Tim Cook with Miao Wei, the head of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
Tim Cook has kicked off 2013 with a second visit to China. The Apple CEO met with Miao Wei, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, to discuss the development of China’s information technology industry, mobile communications, and Apple’s expansion in China.
The Cupertino company has doubled its number of retail outlets in the nation, and its iOS devices are becoming increasingly popular there. Cook’s last visit to China came in March 2010 before he pledged “greater investment” in the world’s largest market for consumer technology.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Every year Samsung attends CES it seems like they try to guess what Apple is going to do with TV. One year they announced a TV that has Netflix and other apps built in. The next they included swappable processors and voice controls.
This year, Samsung’s bet is that if Apple ever decides to make a TV it will be able to predict what you want to watch. It will help you find out where to buy an actor’s clothes. And it might come in a soccer goal shaped frame?
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – There was a lot of nonsense being spouted at Intel’s presser today here in Las Vegas, but what isn’t nonsense is their next-generation Core chip technology, which could make a 20% lighter and thinner MacBook Air with 13-hour battery life a reality by the end of the year, or a Retina MacBook Pro with nine hours battery life. Wow.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Everything you need to know about how Intel wants you to see them was summed up in a bizarre Ken Burns-style documentary that aired at the beginning of their CES presser, in which Intel compared their new ultrabook and tablet initiatives to Notre Dame’s use of the forward pass back in 1913 to utterly dominate the Army Cadets, a team considered much superior. The odd, old-timey documentary ended with a virtual CGI football hurtling at the screen, only to explode in a nuclear fireball just before it hit the camera. “WELCOME TO THE NEXT GAME CHANGER,” Intel blared.
If you know anything about the game in question, though, you know that Notre Dame didn’t actually invent the forward pass, though. They just swiped it from another team and popularized it.
So according to this analogy, who is Intel? They’re clearly Notre Dame, stealing another team’s moves. And that team is obviously Apple. Some game changer.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – LG’s mission for 2013 is to help you “touch the smart life.” At least, that’s what CEO Wayne Park claimed when he jumped on stage at CES this morning. They make a lot of products that are smart, and LG just wants your life at home to be simple and stress-free.
LG makes everything for your home. I mean literally everything. Yeah, they make smartphones and TVs, but they also make ovens, refrigerators, robot vacuums, microwaves, washing machines – EVERYTHING.
Nearly every major appliance that you have in your house could probably be replaced by an LG version. If any company could make a Siri-controlled iHome before Apple, then it’s LG. But because they’re trying to do so much, their version of the smart home still sucks, and it gives Apple an advantage to become the company that controls your home.
We’re in Vegas! That’s right, team Cult of Mac has descended on Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest and in-chargest technology show in North America. And to bring you the best and worst tech we’re seeing here at the show, we’re releasing a brand new episode each night until Thursday.
On our newest episode (#51), discover some of the cool tech we’ve seen so far at the show, and our why we think Apple is gunning to transform your house into an all-connected iHome.
All that and more on our CES 2013 special edition CultCast! Stay caught up on the best of the show, subscribe now on iTunes or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Here’s a question for you: it’s CES, the world’s largest electronics trade show. So where the hell are all the Lightning accessories?
Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed a whopping 40 billion downloads, with almost 20 million seen in 2012 alone. A record-breaking December, helped by another successful Christmas, boosted this year’s figures, with more than two billion downloads during the month.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When I videochatted over Skype with one of Belkin‘s PR people a few days ago, I told them I was dumbfounded at the sound coming from the tiny speakers built into the pre-production Thunderstorm case they sent me to play around with (the review notes I scrawled down actually read “pretty fucking amazed with this thing”). Nate, whose face I could see gazing at me from Belkin’s Los Angeles office, seemed stoic. “Invariably people have that same reaction… we call it ‘the thirty seconds of wow.’ ”
When you open a new iPhone and boot it up for the first time, you’ll notice that Apple has already installed a bunch of apps for you.
It’s a great idea, because it lets you use apps right out of the box. Even the newest, most confused user can tap on an app icon and start trying various things.
Here’s the problem: Most users don’t replace the default apps with third-party alternatives. They mostly use the apps that came with the phone.
And this is why Apple should stop making apps: The default Apple-made apps are giving iPhone users a second-rate experience.
Holga iPhone Lens Kit For iPhone 5 (via Photojojo.net)
The entire camera world is in a state of flux at the moment; point-and-shoot cameras are being replaced by smarter phones with good-enough cameras, and accessory manufacturers know that us photo-crazy iPhone 5 owners are lacking the plethora of lenses, apps, and cases we once had available to us on the iPhone 4 and 4S.
That’s why, at this year’s CES, I expect to be hit with a title wave of lenses, gadgets, gizmos, cases, and apps that all promise to do the same thing: make your iPhone’s camera even better.
We’re in the holiday spirit here at Cult of Mac, and it’s with that spirit in mind that we are offering a great freebie to our valued readers. With MacX Video Converter Pro, you can convert various videos for playback on all your Apple devices.
Next week at CES every tech company in the world is going to cram under one roof and show off all their products that they hope will change the world. Well every company except Apple that is.
Even though Apple won’t have a presence at CES this year, we’ll see their influence everywhere, from ultrabooks to smartphones. But the biggest influence Apple will have on CES 2013 is with a product they haven’t even released yet – the mythical iTV.
Everyone is scared of what will happen if Apple launches an iTV because it will give them a virtual monopoly on all consumer screens (smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions). So naturally we’re going to see a lot of Smart TVs as everyone attempts to predict what Apple’s going to do, and then try to get there first.
It’s hard to believe we’ve just finished our 50th CultCast! But we’re not stopping to celebrate just yet.
On our newest episode, we say why Apple Maps integrating with Waze maps makes too much sense not to happen; why Bill Gates just made Microsoft Surface the new Christmas coal; and as we prepare to journey to Las Vegas for CES, we review which new gadgets and tech we’re most excited about, and give you the inside scoop on what it’s really like to report live from one of the biggest tech conventions in the world.
All that and more on our all-new CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
This year is likely to be another big one for Apple — even if we don’t see that much-anticipated television set. One new product the Cupertino could have up its sleeve is an internet radio service called “iRadio.” It’s reportedly been negotiating the necessary deals with the music labels, and one analyst expects the service to be integrated into iTunes within the next 12 months, competing with the likes of Pandora.
Next week sees the beginning of CES, and with it I’m hoping to see a deluge of new Lightning accessories. All of Apple’s star mobile devices have switched over to the new connector, but the accessories industry still hasn’t caught up.
I have a few adapters to make my old gadgets play nice with my new iDevices, and they work great. But the tiny new Lightning plug will not only shrink current accessories, but also make whole new classes of gear possible.
Even for a guy like Steve Jobs, you don’t just wake up one day knowing how to build a phone, let alone the iPhone. So when Jobs had questions about the nitty-gritty of mobile phone design back in 2006, he called up AT&T (then Cingular’s) COO, Ralph de la Vega, for help… but in typical Steve fashion, he became angry when Cingular told him his phone needed to have physical keys.
If you believe all the rumors you read about the next iPhone, then you’re probably expecting it to come in all kinds of sizes and a wide variety of colors. The latest claims that Apple is set to ditch the iPhone 5’s in-cell touch technology after just one year in favor of a new “touch-on-display” technology from Chimei Innolux. According to the report, the move will prevent the interference issues Apple has had with the iPhone 5’s display.
CES 2013, the world’s biggest cornucopia of cutting-edge gadgetry, kicks off in Las Vegas in under a week, and as always, Cult of Mac’s team of writers will be at all the booths, announcements and parties that matter, getting you the scoop on what’s coming up in the world of tech.
There’s a lot for any Apple fan to get excited about in the run-up to CES, but this year, we think you want to pay a lot of attention to what’s coming out of Las Vegas in relation to home automation. Chances are, everything from your oven to your lights to your thermostat are going to be controlled by your iPhone in just a few years time… and even Apple wants in on the action.
Here’s a sure fire way to spark a riot on Christmas: give your kids Microsoft Surfaces instead of the iPads and MacBook Airs they wanted instead.
Who would be that Grinchy? Microsoft founder Bill Gates, apparently. He gave his two daughters and son Microsoft products for Christmas, instead of the Apple products they asked for.
Topeka Capital Market’s Brian White doesn’t necessarily have a spotless streak of predictions when it comes to Apple, having claimed in 2012 that Apple would reach an average share price of $1,001 by year’s end. He also claimed in January 2012 that Sharp would provide the display for an Apple HDTV in 2012.
In fact, White’s a bit of a crank. So take the following report with a grain of salt: White is now claiming that the iPhone 5S will come in multiple colors, and with multiple display sizes.
2012 was a great year for Apple, and one of the most exciting for them in years. This year brought not only a myriad of new products, like the iPad mini and iPhone 5, but innovative software and services as well such as OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6.
As 2012 comes to a close, let’s take a look back at Apple’s accomplishments for the year. If you’d like, you can also take a look back at 2011’s year in review here.
Apple was on fire in 2012. Along with the incredible iPhone 5, we saw the first retina tablet and the pocketable iPad mini. This was also the year in which Apple let the iPod touch out to play, giving it features on a par with the iPhone 4S instead of using leftover components from Google’s leftover Nexus parts bin.
But not everything from Apple made it into our top ten. The Retina MacBook Pro, despite being an amazing machine, is still a laptop, albeit one with a hi-res screen and no DVD player. And the new iMac’s most interesting contribution to tech is the HDD/SSD Fusion Drive. Sure, it’s skinny, but who really cares about a thin desktop machine? It’s like making the world’s thinnest lawnmower.
Most of the rest of my picks reflect the fact that high-tech consumer electronics are now as utterly mainstream as the iron or the microwave oven. Sure, us nerds still love to play with the latest crap, and there will always be plenty of ill-informed consumers who are suckered into buying cheapo Android tablets, but these days gadgets generally Just Work, and the differences are in the little details.
That’s why we have fitness widgets alongside fancy portable speakers and implausibly good-for-the-price headphones.
So, should you be in the mood to read yet another end-of-year best-of list, carry on.
2012 was a very different year for Apple. For starters, it was Tim Cook’s first year as CEO. While much of Apple has remained the same, Cook has definitely shown that he is a different type of leader than his predecessor. Apple is evolving into something new.
Between four press events and the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple announced an unprecedented slew of new products in 2012. Every single major product was refreshed to some extent, which leaves even more speculation as to what Apple has up its sleeve for 2013.
There have been key executive firings and hirings, heated lawsuits, and scandals. In the midst of everything, Apple managed to become the most valuable company on earth.
While there are many big Apple moments from this past year, we’ve gathered what we think are the 10 most notable stories. Here they are:
Just in the last year, we’ve published over 400 helpful tips and tricks for both iOS and OS X. That’s a lot of learning, and a lot of information for you to go through. We though it might be nice to take a look back through them all and come up with our favorite tips, organized into topical sections for your browsing pleasure, below.
