Another quarter, another happy financial report from Apple. The company's third financial quarter is rarely the place where you expect to see records - but there was still a lot to be gleaned from the numbers, and from the following hour-long call with financial analysts.
When Apple released the first iPhone, its 3.5-inch touchscreen seemed huge compared to the displays of other phones. Nonetheless, competitors responded with even larger screens, trying to find areas where they could provide clear alternatives to Apple hardware. Consumers responded positively, so the competition started making even bigger phones.
If there's a single app that defines the OS X experience, it's probably Safari. Not everyone uses it (many of my friends and family members prefer Chrome), but as the default browser it's the window on the Web for most Mac users. I've been using an early developer preview of Yosemite for the past few weeks, and it's clear that Safari is the stock Apple app that will change the most when users install OS X Yosemite upon its arrival this fall.
Apple is ceasing development of its Aperture and iPhoto apps and will replace them both with the previously-announced Photos for OS X app when it ships next year, Apple announced Friday.
Newsstand was one of iOS 5's banner features when it was introduced back in 2011, but its time has come and gone. What was intended to be a special collection of apps has, instead, become a second-class collection. That's why it would be better for everyone concerned - Apple, users, app developers, and publishers (including Macworld) - if Newsstand just vanished.
If Yukari Iwatani Kane's Haunted Empire teaches us anything, it's that a dogged newspaper reporter who wants to write a book about Apple needs a narrative hook to hang the story on. In Kane's case it's right there in the title: Apple is an empire that's haunted by its fallen emperor, Steve Jobs, an organization that just can't make up for his loss and is falling apart right before our eyes.
The canceled-to-Kickstarter journey of Veronica Mars is like no entertainment project ever seen before, and with each passing day the story seems to get more interesting.
Marvel Comics is making its subscription comic service, Marvel Unlimited, available for $US0.99 for the first month until March 14. If you're a comic-book fan - either present or past - it's a great deal to try out Marvel's all-you-can-eat approach to comic reading.
As it turns out, 2013 probably wasn't the Year of the Smartwatch, given that none of the wearable tech released last year set the world on fire. But 2013 was the year I got my first smartwatch, as the Pebble shipped in January, and, as one of the device's Kickstarter backers, I received mine a month later.
Thirty years ago, Apple introduced the Macintosh, and we all learned why 1984 wasn't going to be like 1984. A lot has changed in 30 years, and yet even in as fast-moving a field as technology, Apple and the Mac are still here. A time traveler from 1984, fresh from Steve Jobs's introduction of the original Mac, would probably be able to point at one of today's iMacs and identify it as the logical evolution of the original.
Sometimes it's the little things.
The iPad mini with Retina display has arrived. As someone who dumped the full-sized iPad for the iPad mini a year ago, I've been excited to get my hands on this new model. Can its small size beat out the all-new, all-lightweight iPad Air for a place in my heart and my backpack? I've been using mine for half a day; here are some initial impressions ahead of my full review.
It's right there in the name: The most important trait of the iPad Air is that it weighs only a pound. For a company that obsesses over making devices thinner and lighter, it must have been torture for Apple to spend nearly three years making a series of iPads that were better than their predecessors, but not smaller. Now it has.
With Apple widely expected to be launching a new iPad mini, it's worth revisiting what makes the mini such a compelling product.
Apple's pattern of iteration isn't smooth when it comes to the iPhone. It bumps along: a new case design one year, more subtle advancements the next. The iPhone 5s is, as the name implies, a phone that doesn't look much different from last year's iPhone 5. But the mostly static exterior belies the numerous changes inside the device.
