Laptops are expensive. It’s critical that consumers have the option to repair things that go wrong, as well as upgrade their own hardware to keep it relevant as new technologies roll out. On top of being glued together, the new MacBook Pro is virtually non-upgradeable—making it the first MacBook Pro that will be unable to adapt to future advances in memory and storage technology.
Tag Archives: apple
The Future Fruits Of Apple + Facebook
And while Facebook is struggling to make money on small mobile screens, Facebook TV could be a more natural place for display ads. Advertisers have been demanding a bigger, flashier ad formats that Facebook TV could host. We’re so used to watching commercials on TV that a glossy still ad every 10 minutes or 10 photos, or the occasional fifteen-second pre-roll might not seem out of place.
Apple would gain a good showcase for how existing mobile and web apps could be reformatted for the television. The special Facebook app could also be a selling point for Apple’s new TV hardware. Facebook needs to be on televisions and Apple needs Facebook on its televisions, so this collaboration seems inevitable if not imminent.
via The Future Fruits Of Apple + Facebook | TechCrunch.
What goes around comes around. The first computer to use the TV as a monitor was the VIC-20 or Commodore 64. Then there was WebTV. Now Apple wants to pipe Facebook to TV? Not having a TV or a Facebook account I have no basis for an opinion on this.
Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter
The first quarter of the calendar year usually results in a decline in unit sales from the previous quarter due to the holiday season rush to buy gadgets. Apple wasn’t completely immune to this market force—IDC says the company shipped 11.8 million iPads during the first quarter of the year, down from 15.4 million units over the holiday season. Despite this drop, Apple’s share of the tablet market was able to shoot up more than 14 percentage points between quarters, largely because of the precipitous decline in tablet sales from the likes of Amazon. According to IDC, Amazon’s share of the tablet market with the Kindle Fire was 16.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, but fell to just 4 percent in the first quarter of 2012.
via Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter.
Apple blocks Dropbox-based apps
Apple is blocking apps that take advantage of the new Dropbox SDK because they inadvertently allow users to buy extra online storage without Apple taking a cut.
via Apple blocks Dropbox-based apps | Enterprise | News | PC Pro.
The Artificial Life of the App Store – the Best Strategy to Succeed
First they proposed five types of developer, and you won’t find it hard to recognize them:
- S0 – the innovator always builds apps with a wide range of novel features.S1- the milker who implements slight largely unnecessary variations on a single app.
- S2 – the optimizer who simply releases improvements on their most successful app.
- S3 – the copycat simply copies the best apps in the market.
- S – the flexible developer who adopts whichever strategies seems good at the moment.
via The Artificial Life of the App Store – the Best Strategy to Succeed.
New targeted Mac OS X Trojan requires no user interaction
After infecting a given Mac, this Trojan is like most: it connects to a remote website using HTTP in typical command and control C&C fashion to fetch instructions from remote hackers telling it what to do. The backdoor contains functionality to take screenshots of the user’s current session, upload and download files, as well as execute commands remotely on the infected machine. Encrypted logs are sent back to the control server, so the hackers can monitor activity.
via New targeted Mac OS X Trojan requires no user interaction | ZDNet.
Despite higher network speeds, no FaceTime calls over LTE
Apple’s open source (albeit with the source code yet to be released by Apple) video chat spec first launched in 2010 with a vague promise from then-CEO Steve Jobs that it might be available over cellular data connections once the cell networks “get ready for the future.” Since then, there have been plenty of rumors that the iPhone would soon gain the ability to make FaceTime calls over 3G—particularly as the launch of iOS 5 loomed last October—but it still hasn’t happened. Attempting to make a FaceTime call when not connected to a WiFi network results in a pop-up that explains a WiFi network is necessary to complete the action.
via Despite higher network speeds, no FaceTime calls over LTE.
I wonder why FaceTime cares what network carries its data. The network layers should be independent of the application. If it works with WiFi it should work with LTE.
IT staff can now manage iPads, iPhones, iPod touches with Configurator tool
According to Apple’s description of the application, IT staff can create and restore from a backup of preconfigured settings and app data, as well as create and install configuration profiles, among a number of other setup options. Admins can also supervise devices and organize those into custom groups, restrict which computers they can sync with, and add common configurations automatically. Admins can even apply custom text, wallpaper, or pictures to the iOS devices’ lock screens (keep an eye on your snarky IT staff if your work-issued iPhone’s lock screen image mysteriously changes to Nyancat).
via IT staff can now manage iPads, iPhones, iPod touches with Configurator tool.
Apple: iWork.com to get the axe on July 31 so back up your documents
Apple first introduced iWork.com as part of an iWork software refresh in January of 2009. The goal was to allow iWork users to share their documents online for collaboration with others—sort of like a Google Docs, but by Apple. Since then, however, Apple launched iCloud—among other things, the service allows apps like iWork on the iPad to sync documents to other devices, and the launch of Mountain Lion for the Mac will bring that same functionality to the desktop.
via Apple: iWork.com to get the axe on July 31 so back up your documents.
Samsung takes big hit in battle against Apple as EU probes patents, Germany blocks tablets
Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. are engaged in a strategic war over patents in many countries across the world as they try to draw market share away from each other.