Apple Archive

The Verge reviews the iPod touch, and it's as good as ever. "This year's iPod touch is the best one ever, without question - Apple updated all the right things, and by giving the touch a big screen and good camera has made this mini tablet a more versatile device than ever. As a gateway drug into the iOS ecosystem, it does a great job of showing off all the iOS 6 features and apps, on a really solid piece of hardware. It's also a great way to get into the huge iOS ecosystem without putting an expensive data plan on your account - and thanks to iMessage, FaceTime, and Skype, there's a lot of communicating you can do just over Wi-Fi." The iPod touch rarely gets the spotlight, but I think it's actually one of the best and most clever products in Apple's portfolio. Not only is it simply a fantastic product, it also has zero competition. My best friend is pretty much in love with her iPod touch, and it gives her everything a smartphone has to offer without the burden of expensive contracts. For people like her, who do not want a smartphone and prefer a sturdy Nokia feature phone, the touch is a godsend.

Beautiful video tribute and written message from Tim Cook regarding Steve Jobs, who passed away one year ago today.

"Apple has changed its iOS developer guidelines, adding a clause (on September 12, a source tells me) that reads: 'Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.' That's a change that could have wide-reaching effects, especially on promotion models that offer developers a paid top slot on app recommendation offerings like FreeAppADay, Daily App Dream and more." Weird clause. Doesn't really seem to address any issue I can think of.

I bought a brand new iMac on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure this will come as a surprise to some, so I figured I might as well offer some background information about this choice - maybe it'll help other people who are also pondering what to buy as their next computer.

"Apple today announced it has sold over five million of its new iPhone 5, just three days after its launch on September 21, and more than 100 million iOS devices have been updated with iOS 6, the world's most advanced mobile operating system." The last claim is debatable, but the figures are not - very impressive. Of course, do note that the iPhone 5 was available in more countries than the 4S in its first weekend, and if you take that into account, the iPhone 5 didn't do any better than the 4S at all (which doesn't negate the incredible sales - it just highlights the smartphone market's growth might be slowing). It's also lower than what analysts expected, but they're just monkeys throwing darts at figures anyway.

"The major new feature of the company's new iOS 6 mobile operating system is a new mapping module developed by Apple itself - a replacement for the Google-supplied maps that have been standard on the iPhone since it debuted in 2007. It is a change borne not of user demand, but of corporate politics: Google's Android platform is the biggest competitive threat to the iPhone, so Apple is cutting ties with Google. iPhone owners might have loved Google Maps, but Apple has no love for Google. Unfortunately, Apple's new maps are simply not as good as Google's." That's putting it mildly - my own town barely even exists on Apple's maps. It's basically a trainwreck, and according to The Verge, Apple has been working on this for the past five years. This is what happens when a company cares more about stupid grudges than its customers. Considering how much effort it has taken Google to get where it is now with maps, don't expect Apple's maps to even get near Google Maps any times soon. This isn't going to take months - this is going to take several years, if at all.

"Apple has just released the final Golden Master build of iOS 6 to developers. Although a public version won't be available for existing users until September 19th, developers can use the final version to test against iOS apps in preparation for the new iPhone 5." Developers, get cracking. You don't want your applications to show black bars on the iPhone 5, right?

As expected, Apple announced its new iPhone tonight, dubbed the iPhone 5. The rumours and leaks nailed it, with the most prominent feature being the move from 3.5" to 4" (1136x640). Due to the way iOS handles resolutions, applications need to be adapted for this new display, and if they are not, they will be letterboxed (black bars). It has a faster processor, better camera, LTE, and several other improvements, while the. As always, Apple does it right: shipping 21 September in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore - the rest of the world will follow later.

Written by Scott Cleland: "With so many fanboys spinning Silicon Valley history, it's sometimes easy to forget about the real chain of events that led to the ongoing Apple-Google thermonuclear war, how the romance turned to hate. This timeline presents an interesting case about why, despite patents and prior art, Steve Jobs had plenty of personal reasons to despise Schmidt, Page, and Brin." Cleland has a very, very good point; quite coherent and well-reasoned... That is, if you haven't got a single shred of historical sense and completely and utterly ignore the 30-odd years of mobile computing development that preceded our current crop of smartphones. It's hard not to be reminded of how certain groups of people dismiss millions of years of fossil records because this record inconveniences their argument. In any case, a comment on the article answered the question properly: "Jobs was a businessman. He was angry he was losing money. Simple."

This could be big - although just how big remains unclear. "There you have. 1,000,001 Apple Devices UDIDs linking to their users and their APNS tokens. The original file contained around 12,000,000 devices. We decided a million would be enough to release. We trimmed out other personal data as, full names, cell numbers, addresses, zipcodes, etc." How did AntiSec get this data (they claim)? From an FBI laptop. Why an FBI laptop would have a file with personal information on 12 million iOS users, we don't know - especially since 10000 of them are Dutch/Belgian, and last I checked, those do not fall under FBI jurisdiction. Did the FBI obtain it from an application developer, or from Apple itself? Then again - 12 million users? From a single iOS developer? I find that hard to believe.

Vlad Savov at The Verge: "Today's been rather a momentous day in the UK mobile arena, following local regulator Ofcom's approval of Everything Everywhere's plans to use existing spectrum to roll out LTE service early. Vodafone, O2 and Three have complained in unison against the market distortions that would result from one carrier having 4G while everyone else waits for an oft-delayed auction, but their biggest fear may yet remain unspoken: a de facto exclusive on the next iPhone."

Well, this is interesting. Apple has released iOS 6 beta 4, and it removes one of the staples of iOS, included since its very first release with the first iPhone: beta 4 does not include the YouTube application. YouTube is owned by Google, so that could be an explanation. However, unless Google has its own iOS YouTube application ready, iOS 6 could lead to a lot of unhappy iPhone and iPad users. The large websites with sources inside Apple are probably hard at work trying to find out what's going on here - could just be a bug, or maybe a way to gauge public response by causing news sites and blogs to post about it. Huh. Update: thank god for sites with clout: The Verge confirms that Google is working on a stand-alone iOS YouTube application. Good news for users, since the stock one wasn't particularly good to begin with.

"Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 third quarter ended June 30, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $35.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion, or $9.32 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.6 billion and net profit of $7.3 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 42.8 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter's revenue. The Company sold 26.0 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 28 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 17.0 million iPads during the quarter, an 84 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.0 million Macs during the quarter, a two percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.8 million iPods, a 10 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter."

"Back in May of this year, Internet security firm Bitdefender launched an app and service designed to help iOS users get a grip on what the apps installed on their mobile devices may be up to. The app tells owners of iOS devices which applications may be accessing more information than they need, and identifies potentially 'misbehaving' apps, giving users an inside look at all the information app developers can gather about a user. Seems legit, right? Apple doesn't think so. Or at least they have an issue with something behind the app that sparked them to pull it from the App Store this week." That seems odd. Why would they do such a thing? "Interestingly, Bitdefender did share some data that they gathered based on Clueful's analysis of more than 65,000 popular iOS apps so far: 42.5 percent of apps do not encrypt users' personal data, even when accessed via public Wi-Fi; 41.4 percent of apps were shown to track a user's location unbeknownst to them; almost one in five of the apps analyzed can access a user's entire Address Book, with some even sending user information to the cloud without notification." Oh, right. Informing users their data is wholly unsafe? Not on Apple's watch!