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.
Wondering how multitasking will work on the Apple Watch? Just tap twice. Here’s how it works.
Agile Tortoise’s Drafts is, without a doubt, the single best note-taking app on the iOS App Store. It’s not only the easiest app to jump right into and start typing before you lose your train of thought, it’s the easiest app to export your notes from: It plugs into pretty much everything, from Dropbox to Evernote.
And coming soon? Drafts will plug into the Apple Watch, too.
Looking for more evidence that China is set to take over from the U.S. as Apple’s biggest market?
According to a report from the Chinese-language news outlet Tencent, Foxconn is currently buying 50,000-60,000 second-hand iPhones per day through worldwide channels, and then selling these on to the Chinese market.
Roughly 80 percent of the iPhones are said to sell through stores in Hong Kong.
This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off June 8 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Apple said today. The five-day event will provide an early glimpse at the future of iOS and OS X, plus more developer sessions than ever before.
Tim Cook has described making Apple Pay available in China “top of the list” in terms of his priorities. Sadly, it seems he’s going to have to wait a bit longer until that dream becomes a reality.
That’s because, despite beginning conversations with China’s eight major banks last year, Apple’s discussions have apparently not gone well — as Chinese banks have been reticent about letting the Cupertino company eat into their existing profits.
Apple Watch preorders were off to a bang, with an estimated 1.25 million being ordered on day one. Of those watches, the Space Gray Apple Watch Sport with Black Band was, by far, the most popular.
Did Apple screw up its orders?
IBM has announced a new alliance with Apple (among other companies) to utilize its acclaimed Watson artificial intelligence system to provide personalized insights regarding health data.
For those who don’t remember, Watson was the IBM A.I. which famously defeated two former winners on the gameshow Jeopardy! in 2011 to receive the first place prize of $1 million.
By linking up with Watson, Apple not only solidifies its existing relationship with IBM, but also gains a very powerful ally in its quest to revolutionize the way we think about mobile health with the Apple Watch and iOS 8 Health app.
A Brazilian neo-pop artist is suing Apple for ripping off his artwork for the company’s “Start Something New” marketing campaign. Is Apple guilty, or is it just a mistake?
Rumors of a redesign coming to the iOS Music app have been floating around the rumor mill ever since Apple acquired Beats last year, and today we got our first preview of the future of music.
iOS 8.4 gives developers a look at the redesigned Music app that’s aimed at making it easier, faster, and more fun to listen to music than ever before. Apple has left out the long-rumored streaming-music component of the app, but the redesign is full of other noteworthy features.
Here’s a quick GIF tour of all the new changes:
Apple just delivered a huge update to users with the release of iOS 8.3 last week, now it’s giving developers a preview of it’s upcoming redesign of the Music app with iOS 8.4 beta 1.
The new iOS 8.4 beta is available now in the iOS Dev Center and includes new Music app with an all-new design that makes exploring your music collection “easier and more fun.”
We’ll let you know what new features we find. In the meantime, here’s Apple’s description of the new Music app:
I’ve been playing Vainglory quite a bit lately, and the one thing that really distracts me and actually impacts my gameplay (when on my iPad 3) is notifications. They can make the game stutter, which wreaks havok on my ability to gank an enemy Joule from the bushes with my Krul.
Seriously, it’s annoying.
I turned on Do Not Disturb last week to try and get rid of these badges that annoy, but it never worked: I still got notifications from Facebook, Messages and other appss. I did some digging to find out why.
Apple scored a huge win for Apple TV by making it the only platform your can watch HBO Now on for the next three months, and according to a new report, Apple might be rewarding HBO by taking a much lower cut on subscription fees than cable companies.
Apple has been taking a 30 percent cut anytime a company signs up a customer for a service through an iOS app. Publishers bristled at Apple’s policy when it was introduced in 2011, however, when it comes to subscriptions purchased through Apple TV, Apple has decided to reduced its take by 50%.
This post is brought to you by Sony.
We’re massive fans of Sony cameras, so we’re really interested in two new Action Cam models that challenge the GoPro status quo. To show off the eye-popping capabilities of its high-def duo — the 4K and the Full HD — Sony commissioned more than 20 short films shot on the tiny video cameras by directors from all over the world.
The first batch of the Never Before Seen shorts show how innovative filmmakers and artists utilize the Action Cams’ small size, enhanced image stability and other unique features to make Hollywood-level videos.
Arganalth, a 23-year old engineer from Lille, France gives old computer hardware a second life by creating electrical orchestras in a suitcase.
His latest masterpiece plays Nirvana’s “Smell’s Like Teen Spirit,” only instead of strumming the cords on a Fender Mustang, all the distortion and rock is provided by a couple floppy disks and hard disk drives, with a Raspberry Pi as the conductor. It’s one of the most popular new music videos on YouTube right now, and it doesn’t take like to appreciate why.
Listen to the full performance below:
Spain’s government has passed a series of laws that criminalize some forms of protest. But authorities may find it challenging to arrest holograms.
The group No Somos Delito, or We Are Not Crime, fired back at the government Friday using irony and digital technology with a projected hologram rally in front of Spain’s parliament.
Human rights groups were outraged when the conservative government passed laws in December that were seen as silencing protests over Spain’s austerity programs.
While we might all be waiting breathlessly for Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron this summer, there’s another big contender for tiny superhero dominance: Ant Man.
Starring Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Ant Man will show up on the big screen this July. The new trailer below gives us the first glimpse of Rudd in his Ant Man suit, which gives the character superhuman strength, the ability to shrink to a miniscule size, and the ability to communicate and control ants.
It’s a pretty ridiculous set of powers, but, as Rudd says near the end of the trailer, “I know; it wasn’t my idea.”
The crazy machines are at it again, only this time it’s not what we’ve come to expect from the long-running Terminator franchise, now coming to theaters in July as Terminator: Genisys
In the first film, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the original bad-ass invincible robot from the future out to kill Sarah Connor, originally played by Linda Hamilton, and her son John. Subsequent movies with the governator messed with the formula a bit, bringing in the scary liquid metal terminators and placing the original metal skeleton monster into a savior role.
But none of the movies have gone this far in messing with our heads or the plotline.
Spoilers abound; consider yourself warned.