Now that WWDC is over, we can get back to wondering what hardware Apple will announce this year. It's a given than the iPhone 6 will be brought to market towards the last quarter of 2014, but what it will contain and how it will look is still up for debate.
Apple recently took the decision to bring the manufacturing of some of its Mac line-up back to the United States, and given how popular a move it was, it is no surprise that the company has seized upon almost every available opportunity to mention and showcase the American arm of its manufacturing landscape. Tim Cook, being the head of the organization and all, was only too keen to tweet images of his encounters with Mac Pro production line workers at the Austin plant, but in a bit of a PR gaffe, showed that staff are being prompted by iMacs running on Microsoft's Windows.
Various reports have already suggested that this year, Apple will be releasing a myriad of new and exciting products. From the iPhone 6 to the iWatch, iPad Pro to the 4th-gen Apple TV, the blogosphere as been inundated with rumor and speculation. Indeed, Tim Cook already noted earlier on in the year that Apple had some exciting "new product categories" lined up, and now his sidekick and SVP Eddy Cue has added that the fruit company's forthcoming roadmap comprises "the best product pipeline that [he's] seen in 25 years at Apple."
With Apple having spent $3 billion to officially take Beats Electronics under its wing, the Cupertino company has wasted no time in moving its new subsidiary onwards and upwards. The Beats Music app, which offers streaming music to customers in a similar business model to Spotify et al, was immediately updated on iOS following yesterday's press release, and now, some new headphones have become available to pre-order. The $199.95 'Solo2' headphones, an upgrade on the Solo HDs, sport a more sizeable, tweaked design, and also promise to deliver improved sound quality.
We told you yesterday on the news that some iPhone users in the United States and Australia had reported that their iPhones were being held ransom by someone going by the name of Oleg Pliss, and that the situation was somewhat unclear. With users having their devices locked remotely via Apple's Find my iPhone feature, initial thoughts were that iCloud had potentially had a breach in security with accounts being compromised as a result.
Earlier on in the month, it came to light that Apple had struck a deal with Beats Electronics to purchase the audio-focused company, in a union that would serve as the Cupertino's costliest acquisition by some margin. Now, Apple has issued a press release offering official confirmation on the takeover, worth a cool $3 billion.
Computing has come a very long way during the course of the last 40 years, while products like the MacBook Air would have seemed virtually unthinkable even a decade ago. Such is the stronghold that the Digital Age has upon us that everywhere you go, you're likely to see kids barely out of kindergarten rocking iPhones and iPads, but how would these touchscreen-loving youngsters cope with an antiquated monstrosity like the Apple II? The result, as the video below shows, is quite amusing, with most of the children clearly bamboozled by the raw, command-line computing of yesteryear.
They say there's no rest for the wicked, and that's never been more true for Apple's lawyers after the Cupertino firm set about another attempt to put Samsung out of business in the United Stated while simultaneously taking the Korean company for as much as it can in the process.
Last week, we reported on an issue pertaining to Apple's iMessage service, which meant that some messages would be sent, marked as "delivered," but never received. At the time, an AppleCare rep acknowledged the issue, but now, the company has formally outlined the problem, while also noting that a fix will be bundled into a forthcoming software update.
Solar power is one of those things that was once supposed to provide a fix for all of our power-based problems. Even though some companies are using solar energy to at least part fuel their datacenters, it has still not quite lived up to its billing. Solar energy has even been talked of as a way of powering our personal gadgets, too, but so far nothing has really come to fruition. Sure, calculators and keyboards exist that run on power generated from the sun, but that's a far cry from keeping a power hungry iPhone juiced all day long.
