Apple

Just how much is Apple's new, six-part, $17 billion bond plan going to end up saving the company in taxes it would have needed to pay if it used its overseas cash pile?

Try $9.2 billion, says a senior vice president at Moody's Investors Service.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Moody's Gerald Granovsky said that's how much Apple's not going to pay in U.S. taxes as it pays out $55 billion of its $100 billion capital returns program.

To put the figure, which was first reported by the Financial Times (subscription required) late Wednesday, in … Read more

Apple once again is counting up to its next digital sales benchmark.

This time it's to 50 billion downloads on the App Store, its digital software store that launched in 2008, and currently has about 793 million downloads to go.

Similar to previous contests, the person who downloads the 50 billionth app gets $10,000 in App Store credit. The company is also doling out $500 gift cards to the 50 people who buy an app immediately afterwards.

Apple's last big contest for the App Store was for the 25 billion benchmark last March. Chunli Fu, a customer … Read more

Apple released an iOS update on Thursday, though it's a tiny change.

iOS 6.1.4, which appears to be available only for the iPhone 5, updates the "audio profile for speakerphone."

The software weighs in at 11.5MB and is available by way of the over-the-air iOS software update tool, and in iTunes.

Apple's last iOS update was 6.1.3, back in March. That update fixed a lock screen security bug and improved some Apple Maps features for users in Japan.

Comedy sketch site Funny or Die is now selling its 78-minute film about late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, which it previously offered for free on its Web site.

People who want to pay $9 through Amazon-owned CreateSpace can get the film on DVD. The company has also put it on Hulu Plus, where it will be available until June 2.

Funny or Die also released some metrics about the viewership of the film, which it says doubled traffic to its site on the day it was released, and has been viewed more than 740,000 times. In a release, the … Read more

Apple buyers eyeing an iMac now have a choice between a conventional hard drive and a solid-state drive.

Speedier than their mechanical counterparts, solid-state drives are available as options on both the 21.5-inch and the 27-inch iMacs. The 21.5-inch iMac offers a 256GB SSD for an extra $300 and a 512GB SSD for an extra $600. The 27-inch model presents the same options and throws in a 768GB SSD for an additional $900.

If those figures seem too pricey, buyers can stick with a regular serial ATA hard drive. Apple includes a 1TB hard drive in the overall … Read more

Apple is eyeing different shapes for batteries to find more room for them in phones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a patent application dubbed "Curved battery cells for portable electronic devices," describes exactly that. The shape of such a battery would be changed during the manufacturing process to form a curve in its design. That trick would be achieved by heating up a set of curved plates and applying pressure to the battery cell.

The goal would be to create a battery that can make better use of … Read more

J.C. Penney has launched a new ad campaign apologizing for the decisions made under Ron Johnson, its former chief executive and Apple's one-time retail chief.

The new ad, posted to YouTube, focuses people in different locations as a narrator acknowledges the company's recent mistakes that left customers unhappy and pushed revenue down billions of dollars.

"It's no secret, recently J.C. Penney changed," the narrator says over the ad. "Some changes you liked and some you didn't, but what matters from mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing: … Read more

At first glance, new numbers released by research firm IDC show that Apple has nothing to worry about regarding its control of the tablet market, but a closer look could raise some doubts.

While Apple is still the world's No. 1 tablet maker, Samsung is No. 2 and growing at a faster rate. Looking specifically at year-over-year growth from first quarter numbers, Apple grew by 65 percent -- not bad. But, Samsung grew by 282 percent, Asus grew by 350 percent, and Amazon grew by 157 percent.

The question is: Is this part and parcel of a bigger problem? … Read more

Keith Richards wearing white headphones would be like Josh Groban wearing a skirt.

Or Steven Tyler wearing men's clothing.

Somehow, it wouldn't seem right.

Fortunately, it is unlikely to happen, because the Rolling Stone who once fell out of a tree has revealed he doesn't own an iPod. … Read more