Apple Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts Talks Expansion in China Amid Five New Store Openings

Thursday January 15, 2015 9:13 AM PST by
Apple is planning a major retail increase in China in the coming weeks, retail chief Angela Ahrendts tells China's Xinhua News Agency. According to Ahrendts, Apple's aggressive strategy involves the opening of five new retail stores in the next five weeks. Apple is timing this expansion with the festive shopping of the February 19 Chinese New Year holiday. "We are opening five new stores before...

Apple Seeds OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 Build 14C99d to Developers

Wednesday January 14, 2015 4:21 PM PST by
Apple today seeded a fifth beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 to developers, just one week after seeding the fourth beta of OS X 10.10.2 and nearly two months after seeding the first beta. The new beta, build 14C99d, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center. As with previous betas, Apple asks developers to focus testing on Wi-Fi,...

GoPro Shares Tumble After Apple Granted Remote Control Camera Patent

Wednesday January 14, 2015 6:55 AM PST by
Shares of personal camera maker GoPro fell 12 percent as trading volume doubled yesterday following the publication of a recently awarded Apple camera patent (via Bloomberg). Apple was granted US patent no. 8,934,045 yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a remote control camera system powered by a wrist-worn device. Originally filed by Kodak in 2012 and subsequently acquired ...

Apple, Google, and Others Offer Increased $415M Settlement in Class Action Anti-Poaching Lawsuit

Wednesday January 14, 2015 6:34 AM PST by
After a judge had rejected an earlier settlement deal, Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe today offered a higher settlement that may end an anti-poaching lawsuit filed on behalf of technology workers, reports Reuters. Citing a source close to the negotiations, The New York Times claims the companies are offering a combined payment of $415 million to settle the case. The suit asserts that the...

Late 2014 Mac Mini Gained Option for 2TB Fusion Drive in December

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:14 PM PST by
When the newest Mac mini first launched in October of 2014, Apple did not give the option for it to be configured with a 2TB drive, much to the disappointment of many Mac mini fans. As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple reversed its decision to only offer 1TB of storage space in December and quietly updated the Mac mini build-to-order options, adding an option for a 2TB Fusion Drive for an additional...

EA Announces 'The Sims 4' Will Launch on Mac in February

Tuesday January 13, 2015 10:00 AM PST by
EA today announced via Twitter that the newest game in The Sims franchise, The Sims 4, will be coming to the Mac in February. The Sims 4 was first launched on the PC in September and EA initially promised a 2014 Mac launch for the game, but was unable to meet that target. As with other games in the franchise, The Sims 4 invites players to create and control the lives of virtual characters,...

Buyer's Guide: Deals on Retina iMac, Older iPads, Apps, and Apple Accessories

Friday January 9, 2015 1:54 PM PST by
With the holidays firmly in the rear view mirror, January deals are a bit sparse, but there are still a few discounts to be had on previous-generation iPads, the Retina iMac, the Retina MacBook Pro, and a handful of Apple-related accessories. iMac Apple's 27-inch 3.5GHz/8GB/1TB Retina iMac is available for $2,299 from Adorama, which is $200 off of the price for the same machine from Apple's...

California Judge Dismisses Notebook Logic Board Lawsuit Against Apple

Friday January 9, 2015 7:19 AM PST by
U.S. District Judge William Alsup this week dismissed a lawsuit filed against Apple over allegedly defective Apple notebooks, reports Reuters. Filed on behalf of Uriel Marcus and Benedict Verceles with class action status, the suit accused Apple of deliberately selling notebooks with logic boards the company knew were faulty. The plaintiffs claim Apple in May 2010 stated selling defective...

CES 2015: SVALT Launches Stylish Cooling Dock for Apple MacBooks

Thursday January 8, 2015 1:46 PM PST by
SVALT today announced the launch of a new cooling dock designed for Apple MacBooks and select PC laptops, which the company promises offers a 12x improvement in cooling, 129 percent improvement in CPU power, and 53 percent improvement in CPU Turbo Boost by eliminating CPU throttling due to heat issues. Created from solid aluminum and designed to match up with the style of Apple's MacBooks, the ...

Upcoming Plex Update to Add One-Click iTunes Library Import, New Music Features

Thursday January 8, 2015 8:44 AM PST by
Plex this week announced changes to its media software that will move the service beyond its video roots. Following updates that added online movie trailers and a recommendation engine, the next version of Plex will bring several new music features that Plex Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski says will challenge iTunes in the music department. As reported by Gigaom and PCMag, Plex users ...

CES 2015: OWC's Transwarp Software Combines Traditional Hard Drive With SSD Cache

Wednesday January 7, 2015 9:48 AM PST by
Other World Computing (OWC) today announced a new software solution that allows users to combine the speed of a solid state drive with the increased storage space of a traditional hard drive. The new Transwarp technology was previewed for the first time this week at CES 2015. While SSD caching is not new, OWC's Transwarp solutions aims to make it easy for Mac owners to combine a removable...

Kensington Unveils 'MiniSaver Mobile Lock' for Use With Ultra-Thin Laptops and Tablets

Tuesday January 6, 2015 9:35 AM PST by
Kensington's ubiquitous hold on security locks for computers and other devices has loosened somewhat as devices have grown smaller and more portable, and the space requirements for the company's traditional lock mechanism have led Apple to even omit Kensington security slots from many of its recent products such as the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro. Kensington hopes, however, to...

Apple to Announce Q1 2015 Earnings on January 27

Monday January 5, 2015 3:32 PM PST by
Apple updated its investor relations page today to note that it will announce its earnings for the first fiscal quarter (fourth calendar quarter) of 2015 on Monday, January 27. The quarterly earnings statement will be released sometime 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. The earnings release will...

CES 2015: Belkin and Elgato Announce New Home Automation Sensors for Windows, Doors, and More

Monday January 5, 2015 10:56 AM PST by
Belkin and Elgato today used CES as a platform to expand their home automation lineup of products. Belkin is showing off five new WeMo products at CES, while Elgato is presenting two products from its previously announced line of "Eve" connected home sensors. Belkin today announced an expansion to its WeMo line with the new WeMo Door and Window Sensor, the Keychain sensor, and an Alarm...

LaCie Unveils Designer Mirror Hard Drive, New Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Drive

Sunday January 4, 2015 12:01 AM PST by
LaCie today unveiled two new products ahead of this week's Consumer Electronics Show, including the new LaCie Mirror, a hard drive encased entirely in Gorilla Glass, and the LaCie Rugged RAID Thunderbolt hard drive, the newest product in its Rugged collection. The LaCie Mirror is a 1TB hard drive that's designed to be fashionable as well as functional. Created by product designer Pauline...

Apple Campus 2 Site to Include Preserved Historic Barn

Monday December 29, 2014 1:07 PM PST by
Apple's spaceship-shaped campus under construction in Cupertino will include a spot for a historic barn, reports the San Jose Mercury News. First constructed in 1916, the Glendenning Barn is a historic Cupertino site left from a time when the city was still a sprawling orchard. During the teardown of the existing HP campus, Apple dismantled the redwood barn plank by plank and made careful...

Apple-Led Rockstar Consortium Sells Remaining Patent Portfolio for $900 Million

Tuesday December 23, 2014 8:06 AM PST by
San Francisco patent company RPX today announced it is purchasing more than 4,000 telecommunications patents from Rockstar, an Apple-led consortium that previously acquired the patents from bankrupt Nortel Networks. The sale will net Rockstar $900 million, a fraction of the $4.5 billion the conglomerate of technology companies paid for the entire patent portfolio in 2011, although many of the...

'DockPhone' Adds Phone Dialing to Yosemite, Bypassing FaceTime

Monday December 22, 2014 7:38 AM PST by
DockPhone, a newly released Mac app, fixes a problem many OS X Yosemite users have faced in the months since the release of the new operating system: the inconvenience of opening FaceTime or Contacts to make a phone call on a Mac. With DockPhone app, users can now search for contacts or directly enter a number within the app, bypassing the need of opening FaceTime altogether. Though it was one ...