Apple Corporate

Apple will close mobile-advertising company Quattro Wireless at the end of September, it announced Thursday.

"We believe iAd is the best mobile-ad network in the world, and starting next month, we're going to focus all of our resources on the iAd advertising platform," Apple wrote in a statement on the Quattro Wireless home page. "We are no longer accepting new campaigns for the Quattro Wireless Network, and we will soon begin winding down existing campaigns. As of September 30, we will support ads exclusively for the iAd Network."

The statement also includes a link to … Read more

Paul Shin Devine, an Apple global supply manager arrested last week for allegedly taking large kickbacks from several suppliers, pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.

Devine was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and accepting kickbacks, according to court documents. The indictment alleges that he took advantage of his role at Apple to acquire confidential information, which he then allegedly sold to several suppliers to help them negotiate better contracts.

Beyond the grand jury indictment, Apple has also filed a civil suit … Read more

An Apple manager was arrested Friday for allegedly accepting kickbacks from Asian suppliers, totaling more than $1 million.

Paul Shin Devine worked at Apple as a global supply manager and allegedly used his position to obtain confidential information from the company, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The information was then allegedly sold to the suppliers, helping them negotiate more favorable contracts with Apple.

"Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. "We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside … Read more

Perhaps $46 billion in walking-around money is too much.

So argued a notable financial analyst on Thursday, saying it's time for Apple to do something with its colossal cash reserve that's better for shareholders. In an open letter to Apple's board of directors, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi urged Apple to either return some cash to shareholders as a dividend or increase the value of Apple stock by repurchasing its own shares.

"In our conversations with shareholders, one common source of frustration--which is now bordering on exasperation--has been Apple's burgeoning cash balance and the … Read more

Mark Papermaster is no longer employed as Apple's mobile hardware engineering chief. But is it because he failed to foresee the issues related to the iPhone 4's antenna? Or because he just didn't fit in at Apple? Perhaps both.

When the news hit Saturday that Papermaster was no longer with the company and his duties assumed by Mac hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield, it was fairly easy to connect the dots: the guy in charge of the iPhone's design was ousted over the embarrassing antenna episode, and also perhaps the lengthy delays in shipping the white version … Read more

Mark Papermaster, Apple's top executive in charge of mobile devices, has left the company.

His departure was first noted in a report by the New York Times. It's not clear if he was fired, or if he resigned on his own, but his bio has been removed from Apple's Web site. Papermaster will be replaced by Bob Mansfield, senior vice president of Mac hardware engineering.

Papermaster was brought on to Apple to oversee iPhone design and engineering, and it's hard not to wonder if his sudden departure is connected to the public-relations disaster that followed the … Read more

This is just one man's word for now, but he would seem to be in a position to know: an executive of Chinese game developer Handseeing Information Technology says his company is an acquisition target for Apple.

According to reports from Reuters, Agence France Presse, the IDG News Service, and others, Handseeing Deputy General Manager Tian Bo on Friday said the two companies have been huddling.

"We are indeed in talks," Tian told AFP, and have been for "a certain period of time." Reuters, meanwhile, reports that Tian said to expect an announcement in the next two months.… Read more

Apple says that it has a fix for the browser security flaw discovered earlier this week on its iOS-powered devices.

After the iPhone Dev Team released the latest jailbreak software hack for the iPhone over the weekend, it became apparent that the way the jailbreak worked--via an iPhone's mobile Safari browser--that the phone has a security vulnerability when it comes to the way it loads PDF files from the Web.

On Wednesday an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement, "We're aware of this reported issue, we have already developed a fix and it will be available to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A speedy launch of an iTunes cloud music service hasn't materialized the way many at the large record companies expected.

After Apple acquired Lala.com last December, the thinking among some music insiders was that Lala's streaming-music technology could easily be plugged into iTunes--once Apple obtained the proper music licenses. Lala.com, a music service launched in 2006 and shut down by Apple last May, possessed technology that scanned hard drives for existing music libraries and then enabled users to play back the same songs from Lala's servers via Web-connected devices.

But eight months after the … Read more