Apple Inc. is the manufacturer of the popular iPhone, iPod and Macintosh products. Founded in April 1, 1976, the company is known for its distinctive advertising campaigns and its loyal customer base that are devoted to the brand, many of whom are located in the United States. It’s current CEO is Steve Jobs, who is also the co-founder of the company and serves as the Chairman of the Board.
You can follow TECHGEEK.com.au’s coverage of everything Apple on our dedicated Apple blog.
An Apple TV – minus the box?
The rumour mill is exploding after a report is claiming that Apple is in negotiations to purchase German television manufacturer Loewe, fuelling speculation that this purchase could be used to make the long-awaited and much-hyped Apple TV.
Image: Mark Pegrum/OzMark17 via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Apple and Microsoft, among other tech companies, have been called to Canberra to explain why Australians are being charged much more on software, music and games in comparison to other nations, according to a new report.
Get ready to hear some Apple fanboy rage. CEO and founder of security vendor Kaspersky Labs, Eugene Kaspersky, has said that Apple’s security for its Mac OS X operating system is ten years behind Microsoft’s Windows.
So turns out, write an app that Apple loves and then port it to Android is a big no-no for Apple Marketing VP Phil Schiller. Well, that’s according to a little tweet that was captured by our friends over at 9to5Mac.
Germans won’t be getting push email anytime soon with Apple’s appeal to the Mannheim regional court failed. The court basically sided with Motorola Mobility, and agreed with an earlier decision that saw the company forced to remove the service in Germany earlier in February.
Australia might not be the only country having issues with the new iPad’s claim that it will have 4G, despite the fact that it doesn’t have it anywhere in the world except for the US and Canada (which we have explained before). European regulators are starting to take notice with such claims as well.
Apple has today claimed that Australia’s 3G networks are actually 4G networks if compared to international standards, and that our carriers have simply mislabelled them. And while we may ponder what was in their lawyer’s head when he made that statement, the 4G issue is, well, really complicated.
We all have seen/experienced Apple’s ever so ambiguous product announcement invitations, yes? And they seem to have worked well, especially at sparking off rumours amongst the associated fan-boys. Now Logitech Australia has uploaded quite a poor quality image to their Facebook page, which I think is a copy of Apple’s marketing strategy, specifically ‘the new iPad‘.
The Apple TV is getting a bit of an upgrade with support for full 1080p High Definition support and a brand new user interface that makes it easier – apparently, according to Apple – to access purchased content and stuff from iCloud and iTunes Match from the small device.
As always, Apple is finally putting us all out of our rumour-fed misery a few days before we explode, by announcing the real, official iPad 3 launch date. On March 7 at 10AM US PST at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco Tim Cook will likely take the stage to show off the new iPad, alongside other Apple conference regulars. In Australian time the even will start at the good-old time of 5AM AEDT (Sydney/Melbourne-time) on March 8 which is a Thursday (next Thursday).
Image of Foxconn's facilities (Image by ttstam/Flickr, under Creative Commons)
You may have heard in the news that Apple has had a serious problem with building its products with China. Constant news reports from the main technology press, and soon the more mainstream press, have shined a light of the inner workings of its manufacturing partners. But, why are we so focused on Apple? We shouldn’t focus on them at all – we should be focusing on our own mass tech consumption as the reason why we let this continue.
Screenshot of the data dump (Image: 9to5Mac)
Controversial manufacturer Foxconn has been hacked in protest over its working conditions, with the group leaking login details of the staff inside the company. This comes as protesters are demanding Apple to make an “ethically-made iPhone 5″.
Recently, after upgrading to a usable phone with Ice Cream Sandwich on it, I have been on the hunt for useful apps. One of these hunts was for apps that could help with my commutes, so after hunting around the marketplace and questioning friends, here is what I use to help me get around. By the way, these apps are Melbourne, Australia specific so apologies if this bares no relevance whatsoever to you and your life. Enjoy!
The iPod touch may finally have a competitor in the multimedia space, with Sony today announcing the Walkman Z at their CES 2012 keynote.
The Sony Walkman Z has a 4.3 inch touch screen with a 800 x 480 resolution, but sadly runs Android 2.3, meaning it’s already out of date before it’s even made available. It’s expected to arrive in mid-2012, in the US, but an Australian date and price has yet to be revealed. Based on US prices, it’s a fair bit pricer at US$249 compared to the 8GB iPod touch which is US$199. Meanwhile the 16GB ($279), and 32GB ($329) models are also pricer, and there is no 64GB option.
The year 2011 was one year that we will all never forget. Even though they were all in the beginning of the year, the floods in Queensland and Brazil, the earthquakes in Christchurch and the tsunami in the north of Japan are still present in all of our minds. We also saw the death of a tech luminary, Steve Jobs; and the powerful News Corporation losing its influence over politicians in the UK after the phone hacking scandal took a drastic turn from celebrities to victims of crime.
