Apple has really started to rally around its identity as an American company. During Tim Cook’s recent appearance in Washington he repeatedly stressed the point that Apple is proud to be an American company. Phil Schiller also made sure to note that the new Mac Pro is designed and assembled in America.
At the end of WWDC Apple revealed a new ad, ‘Designed by Apple in California’ which talks about the passion Apple puts into its products. Cook said the ad will start appearing on TV later today.
The rumors were right. Apple has unveiled iTunes Radio (previously dubbed ‘iRadio” by the rumor mill) in the iOS 7 Music app. The service works a lot like Pandora. You can create stations based on artists you like and share what you’re listening to over social networks.
There are featured stations as well as the collection you create based on your own tastes. iTunes Radio is built into iOS 7, the Apple TV, and an upcoming version of iTunes.
The service is free with ads, and if you have an iTunes Match subscription, there are no ads.
Let’s be honest about what we really want from Apple this week. We all want to know if Apple can still blow us away, or if they’re just a boring company now.
There are two schools of thought.
The famous Macintosh Picasso logo was developed for the introduction of the original 128k Mac back in 1984. A minimalist line drawing in the style of Pablo Picasso, this whimsical graphic implied the whole of a computer in a few simple strokes. It was an icon of what was inside the box, and became as famous as the computer it represented.
The logo was designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado, art directors on the Mac development team. Originally the logo was to be a different concept called The Macintosh Spirit by artist Jean-Michel Folon, but before the release Steve Jobs changed his mind and had it replaced by the simple and colorful drawing by Hughes and Casado. It’s been beloved ever since, and the graphic style has endured across decades.
In an effort to boost iPhone unit sales, Apple is planning to roll out a new trade-in iPhone program later this month, according to a new report from Peter Burrows at Bloomberg.
Details on the new iPhone trade-in program are scant right now, but according to the report Apple is teaming up with Brightstar Corp. to run the exchange program. The new trade-in program will only be available at Apple retail stores, and should serve as a big incentive to get customers to upgrade their iPhone 4 and 4s units to an iPhone 5.
Following the launch of its new cheaper iPod touch this morning, Apple has confirmed that it has now sold more than 100 million units of the iPod touch since its introduction back in 2007. That makes it one of the Cupertino company’s most popular products to date.
Apple has announced a few of the big artists that will perform at the 2013 iTunes Festival in London this September. Justin Timberlake, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Jack Johnson and Jessie J will all be headlining, and more artists will be announced leading up to the event.
Like last year, each concert will be streamed live via iTunes on the desktop, the iTunes Festival iOS app, and Apple TV.
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s interview this year at AllThingsD’s D11 conference started off with a cheerleader vibe, who said that Apple was not in trouble. He re-iterated that Apple continues to be a market leader, sold 85 million iPhones and 42 million iPads last quarter, and has seen drops in stock prices before.
“From my point of view, over my long tenure at Apple, not as CEO,” said Cook, “we’ve always had competent rivals. We fought against Microsoft-still fight against Microsoft, particularly in the PC space.”
He continued to address the question of Apple stock declines.
“If you look at the stock,” he said, “which is a lot of what people focus on, the stock price has been frustrating. It’s been frustrating for investors and for all of us. This too is not unprecedented.”
Talk quickly turned to Apple TV, a topic Cook avoided as much as possible, saying that of course Apple was still interested in the space, that there was a “grand vision,” and that he didn’t want to say much else.
Apple is having some trouble with its signature store on 5th Avenue in NYC. The company rebuilt the glass cube above the store so it will have less seams, but ever since the renovation was finished Apple has had not one, but two leaks.
A rain storm hit New York City yesterday, and just like two weeks ago, the roof of the 5th Ave store began to bulge with large deposits of water that then leaked and flooded the lower level. To make matters worse, the roof of the Apple Store in SoHo sprung a leak too.
One Apple Store customer got the entire scene on video this time. You can watch the 5th Ave Geniuses scramble to solve the flooding after the jump:
Apple has confirmed it will seek to add Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement lawsuit against the Korean electronics giant.
In a statement filed in the U.S. District Court in California on Monday, Apple said it has analyzed the Galaxy S4 and “concluded that it is an infringing device and accordingly intends to move for leave to add the Galaxy S4 as an infringing product.”