News

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is cranky about the how his successor is handling some aspects of the business. During Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer was critical of the company's accounting methods for his cloud and hardware businesses, as well as current CEO Satya Nadella's plan to bring more apps to Windows Phone.…

The Department of Justice took Apple to court over accusations that the iPhone and iPad maker engaged in an anticompetitive conspiracy with book publishers ahead of the original iPad launch to drive up ebook prices. At the time, Apple was trying to get deals in place for its iBookstore, and publishers were trying to stop…

Apple CEO Tim Cook Mr. Cook and the other recipients will be honored during the 2015 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Gala, a charity event to raise money for the Center. Tickets for that event are available now and start at US$1,500. A quarter million dollars will get you two seats at…

I'm pleased to welcome this week's sponsor, Digiarty, makers of MacX DVD Ripper Pro back here to TMO. Having a simple, DVD-ripping solution is vital as we all move to consuming our content on iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs. MacX DVD Ripper Pro makes this easy with a single app solution that you can download…

Oops! Dell's PCs are open to phishing attacks. Security blogger Hanno Böck said Dell included a root certificate called eDellRoot Certificate and corresponding private key on its computers, effectively giving attackers everything they need to craft their own valid certificates for webpages. He said, Laptops from the company come with a preinstalled root certificate that…

Many years ago, when I bought my first Mac, it was accompanied by a beautiful manual that gave me color instructions for how to hook it up, turn it on, and run the software included in the box. The documentation that came with that Mac and many Apple devices that followed set the bar for…

Opening up an Apple Pencil may be ugly, but what's inside is pretty cool Apple Pencil is the companion stylus for the iPad Pro. It's pressure and angle sensitive, and charges in minutes. What it doesn't have is a replaceable battery, or any way to repair damaged components. iFixit had to slice open Apple Pencil's…

Governments and intelligence agencies charged with protecting us are already on edge because of encryption built into iOS, Android, and even individual chat apps, and it's a sure thing that some of those governments will use the Paris attacks to push legislation mandating back doors into encryption systems or simply outlawing encrypted communications entirely. That…

Verizon gets Wi-Fi calling waiver from FCC Carriers are supposed to file for an FCC waiver allowing Wi-Fi calling because the feature doesn't reliably support TTY systems for hearing impaired calls. T-Mobile and Sprint have offered Wi-Fi calling support for months because they never filed for the waiver, while AT&T only recently got on board…

Apple is open.” It was a standalone sentence in a long email from Apple CEO Tim Cook to his employees in the wake of a racial profiling incident at an Apple Store in Australia. That email reiterated a philosophy Mr. Cook has stated many times, that Apple is a company open to everyone, “regardless of…

First, the incident itself, which was captured on video, posted to Facebook, and then to YouTube:

Apple CEO Tim Cook Interviewed by RTE News Apple has increased its headcount in Cork from 4,000 to 5,000 employees in just the last 12 months, according to Mr. Cook. Over the next 18 months, Apple plans to add another 1,000 people. Mr. Cook said that roughly a quarter of Apple's European staff are based…

Uh oh! More malware found on the App Store! InstaAgent, or more properly Who Viewed Your Profile-InstaAgent, was download more than 500,000 times by people who presumably wanted to know who was looking at their Instagram profile. Instagram is a social networking service owned by Facebook that lets users post photos for others to view.…

Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs Data from Box Office Mojo showed the weekend gross for Steve Jobs was US$823,000, and that so far it has brought in only $16,684,073—a far cry from its $30 million budget. Mr. Sorkin's script was very loosely—more like inspired—by Walter Isaacson's official biography of Mr. Jobs. That, it turns out,…

Court shoots down Apple employee bag check class action lawsuit The class action lawsuit claimed checking their personal bags was demeaning and embarrassing, and that they should've been paid for the time managers spent looking through their belongings needed to be compensated instead of off the clock. Judge Alsup disagreed saying employees weren't required to…

Amazon Books in Seattle's University Village Source: Amazon If you're not familiar with Seattle, but University Village rings a bell, that could be because it boasts an Apple Store, which then led to Microsoft opening up one of its retail stores across the street. I'll get into Apple-envy later in the piece, but the first…

GTAT equipment auction will settle its score with Apple GTAT struck a deal to make synthetic sapphire glass for iPhones, but failed to produce the quantity or quality Apple needed. Apple fronted $578 million to help the company ramp up its sapphire production and transition from being an equipment maker into a glass supplier, and…

The first ever, ever, ever electronic computer? Maybe. Screenshot from The Gothamist video I'll leave it to computer historians to argue the merits of that claim, but it's cool, and according to the same tour guide, “Every year, Apple computer chieftains, ultra super chieftain hoo-has, come down here…they go behind that board, and they literally…

​Apple CEO Tim Cook Here's the full quote from Tim Cook, which came 45 minutes into the conference call in response to a request for clarification from Steven Milunovich from UBS: For customers who purchased an iPhone last quarter, and [original emphasis] replaced a smartphone, that 30 percent of those switched from an Android device.…

This week, Tim Bajarin, the President of Creative Strategies, Inc starts off the discussion with a very thoughtful essay. ” Autonomous Cars and Their Ethical Conundrum.” Mr. Bajarin starts off by noting: …we are years away from getting autonomous cars on the road and getting the right kind of government regulations passed to make this…

Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs First, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Michael Fassbender stars as Steve Jobs and no, he doesn't look like the man who gave us the reality distortion field, iMac, and iPhone. That doesn't matter because Mr. Fassbender becomes the Steve Jobs in Mr. Sorkin's tale…

Adobe said the security flaw affects Flash 19.0.0.207 and earlier on Mac and Windows, and 11.2.205.535 on Linux. The company said the exploit is “being used in limited, targeted attacks.” The company promised a fix would be coming this week, but managed to beat its own schedule. The update actually rolled last Friday several days…

iPhone battery draining too fast? It's probably Facebook Here's the back story: My iPhone 6 battery was draining noticeably quicker than it should based on my usage, so I looked at my Battery settings to see what was taking more than its fare share of juice. It was Facebook by a long shot and it…

Apple's antitrust monitor is out this Friday The DOJ filed a letter requesting Judge Cote let Mr. Bromwich's two-year position end without any extension. He had been charged with monitoring Apple's activities to ensure the company didn't engage in anticompetitive practices, and that it set up training programs to teach employees how to avoid anticompetitive…