Craig Federighi - page 3

Third-party keyboards like SwiftKey and Swype vastly improve touchscreen typing in iOS 8, but sometimes you need to go that extra mile to really express yourself. Sometimes you need to send text messages in Klingon, or get your point across visually with an animated GIF or an off-the-cuff doodle.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, showcased a Klingon Keyboard during last week’s iPad media event, and that’s just one of the amusingly offbeat keyboards flooding the App Store in this new era of freedom.

Cult of Mac talked with the developers behind the Klingon Keyboard and other wacky alternatives for this guide to the weird world of third-party iOS keyboards. You’ll never type the same way again!

We’re in a frenzy of anticipation about Apple’s September 9 event. Just like you, we’re expecting big and bigger iPhones, the iWatch and something to take the stage of that immense box Apple has constructed outside the Flint Center auditorium.

As we tweet, liveblog and take you hands-on with new products from what may be the most important Apple event in years, you can play along with this awesome set of free bingo cards, courtesy mobile PR firm Appency.

Siri: “How long should a keynote last?”

As anyone who watched Wednesday’s nearly three-hour livestream of the Google I/O kickoff, the answer to that question should be 90 minutes or less.

As the event dragged on, the tone on Twitter went from restrained interest about Google’s somewhat underwhelming announcements to reports of sleeping reporters and jabs at the ponderous presentation’s length. “Apple just launched a keynote shortener,” tweeted Dave Pell.

With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, Apple is finally showing us its idea of how we’ll compute in the future. Perhaps not surprisingly, this pristine vision of our computing destiny — unveiled after years of secret, patient and painstaking development — aligns perfectly with how we currently use our computers and mobile devices.

The keynote at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month not only showed off a new way to think about computing, based on data not devices, but also silenced pretty much every criticism leveled at the company over the past few years.

Let’s take a look at Apple’s new way of doing things, which fulfills Steve Jobs’ post-PC plan by minimizing the importance of the Mac.

The code was written. The world (possibly) changed. The banners are gone and Apple is nowhere to be seen at Moscone West after a marathon week of coding and partying with the top software engineers in the world.

If you weren’t lucky enough to make it to this year’s WWDC you can still enjoy all the coding education that came with the show now that all 107 video sessions have been posted on Apple’s developer site. It’s a world class coding education that rivals anything you can pay for at university.

Here are some notable session to get you primed for iOS 8 and Yosemite:

Wow! This year’s WWDC keynote was one of the most important in years, and on this week’s CultCast, we unpack all the new features announced for Yosemite and iOS 8, and tell you which ones we can’t believe we ever lived without. Plus, with so many new developer APIs and a whole new programming language, we think Apple in on the verge of something big, and if you thought they had cool products before… well, hold on to your butts.

Snicker 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 uproarious good time commence.

And thanks to Lynda.com for supporting this episode! Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.

Click on for the show notes.

A Twitter account claiming to be run by superstar Apple exec Craig Federighi has been tweeting and retweeting as if it’s run by Hair Force One himself during WWDC. It has amassed more than 14,000 followers in less than two weeks and looks legit at first glance, but don’t be fooled.

We’re pretty sure it’s a fake — and we’ve seen an email that appears to confirm our suspicions.

We’re still busying digesting all the new stuff Tim Cook and Craig Federighi announced yesterday with iOS 8, and even though we’re ridiculously excited about major backend features like HomeKit, iCloud Photo Library and Metal, 24 hours of tinkering around with the OS has revealed a lot of hidden gems that went unmentioned.

Along with the host of new iOS 8 features, Jony Ive and the Human Interface team have been busy adding dozens of tiny tweaks to the UI as well as tossing in a few smaller features you probably didn’t notice.

Take a look at these 11 tweaks Apple sneaked into iOS 8 without telling anyone:

Apple finally fixed photography on iOS. Or rather, it’s fixed organizing your photos, wherever they might be. The iPhone is already a great camera. The problem was everything that happened after you tapped the shutter.

Now, in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, you’ll never have to worry about organizing your photos again — they’ll be everywhere, all the time. And best of all? It looks like you’re never going to need iPhoto again, on the Mac or on your iPad.

Instead of dropping an iWatch or some other hardware bombshell at WWDC, Apple showcased the futuristic tools it will use to extend its rapidly growing empire.

“Apple engineers platforms, devices and services together,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook as he wrapped up the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote Monday in San Francisco. “We do this so we can create a seamless experience for our users that is unparalleled in the industry. This is something only Apple can do.”

Casual observers (and stock analysts) might fret that there was no big wearables reveal, no amazing new Apple TV, not even a spec boost for an existing device during the highly anticipated WWDC kickoff.

After months of anticipation and countless rumors, Tim Cook and his merry band of Apple fellows are about to take the stage at San Francisco’s Moscone West to reveal the latest offerings coming out of Cupertino. It’s time for the Worldwide Developers Conference.

We’ll be covering the WWDC action here all morning with news and analysis on everything like iOS 8, OS X 10.10, Healthbook and whatever other goodies the mothership has prepared. The keynote starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, so bookmark this page and keep it open for a tidal wave of Apple news and insights.

Nearly three years after Steve Jobs’ death, Apple’s keynotes have become pale imitations of their former glory. The last major keynote — November’s introduction of the iPad Air and Retina mini — was a major international snoozefest.

Utterly devoid of excitement, it served only to stoke the pervasive rumors of Apple’s lack of innovation after Jobs (which aren’t true, but nonetheless).

It’s time for Jony Ive to take over.

Elusive Apple CEO Tim Cook will skip his annual sit-down interview with tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Instead, Apple is sending two of Cook’s top lieutenants to sit in the hot seat during the Code Conference this May.

Apple packed a lot into one hour and 20 minutes today, with announcements about OS X Mavericks, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, Mac Pro, and the stars of the show: iPad Air and Retina iPad mini. We think that this is about an hour and 18 minutes too long to watch, though, so we’ve condensed it to around 90 seconds.

Here is the Apple iPad Air and iPad mini keynote, right from Yerba Buena, in just 90 seconds:

With the launch of iOS 7 yesterday Apple made some bold steps to ditch the rich textures, shadowing, and other skeuomorphic elements that have been a staple on the iPhone since 2007.

Thanks to the departure of iOS Software Chief Scott Forstall back in October, Sir Jony Ive was given a bigger role in iOS software development, so to hype up the launch of Jony’s first software masterpiece, he and Apple’s new SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, sat down with USA Today to give some details on what went into the creation of iOS 7.

According to Jony, the decision to strip iOS of all its shadows and physical references was pretty easy once they got Forstall out the door:

If you haven’t already watched Apple’s WWDC keynote, it’s probably because you just haven’t found the time. At just under two hours long, it’s not something you can just slip into your day. But you can now watch it at your leisure on any of your electronics devices because Apple just uploaded the entire thing to YouTube.

Steve Jobs used to take care of Apple’s biggest product unveilings prior to his passing in 2011, and since then, they’ve been shared around among the top company executives. Scott Forstall handled everything iOS, but his departure from Cupertino last year left the door open for someone else.

At WWDC on Monday, Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, took to the stage to present iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and he’s now being hailed the perfect frontman for Apple, with developers, fans, and even investors impressed by his pitch.

Apple’s software guy, Craig Federighi, joked about calling the next version of OS X “Sea Lion” today at WWDC. He said the company didn’t want to delay the release due to a “lack of cat names.”

So instead, Apple is taking a new direction. Cat names are no more. Now OS X will be named after aspects of California, the state where Apple is based.

“We went to our backyard” for OS X 10.9, said Federighi. Enter OS X Mavericks.

According to a new report at the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s new management team dynamic, which includes design maven Jonathan Ive at the helm of both the hardware and software teams behind iOS, is seeing a new era of collaboration. ONe source familiar with the matter went so far as to call the exchange of ideas between Ive and human interface lead Greg Christie, known for his bluntness, as “pleasant and cordial.”

Sounds like things are changing over there at Apple, which is a good thing for proponents of Ive’s preference for a less skeumorphic design ethos. Having Ive watching the software along with the hardware may bring a flatter, more modern look to iOS 7, sure to be coming soon.

Scott Forstall was destined for big things at Apple. Originally part of Steve Jobs’s NeXT team, he spent 15 years with the Cupertino company and spearheaded its hugely successful iOS software division. Many believed he would succeed Tim Cook as CEO later on, but on Monday, but the chances of that happening looked impossible when Apple announced Forstall was on his way out.

The news came as a shock to us all, but it seems there are several reasons why Apple had to remove Forstall from its executive team — it seems refusing to apologize for the whole Maps debacle wasn’t the only one.

We just got tipped an email from a reader who emailed Apple VP of Mac Software Engineering Craig Federighi. Cult of Mac reader Stephen Gilbert emailed Federighi about not being able to use fullscreen Mac apps on multiple displays. When you make an app enter fullscreen mode in Lion or Mountain Lion, it will fill one display and blackout your secondary monitor.

For some reason Apple doesn’t allow you to use an app in fullscreen mode while viewing content on another display, and it’s annoying. For instance, entering fullscreen mode for an iTunes movie will make it impossible to use your second display while the video is playing. Not exactly an optimal experience for those who fancy lots of screen real estate.