For the past several hours, the Apple Store has been down, but unlike when we usually say that, Apple’s seemingly not doing just maintenance… instead, store.apple.com seems to have totally crashed.
Making things stranger, the Apple Online Store fell over on a Wednesday, as opposed to the traditional Tuesday maintenance period. Some users have reported in the last hour the usual ‘We’re Updating The Store” message… so could a new product be imminent?
Apple’s retail stores are famous for their wow-factor, with the iconic glass cube above the Fifth Avenue store in New York City, the rooftop gardens atop the Boylston Street store in Boston, Massachusetts, and the glass cylinder that leads into the Pundong store in Shanghai.
But there could soon be another store to add to our list of the weirdest and most interesting Apple stores on Earth, with plans of a huge new store on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica that features a breathtaking glass roof.
Following recent issues with iPad displays from LG Display, which has forced the company to turn to rival Samsung, Apple is said to be considering a $1 billion investment in Sharp to secure touch screens for the iPhone and iPad.
No, that’s not an electronic Tootsie Roll — It’s Logitech’s brand-new $50 iPad Speaker (actually, they’re calling it the “Tablet Speaker”; because, apparently, there are other tablets out there. Who knew.)
Mac sales continue on a steep upward trend, with Needham analyst Charlie Wolf weighing in on Apple’s Mac sales for June of 2011. As Wolf notes, the Mac saw its 21st consecutive quarter in which shipment growth for the Mac surpassed that of the entire PC market.
Overall, the Mac saw an astounding 14.6% growth in worldwide shipments, while the PC market saw a minimal growth rate of 2.7%. The reason for the Mac’s continued spike in growth? Asia.
For all the convenience of the Mac App Store, sometimes buying your software directly from Apple isn’t the best choice if you want to get all the features and functionality an app is capable of.
Why? As the case of Bare Bone Software’s popular text editing program BBEdit makes clear, the devs of some of the best software on OS X have been forced to cripple their apps in order to comply with Apple’s Mac App Store developer guidelines.
Well, this is juicy! Following yesterday’s report that Apple was already testing an LTE-equipped iPhone with carriers comes this insider photo, showing that AT&T is secretly installing LTE equipment in at least one retail Apple store. Whoa!
UK wireless carrier O2 has just seemingly confirmed an early September reveal of the iPhone 5.
The release of Apple’s iPad 3 has reportedly been delayed until 2012 due to a shortage of high-resolution Retina displays. A third-generation device with a much improved display was rumored to launch later this year, but as many of us had predicted a long time ago, that’s not going to happen.
For those of you who aren’t able to download your OS X Lion upgrade for any reason, Apple is now selling its $69 Lion USB thumb drives.
Another set of iPhone 5 components have surfaced online, and while these things never really give away a lot of information about Apple’s upcoming device, they do indicate that it could be available in both black and white.
There will soon be a day when a driver is not required for printing. Wireless printing has become more of a household standard as new printers roll out with cloud technology, and Apple is looking to make the printing experience as painless and seamless as possible.
Two interesting patents applications were recently filed by Apple that detail printing protocols and APIs that don’t require drivers, with more of a focus also being placed on printing from the cloud.
Apple’s chalked up some big victories against Samsung in recent weeks, culminating in a preliminary injunction that got the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned throughout the EU. But did Apple do so based upon false evidence? That’s what one Dutch website is alleging, and we’ve got to admit, their argument’s pretty good.
This morning, Google made a bold move and purchased Motorola’s mobile business for $12.5 billion. In doing so, Google brought the hardware design and manufacturing of Android devices in-house, just as Apple has always done with its products, starting with the original Macintosh and continuing all the way to the iPhones and iPads of today.
This is nothing short of a capitulation. By purchasing a smartphone maker, Google has all but admitted that it needs more than just a free operating system and loads of partners to compete with Apple: they need to duplicate Apple’s successes by totally controlling both the hardware and software of their devices.
The iPad, more accustom to flinging angry birds than multi-ton slabs of rock, turns out to be the perfect tool for the modern quarry. Indeed, designed for the road warrior, Apple’s tablet seems at home with the rock warrior.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ official biography by Walter Isaacson has just had its release date bumped to November 21st, 2011 from the original date of March 6th, 2012. It also has a new cover and a new title!
Orangutans at the Milwaukee County Zoo could be some of the luckiest orangutans on Earth. Why? Because just like millions of humans, they enjoy using apps, playing games, and watching videos on the iPad.
The safe bet is that the iPhone 5 will stick with 3G instead of lightning fast LTE 4G mobile broadband, but not so fast! A new report on Monday says that Apple’s 4G-capable carrier partners are already testing iPhones with LTE capability.
Samsung’s not going to like this: Google has just purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, finally placing the Android maker on equal footing as Apple when it comes to controlling both the hardware and software of their smartphone platform.
A “one of a kind” MacBook Pro prototype, which has been listed for sale on eBay, reveals Apple’s work on a notebook with built-in 3G connectivity. It’s the first MacBook Pro we’ve seen with an antenna built into the side of the display, and a SIM card slot beneath the memory cover.
Remember Panasonic’s 3DO game system back in the mid ’90s? Not surprised if you don’t; it failed miserably and was discontinued after three years, despite being packed with promise and cutting-edge technology. But the three-year sales record of this flop have thus far still managed to handily beat that of Android tablets — all of them. Combined.
Apple is gearing up for the construction of its new headquarters in Cupertino, California. Steve Jobs proposed plans for the new campus to the Cupertino City Council back in June, and the city quickly gave a resounding approval for Apple to begin work on its new mothership.
A development proposal has been submitted by Apple to the City Council with more details and renderings of the future campus. And we have to say, it looks awesome.
Most of Apple’s money comes from recently invented gadgets. More than two-thirds of Apple’s revenue comes from product types that didn’t even exist five years ago (iPhone and iPad). And 78% of Apple’s income is made by products unimaginable just ten years ago (throw in iPod and iTunes).
That means, in order to stay on the same growth curve in the current decade, Apple will have to invent product categories as new as the iPod, iPhone and iPad were, right?
Wrong.
The new products were part of a killer strategy Apple came up with in 1997. Apple will dominate the future by sticking to the strategy, not by trying to invent more product categories.
It’s hard to figure out quite what to make of this rumor given the wide-spread agreement that the iPhone 5 will be released between mid-to-late September and early October and represent a significant upgrade over the iPhone 4, but Macotakara is now reporting that Apple will be releasing the iPhone 4S early next month.
As a kicker? They also say the iPad 3 is coming next month… despite the fact that a report from earlier today made it clear that the A6 CPU won’t be ready until the second quarter of 2012. What gives?
One Intel director revealed in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal that Apple threatened to drop the chip maker over its hungry processors if it couldn’t “drastically slash” the amount of power they demanded.