https://touchreviews.net iPhone, iPad Games, Apps, Reviews, News Thu, 30 Jul 2015 08:09:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3 iPhone 5S Keynote Event Live Coverage https://touchreviews.net/iphone-5s-keynote-event-live-coverage/ https://touchreviews.net/iphone-5s-keynote-event-live-coverage/#comments Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:12:50 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=23002 Read More]]> iPhone 5S media event iOS 7

iPhone 5S keynote event is now live at the Town Hall Apple Campus. We’re expecting Apple to announce all-new iPhone 5S and a low cost iPhone 5C. The company will also share release date of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks.

Apple has in the past streamed live video stream of the WWDC keynote event, however this year the company has not shared a live stream of the iPhone event. Last year Apple TV was updated with “Apple Events” channel for the streaming. Even though a live stream is not available many tech bloggers will be at the iPhone event to cover the event. Links to live coverage of the iPhone 5S keynote event can be found here: EngadgetArs TechnicaThe VergeMacworldAllThingsDCNETSlashGear.

We will be posting tech specs, release date, photos, videos, pre-order dates and everything you need to know from today’s event as it concludes later this morning. According to various rumors and reports iPhone 5S will feature Touch ID sensor (fingerprint), faster A7 processor, dual-led flashlight and updated camera software.

Apple will also announce iPhone 5C, a low cost iPhone to make the smartphone more affordable for everyone. This could lead to significant increase in market share for Apple in a market where Android dominates with mid-priced smartphones.

iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks golden master seeds could be released today to the developers and could be made available to general public on September 17th just before the release of iPhone 5S.

]]> https://touchreviews.net/iphone-5s-keynote-event-live-coverage/feed/ 4 Apple Offering Some Employees Two Week Breaks For Side Projects https://touchreviews.net/apple-offering-employees-week-breaks-side-projects/ https://touchreviews.net/apple-offering-employees-week-breaks-side-projects/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:24:12 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=21604 Read More]]> Apple Campus

Apple has changed a lot under new CEO Tim Cook, who took over after Steve Jobs stepped down and became chairman of the board. Following the passing of Jobs in late 2011, Tim Cook is trying to take the company in his own direction. This began with the removal of key employees at Apple such as the removal of Scott Forstall as SVP of iOS Software and the resignation of John Browett, head of retail operations.

Now, Apple is offering a new program, allowing some of its employees to take two week breaks from work for side projects that they may be working on, as it might benefit the company somehow in the future.

Apple’s culture is getting to be a little bit more like Google, and other Silicon Valley companies, says Jessica Lessin at the Wall Street Journal. Speaking on today’s News Hub video show, Lessin reports Apple started a program earlier this year called “Blue Sky” that lets employees take two weeks to work on projects outside their normal responsibilities.

Apple is implementing an idea that Google has already had for a number of years, however, Apple’s is much more limited and includes only a select group of employees. By doing this, Apple is hoping that the personal time will fuel innovation and ideas that wouldn’t come to fruition otherwise. By giving employees to enjoy their time and dabble in their own personal projects, Apple is allowing its employees to enjoy their jobs and bringing new ideas into the workplace.

{via iMore}

]]> https://touchreviews.net/apple-offering-employees-week-breaks-side-projects/feed/ 2 iOS 6 Running on iPad Shows Up in Web Logs https://touchreviews.net/ios-6-running-ipad-web-logs/ https://touchreviews.net/ios-6-running-ipad-web-logs/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:06:53 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=19647 Read More]]>

While we are still awaiting the release of iOS 5.1, it seems that Apple has already begun testing iOS 6 internally. According to a report published by Ars Technica browser agent strings showing up as iPads running iOS 6.0 have appeared on their server logs.

It’s worth noting that user agent strings can easily be faked however, in order to make sure that these iPads could indeed be running iOS 6 Ars Technica filtered their logs to show only those entries coming from IPs assigned to Apple’s headquarter.

[W]e began looking at iPad user agents coming from Apple’s corporate IP block in Cupertino and discovered that Apple appears to be surfing the Web using iPads running what looks like iOS 6.0. The whole listing shows iPads running iOS 5, iOS 5.0.1 (the current public release), iOS 5.1 (the upcoming release currently available to developers), and iOS 6. The iPads that appear to be running iOS 6 are also using a slightly newer build of WebKit—the older OSes all show WebKit 534.46, while the ones claiming to be iOS 6 show WebKit build 535.8.

It’s no surprise that Apple could already be working on the next major software update for iOS devices. Apple introduced iOS 5 during WWDC last year and could be looking at announcing iOS 6 during this years developers conference. Since, iOS now accounts for a major part of Apple’s revenue stream introducing iOS 6 in front of over 5,000 Apple developers feels like the right choice for the Cupertino, Calif. based company.

The report further goes onto mention that the server logs also referenced a 2048×1536 screen resolution device however, it couldn’t be verified if the device in question was iPad 3. MacRumors points out that even if iPad 3 has retina display it should have still shown as 1024×768 as the “higher pixel density [is] intended to increase sharpness rather than screen real estate”.

iOS 6 is expected to be made available to users around fall this year just like iOS 5 was first introduced during WWDC and then released during fall.

{via MacRumors}

]]> https://touchreviews.net/ios-6-running-ipad-web-logs/feed/ 4 Apple Inc. (AAPL) Submits Revised Plans For New Spaceship Campus https://touchreviews.net/apple-inc-aapl-revised-plans-new-spaceship-campus/ https://touchreviews.net/apple-inc-aapl-revised-plans-new-spaceship-campus/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:30:39 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=18791 Read More]]> Apple new campus cupertino renderings spaceship

On Wednesday, iPhoneinCanada noted that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has submitted major revisions and renderings of their new spaceship like campus in Cupertino. The new campus is approximately 2.8 million square feet for up to 13,000 employees and will be the forefront of AAPL’s innovation in building large corporate campus.

The circular, spaceship style design is expected to be quite unique, especially as headquarters for a company such as Apple. Last June, Steve Jobs presented the original plans himself, describing it as:

It’s a pretty amazing building. It’s a little like a spaceship landed. It’s got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle… It’s a circle. It’s curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It’s all curved. We’ve used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building… It’s pretty cool.

The latest rendering of the building, pictured above, is not very different from others in the past, and remains unchanged, with the exception of a few changes here and there. The new plans submitted Wednesday, also include a detailed floor plan of how the 4 story building will be laid out.

If the new plans and rendering are accepted, with scheduled construction, the new campus could be completed by as early as 2015.

{via MacRumors}

]]> https://touchreviews.net/apple-inc-aapl-revised-plans-new-spaceship-campus/feed/ 1 Apple’s Secret Strategy at The iPhone 4 Press Conference https://touchreviews.net/apple-secret-strategy-iphone-4-press-conference/ https://touchreviews.net/apple-secret-strategy-iphone-4-press-conference/#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:02:00 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=7893 Read More]]> Apple dodged more than one bullet at their iPhone 4 Press Conference yesterday. Some that I think many people had not even seen coming. But that’s because by definition most industry observers, or journalists, are followers and not leaders. Being a leader is something that Apple very certainly is used to – and good at.

Some pundits went into the event secure in their own personal mind bubble that Steve knew about the issue with the iPhone 4, it wasn’t fixable, and he was a liar. Others went in equally sure that he didn’t know about it, and it could perhaps be fixed by software, but Apple were struggling with that task. Overall though, a very large percentage of all of them went in assuming that Apple would have to grovel their way out of this situation, offer some kind of mea culpa, recall the iPhone 4 (at least with some kind of voluntary return scheme) and then crawl away licking their wounds.
Unfortunately what a lot of the pundits, who themselves contributed to creating this 22 day circus forgot was that “Pride always comes before a fall”. They also forgot that Apple has said all along that if you don’t like the iPhone 4 you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

Apple’s senior management wasn’t even on the same planet as most industry pundits when they entered the Press Conference. By that I mean that their perception of the issue was one based in reality, 22 days of hard work and investigation and several years of hard work prior to that. What it was certainly not based on was self-aggrandisation, a grubby search for page-views, or a self inflicted forced feedback loop of rumor and speculation feeding on itself in a piranha pool like frenzy.

The first bullet that Apple dodged was the amount of mileage that other manufacturers were planning to make out of “Antennagate”.

“Every Magic Trick consists of three parts, or acts.”

“The First part is called The Pledge. The Magician shows you something ordinary.”

So Steve started with the iPhone 4. He also softened us up with the now famous iPhone 4 Antenna song, and an admission that Apple makes mistakes.

Steve carefully orchestrated the way his monologue ran so that it led smoothly through a winding tail reenforcing just how good the iPhone 4 is at handling radio signals, and then arrived at a tantalising moment where he flirted with his own “pet theory” about why a minuscule number more calls have been recorded as dropped by AT&T on the iPhone 4 than on the iPhone 3GS.

With the dropped calls figure he gave us something which sounded like a negative, just briefly, before hinting at something a lot of people were salivating for – something free! And then he changed tack. That fleeting proposition seemed to be gone. So we listened all the more intently to what he had to say next…

In my own view the sampling for the iPhone 4 is so small by comparison to the 3GS it seems that comparing the two is irrelevant at this stage, whichever way you lean. But what it did do was put things in perspective and give Apple a really minor piece of bad “hard data” to take responsibility for, which it would later use as a reason to offer an appeasement to its customers.

As Steve continued to lecture us he dragged some of the iPhone 4’s main competitors into the room by the scruff of their necks, metaphorically; in the form of their handsets, and showed us their flaws also.

Now, in the UK it is illegal to produce adverts which criticise your competitors. At least it was the last time I checked. And I am pretty sure that although it used to go on in the US, it is now at least frowned upon, if not illegal in some states.

However, under the guise of a kind of public service announcement, or technical lecture, Steve Jobs spent about a third of his Press Conference showing us some of Apple’s leading competitors mobile devices dropping signals right in-front of our eyes. Just like the iPhone 4 has been reported as doing.

“The second act is called the turn. The Magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary.”

In one fell swoop he had created a global advert, sure to be replayed on news networks around the world, and streamed to people’s computers shortly after the Press Conference concluded. Levelling the playing field in Apple’s most important industry. Undoing harm, and putting previously falsely smug competitors on notice.

It is interesting to note that Apple got the video of the press conference up on its website in record time. And that there were clips from it playing on global news networks even before the Q&A immediately after the press conference had finished on the Apple campus.

This morning, instead of crowing about Apple’s troubles, as they were earlier in the week, Nokia and RIM are on the back foot and rushing to distribute their own Press Releases criticising Apple’s methods at the press conference. They’re in the offices emailing and faxing over the weekend! Apple is not. Apple’s competitors are now finding themselves doing their best to dispute the videos of their devices that Steve Jobs managed to get a global community looking at. But no-one, apart from tech. sites are picking any of this up. Because it’s not Apple, and it’s not interesting, and it’s the weekend now.

But back to the conference…

The second bullet that Apple dodged was the outcry that would come from third party iPhone 4 case manufacturers when they realised that Apple had just killed their business by giving away free Bumpers to a lot of their potential customers.

At the point where we all expected the “free Bumper” announcement I have already mentioned that Steve skilfully wheeled away and took us on another brief joy ride ride through how good the iPhone 4 is, just like that final twist on a roller coaster. And then he threw the free Bumper line out almost casually, as we were all looking the other way.

“But you wouldn’t clap yet because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”

It was almost as if Jobs had watched “The Prestige” recently, and recalled perfectly how Michael Caine explained exactly the perfect steps a magicians trick should follow. (The quotes I am using are from that great movie, by the way.)
Now, something that had occurred to me a few days before the Press Conference, and one of the reasons I had my doubts about Apple giving out free Bumpers was that it could potentially alienate the entire third party product industry built up around the iPhone ecosystem.

Another reason that giving out Bumpers might be a bad idea is that I think it potentially opens a crack in Apple’s legal defence against the class action lawsuits that some initiated against Apple in the first few days that the iPhone 4 was on the market. But that is a subject for another article.

In any case Apple is giving out free Bumpers to all customers, and they have managed to make sure that there will be plenty on hand, and at the same time they won’t get more bad PR by gutting the relative cottage industry that iPhone third party accessories make up when compared to Apple’s corporate juggernaut.

Apple did that by “admitting”, or seeming to admit, that they couldn’t possibly manufacture enough Bumpers to satisfy all their customers themselves. And that they would get around that “problem” by enlisting the help of selected third party manufacturers, so that they could not only offer their customers a more diverse range of iPhone 4 Bumpers and covers to choose from. But also get them to them sooner rather than later. Whilst there may be some truth in the explanation that they could not produce enough Bumpers, it is certain that the thinking that went into that strategy ran deeper than simple supply issues.

To round the event out Steve confirmed that the white iPhone 4 would be available at the end of July. He assured us that Apple exists only to make its customers happy, and that they take all this very personally.

Finally in the Q&A he called both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journals liars.

“Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be… fooled.”

To be clear though, that last line I am quoting from “The Prestige” is not really where I am at personally. I never really saw there being a serious problem with the iPhone 4.

But that’s because I actually have one, and have been using it since a few days after launch, and have not had a single – not one – dropped call. And I use mine without a case in areas where both Nokia phones and previous iPhones had problems getting and keeping signals. So I don’t need to be convinced that the iPhone 4 is a great product.

Unfortunately Apple wasn’t trying to convince me. It was trying to convince an industry that exists on rumors and smoke and mirrors itself. Ironic when you consider that most rumor sites are the ones who feel they are drawing the curtain back on Apple’s “evil” PR machine. When in actual fact they are at best victims of their own forced feedback loop they create by stealing content from one another on the internet, and at worst vultures trolling for page views.

Overall I give Apple, and Steve Jobs 10 out of 10 for their handling of “antennagate”. So far…

I say so far, because it is not over yet. Those same sites, currently in some disarray as they work out their next move, already have their sights set on September the 30th. A deadline that Apple set for the end of free Bumpers. And one they are already assuming is the date that Apple will produce a hardware fix for the iPhone 4 that will change the laws of physics.

Woe betide Apple if they don’t come up with it. We might all be back at Cupertino in the first week of October otherwise.

Do let us know in the comments how you feel Apple has dealt with “Antennagate” so far…

Included for completeness below are the Press Releases from Nokia and RIM in response to Apple..

Nokia

Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.
In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.

RIM

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple. – Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

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