News

Stop the hurt! For the love of all things rational and pretty, can someone please stop the hurt? It seems that everywhere I look today there's something stupid being written about Apple. I'm not saying the people doing the writing are (necessarily) stupid, but the nonsense being bandied about by pundits far and wide could…

In a celebrity culture, Tim Cook has committed the cardinal sin. He's failed to adequately entertain us. The result? Writers who follow Apple have the Rotten Apple Flu and are grousing for bucks. That's why there's so much negative writing about Apple. This Rotten Apple Flu exists not because Apple products have changed or Apple…

Former vice president, environmental activist, and longtime Apple board member Al Gore exercised stock options Tuesday to purchase 59,000 shares of AAPL for $7.475 per share. As of the close of the markets Thursday, Mr. Gore’s new stock acquisition is worth about $29,650,000 at a cost of only $441,000. With Apple set to reveal its…

Products made by Apple are one of the most preferred brands for the rich in China. A Chinese research firm recently conducted a survey of some 551 millionaires in the world's most populous nation and found that Apple was the #2 preferred brand for gifting among rich men and the #5 brand among rich women.…

It's pretty easy to forget what groups you've added a contact to, especially if you have a lot of contacts and a lot of groups. But there's a simple way to figure it out. All you've gotta do first is select the contact card in question: Then just hold down Option, and the groups that…

Market analyst Tom DeMark isn't worried about the big drop in Apple's stock price, and even expected it. He also expects the iPhone and iPad maker's stock will rebound, at it appears it's already on the way back up. DeMark: Apple's stock isn't tanking Apple's stock dropped sharply following rumors that iPhone sales are weaker…

The sound you heard on the roof today was the sky falling as as investors worried about all these reports of Apple cutting iPhone orders. In the process, shares of $AAPL fell to US$485.92, a loss of $15.83 (-3.15 percent), the first time the stock has been below $500 for almost a year. ZOMGTEHSKYSIFALLING! AAPL…

A study last year by third-party warranty company SquareTrade provides some interesting statistics on where iPhone accidents occur. The study was published in October 2012, but flew under our radar. Thanks to Boy Genius Report for brining it to our attention Tuesday. For those unfamiliar with the company, SquareTrade sells extended warranties for a variety…

CES is over, and thank goodness. It's a lot of work, but it's an increasingly important show for Apple's ecosystem even though Apple isn't even there. Having had the weekend to think about this year's event, I thought I'd offer my view from 10,000 feet. Firstly, this was a good show for us at TMO.…

LAS VEGAS – German company ON.EARZ is getting ready to enter the U.S. headphone market with the help of a few names you might know, including AC/DC, Elvis Presley, and James Dean. The company will also be bringing its Swagg line to the States, and we checked out both on the show floor of CES…

The wait is over for iPhone 5 owners hoping to walk into an Apple Store and buy third party accessories that are compatible with the smartphone's new Lightning connector. So far, only car chargers are available, but other compatible accessories are likely coming soon. Lightning-compatible car chargers now in Apple retail stores Lightning-compatible accessories with…

Oracle has released Java 7 Update 11 of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to address a security vulnerability discovered last week. The latest version of Java 7 can be downloaded directly from Oracle. As described last week, in light of the newly discovered vulnerability, Apple remotely disabled previous versions via its Xprotect mechanism. On Sunday,…

Image credit: Fred Benenson Aaron Swartz, one of the brilliant minds behind RSS and an Internet activist pushing for open access to public government and academic documents, took his own life on Friday at the age of 26. Mr. Swartz was facing the possibility of up to 50 years in jail on Federal charges for…

As Internet technologies rapidly morph and develop, the human interaction with the Internet has to change as well. At first, that means the adoption of certain technologies. In the early days, it was browsers and email, then personal habits and work strategies, then apps and tablets, and then, perhaps, intelligent agents to help us leverage…

This is my annual column on how to get the best service at Apple Genius Bars. The young people who work as Geniuses at Apple stores across the nation get a lot of technical training before they ever hit the floor and many of them have a lot of Apple knowledge before they are even…

Office Technology firm Xerox announced early Friday that its Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri, will leave the company in February to join Apple as its Corporate Controller. Mr. Maestri, who has been with Xerox since February 2011, will take on accounting and financial responsibilities under Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Mr. Maestri has served several large…

Cheap smartphones will “never be the future of Apple,” according to an interview of Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller by Chinese newspaper the Shanghai Evening News Thursday. Mr. Schiller’s remarks, translated by The Next Web, put a damper on recent rumors that the Cupertino company will launch a low-cost iPhone in the near future. Mr. Schiller…

LAS VEGAS – The Pebble team is living the startup dream. They unveiled their iPhone and Android-connected smartwatch on Kickstarter and quickly sold 85,000 units, have commitments from customers for thousands more, and just hosted their fist ever press event at CES. Despite delays that forced the company to push the watch's launch out be…

The iTunes application celebrated its 12th birthday this week, but the iTunes Store, launched as the iTunes Music Store in 2003, will hit the ten-year-mark on April 28, 2013. According to an analysis Wednesday by Asymco’s Horace Dediu, the nearly ten-year-old iTunes Store is certainly making its parent proud, as it now generates as much…

UPDATE: Amazon has just launched the Auto Rip service, covering both new purchases and previous purchases dating back to 1998 for over 37,000 eligible discs. A new “Auto Rip” icon will appear next to physical CD listings in the store to identify eligibility. [Thanks, Bosco, for letting us know!] Online retailer, consumer electronics firm, and…

LAS VEGAS – Samsung's booth in Central Hall at CES is huge. It's pretty cool, too. Lots of stuff, some massive screens, lots of TVs, a bunch of clean white tables holding Samsung gadgets that people can check out. Oh, and lots and lots and lots of people. It was jam packed full of folks…

At CES this week, there have been several unveilings of 20 to 27-inch, Windows 8 tablets. The idea behind these tablets seems to be the classic coffee table book, artwork, video and board games. Will these new, giant tablets really appeal to consumers? First and foremost, current tablets have made the grade because they are…

On Tuesday, Mozilla released Firefox 18 for Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. The new version brings Retina display support for Macs and a new JavaScript compiler called “IonMonkey” that Mozilla says will speed up Web apps and games by 25 percent. Also included, according to Mozilla are: performance enhancements in tab switching, better imaging with…

Yes, folks, while CES happens this week we're also deep into planning for everything we'll be doing at Macworld/iWorld 2013, and that includes … Cirque du Mac X (that's the 10th incarnation of Cirque du Mac and we're happily using the roman numeral to illustrate that… we trust you understand why!). Cirque du Mac will…