Apple Archive

Switzerland has the highest percentage of Mac users than any other with a 17.61% share. Luxembourg comes in second with a 15.79% share while the US occupies the third slot with a 15.36% share. Countries that just missed the top 10 include the UK, Japan, and France. Interestingly, Nordic countries seem to love their Macs as all five of them (Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) all made the top 20.

"Apple has released iOS 4.3 a few days ahead of schedule for iPhone 4 (GSM only) and 3GS, iPad, and 4th-generation iPod touch. The update, which comes via iTunes, brings with it the personal hotspot feature carried over from the Verizon (CDMA) iPhone, the ability to stream video and photos to an Apple TV via AirPlay, HD video out, and more."

Well, it might be safe to say that Apple's own engineers stopped testing their Apple apps with 3.x iOS devices, and have created bugs that make these apps unusable. This is to be somewhat expected, Apple has a track record of not-so-great backwards compatibility (on the Mac), but what we also expected was to not get these broken updates forced to us. It's one thing to stop updating the firmware of older iOS models, and another thing breaking them.

"A new report suggests that Apple may be planning to eliminate retail boxed software from its Apple Stores, instead focusing on promoting the Mac App Store for software sales. This is indeed a trend that Apple has been pushing for a while, but not all the software that Apple sells would necessarily be a great fit for pure digital distribution."

"Tim Cook, the acting CEO for Apple, confirmed yesterday that the company will be spending nearly four billion dollars over the next 24 months in what it calls long term component contracts - and we believe that Apple might be on the verge of bringing back Project Aquarius."

"Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter."

After years of mixed signals, Apple has apparently opened the kimono on its enterprise intentions, announcing a "Mac in the Enterprise" campaign to help large businesses integrate Macs, iPhones, and iPads into their IT ecosystems, InfoWorld reports. "Apple's Mac focus here is particularly striking, unlike that on the iPhone, which has already made obvious inroads in the enterprise market thanks to Apple's delivery of business-class management capabilities. By contrast, the Mac's presence in the business world has been remarkably understated - despite the fact that the Mac population therein reportedly doubled between 2006 and 2008 and looks to grow even more this year."

Now this is interesting. My brand-new MacBook Air 11.6" is at my local Apple retailer because either the SATA part of the logic board or the SSD died mysteriously, and here we have Apple blocking PhotoFast from selling their faster, more spacious replacement drives.

"Getting a little more oomph out of your MacBook Air after giving Flash the boot? Adobe's Shantanu Narayen stopped just short of saying that's Apple's fault for not handing Adobe a device ahead of time. We asked the CEO what the greater battery life sans flash in Apple's new laptop meant for the platform vis-a-vis HTML5 at the Web 2.0 Summit just a few minutes ago. He said it's really all about optimizing for silicon: 'When we have access to hardware acceleration, we've proven that Flash has equal or better performance on every platform.' You wouldn't be blamed for thinking that sentence a cop-out, but that's actually not the case - the chief executive says they've presently got a Macbook Air in the labs and have an optimized beta of Flash for the device presently in testing."

The iPad has been a long time coming. Apple has produced innumerable tablet computer prototypes and of course developed and released the much-maligned and much-beloved iPad precursor, the Messagepad2000/2001 a decade ago. There are some nifty designs outlined in this retrospective of Apple tablets but sadly, lack of advancement in flat screen technology made them largely a pipe dream at the time. Steve Jobs, however, was very interesting in putting Apple's R&D fully behind developing LCD monitors back in the 80s, and if the board had let him, it may have changed the mobile computing timeline substantially.

Do you like VLC on your iPhone or iPad? You don't yet have it installed, but want to? Well, then you'd better be quick about it, as some VLC contributors are unhappy with the fact that VLC is distributed through Apple's App Store, violating the GPL the video player is licensed under. At least, that's what some think.

Being the brains behind Microsoft has made Bill Gates the wealthiest guy in the world. So he can pretty much afford to buy his kids any gadgets they want. However, Apple devices are banned in the Gates’ house. This is surprisingly not a rule set by Bill Gates. Melinda Gates has made it very clear in an interview with The New York Times that she does not allow Apple hardware in the house. If the kids want an iPod they’ll have to settle for a Zune instead.

Is it an indication of Steve Jobs' (in)famous strive for perfection, or just stupid bone-headedness? The white variant of the iPhone 4 was first delayed for a few weeks, but those few weeks became 'end of the year'. Now we know why: the manufacturers Apple employs are apparently having issues matching the shades of white of the various components. This anecdote ties in nicely with a very interesting interview with John Sculley about Steve Jobs' ways of doing business.

In this day and age of iOS this and iPad that you'd nearly forget it, but the gadget maker from Cupertino actually makes personal computers and an accompanying operating system as well. It's been nearly three years since the last substantial release, so it's about time: Apple has just announced a press event titled 'Back to Mac', with a lion on the invite.