What kind of movement does a theft entail? Apple's in the process of figuring that out, today filing a patent application for a, "acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices." Apple pickers: you've just been put on watch. According to the patent filing, said device would activate an alarm of some form after determining, "whether a theft condition is present." It'll apparently figure that out based on the accelerometer built into many of Apple's mobile devices -- the same thing that figures out which way you're holding your phone. Beyond just the hardware, said theft protection system would work in concert with software to determine if the movement matches a pre-determined "profile characteristic of theft."
The inside of a MacBook Pro certainly isn't for the faint of heart, but if you're willing to pair your recklessness with a side of wild abandon, then you might just have what it takes to upgrade the storage of the Retina-equipped 13-inch model. OWC is more than willing to test your limits with its 480GB Mercury Aura Pro, an SSD module that's now certified for use with Apple's latest laptop. While its $580 price will deter many, the 480GB option compares favorably to the 512GB upgrade from Apple, which rings in at a healthy $800. OWC says that additional capacity sizes will be announced this November, which is reason to remain hopeful if this one has priced you out of the market.
Huge news out of Apple today, as its senior vice president of iOS software, Scott Forstall, will leave the company next year after putting in some 15 years. Furthermore, John Browett -- head of Apple retail -- is also on his way out. The memo was delivered late today, on a day that is littered with other news that the company may hope will bury the bulk of it -- and, on a day where trading on the New York Stock Exchange is halted due to Hurricane Sandy. It's practically a given that Forstall is taking the brunt of the impact from its decision to forge ahead with an obviously subpar Maps application, all while trumpeting it as one of the pillars of iOS 6 during his keynote speech at WWDC 2012. The introduction of Siri as a beta product is also on Forstall, and we all know what happens to executives who flub something related to iPhone....
Steve Jobs's yacht is making what looks to be its first public appearance in the Dutch city of Aalsmeer, a bit more than one year after his death. The photographs first appeared on the Apple news site One More Thing and closely resemble the description given by Walter Isaacson in his Steve Jobs biography.
After our omelets at the café, we went back to his house and he showed me all of the models and architectural drawings. As expected, the planned yacht was sleek and minimalist. The teak decks were perfectly flat and unblemished by any accoutrements. As at an Apple store, the cabin windows were large panes, almost floor to ceiling, and the main living area was designed to have walls of glass that were forty feet long and ten feet high. He had gotten the chief engineer of the Apple stores to design a special glass that was able to provide structural support. By then the boat was under construction by the Dutch custom yacht builders Feadship, but Jobs was still fiddling with the design. "I know that it’s possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat," he said. "But I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die."
One image clearly shows "de vries," one of the two shipyards that make up the Feadship custom yacht building company, while another tells us that the yacht is christened "Venus," the Roman goddess of love and beauty. The ship builders were each gifted an iPod shuffle with the ship's name inscribed on the back, along with a note thanking them for their "hard work and craftsmanship."
Just like most everyone else on the East Coast of the United States, Apple Stores in five states, D.C. and Canada are making preparations for "Frankenstorm" Hurricane Sandy. ifoAppleStore.com reports that between35 and 50 stores may close in the northeastern US and Canada (if they haven't already), as they are either within the expected landfall zone of Sandy or just outside it.
One of our readers has confirmed that Rhode Island and Boston area stores are shut. Meanwhile, two of Apple's flagship New York City stores have surrounded themselves with sandbags, with the Fifth Avenue store even wrapping Macs and other products in plastic bags as an extra precaution against water damage.
All of this goes to show that if Apple isn't taking chances with this megastorm, neither should you. If you live in the area expected to be affected by Hurricane Sandy, please take every precaution possible. Forewarned is forearmed.
One of the best things about the iPhone 5 is its camera. If you are a keen photographer and videographer, then this is the phone for you for those moments on the go. It is much faster which means that you now do not have to wait between shots. The speed is a great asset and in situations like photographing children, you can get lots of frames, ensuring that you don't miss that vital expression! It also has an interesting panorama feature. As you take pictures and turn the camera, it stitches the pictures together.
It has on screen directions which tell you to slow down if you are moving too fast and an arrow also helps keep you on the same horizontal line so that at the end you will have a full rectangle sized panoramic image. The front facing camera is a 1.2 mega pixel, 720p camera and massive improvements have been made to this. It means that your face time calls will be much clearer, and your front facing pictures are of a much higher quality. It doesn't match up to the quality of the camera on the back, but that's still a great quality camera.
Video on the new iPhone is shot at 1080p, so the quality of your video is much higher than ever before on smartphones. Stabilization is much better too, so you won't have as much of the unsteady guerrilla style filming you will have encountered before.
Another fantastic feature is that you can snap pictures while you are recording video. Although the improvements between the iPhones 4s and iPhone 5 are small, if you are someone who spends your life capturing a lot of photographs and video, then this alone would be a good enough reason to upgrade to the iPhone 5.
In Time's interview with Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, he addresses the long-standing question of whether or not Apple will ever jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon. It seems that barring any unforeseen circumstances, you'll likely never see a Blu-ray option from Apple on any machine.
"Blu-ray has come with issues unrelated to the actual quality of the movie that make [it] a complex and not-great technology," Schiller explains. "So for a whole plethora of reasons, it makes a lot of sense to get rid of optical discs in desktops and notebooks."
iFixit's been on something of an Apple tear lately -- just a day after ripping into the barely-repairable new13-inch MacBook Pro (not to mention the new nano and touch), the site has gotten its hands on -- and into -- the new Mac Mini. Unlike like the shiny new notebook, however, the diminutive desktop was apparently a pleasure to open up and put back together again, scoring an eight out of 10 on the repairability front and altogether forgoing the site's use of adorable kittens. The Mini gets good marks for upgradable RAM and drives and a general lack of glue and proprietary screws. Click on through the source link below to see the Intel 2.5 GHz dual-core i5 in all its glory.
As if we needed further confirmation of the rapidly closing gap between the Mac mini and what is supposed to be Apple's top-of-the-line offering -- the Mac Pro -- it looks like the latest mini refresh has brought the pint-sized PC's performance nearly in line with the previous generation of Apple's tower. According to benchmark tests by Macminiloco, the brand new minis are rapidly approaching the standards set by the 2010 Mac Pro.
Apple gave the Pro an extremely modest update in June 2012, adding just a small processor and RAM upgrade. The current Mac Pro is still without features like Thunderbolt or even USB 3.0 support. Meanwhile, the Mac mini -- which starts at $599 -- now comes with 4GB of 1600MHz RAM standard (with the option of 16GB right from Apple), Thunderbolt, four USB 3.0 ports and an optional 2.6GHz quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge processor.
The Mac Pro should be getting a full update in 2013, but until then the much pricier Pro will remain a difficult value proposition for many would-be buyers.
Just a day after introducing the iPad mini, a revised iMac, a 4th-generation iPad and a retooled Mac mini, the company is outing its Q4 2012 earnings -- and it looks as if it has narrowly fell short of Wall Street estimates. Revenue was pegged at $36 billion (compared to estimates of $35.08 billion), with net profit at $8.2 billion. For the sake of comparison, the outfit's fourth quarter of 2011 saw $28.27 billion in revenue alongside $6.62 billion net profit -- at the time, those comically large numbers were actually not up to Wall Street's comical expectations. If you're looking for a quarter-over-quarter comparison, the company's Q3 2012 report showed $35 billion in total revenue, with $8.8 billion in net profits.
You know the drill (er, screwdriver): someone releases a shiny new gadget and the internet tears it apart, both figuratively and literally. iFixit did the latter like clockwork, getting its tools on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. As with its older sibling, the notebook didn't do all that well on the repairability scale, scoring a two out of 10 -- slightly better than its predecessor's lowly one. Why so low? You can blame a glued battery, proprietary screws, soldered RAM and a display assembly that's "almost impossible to take apart." There are, however, plenty of pictures of a tiny kitten, which should help to ease the pain...
We noticed during the iPhone 5 launch that Apple had a big caveat with its Lightning to 30-pin adapter: no video or iPod out support. Now that the new iPads are here with that same connector, the problem's been partially rectified -- for a sum. Namely, you can grab the Lightning to VGA or digital AV (HDMI) adapters for a rather princely $49, though there's no sign of any iPod support yet. If you're still holding out for generic models instead, you may want to rethink that plan, as there's a control chip inside each, and so far only Apple holds the authentication keys. Also, a new $19 12W USB power adapter (which connects directly to the Lightning port) has also appeared for the 3rd and 4th generation iPads, bumping the previous version's 10W -- meaning your slate might get charged a bit quicker.
What kind of movement does a theft entail? Apple's in the process of figuring that out, today filing a patent application for a, "acceleration-based theft detection system for portable electronic devices." Apple pickers: you've just been put on watch. According to the patent filing, said device would activate an alarm of some form after determining, "whether a theft condition is present." It'll apparently figure that out based on the accelerometer built into many of Apple's mobile devices -- the same thing that figures out which way you're holding your phone. Beyond just the hardware, said theft protection system would work in concert with software to determine if the movement matches a pre-determined "profile characteristic of theft."
