Tech watchers love the horse race aspect of technology industry competition. Apple competes with Microsoft. Apple competes with Google. Apple competes with companies like HP. But Apple doesn’t see it that way. Industry titans like Microsoft, Google and HP instinctively “fill out” their product lines to dominate huge areas of technology. Microsoft, for example, wants Microsoft software running on wristwatches, supercomputers and everything in between. Google wants to offer every conceivable service that can be squeezed through an internet connection....

I don’t think IBM, Dell, Sun and HP should be sweating over ol’ Apple just yet. If you look at the numbers, Apple came in 10th place with 8700 Units sold. That’s all you need to break into the top 10?! I mean isn’t that about how many one of those crazy supercomputer setups that Virginia Tech (1100) and the Army (1500) built plus a couple of ad agencies and schools?...

From Google Docs and Zoho to LibreOffice and Corel’s WordPerfect, Microsoft does have some token competition. However, apple’s answer to the productivity suite is iWork, which we’ve seen hyped now and then as a Microsoft Office killer. In 2013, Apple began bundling Pages, Numbers, and Keynote with new Macs to gain more market share. Now, they are taking it one step further by offering the iWork suite and the iLife suite for free to all macOS and iOS users....

[slideshow] Although Apple makes the vast majority of its money selling hardware, it still makes a healthy profit on its software. With hundreds of millions of iOS devices in the wild, each app sold has the potential for big sales. Apple announced today that it sold its one-millionth copy of the $4.99 iPhoto [iTunes] in under 10 days. While sales have been relatively brisk, reviews are somewhat mixed. Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive took particular pride in the app: “The iPhoto app we created for the new iPad completely consumes you and you forget you are using an iPad....

Apple has hired the former head of songwriter and publisher relations at YouTube for a senior role in its Apple Music publishing division … Variety reports. Apple Music’s publishing division was formed last year with the aim of discovering new songwriting talent, signing licensing deals, helping them with their career development and even potentially starting its own music label. Her new position marks Apple Music’s first hire on the Music Publishing Creative Services team, though the position had been green-lit long before Rothschild’s April 29 start date […]...

Apple Music is today promoting a live concert by Shawn Mendes for this Thursday. This is the second time we’ve seen the company’s streaming service recently host a concert. Back in March, we saw Apple Music and Dr. Dre sponsor a free live Anderson .Paak concert in London. This week’s Shawn Mendes performance will be along the same lines, but is a bit different. This time around, Apple will be offering the free concert tickets to members of the #mendesarmy to attend in LA show....

Yahoo, who is expected to bid, paid $15M to exclusively stream one game this season according to the report so the deal would be a big one. Because the streaming deal would be non-exclusive, the prices would be much lower on a per-game basis. More importantly, the deal would hopefully be the first step into the much larger goal of streaming the whole NFL Season. Apple TV got the Game Pass service featuring live preseason football games on updated NFL app just four months ago, and now has tvOS as a platform to expand on that....

According to a report from Reuters this evening, Apple has acquired a startup that focuses on making “lenses for augmented reality glasses.” Details – such as a price – are unclear at this point, but Apple did confirm the acquisition. Akonia Holographics is based out of Colorado and was founded in 2012 with an initial focus on “holographic data storage.” Shortly thereafter, however, the company pivoted to creating displays for augmented reality glasses....

Apple’s strong position on privacy and encryption has been at odds with the United States government’s pressure to step up its national security efforts in the wake of recent terrorist attacks across the globe. In short, iPhones are encrypted to protect customer data from prying eyes, and law enforcement agencies believe that gives criminals a safe haven for communication that can’t be traced. The Obama administration including the former and current attorney general and FBI director have strongly voiced opposition to Apple’s position, and Tim Cook reportedly pressed the White House to back strong encryption as recently as this week....

Apple CEO Tim Cook has never commented on future, unannounced Apple products, but that doesn’t stop investors and analysts from trying every quarter. During Apple’s Q1 2020 earnings call today, Cook was again asked about Apple’s plans for 5G. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty tried to acknowledge the obvious. “At some point in the future, Apple will launch a 5G iPhone,” she said. The actual question centered on how big a demand driver Cook thinks 5G is, and what will be the “killer app” from a consumer perspective....

With its resources from the 2014 acquisition of headphone maker Beats Electronics, Apple is prototyping a completely new set of Bluetooth earphones with the potential of launching the accessory alongside the iPhone 7 this fall. The new earphones are said to be completely wireless, which is to say that they do not even have a cable connecting the left and right ear pieces. Sources say that the headphones are similar in concept to the Motorola Hint headset (pictured above) and Bragi’s new Dash headphones that were shown at CES this week....

Apple has ordered resellers to cease all sales of Apple products and services in Crimea as of 1st February. This follows the termination of agreements with app developers in the region earlier this week. Apple states that both moves are to comply with sanctions on the Crimea region of the Ukraine imposed by the US Government. The company informed retailers of the decision by letter. The US joined the EU in imposing economic sanctions in protest at Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which legally remains part of the Ukraine....

Ahead of Apple’s iOS 7 launch (presumably alongside the new iPhones in September), Apple seems to be asking developers to submit larger app icons. As part of iOS 7’s dramatic interface changes, the Home screen icons have been slightly enlarged compared to the iOS 6 icons. For example, as shown in the image above, the non-iOS 7-optimized Netflix icon has a small white border compared to Apple’s icons. In order to avoid this interface issue, developers will need to include larger icons in their applications....

Apple has lost another legal battle with Swiss watchmaker Swatch. As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, Apple has failed in its quest to stop Swatch from using the phrase “one more thing” in Australia. Apple had argued with the Australian Trade Marks Office that Swatch should not be allowed to use the “one more thing” phrase as it was synonymous with Steve Jobs. Jobs, of course, used it regularly during Apple Keynotes while Tim Cook has also used it....

The Apple Music festival in London has been always been a staple of the fall pop music scene, but never has it been more integral to Apple’s operations than this year – when Apple Music is locked in a battle for supremacy among streaming services and Tim Cook is pushing services revenue as a replacement for Apple’s sagging hardware unit sales. This year’s event will not only be available on Apple’s product lineup but also PCs, and for the first time through the Apple Music App on Android which launched in November of last year....

After first being announced and previewed at WWDC in June of last year, Apple launched its music streaming platform on Android on November 10th. Now, after almost a year of being available to the public (and only a month since it finally exited beta), the app has garnered more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store… Since the app first became available, Apple has slowly been adding features and improving the experience....

Apple Music today launched a new curated playlist on the service, called “New Music Daily”. Unlike most Apple Music human editorial playlists, New Music Daily is refreshed every single day. The debut lead single on the playlist is Taylor Swift’s “The Man,” from her brand-new album, and the cover art also features a photo of the singer. Presumably, Apple will be featuring lead artists in the artwork on a rolling basis....

A drone pilot who has been making regular flights over Apple Park says he believes that the company is tracking all flights over the campus, and thinks it’s only a matter of time before counter-measures are used to block future flights … Duncan Sinfield made the comments in a new video posted today (below), noting that it usually takes Apple security no more than ten minutes to reach him, no matter where his take-off point is....

After totally killing Twitter for Mac, Twitter’s next move appears to be taking some seriously useful features out of third-party Twitter clients: push notifications and streaming. Losing the ability to receive notifications and update timelines as new tweets arrive would significantly limit apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific which serve the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The problem is an upcoming change to how Twitter allows third-party apps to access “streaming services” which power push notifications and updating timelines....

Notice anything out of the ordinary on Apple.com today? Don’t worry, you’re not hallucinating. Sonic, Frogger, and other Apple Arcade characters have taken over Apple’s homepage. Sure, it may just be an ad for Apple’s $5/month subscription game service, but it has character. Apple’s ad-free game service debuted in September, creating a new subscription business for Apple with games developed without ads or in-app purchases. The $4.99/month service recently added a new $49....