Apple

Even though it's not called iPhone 5, Apple's latest version of its iconic smartphone - the iPhone 4S - is reportedly proving to be quite the hot potato with consumers. Apple says pre-orders topped a million in its first day, stomping all over the company's previous iPhone pre-order single-day record of 600,000 for the iPhone 4. Read More

To cut down on the amount of mobile phone chargers relegated to the garbage after a phone upgrade, in 2009 the European Commission reached a voluntary agreement with 14 major smartphone manufacturers who committed to providing a standardized charger based on the micro-USB connector that is compatible with all models of data-enabled mobile phones. Apple was one of the manufacturers that signed on to the agreement and has now delivered with the appearance of the Apple iPhone Micro USB Adapter in the company's U.K. online store. Read More

Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs has passed away aged 56. This sad news comes just a little over a month after Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook summed up the loss in an email to the company's employees today: "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being." Read More

In his first product launch since becoming CEO, Apple's Tim Cook has announced a new version of the iPhone at Apple HQ in Cupertino, California. The iPhone 4S retains the ground-breaking Retina display technology and glass back of its predecessor, but has undergone something of an internal overhaul. Apple's new smartphone gets a brand new dual-core processor, an 8 megapixel camera capable of also shooting full high definition video, and a new personal assistant application that uses voice recognition. The 4S also promises up to double the previous download speeds and will be available on over 100 carriers worldwide. Read More

The wait will soon be over. Apple has sent out press invitations for an event on October 4th in which it's expected to introduce iPhone 5. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs last month, is likely to preside over the "Let's talk iPhone" gathering and indications are that the killer feature of the new smartphone will be an extensive voice control system called the Assistant. Read More

The flow of Thunderbolt peripherals onto the market definitely seems to be building steam with this latest example from Sonnet bringing expanded connectivity options to those with machines packing Apple's new I/O technology. Sonnet's US$150 EchoExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter uses a PCIe interface to link a range of existing peripherals such as USB 3.0, FireWire 800, eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet and high speed memory cards through a single Thunderbolt port. Read More

In April 2010, Steve Jobs’ outlined why Flash would not be permitted on iOS devices in his “Thoughts on Flash” open letter. While Jobs made some valid points in terms of Flash’s proprietary nature, security concerns, and the fact it drains the batteries of mobile devices, the popularity of the Skyfire 2.0 mobile web browser and standalone VideoQ Flash video player showed that there were still plenty of iOS users keen to Flash video on their mobile devices. Now Adobe has finally come to the party with its own solution that will allow Flash video content to be viewed directly within Safari on iOS devices. Because Adobe will use a similar technique to that of Skyfire, users of Android and Playbook mobile devices will also benefit in terms of battery life. Read More

Over the last decade, mobile telephones have gone from being a rarity in most countries, to being carried by the vast majority of human beings. Now, according to new research, smartphone (which is actually a misnomer – it is actually a Very Personal Computer) sales will top a billion units a year by 2015 as the smartphone's share of phone shipments rockets from 15.8% in 2009, to 32.5% this year to 54.4% in 2015). Planet Earth only has 6.75 billion human inhabitants. If this trend continues, by the turn of the decade, the vast majority of human beings will be carrying a networked personal computer on their person at all times. We are undoubtedly living through a period of unprecedented change in human history. Read More

Revered by many, hated by some, but respected by most, the indisputable fact remains that Steve Jobs is the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time. The numbers are impressive in themselves but the most remarkable aspect of his success is how it was achieved. Though he remains at Apple, the end of his tenure as CEO is the end of an era and an opportunity to try and grasp just exactly what it is he did and what lessons there are for all of us "trying to make a dent in the universe." Read More