×
Businesses

How Apple Killed an iTunes Competitor 143

Posted by Soulskill from the boom-iHeadshot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ed Bott recounts the story of Lala.com, an innovative online music service that reached the top of Google search rankings for consumers seeking music. Their prices were frequently better than the prices on iTunes, and they partnered with Google for the search giant's Music Beta. Lala's founder, Bill Nguyen, decided the time was ripe to sell, entertaining offers from both Google and Nokia. Unfortunately, Nokia's offer was poor, and Google tried to lowball Nguyen. Apple, however, was not so foolish. Correctly identifying a threat to its growing music empire, Steve Jobs offered $80 million for the company, and Nguyen accepted. 'The ultimate irony in this story is that quite a few notable members of the Lala-to-Apple team followed Bill through the door and onward to his next venture. They left millions in options at a the $196.48 exercise price they had from the 2009 sale/retention bonuses. Some of those same engineers returned to Apple in the highly covered [Color Labs acquisition] rumor that 20+ engineers went to Apple for $7M. Apple obtained the same employees for pennies on the dollar. This time with even more experience and startup life under their belt. Paying twice was genius.'"
Businesses

Amazon Sidesteps App Store Business Model, Plays Back MP3s From Safari 114

Posted by timothy from the cutting-out-the-apple-man dept.
Press2ToContinue writes "Amazon has found a simple way around Apple's tight-fisted App Store rules: give users a web app to buy MP3s that runs in Safari. This way, they have no need to pay 30% per tune to Apple. Freedom of choice of vendor in Apple-only territory? Is this a big breach of Apple's walled garden? I wonder if Apple with have a response to this."
Desktops (Apple)

Ibex Virtual Reality Desktop Beta For Mac Released 52

Posted by timothy from the love-is-all-around-you-no-just-code dept.
New submitter Hesh writes "Ibex, the first cross-platform VR desktop of its kind, was previously released for Linux, and has finally been updated to work on Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Running at a silky smooth 60fps, it is nearing final release and awaiting delivery of the developer Oculus Rift kits for final integration testing. A Windows version may be released in time. The source can be found on bitbucket for the Linux version and iPhone orientation sensor client while the Mac source is to follow soon at the same location."
Apple

30 Years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe 171

Posted by Soulskill from the at-what-point-do-computers-become-antiques dept.
walterbyrd sends this excerpt from an article that might make you feel old: "At its annual shareholders' meeting on January 19, 1983, Apple announced two new products that would play a pivotal role in the future of the company: the Apple Lisa, Apple's original GUI-based computer and the precursor to the Macintosh; and the Apple IIe, which represented a natural evolution to the highly successful Apple II computer line. ... The Lisa introduced a completely new paradigm—the mouse-driven graphical user interface—to the world of mainstream personal computers. (Note that the release of the Xerox Star workstation in 1981 marked the commercial debut of the mouse-driven GUI.) The Lisa’s elevated retail price of $9995 at launch (about $23,103 in today’s dollars), slow processor speed (5MHz), and problematic custom disk drives hobbled the groundbreaking machine as soon as it reached the market. ... Around the time of the Apple III’s launch, Apple was so sure of the new computer's success that it had halted all future development of Apple II-related projects. But by 1982, as it became clear that the Apple II wasn’t going away (in fact, it was becoming more popular than ever), Apple scrambled to upgrade its aging Apple II line, which had last been refreshed in 1979 with the Apple II+. The result was the Apple IIe, which packed in several enhancements that regular Apple II users had been enjoying for years thanks to a combination of the Apple II’s plentiful internal expansion slots and a robust third-party hardware community to fill them."
Apple

iPod Engineer Tony Fadell On the Unique Nature of Apple's Design Process 193

Posted by samzenpus from the I-am-so-great dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Often referred to as the godfather of the iPod, former Apple executive and current Nest CEO Tony Fadell played an instrumental part in Apple's resurgence. Recently, Fadell opined on what makes Apple's design process different from the rest of the pack. Fadell explained that a key and yet often overlooked, difference between Apple and other tech companies is that Apple ships 99% of the products that pass certain internal milestones. By way of contrast, during Fadell's tenure at Philips — where he was charged with overseeing the company's audio strategy — the iPod guru noted that Philips would axe 9 projects out of 10, even if a particular product was about to ship."
EU

Belgian Consumer Organization Sues Apple For Not Respecting Warranty Law 168

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the obey-the-speed-limit dept.
New submitter thygate writes with news of more trouble for Apple with its warranty terms complying with E.U. regulations. From the press release: "For many years warranty issues are at the top of the charts of complaints dealt with by consumer organizations. One of the recurring problems are the complaints about Apple. 'Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats' found major problems fixed on the information provided by Apple and its authorized distributors regarding the legal guarantee, the commercial one year warranty, and the warranty extension through the 'AppleCare Protection Plan' of 2 or 3 years. A lawsuit against Apple has been filed (English translation; original)) with the Commercial Court of Brussels. In a precedent in Italy, The commercial practices of Apple were found to be misleading. Apple was sentenced to pay € 900,000 and was obliged to change their contractual legal warranty and guarantees to consumers."
IOS

The Strange Math of Apple's Alleged Massive iPhone 5 Order Cuts 298

Posted by samzenpus from the looking-at-the-numbers dept.
zacharye writes "The Sunday evening Wall Street Journal article claiming that Apple had cut its iPhone 5 display orders drastically for the March quarter made quite a splash. The way WSJ wrote its piece seemed to support the original Nikkei claim about Apple cutting its iPhone 5 display orders in half from the originally planned order of 65 million units. This would be a massive adjustment. But Apple uses the same new display type for both iPhone 5 and the latest iPod touch. Neither WSJ nor Nikkei addressed this, however — both seemed to be referring to just iPhone 5 displays. The math just doesn't add up."
Firefox

Apple and Mozilla Block Vulnerable Java Plug-ins 88

Posted by Soulskill from the no-dogs-allowed dept.
hypnosec writes "Following news that a Java 0-day has been rolled into exploit kits, without any patch to fix the vulnerability, Mozilla and Apple have blocked the latest versions of Java on Firefox and Mac OS X respectively. Mozilla has taken steps to protect its user base from the yet-unpatched vulnerability. Mozilla has added to its Firefox add-on block-list: Java 7 Update 10, Java 7 Update 9, Java 6 Update 38 and Java 6 Update 37. Similar steps have also been taken by Apple; it has updated its anti-malware system to only allow version 1.7.10.19 or higher, thereby automatically blocking the vulnerable version, 1.7.10.18." Here are some ways to disable Java, if you're not sure how.
Censorship

Rejection of Reality: Apple Denies Endgame:Syria 172

Posted by timothy from the sometimes-reality-is-harsh dept.
arclightfire writes "Endgame:Syria billed itself as the first game to cover on ongoing war in a mashup of interactivity and journalism. However it seems like Apple is not happy with this idea, as PocketTactics reports; 'Apple's app guidelines have once again tripped up the release of a strategy game rooted in a real-world conflict. Auroch Digital's Endgame Syria has been rejected by Apple's approvals team for violating guidelines section 15.3, "solely target[ing] a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity." If section 15.3 sounds familiar, it's because it was the clause invoked when Cupertino said no to Pacific Fleet back in September – the game ran afoul of the guidelines for including Japanese flags in a WWII naval sim.'"
Cellphones

Apple's App Store Tops 40 Billion Downloads; Generates $7 Billion For Developers 177

Posted by samzenpus from the more-money-more-apps dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With the eyes of the tech world fixed on CES this week, Apple this morning conveniently decided to issue a press release announcing that the iTunes App Store has now topped over 40 billion downloads. That's an incredible feat, to be sure, but even more incredible is that nearly half of those downloads occurred in 2012. In December alone, iOS users downloaded over 2 billion applications, setting a monthly record in the process."
Microsoft

Has CES Lost Its Star Appeal? 100

Posted by samzenpus from the not-so-bright dept.
An opinion piece by tech writer David Gilbert looks at how CES might be losing some of its luster. "It's hard to know who the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) really benefits. A common perception is that CES is the place where all the major technology companies launch their latest and greatest gadgets. But this is simply not the case. Let's look at 2012 as an example. Last year's most talked about consumer technology products (in no particular order) were: the iPhone 5, iPad 3, iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Wii U. How many were launched at CES 2012? None."
Amiga

Catch Up Via Video With World of Commodore 2012 51

Posted by timothy from the vic-20-with-cf-card-and-time-machine dept.
Leif_Bloomquist writes "Videos of the presentations from the recent World of Commodore, held December 1st 2012 in Toronto, have been published on YouTube. The presentations range from new product announcements to remakes of classic Commodore games for iPhone, from animation and music performances to coding tutorials and discussions for retro platforms. The revived World of Commodore is held annually on the first weekend of December by the Toronto PET Users Group."
The Courts

Apple Loses Claim For False Advertising Regarding Amazon "App Store" 138

Posted by samzenpus from the apps-for-everyone dept.
An anonymous reader writes a court has dismissed Apple's allegations that Amazon's use of the "app store" phrase constituted false advertising. "Apple's efforts to protect its intellectual property sometimes result in lawsuits that leave even the most ardent of Apple fans scratching their heads. One such suit was Apple's March 2011 lawsuit against Amazon over the retailer's use of the phrase 'app store' as used in its Amazon Appstore for Android. "
Bug

Adobe and Apple Didn't Unit Test For "Forward Date" Bugs. Do You? 169

Posted by timothy from the everyone-misses-a-few dept.
llamafirst writes "As the year flipped to 2013, we learned that Adobe and Apple don't test for "forward date" bugs. Adobe prevented any copy of FrameMaker 10 from launching and Apple broke Do Not Disturb for the first week of 2013. Surely some more critical and safety systems also have lurking issues. Got tips for catching time/date bugs 'from the mysterious future?' (Also, obligatory link to Falsehoods programmers believe about time.)"
Displays

Apple Files Patent For "Active Stylus" For Use With Capacitive Touchscreens 112

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the smells-like-teen-wacom dept.
MojoKid writes "Apple may be looking to improve upon the stylus as we know it today. The Cupertino company filed a patent application with the USPTO for what it calls an 'Active Stylus,' which can be used on capacitive touch sensor panels like those found on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices. 'Unlike conventional styluses which work passively by blocking electric field lines between the drive and sense electrodes of a capacitive touch sensor panel, the styluses disclosed in the various embodiments of this disclosure can either act as a drive electrode to create an electric field between the drive electrode and the sense lines of a mutual capacitive touch sensor panel, or as a sense electrode for sensing capacitively coupled signals from one or more stimulated drive rows and columns of the touch sensor panel or both.' According to Apple, active styluses allow for more accurate input without driving up cost."
Iphone

TSMC Preparing To Manufacturer A6X Chip As Apple Looks to Ditch Samsung 172

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the about-that-lawsuit dept.
An anonymous reader writes with reports that TSMC is preparing to do a first test run of Apple's A6X chipset currently manufactured by Samsung. The TSMC manufactured chips will feature a process shrink from 32nm to 28nm, and there's a good chance Apple will grant them the contract for the next generation A7 chip. From SlashGear: "The test will kick off in Q1 2013, The China Times reports, with TSMC producing a new, 28nm version of the existing 32nm A6X that Samsung has been producing for the full-sized iPad 4th-gen; the smaller chip, which will likely be more power efficient as well, will debut in a new iPad 5th-gen and iPad mini 2."
Piracy

Pirated iOS App Store Site Shuts Down 432

Posted by timothy from the another-reason-to-stick-with-free-software dept.
A reader writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Installous, a major portal for pirated paid apps from Apple's App Store, won't be around anymore. Development team Hackulous today announced the closure of Installous on their official Web site. As of today, the pirated app store no longer works, and only shows these errors: 'Outdated version. Installous will now terminate' or 'API Error. API unavailable.' For many years, Installous offered complete access to thousands of paid iOS apps for free for anyone with a jailbroken iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Think of it as being able to walk into a fancy department store, steal anything you want, and never get caught."
Google

Intel's Rumored TV Plans Would Compete With Apple, Google 82

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-in-the-tube dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google tried to extend its influence to televisions, an effort that largely crashed and burned. Apple executives call Apple TV a 'hobby,' although it's been long-rumored that their company has a television set in the works. And Microsoft's made a muscular attempt to conquer the living room with the Xbox, which now does a lot more than just video games. If current rumors prove correct, you can soon add Intel to that list of IT giants with an eye on televisions. According to TechCrunch and SlashGear, the chip manufacturer is prepping to unveil a first-generation television system of some sort at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. TechCrunch suggests that Intel will debut the system on a city-by-city basis, similar to what Google's doing with Google Fiber, in order to maintain 'more flexibility in negotiating licensing with reluctant content providers.' (The publication's information comes from the ever-popular unnamed sources.) In essence, Intel is proposing a set-top box paired with a subscription service, which would provide a mixture of traditional programming alongside streaming content."

Slashdot Top Deals