Tag: apple

Ubuntu 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’, Featuring Unity, Now Available To Download

Brian Fagioli, writing for BetaNews: Ubuntu 17.04 “Zesty Zapus” is available for download. No, this is not an Alpha or Beta, but an official stable version of the Linux-based operating system. Unfortunately, the release is a bit tainted — it uses Unity as the official desktop environment, which Canonical has announced will be killed. Not to mention, there has been some controversy regarding some comments by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. Just yesterday, the CEO of Canonical announced she is leaving the position. With all of the aforementioned controversy and chaos, it is understandably hard to get too excited for “Zesty Zapus, ” especially as this is not a long term support version. With that said, if you are an existing Ubuntu user that likes Unity, this is certainly a worthwhile upgrade if you are OK with the shorter support. Unity may no longer have a future, but version 7 will continue to be supported — for a while, at least. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’, Featuring Unity, Now Available To Download

This Guy Says He Built His Own iPhone From Scratch Using Spare Parts

The walled garden Apple uses to meticulously control every element of the iPhone can really suck. It prohibits you from replacing the battery, adding third-party storage, or using an iPhone to tinker around and build new, weird projects . Read more…

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This Guy Says He Built His Own iPhone From Scratch Using Spare Parts

The Restaurant Meal Add-Ons With the Highest Markups

Restaurant meals cost a lot more than meals you make at home—you know this. But what you might not realize is those add-ons, like that oh-so-delicious guac on your burrito, can be some of the most costly offenders. Read more…

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The Restaurant Meal Add-Ons With the Highest Markups

The iPhone 7 Has Arbitrary Software Locks That Prevent Repair

Jason Koebler, reporting for Motherboard: Apple has taken new and extreme measures to make the iPhone unrepairable. The company is now using software locks to prevent independent repair of specific parts of the phone. Specifically, the home buttons of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are not user replaceable, raising questions about both the future repairability of Apple products and the future of the thriving independent repair industry. The iPhone 7 home button will only work with the original home button that it was shipped with; if it breaks and needs to be replaced, a new one will only work if it is “recalibrated” in an Apple Store. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The iPhone 7 Has Arbitrary Software Locks That Prevent Repair

Apple is building its own GPU for the iPhone and iPad

Imagination Technologies is famous for one thing: it’s the company that provides the graphics for the iPhone. But today, Imagination announced that its longstanding relationship with Apple is coming to an abrupt end. In a statement, the outfit has conceded that Apple will replace the PowerVR GPU at the heart of its iOS devices with a graphics chip of its own design. When Apple started making the iPhone, it used a generic, Samsung-made ARM system that was paired with a PowerVR GPU. Over time, Apple began crafting more and more of its own silicon, thanks to its purchase of various chip design firms . These days, the PowerVR chip on the A10 Fusion is one of very few components that Apple didn’t have entire control over. The decision to dump Imagination was probably inevitable given the company’s trend towards control, but there may be another story here. Third-party analysts The Linley Group spotted that the iPhone 7 used the same PowerVR GT7600 GPU that was used for the iPhone 6S. That piece of silicon, while powerful, couldn’t sustain its performance for very long and so throttles the component to avoid overheating. Apple’s unsentimentally when it comes to ditching chip makers when they can’t meet performance targets is well-known. After all, the company ditched PowerPC CPUs because — so the legend goes — Intel’s X86 silicon was getting faster while IBM and Motorola dragged their feet. It’s clearly a massive blow for Imagination, which has already said that it’s planning to take the matter to the courts. After all, building a graphics platform from scratch is likely to involve using technology that other companies like Imagination has already patented. The famously-secretive Apple is also not going to look favorably upon one of its suppliers going public with this licensing dispute. Imagination shares down 67% after end of agreement with Apple pic.twitter.com/jBazTt6IjT — Francisco Jeronimo (@fjeronimo) April 3, 2017 As TechCrunch explains, the split could spell doom for Imagination, since it relies upon Apple for the bulk of its cash. Even worse, is that the news has already caused Imagination’s stock to freefall, dropping between 60 and 70 percent in the last few hours. Via: TechCrunch Source: Imagination Technologies

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Apple is building its own GPU for the iPhone and iPad

Streaming Services Generated More Than 50% of All US Music Industry Revenue in 2016

Janko Roettgers, reporting for Variety: Streaming music services were for the first time ever responsible for more than 50 percent of all U.S. music industry revenue in 2016, according to new numbers released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Thursday. Paid and ad-supported streaming together generated 51 percent of music revenue last year, to be precise, bringing in a total of $3.9 billion. In 2015, streaming music was responsible for 34 percent of the music industry’s annual revenue. Much of that increase can be attributed to a strong growth of paid subscriptions to services like Spotify and Apple Music. Revenue from paid subscription plans more than doubled in 2016, bringing in $2.5 billion, with an average of 22.6 million U.S. consumers subscribing to streaming services last year. The year before, subscription services had an average of 10.8 million paying subscribers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Streaming Services Generated More Than 50% of All US Music Industry Revenue in 2016

iOS 10.3 Introduces a New File System, Adds In-App Reviews, and Find My AirPods

Apple’s released iOS 10.3 today, which isn’t a particularly interesting update, but it does have a few minor improvements, including a new file system, that are worth mentioning. Read more…

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iOS 10.3 Introduces a New File System, Adds In-App Reviews, and Find My AirPods

Hackers Claim Access To 300 Million iCloud Accounts, Demand $75,000 From Apple To Delete the Cache of Data

A hacker or group of hackers calling themselves the “Turkish Crime Family” claim they have access to at least 300 million iCloud accounts, and will delete the alleged cache of data if Apple pays a ransom by early next month. Motherboard is reporting that the hackers are demanding “$75, 000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum, another increasingly popular crypto-currency, or $100, 000 worth of iTunes gift cards in exchange for deleting the alleged cache of data.” From the report: The hackers provided screenshots of alleged emails between the group and members of Apple’s security team. One also gave Motherboard access to an email account allegedly used to communicate with Apple. “Are you willing to share a sample of the data set?” an unnamed member of Apple’s security team wrote to the hackers a week ago, according to one of the emails stored in the account. (According to the email headers, the return-path of the email is to an address with the @apple.com domain). The hackers also uploaded a YouTube video of them allegedly logging into some of the stolen accounts. The hacker appears to access an elderly woman’s iCloud account, which includes backed-up photos, and the ability to remotely wipe the device. Now, the hackers are threatening to reset a number of the iCloud accounts and remotely wipe victim’s Apple devices on April 7, unless Apple pays the requested amount. According to one of the emails in the accessed account, the hackers claim to have access to over 300 million Apple email accounts, including those use @icloud and @me domains. However, the hackers appear to be inconsistent in their story; one of the hackers then claimed they had 559 million accounts in all. The hackers did not provide Motherboard with any of the supposedly stolen iCloud accounts to verify this claim, except those shown in the video. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hackers Claim Access To 300 Million iCloud Accounts, Demand $75,000 From Apple To Delete the Cache of Data

Apple sold $4.2 billion of product in New Zealand, paid $0 local taxes

Enlarge / A customer in Apple’s store in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2010. A report by a major New Zealand newspaper found Apple hasn’t paid any taxes in New Zealand. (credit: Brendon O’Hagan / AFP / Getty Images ) The big technology story in New Zealand this weekend is about Apple’s tax bill. Or rather, the lack thereof. The electronics giant sold $4.2 billion (NZD) worth of products in New Zealand, but it didn’t pay any local tax at all. That’s according to a Saturday report from the New Zealand Herald . Apple did pay $37 million in income tax based on its New Zealand sales, but it paid that money to the Australian government, since that’s where the New Zealand operation is run from. The arrangement to send the tax on New Zealand profits to Australia has been in place since at least 2007. Experts confirmed the arrangement is legal under New Zealand law. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple sold $4.2 billion of product in New Zealand, paid $0 local taxes

Apple’s new 9.7-inch iPad is its cheapest yet

Apple just simplified its tablet lineup in a big way. The company has introduced a new 9.7-inch iPad — not the Air 3, just… iPad. The new model will seem extremely familiar on the outside, but there are a bunch of notable under-the-hood upgrades. You’ll find a slightly older but still speedy A9 processor inside instead of the Air 2’s aging A8X, and Apple has doubled the capacities to give you either 32GB or 128GB (sorry, no 256GB option here). This new mid-size model also touts a brighter display, although it’s still sitting at a 2, 048 x 1, 536 resolution. The cameras remain the same, for or better or worse, with an 8MP shooter on the back and a 1.2MP FaceTime cam at the front. For most, the biggest deal may simply be the price. The upgraded iPad is available now at $329 for the 32GB version, and $459 for its 128GB model. That’s the lowest starting price yet for a mid-size iPad, and it’s clear that this is the new budget option. In fact, Apple has gone so far as to make the iPad mini 4 more expensive – it’s now available solely in a 128GB edition for $399, and there’s no iPad mini 2 to pick up the slack. Apple clearly feels that 9.7 inches represents its mainstream size going forward. Source: Apple , BusinessWire

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Apple’s new 9.7-inch iPad is its cheapest yet