Apple

A doctor who, in a fit of strangely modern communication, complained online about the service he received from an Apple support company in Greece, has won a partial victory.

Dimitris Papadimitriadis was not a happy man after he put his iMac in for a little repair with an official Apple support company called Systemgraph. There were gray shadows all over the screen.

However, there were gray shadows all over Papadimitriadis' face when Systemgraph sued him for telling his story (in a very polite way, for an angry man) online.

The company demanded 200,000 euros, which seemed a little steep … Read more

One of the most persistent rumors about Apple's next-generation iPad is that it will sport a super high-resolution display, or what Apple calls a Retina Display.

However, Apple watcher John Gruber is refuting such claims and asserting that the iPad 2 will not have the Retina Display.

A number of sites have reported finding higher resolution graphics in recent builds of Apple's iOS, available on the company's site for developers. The graphics would seem to indicate that Apple is doubling its current iPad display resolution of 1,024x768 pixels to 2,048x1,536 pixels.

However, the well-sourced … Read more

Playboy plans to bare it all anew in March with a Web subscription service that offers the full catalog of the venerable men's magazine.

The news was revealed yesterday by none other than the magazine's famed founder and bon vivant, Hugh Hefner, though it turns out that Hef's tease was a bit astray off the mark. In his Twitter feed, Hefner declared that all issues of Playboy, past and present, would be coming to the iPad--and that they'd be uncensored to boot.

That last comment naturally triggered some questions. Apple is notoriously strict about what type … Read more

Upset because you just bought a Verizon phone but now crave the new iPhone? The good news: Verizon will give you a $200 gift card if you swap your current phone for an iPhone. The bad news: You'll still need to pay the full retail price for the iPhone.

Nestled about halfway down on Verizon's iPhone FAQ is a reminder to customers still under contract that they can't upgrade to the iPhone at the promotional pricing, namely $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model. That means subscribers who don't want to wait … Read more

For every George Seifert there's a Sammy Hagar: making the change from an iconic leader to even a well-groomed successor can be very tricky.

The tech industry doesn't have a whole lot in common with the San Francisco 49ers or Van Halen, both of which were forced to integrate new leaders into their organizations following the departure of dynamic leaders (Bill Walsh and David Lee Roth) who put their respective groups on the map. But the tech industry is relatively young and hasn't often been forced to confront the tricky question of how to replace an iconic … Read more

The two questions on the mind of anyone who follows Apple are "When is Steve coming back?" and "What happens if he doesn't?"

Yet on the earnings call with financial analysts today, no one asked any direct question about Jobs' medical leave announced yesterday or a possible future without him. However, Apple COO Tim Cook--the company's de facto leader in Jobs' absence--anticipated both questions.

He turned his response to an analyst's question about Apple's timeline for planning future products into an subtle assurance that Apple is a well-run company at the top … Read more

Tablets are gaining popularity worldwide, and Apple's iPad continues to capitalize, a new report from market research firm IDC has found.

During the third quarter of 2010, the worldwide tablet market grew by 45.1 percent, IDC reported. All told, vendors shipped 4.8 million units during the quarter, up from the 3.3 million they shipped in the second quarter of 2010. IDC said that Apple's iPad enjoyed 87.4 percent market share during the period, tallying 4.2 million units shipped worldwide.

IDC estimates that 17 million tablets were shipped worldwide in 2010. That figure is expected to grow exponentially in 2011 with an estimated 44.6 million tablets shipped. In 2012, IDC said that it expects 70.8 million tablets to hit store shelves.

IDC's tablet findings follow a recent report from research firm Forrester, which claims about 10.3 million tablets were sold in the U.S. during 2010. Like IDC, Forrester sees significant growth in the tablet space going forward, with an expected 24.1 million tablet purchases in the U.S. in 2011. Forrester said it believes U.S. tablet sales will reach 35.1 million next year.… Read more

In a display of perfect timing, Apple blew past analyst expectations in reporting the best financial performance in its history today.

Apple reported revenue of $26.74 billion and profits of $6 billion, or $6.43 per share. Revenue was up 71 percent from a year ago, and earnings were up 78 percent. Analysts were expecting revenue of $24.38 billion and earnings per share of $5.38.

The company's gross margins dipped slightly to 38.5 percent compared with 40.9 percent a year ago, as Apple had forecast during the company's last earnings call.

The report … Read more

Apple's CDMA-compatible iPhone isn't on the market yet, but estimates for the number of units shipping in 2011 are apparently on the rise.

Pegatron, the Taiwan-based company that is manufacturing the CDMA iPhone for Apple to sell through Verizon, is expecting to ship 12 million to 15 million units in 2011, component makers told DigiTimes. That's up from previous internal estimates of 10 million CDMA iPhones for 2011, the Taiwan-based tech news site reported Tuesday.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster recently pegged the number of iPhones Verizon would sell the first year at 9 million, which is … Read more