Apple

Last month we blogged about a bug marring Flash playback on the latest 27-inch Apple iMacs. Users on several Web sites, including the Apple Discussion Threads, noticed a problem with the Flash player that caused choppy audio and video playback, but it appears that the newest Mac OS X v10.6.2 update fixes the issue that was apparently caused by a conflict with the Airport driver.

According to Apple, the update "addresses video playback and performance issues for iMac (21.5-inch, late 2009) and iMac (27-inch, late 2009) computers that may occur in some situations while AirPort is … Read more

NEW YORK--Apple hopes to grow its market share with an increasingly aggressive retail strategy that includes opening bigger stores in more locations.

At a media preview of its fourth store here, which is located on the Upper West Side, Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president of retail, said Apple's retail strategy is all about getting consumers to switch from PCs to Macs.

"Our Apple stores are a magnet for switchers," he said. "About half the people who come into our retail locations are first-time Mac buyers."

Johnson said that Apple's Genius Bar, which … Read more

Apple's latest Manhattan store doesn't officially open until this Saturday, but it had the press in today for a sneak peek. Of course, because the store's made mostly of glass, the general public can get a pretty good idea of what everything looks like inside--except for what's below ground.

Click on any of the images to launch the slideshow.

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Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."

So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."

In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed … Read more

Sometimes you take a wrong turning in life and, Wednesday, a slight concussion led my eyes to fall upon the pages of PCR.

It is a little more intelligent than my normal reading matter, but I am very grateful for its interview with Simon Aldous, Microsoft's partner group manager.

He was quoted, for example, as saying: "One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use."

You're waiting for the punchline, right? You know, the one about … Read more

Google plans to release a Mac beta of Chrome in early December, judging by some chatter on a mailing list for the browser.

Chrome 4.0 is available today as a beta version for Windows but only as a rougher developer-preview version on Linux and Mac OS X. The standout feature of the new version is customization through extensions, a technology that long has been a core asset of another open-source browser, Firefox.

Google has been moving to a new extensions presentation technology called Browser Actions that let people interact with extensions through a small button toward the upper right … Read more

U.K. wireless carrier Orange just started selling the iPhone, and it is trumpeting first-day sales numbers for the device.

The carrier signed up 30,000 people with a new iPhone contract on Tuesday, its first day selling Apple's smartphone, according to a post on Twitter from a member of Orange's marketing department.

While 30,000 isn't necessarily a lot, compared to the "hundreds of thousands" of iPhones AT&T sold in its first weekend selling the iPhone 3GS in the United States, it's not bad for being the second carrier in a … Read more

In the race for mobile phone profits, Apple has overtaken Nokia, according to figures for the latest quarter.

Apple earned $1.6 billion in the third quarter from the iPhone, outpacing Nokia's $1.1 billion cell phone profit to grab the top spot among all mobile phone vendors, said research firm Strategy Analytics on Wednesday.

This is the first quarter that Strategy Analytics has seen Apple surge past Nokia in mobile phone profits, according to Alex Spektor, the author of the research, who spoke with CNET News.

The contest between Apple and Nokia for top phone profits has been tight in recent months.… Read more

A Mad Magazine contributor has been told by Apple that his iPhone app featuring drawings and contact information of members of the 111th Congress has been rejected because it depicts politicians in an objectionable light.

According to Tom Richmond, who wrote about his app's rejection on his personal blog, his app--dubbed Bobble Rep-111th Congress Edition--in no way should have been construed as objectionable.

Richmond said that the focus of the app was to create a "database of all the members of the United States Congress which allowed the user to find the names and contact information of their senators and congressional representative either via Zip code or by using the iPhone's GPS location services." Rather than use the politicians' individual portraits, the app depicts each senator and representative in caricature form, which Richmond drew himself. All told, the app features 540 caricatures of the politicians.… Read more