By doing so, the company’s goal would ostensibly be to make money by selling the company’s vast array of digital content that is already available on Amazon, including movies, TV shows, Android apps, and ebooks. Never mind that Apple’s substantially larger iTunes and App Store runs just above breakeven, according to Apple, and that both…
Bryan Chaffin
Bryan Chaffin is the cofounder of The Mac Observer and currently serves as Afternoon Editor. He has contributed to MacAddict and MacFormat magazines, and co-authored the last two updates of iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies with Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus and Ed Baig. You can find out more about Bryan at his personal site, GeekTells, or find his Twitter link below.
Articles by Bryan Chaffin
Salesforce.com CEO Gifted App Store Trademark to Apple in Thanks
“He has probably given me more help and more advice than just about anybody,” Mr. Benioff said in an interview with Bloomberg (see the interview below). “When I get in trouble, and I kind of get lost in my own vision, I’ve been fortunate to be able to go and see him. He’s been able…
Steve Jobs’s Biological Father Regrets Adoption
Abdulfattah John Jandali(Click the image for a larger version) “This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbeds, to pick up the phone to call him,” Mr. Jandali said. “Steve will have to do that, as the Syrian pride in me does not want him…
Apple Could Bring iCloud Syncing to Snow Leopard
There are two key pieces of information there. The first is that Snow Leopard 10.6.9 is in the works—the current version of Snow Leopard is 10.6.8. The second piece of information is the reality that .Mac subscribing Snow Leopard users will be able to maintain their Contacts, Calendars, and Bookmark syncing that they enjoy today.…
Tim Cook to Employees: Apple Is Not Going to Change
Apple CEO Tim Cook The letter, which was obtained by Ars Technica in an exclusive, was sent to employees early on Thursday morning. Mr. Cook was selected as Apple’s new CEO moments after Steve Jobs resigned, all according to the company’s succession plan. Mr. Jobs was also elected to the position of Chairman of the…
Samsung Invokes Kubrick Defense in Apple Tablet Fight
Noted patent commentator Florian Mueller first spotted the evidence, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in response to a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by Apple Inc in July. Apple is asserting that several of Samsung’s Android devices infringe on a design patent that Apple owns…
Report Claims Apple Working On “Clearly Different” Mac
Using an English nickname, “danbo” wrote (via Google Translate) that, “Though this source does not told in detail, this new Mac line seems to be clearly different products from current ones, so new product name could be given.” In other words, even the source doesn’t know how the alleged new device will be different, and…
Analyst: Lion Helps Push Mac Sales Up 26% in July
In the research note obtained by The Mac Observer, the analyst wrote, “We believe that Mac sales in the month of July benefited from new Mac products,” including the above-mentioned Lion, new MacBook Air models, and new Mac minis. He added, “The tailwind from these releases will likely fade in the last two months of…
Apple Cuts Developers Off from iOS Device ID Numbers
Citing unnamed developers, Dan Frommer reported the move by Apple, which may be an effort by the company to boost privacy protections for its iOS customers. Some developers had reportedly been using this API as a way to track users without requiring their consent to do so. Privacy has been of increasing concern in recent…
iAd Chief Leaves Apple for VC Firm
Former Apple Vice President Andy Miller Mr. Miller joined Apple when the Mac and iPhone maker bought Quattro Wireless, which he founded. Apple then used the intellectual property and personnel acquired from Quattro to build and launch iAd, Apple’s first foray into the world of advertising. iAd delivers ads exclusively to Apple’s iOS devices, including…
MTA Releases Renderings, Floor Plans for Grand Central Apple Store
The deal Apple signed is a ten year agreement for some 24,000 square feet of space in Grand Central Terminal (sometimes referred to as Grand Central Station) for an Apple Store. It will be one of the largest stores in Apple’s fleet of retail locations, situated in one of the most high-traffic locations in the…
Apple Updates Lion to OS X 10.7.1
Apple updated Lion on Tuesday with the release of “Mac OS X Update 10.7.1,” even though Apple officially changed the name of Mac OS X to OS X. The update includes four bug fixes, including sound and WiFI problems, and an issue dealing with transferring settings to a new Mac. This is one of those…
Dutch Site Finds Manipulated Evidence in Apple Samsung Filing
The issue is with side by side photos of the two devices that Apple submitted in its filing. While the court document filed by Apple (and posted to Scribd) includes many and more photos of the two devices, it’s the image below, taken directly from that document, that has caused an uproar in the blogosphere.…
A Screenshot Tour of Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader for iPad
Kindle Cloud Reader is based on HTML 5, the tools championed by Apple itself as the future of the mobile Internet, and it works right through Safari on iPad. It is also installable onto your home screen, making it as accessible as the rest of your apps. First up is accessing the service, which you…
DA Won’t Charge Gizmodo for Stolen iPhone 4 Prototype
The situation erupted in April of 2010, two months before Apple went on to unveil the iPhone 4 at its 2010 World Wide Developers Conference. An Apple engineer had the device at a bar in Redwood City, CA, where it was then lost and found, or stolen, as the case may be, by someone the…
Quark Bought by Private Equity Investment Firm
Quark CEO Raymond Schiavone told PlanetQuark that his company would continue to be based on Denver, CO, and that he believed operations at the company would continue as they had been. “This transition comes at an exciting time for our company and our customers. In the past few years we have made great strides in…
Smugglers Use Zip Line to Haul iPads Into China
According to a PCWorld translation of the video report (below), the group used a crossbow to shoot a 300-foot zip line from a building on the Shenzhen province side of the river separating the People’s Republic of China from Hong Kong. They then attached their cache of Apple goods to the line and were hauling…
Apple Clamps Down on Developers Selling iOS 5 Slots
In addition, Apple reportedly began locking the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) numbers tied to that account, including the slots sold, rendering those iPhones unusable. Karthick has posted a guide for downgrading to iOS 4.3 if that happens to you, which is the only way to re-activate your device. iOS 5 is tied to a developer…
Apple Wins Preliminary Injunction Against NY Retailers
Apple Story is one of many defendants in Apple’s lawsuit Image courtesy of BirdAbroad As part of its success, Apple has been contending with a variety of fake Apple Stores in China, including stores that not only looked an Apple-designed, built, and owned store, but also outfitted its employees in T-shirts with Apple logos on…
Microsoft Calls Out Google Fallacy on Patent Bid
In a blog post, David Drummond, Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, claimed that his company was a victim of bullying tactics in which Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle were all conspiring to “strangle” Google’s Android platform through the use of “bogus” patents and a broken patent system that no longer encouraged innovation. This…
Apple Hires International Recruiter to Replace Ron Johnson
Executive Recruiting(Image courtesy of iStockPhoto) Ron Johnson, Apple’s current senior vice president for retail, announced in June that he had accepted a gig to be CEO of venerable retailer J.C. Penney. Mr. Johnson joined the board of the department store chain on August 1st, and will officially take the CEO title on November 1st, though…
iCloud Goes Live (as Beta - for Developers)
iCloud Beta iCloud is part semi-backup solution, part file sharing-to-yourself service, and part iTunes distribution system, and that’s just for starters. The company uses iCloud to make iTunes purchases (Music, Apps, iBooks, and TV Shows for now) available to all of your devices, and it will be at the heart of iTunes Match, Apple’s service…