The organizers of South by Southwest, desperately hoping to hold the March event in the face of a coronavirus outbreak, said Friday that the city of Austin, Texas, canceled the conference.
Event planners scrapped the music, tech and film conference, set to begin March 13, after local health officials declared a health emergency.
Apple has decided not to attend this month’s South by Southwest music, film and technology festival in Austin, Texas, citing concerns over the COVID-19 coronavirus, according to multiple reports.
The 2018 SXSW Conference is adding a fresh crop of faces to its speaker lineup this year, including one of Apple’s most popular executives.
Apple media boss Eddy Cue is set to make an appearance at the annual conference that’s a celebration of music, tech, movies and TV. All of which are areas Apple is planning to dominate in 2018.
Commentary on the encryption battle between Apple and the U.S. government might have received its strangest metaphor yet.
Stewart Baker, who used to serve as a counsel for the National Security Agency, appeared on a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin this week. During the discussion, he said that Apple’s current, outspoken position in favor of privacy is a recent development and compared it to the sort of PR-driven whitewashing that Hollywood studios have used to promote actresses as “innocent” and “pure.”
“Who remembers Tim Cook before he was a virgin?” Baker said, paraphrasing composer Oscar Levant’s barb at ’60s everygirl Doris Day.
It got a little less polite from there.
President Barack Obama was in Austin, Texas, for the opening day of the South by Southwest Interactive festival, and talk turned inevitably to the current tension between law enforcement and tech companies on subjects like security and citizen privacy.
The president couldn’t comment on the specific case that has Apple and the FBI fighting over whether the government can compel a private company to provide access to a locked device (in this case, an iPhone 5c belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook). But he did provide some insight into the government’s view of the ongoing legal battle.
You can check out the whole conversation in the video below; the session starts about 39 minutes in.
Alex Gibney’s documentary about Steve Jobs debuted at the South by Southwest film fest in Austin this weekend, and the first reviews have called film a “coolly absorbing, deeply unflattering portrait of the late Silicon Valley entrepreneur.”
Eddy Cue took to Twitter this morning to blast the Oscar-winning director’s film, saying he was “very disappointed in Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine.”
Here’s what Cue had to say about the documentary:
The SXSW Film Festival lineup revealed today that Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney will show his latest film, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, for the first time next month in Austin, Texas.
Details on the documentary are scant, but the SXSW blurb describes Gibney’s creation as “an evocative portrait of the life and work of Steve Jobs that re-examines his legacy and our relationship with the computer.”
Here’s the official synopsis:
Although the iTunes Festival has been a great success in the UK for years, it’s only at this year’s SXSW festival that it’s finally come to the States, with Apple arranging for artists such as Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, and Kendrick Lamar to perform free for five nights in Austin, Texas.
What was the hold up? According to Apple’s Eddy Cue, they just weren’t sure they could reproduce the positive vibe anywhere else. But it looks like they’ve succeeded.
Keeping with the times, musician Neil Young is set to launch a storming attack on Apple’s iPhone iPad iWatch iPod with his forthcoming PonoPlayer.
Young is set to exhibit the PonoPlayer, alongside a music download store called PonoMusic, at this year’s SXSW.
Those hoping for a little more rock and roll at SXSW will be amped to hear Apple just added Soundgarden to the lineup of bands schedule to perform at iTunes Festival during SXSW this year.
Greetings, comrades! This time on CultCast: we travel to mother Russia and dance with gogo dancers (no, really); Apple talks to Tesla, we talk iCars. Plus, for the first time, Apple brings the iTunes Festival to the United States; Facebook buys WhatsApp (but why?); Jony Ive vanishes from Apple’s website; and don’t miss an all new Faves N Raves where we pitch favorite tech and apps then vote one which one’s best!
Belly-laugh your way through 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.
And thanks to Fresbooks for sponsoring this episode! FreshBooks, the simple online accounting solution built for small business owners – just like you – who want to skip the headache of tax time. For a limited time, try FreshBooks free 60 days, and enter “CultCast” in the “How Did You Hear About Us” section.
Tales from the Borderlands developers Telltale Games and Gearbox Software will reveal the first details about their forthcoming game during a panel at the SXSW Gaming Expo, Telltale revealed today.
The award-winning studios will describe how they first came to work together on the eagerly-anticipated project, how the game might unfold, and (hopefully) plenty of other juicy details.
In a little over two weeks, a ton of people will make the trek to Austin, Texas for the annual South By Southwest conference. Commonly known as SXSW, many people have made the pilgrimage to the event year in and year out…and 2014 will be no different.
Whether you’re planning on returning to SXSW again this year or are making the trip for the first time. Cult of Mac Deals has assembled a survival kit that will help you take advantage of every opportunity this massive event has to offer. The South By Southwest Tech Survival Kit consists of The Karma 4G Hotspot and The Portable Power Bank – regularly priced at $159 — for only $99.95 during this limited time promotion.
Apple’s first iTunes Festival for the U.S. will take place at next month’s SXSW event in Austin, Texas. It will be held in Moody Theater, home of Austin City Limits, and will feature a whole host of chart-topping artists — including Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, ZEDD, and more.
Apple is well known for its gorgeous retail stores that draw impressive crowds on launch days, but the actual work that goes into the construction of each Apple Mecca is pretty impressive in its own right. An internal Apple video has been published on YouTube highlighting all the details that went into the construction of Apple’s pop-up store at SXSW for the launch of the the iPad 2.
Check it out:
I love being able to whisper instructions to Siri as I walk along the street. My favorite trick is to get her to play a song, album or playlist. “Play something by Daft Punk,” I order, and off he goes. The problem is that I use Spotify and Rdio for most of my music, and Siri doesn’t talk to either of them.
But this neat hack will get her most of the way there.
Instagram is one of the most wildly successful apps to ever hit the iOS App Store. The app’s co-founder, Kevin Systrom, recently revealed that Instagram now boasts 27 million active users on the iPhone alone during the South by Southwest conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
We’ve all been clamoring for the popular social photography app to make its way to Android for many months, and it has been confirmed that Instagram for Android is coming “very soon.” The app is currently being tested in private beta.
The boldest claim Systrom made was that Instagram for Android is, in some ways, “better than our iPhone app.”
Newly launched at SXSW this week is Picle, a free iOS photography app with a twist: the aim is to make something that sounds like Instagram. It’s a lovely idea but the initial release suffers a few disappointing problems.
Apple officials have reportedly confirmed that the company will not be taking its pop-up retail store to this year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival, which kicks off on Friday, March 9. The decision suggests Apple’s iPad 3 will not be ready for shipping next week.