News

South Korean electronics giant Samsung is in talks with European Union regulators to settle patent abuse charges. The EU charged that Samsung violated EU antitrust rules when it tried to win injunctions against Apple using standards-essential patents. The European Commission launched its complaint against Samsung in December of 2012. Unnamed sources told Reuters that Samsung…

Since 2009, The Mac Observer has been interviewing Apple developers at WWDC to take the pulse of the developer community and allow them to tell their stories to the readers. All of these interviews has been extraordinary, and we thought it was time to provide links to every interview for reference. The interviews are listed…

Apple's attorneys were defiant during their closing statement in the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit. Both sides delivered closing statements on Thursday, though Apple's lead attorney Orin Snyder took two and a half hours to deliver his, while the DOJ's attorneys spent just 90 minutes. The case has taken many ups and downs in…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our tenth and final interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Scott Morrison of Indev, famous for MailTags and Mail Act-On for…

Online and brick-and-mortar book retailer Barnes & Noble shot a massive hole through the Department of Justice's ebook price fixing case against Apple on Tuesday. When Theresa Horner, B&N's Vice President of Digital Content, took the stand she told the court her company was already negotiating agency pricing deals with publishers before Apple was on…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our ninth interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Dave Teare of AgileBits, famous for 1Password on the Mac and iOS. _________________________________…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our sixth interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Kevin Hoctor, creator of MoneyWell for Mac and iOS. _________________________________ Dave Hamilton: I’m…

U.S. cell service providers are rolling out support for Wireless Emergency Alerts. The service launched in spring 2012, and carriers have been slowly adding support since then. AT&T iPhone owners started receiving notifications over the weekend that they now have the feature, so what exactly is WEA? WEA is a system that local, state, and…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our fourth interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Bruno Virlet of The Grizzly Labs. _________________________________ Dave Hamilton: I’m here with Bruno…

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) reversed a “final” ruling from April that invalidated key claims in Apple's “overscroll bounce” patent. The USPTO informed Apple that it would be issuing a reexamination certificate for the patent that confirms four key claims, including claim 19 that a jury found Samsung infringed in 2012. In April,…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our third interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Brent Simmons, currently of Q Branch and Vesper fame. _________________________________ Dave Hamilton: Brent,…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our second interview, Dave Hamilton chats with Joe Pezzillo, co-founder of Push.io. _________________________________ Dave Hamilton: Joe, you’ve had varied career,…

Each year at WWDC, TMO interviews a few Apple developers who want to tell their story. The result is usually a number of serious insights into the state of mind of the developer community. In our first interview this year, Dave Hamilton chats with Dr. Peter Kelly author of the UX Write word processor for…

Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with President Barak Obama, U.S. Attorney Genreal Eric Holder, NSA Director Keith Alexander, and the CEOs of several other companies have all been named in a US$20 billion class action lawsuit over privacy violations related to the PRISM domestic surveillance program. The lawsuit was filed by Larry Klayman who clearly…

Last night, Pixar's Dr. Michael Johnson hosted the second-annual NeXTEVNT at San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum. One of the things on display at the event was the late Steve Jobs's personal NeXT Cube, on loan from Pixar for the event, shown in the image below. Steve Jobs's NeXTCube NeXTEVNT caters to multiple interests, but it…

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, and Mac Geek Gab co-host John F. Braun joined the Mac Roundtable crew to talk about Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, and the preview of OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. This edition of the Mac Roundtable podcast also included Steve Stanger from The Mac Attack, Chuck Joiner…

The Mac Observer's Managing Editor Jeff Gamet joined the British Tech Network's The BIG Show to talk about the NSA collecting cell phone records from service providers, and the White House plan to stop patent trolls. Along with host Ewen Rankin, Sarah Gray, Steve Naybour, Karl Madden, and Richard Harkness the crew also discussed how…

Apple introduced a revamped AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi basestation at World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco on Monday. The new model supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and sports a redesigned body that can also hold a hard drive, turning the new Basestation into a TimeCapsule. The new Basestation was introduced along with updated MacBook Air models that…

“A curious thing happens when you decide to eliminate skepticism as an option, even if only for a few minutes: You give improbabilities an opportunity to transform into possibilities. You give unconventional ideas a chance to bloom a little bit.”  —Youngme Moon, Different The quote above is as good a place as any to start…

Click it! That's been part of the marketing message delivered by Microsoft for its Surface tablets. It's the sound the company's keyboard covers make when they attach it to their Surface, and it was what Microsoft was betting would really kick Windows 8 into the media tablet market owned by Apple's iPad. Ah, the dreams…

If you think your cell phone activity is private, think again. The NSA reportedly obtained a court order requiring Verizon to hand over all kinds of data on subscriber activity — and not just for some customers, but for all customers. The order was issued secretly, and if the NSA targeted Verizon, there's a good…

Mountain Lion's version of Preview has a neat little ability that's tucked away under the Edit menu, labeled “Insert.” As the name implies, this menu item will let you insert pages into a PDF that you're working on. You have three choices—Page from Scanner, Page from File, or Blank Page. Groovy! First of all, I…

Penguin may have settled out of court in the Department of Justice ebook price fixing trial Apple is dealing with, but that hasn't stopped the publisher from backing the iPhone and iPad maker on the stand. Penguin CEO David Shanks took the stand on Tuesday to say that Apple was fine if negotiations didn't pan…

Samsung has won an import ban from the U.S. International Trade Commission. On Tuesday, the ITC announced the import ban for the iPhone 4 for AT&T, T-Mobile and some regional carriers, as well as the iPad 2 with Wi-Fi +3G for the same networks. The ITC found that the two Apple devices infringed on a…