Articles about Apple

Today is iOS 7 day! But there is more than just a new operating system for your iPhone, iPad and iPod to look forward to; Apple also has a redesigned iCloud website for you to use. Unsurprisingly the new design takes heavy inspiration from the look of iOS 7, mimicking the floaty, layered styling that graces the new mobile OS.

Log into your account and you'll immediately be greeted by a muted, blurry background, over the top of which various icons appear to float. Apps including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find My iPhone all now sport the iOS 7 look, but the beta editions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote retain their older design. It looks as though there might still be a little work to do -- not all icons have been redesigned, for instance.

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The release of the latest Apple iPhones has financial experts questioning whether or not Apple's reputation is at stake due to the offering of a lower-end product. Contrary to previous years, Apple will be offering two different types of phones this month: the 5s and the 5c, which both go on sale September 20.

The iPhone 5c comes at a smaller price tag of just $99, ideal for those who are on a budget, as opposed to the 5s which is priced at $199 as the starting point. Some investors initially warned against the idea, saying that it may weaken margins and potentially tarnish a brand that has been linked to premium quality since 2007. However, a lower-end iPhone could prove to be a smart move for Apple.

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Half of all tablet device screen time is spent on entertainment activities, such as playing games, reading books, watching live TV or listening to music and radio, according to a recent end-user survey by research group Gartner.

The other half is divided between communication (26 percent), such as sending emails and visiting social media sites; production activities (15 percent), such as editing videos and writing blogs; and finding information (9 percent), including checking the news and weather and researching products and services.

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Preordering has just started on the colorful iPhone 5c, but anyone interested in getting their hands (and fingertips) on the "forward thinking" flagship iPhone 5s will have to wait until Friday, September 20, when ordering officially begins.

The iPhone 5s is available in three colors -- space gray, silver and gold -- and three capacities -- 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. It also boasts a new A7 processor which is currently the world's only 64-bit chip in a smartphone.

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On Friday, Microsoft uploaded a series of seven videos to its Windows Phone channel on YouTube. The videos, headed "A fly on the wall in Cupertino" poked fun at the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c’s features and were, depending on your point of view, hilarious, genius, spot-on, unfunny, pathetic, and wide of the mark.

My colleague Alan Buckingham watched them all and then started to write a story, adding all the videos for your viewing (dis)pleasure. Unfortunately, before he got to post it, Microsoft switched all the clips to private in yet another of its now frequent U-turns.

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Big news came from Apple and Microsoft this week. Microsoft seemingly had a change of heart; having previously said that Windows 8.1 RTM would not be made available before its official launch date, the company announced that it would be released to people with TechNet and MSDN subscriptions.

The same group of people also gained access to the pre-release version of Skype. Microsoft was clearly in a very giving mood this week as the company also announced that it was giving free copies of Office 365 to non-profit organizations.

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Earlier today Apple opened up pre-orders for one of its latest devices -- the iPhone 5c. Right on queue the attacks began, though several comedic videos beat the product even to this early stage. But, in honor of this day, rival Microsoft is chiming in with a series of videos of its own, taking time away from the usual modus operandi -- attacking Google.

The series of seven videos plays off of the old "fly on the wall" saying, though this fly is deep within the bowels of the fruit-logo company's Cupertino, Calif.-based headquarters.

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Shortly after Apple unveiled its iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, the company's online store displayed the on-contract pricing for the two smartphones at three US mobile operators: AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. The cost when opting for T-Mobile, which is one the four largest carriers in the country, was yet to be revealed.

Today, T-Mobile decided to shed some light on the matter and announced that it will officially offer the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C under its "Un-carrier" financing deals, with sales to kick off on September 20 (same day as at other local mobile operators).

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As I write this, the ultra-new iPhone 5c has just become available to pre-order from the Apple Store, as well as from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

So I figured it was a good time to address the problem(s) a lot of people seem to have with Apple’s new polycarbonate plastic-bodied iPhone, and explain -- in simple terms -- why the haters are way off the mark, and why the 5c is actually a great device, and a clever move for Apple.

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Tablets are where the growth is right now, with sales of touch devices eating away at the market share of traditional PCs. But that’s not the only cannibalization going on in the tech world. The iPad mini certainly impacted on sales of the standard-sized iPad upon launch. And with the line between tablets and smartphones becoming increasingly blurred, market analysis firm IDC predicts large-screen (5+ inch) smartphones will start to gnaw away at the smaller (7-8 inch) tablet market from 2014.

"The device world has seen several iterations of cannibalization impacting different categories, with the last few years focused on tablets cannibalizing PC sales," Bob O'Donnell, Program Vice President, Clients and Displays, observes. "Over the next 12-18 months, however, we believe the larger smartphones, commonly called 'phablets', will start to eat into the smaller-size tablet market, contributing to a slower growth rate for tablets".

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Some readers have asked me for a post on the new Apple iPhones announced two days ago. I’ll get to that in time but prefer to do so when I actually have an iPhone 5S in my hands because I have a very specific column in mind. And no, it’s not the column you think it is. But this is still a good time to write something about Apple in general, which is how Cupertino appears to now stand at a crossroads.

There is a world of difference between Microsoft and Apple but one way they are similar is in facing a generational change. Another way they are similar is in having robust legacy businesses that both put a drag on such change (who needs change, we’re doing great!) and make it easy to wait or at least to go slowly. But no matter how much money they have in the bank, each company must eventually come to terms with how it is going to move forward in an evolving market. Neither company has.

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When I first switched to OS X, by way of Hackintosh, I was in pure ecstasy. I loved the interface and the beauty of the programs. For instance, iPhoto is the most intuitive and beautiful photo management program that I've ever used. However, while Apple's operating system met most of my needs, I would still find a need for a Windows program on occasion; mostly for business.

I decided to make my desktop a tri-boot machine. In other words, I decided to have it run three operating systems: Windows 8, Fedora 19 and OS X 10.8.4. Rather than play around with partitioning, I plugged three SSDs into my computer, installed the respective operating systems and used the BIOS as the boot manager.

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Apple is trying to boost its smartphone market share in Japan by teaming up with the largest local mobile operator, NTT Docomo. Through this agreement, the latter will officially offer the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, that were unveiled during a special event yesterday, in the land of the rising sun.

"NTT Docomo has built an impressive network, the largest in the nation with over 60 million customers", says Apple CEO Tim Cook. The large userbase should allow the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation to grab a bigger slice of the Japanese smartphone market, which is heavily dominated by Android handsets. "We've enjoyed tremendous success with iPhone in Japan, in fact it's the top selling smartphone in the country, and we look forward to delivering iPhone into even more customers' hands through NTT Docomo", adds Cook.

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Today, Apple announced two new iPhones, the 5S and 5C. Sadly, through various leaks and rumors, the wind was taken out of the fruit logo company's sails; the element of surprise was lost. Surprise or not, either way, both new smartphones look really well made, attractive and full-featured. There is only one problem -- no one cares.

Well, "no one cares" is an exaggeration. I'm sure existing iPhone users care and these phones will sell well. Unfortunately, it won't be enough to lure the people Apple really needs to target -- first-time smartphone buyers and Android users. In other words, Google will continue to erode Apple's market-share, one chomp at a time.

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There were so many leaks prior to today's announcements at Cupertino that we pretty much already knew what to expect. Apple has taken the wrapper off the latest version of the iPhone and the company has stuck to its recent release schedule of following up a major iPhone with an S edition -- the iPhone 5S. Visually, things are very much the same as before, but in addition to black and white models, there's also the light gold colored model -- colors we now know should be referred to as space gray, silver and gold.

The promise to "brighten everyone's day" seems to have meant not only an addition to the color options for the iPhone 5C and 5S, but also new features. While the 5C retains the same processor as in the 5, the 5S boasts a new A7 processor which is the world's only 64-bit chip in a smartphone. iOS 7 has been re-engineered as a 64-bit operating system, but the chip is capable of running 32-bit and 64-bit apps. Apple claims the processor is double the speed of the iPhone 5 according to the graph they showed. And the processor now supports OpenGL|ES 3.0, the same as Nexus 7.

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