Eric Slivka

Eric is the Editor-in-Chief of MacRumors and has been writing for the site since 2008.

An avid swimmer and former biophysicist, Eric has been using Apple products for over 35 years and has been interviewed for pieces by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and other publications.

Eric's current primary role involves day-to-day oversight of the editorial operations at MacRumors, but he also contributes occasional news and review articles while handling various other duties related to the site's operation.

Eric Slivka's Articles

apple store amsterdam staircase

Apple's First Dutch Retail Store Reportedly Set for March 3 Opening

Tuesday February 21, 2012 5:41 am PST by
After one false alert claiming a February 18 opening for Apple's new Amsterdam retail store, the company's first in the Netherlands, One More Thing now reports [Google translation] that the grand opening is apparently set for March 3. Glass staircase at Apple's Amsterdam retail store The sources of the information are said to be "numerous and come from different angles", making One More...
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Apple Working to Update and Simplify iTunes Store and App Store in 2012?

Monday February 20, 2012 11:04 am PST by
9to5Mac reports that Apple is working on an overhaul of its iTunes Store and App Store marketplaces, seeking to simplify the user experience while also increasing interactivity and discoverability. The revamped stores are reportedly planned to launch later this year.The new design is said to be even simpler and more user-friendly than the current design. Apple is working on ways to enhance the...
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iPhone 5 Due for Release in September-October Timeframe?

Monday February 20, 2012 10:01 am PST by
Japanese blog Mac Otakara today reports that it has learned from a "reliable" source that Apple is targeting another September or October release for the iPhone this year, continuing a shift away from the mid-year launches seen prior to 2011 and yielding an approximately 12-month upgrade cycle for the iPhone 4S. The report also claims that Apple intends for the later timeframe to be part of...
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Apple Touts Plans for Massive Solar Farm and Fuel Cell Facilities at North Carolina Data Center

Monday February 20, 2012 9:41 am PST by
As noted by CNET, Apple today updated its environmental site with updated data for 2011, revealing a few tidbits of new information about the company's work on energy usage and other topics. Apple's data center in Maiden, North Carolina Among the additions is a brief discussion of the company's massive new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, which Apple touts as being the only such...
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ABC Previews 'Nightline' Visit to Foxconn's Chinese Factories

Monday February 20, 2012 7:04 am PST by
Over the weekend, ABC announced that it had been granted exclusive access to Foxconn's factories in China where the company assembled products for Apple, with the segment scheduled to air on a special edition of Nightline on Tuesday night. ABC has now posted a preview of the segment, along with a teaser video from Nightline co-anchor Bill Weir.Apple promised complete access, no dog-and-pony, ...
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Apple Threatens to Sue Proview for Defamation as Chinese Court Asks Distributors to Pull iPads

Monday February 20, 2012 6:18 am PST by
Associated Press reports that a Chinese court has ruled against Apple in its ongoing trademark dispute with Proview Technology over the rights to the "iPad" trademark in that country, deciding that distributors should halt sales of the iPad in China. The impact of the ruling is, however, unclear as the lawsuit is just one of many Proview has filed against Apple in its efforts to extract as much ...
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Photo of iPad 3 Logic Board with "A5X" System on a Chip

Sunday February 19, 2012 8:33 am PST by
A forum post at Chinese site WeiPhone offers a photo of what is claimed to be the iPad 3's logic board showing an "A5X" system-on-a-chip. Apple is expected to introduce an upgraded processor and graphics package for the iPad 3, with the assumption being that it would be called the A6 after the A4 initially appeared in the original iPad and iPhone 4 and was succeeded by the A5 in the iPad 2 and ...
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Confirmed: iPad 3 Has a 2048x1536 Retina Display

Friday February 17, 2012 12:32 pm PST by
Over the past couple of months, several photos of displays claimed to be for the iPad 3 have surfaced from various sources. Such parts leaks are typical with the device's expected debut early next month. While reports have claimed that these displays are high-resolution "Retina" displays, there has been no definite confirmation of these claims so far. MacRumors has now been able to obtain...
app store 25 billion countdown

Apple Announces Countdown to 25 Billion App Store Downloads with $10,000 Gift Card Prize

Friday February 17, 2012 8:04 am PST by
Apple has posted a new feature on its site promoting a countdown to 25 billion downloads for the App Store.As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet.Users...
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Foxconn Again Raises Wages for Entry-Level Workers

Friday February 17, 2012 7:53 am PST by
Reuters reports that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn has announced new wage increases for entry-level workers at its facilities in China, boosting pay anywhere from 16-25 percent. The increase, which comes as Foxconn is again under increasing global pressure stemming from reports on working conditions and worker rights issues at the company, is the company's third wage hike since 2010.In a ...
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Apple Removes X11 in OS X Mountain Lion, Shifts Support to Open Source XQuartz

Friday February 17, 2012 7:27 am PST by
As noticed by several users running the developer preview version of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple is no longer including its X11 application for running software through the X Window System interface. A popular option for scientists and others seeking to run specialized UNIX software both on local machines and across networks, X11 has been available on OS X for a number of years and has been...
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Apple Shuns The New York Times in OS X Mountain Lion Coverage Over Foxconn Reporting

Friday February 17, 2012 6:14 am PST by
With yesterday's announcements from Apple regarding its forthcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion operating system, a number of media outlets had been provided with advance briefings and early copies of the software for the purposes of having reviews prepared and ready to go. When Apple published its press release and went live with OS X Mountain Lion information at 8:30 AM Eastern yesterday, the...
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Google Under Fire for Circumvention of Cookie Settings in Safari for iOS to Track Users

Friday February 17, 2012 5:42 am PST by
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google and several other advertising agencies have been discovered to be circumventing privacy protections in Apple's Safari browser for iOS devices in order to track users through ads on numerous popular websites. Google implemented the technique in order to embed +1 buttons on its ads, tricking users' systems into allowing cookies by using an invisible form ...
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Gatekeeper Already Present in OS X 10.7.3, Available for Developer Testing

Thursday February 16, 2012 11:05 am PST by
With developers needing to prepare for Apple's new Gatekeeper feature in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple has revealed that the functionality is already baked into OS X 10.7.3 but hidden by default. Apple has instructed developers that they can enable Gatekeeper on OS X 10.7.3 from the command line in order to test the functionality.Mac OS X users will soon have the option of turning on...
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OS X Mountain Lion Drops Support for Many 2006-2008 Macs with Integrated Graphics

Thursday February 16, 2012 10:25 am PST by
Cult of Mac points to a report from French site MacGeneration highlighting the system requirements for OS X Mountain Lion. Among those Macs currently compatible with OS X Lion, those with lower-end Intel GMA X3100 or GMA 950 integrated graphics will not be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion:- Any Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook from late 2007 – late 2008 (Model Numbers: MB061*/B, MB062*/B, MB063*/B,...
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Apple Seeds Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to Developers

Thursday February 16, 2012 10:00 am PST by
Alongside the OS X Mountain Lion developer preview released today, Apple has also pushed out Safari 5.2 for Lion to developers. The update brings a number of new features that will be included with Safari in OS X Mountain Lion later this year. Among the new additions are a unified address/search bar, new persistent Reader icon that is blue when available and grey when inactive, and new URL...
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OS X Mountain Lion's Documents in the Cloud Simplifies File Access Across Devices

Thursday February 16, 2012 9:32 am PST by
One of the major new features in OS X Mountain Lion is greater integration with iCloud, with one of the additions being new Documents in the Cloud functionality. As noted by John Gruber, the feature expands significantly on the existing feature that allows limited syncing and transfer of iWork documents across their iOS devices and Macs.iCloud document storage, and the biggest change to Open and ...
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Software Update to Move Inside Mac App Store in OS X Mountain Lion

Thursday February 16, 2012 8:11 am PST by
Apple's Software Update has long been the primary method for users updating their systems, with the tool accessible through the Apple icon in the menu bar offering automatic weekly checks for new software updates from Apple. But as shown by iClarified, Apple is doing away with the standalone Software Update tool in OS X Mountain Lion and integrating it directly into the Mac App Store. Pocket...
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OS X Mountain Lion Limits Apps to Mac App Store, Signed Apps by Default

Thursday February 16, 2012 7:33 am PST by
One of the significant new features in OS X Mountain Lion is Gatekeeper, a new security system to help keep users from installing nefarious applications on their machines. The new system relies not only on Mac App Store distribution as means of vetting apps, but also on a new "identified developer" program under which developers distributing their applications outside of the Mac App Store can...
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OS X Mountain Lion to Be True Mac App Store Exclusive

Thursday February 16, 2012 7:01 am PST by
While OS X Lion was initially announced as an exclusive Mac App Store release, Apple did backtrack slightly before launch with a decision to offer a $69 USB thumb drive to assist users without access to broadband connections. As reported by Pocket-lint, Apple has decided to end that experiment with OS X Mountain Lion, making the forthcoming release a true Mac App Store exclusive.Apple has...