Mark is an award-winning journalist who worked at 9to5Mac for over six years. He covers Apple and other topics related to the consumer technology industry.
Mark is regarded as one of the go-to reporters for all Apple-related matters, one of Wired‘s top 16 people to follow in technology, and one of TIME Magazine‘s top 25 bloggers of 2013. Mark has also been profiled by CNN Fortune multiple times, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, the Huffington Post, Business Insider, Columbia Journalism Review, Marketplace, Haaretz, and USA Today. Mark was also recently named to the 2015 Forbes 30 under 30 List.
In 2012, Mark published the first photos of the iPhone 5, broke the news about Apple’s switch to an in-house Maps application, revealed the first 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, forecasted that Apple would update the iPad’s software with Siri support, and accurately revealed the iPad mini’s higher-than expected price point.
In 2013, Mark published the first photos of the original iPad Air, provided the first details about Jony Ive’s end-to-end iPhone and iPad software update called iOS 7, provided information about OS X Mavericks, and detailed Apple’s early work on the Apple Watch.
In 2014, Mark revealed Apple’s work on a new Health application for iOS 8 and the Apple Watch, Ive’s redesign of OS X called Yosemite, and details about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Mark started out 2015 with a significant scoop detailing Apple’s yet-to-be-released 12-inch MacBook with a Retina display, thinner design, and more advanced trackpad and keyboard. He has continued the year by reporting on several details about iOS 9, including the new Proactive Assistant, redesigned Siri, upgraded Maps with transit functionality, new system font, split-screen iPad apps, Swift 2.0, as well as predicting a performance focus for both that software upgrade and OS X El Capitan. Mark finished the year by reporting the majority of the details about the new Apple TV, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, Apple Watch updates, the iPad Pro, the iPad mini 4, and iMacs.
Mark started out 2016 with exclusive reports on Apple’s work on a pair of completely wireless Beats headphones for the iPhone 7, details on the iPhone SE, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, Apple Watch updates, Apple’s March product event, new Apple retail initiatives, and Tim Cook’s Town Hall meeting with Apple employees.
Mark has also written long-form features on “Apple Anonymous,” a group of retail employees who discuss work over Twitter and the fascination of watches by Apple executives. Most significantly, in fall 2014, Mark published an extensive profile of Apple’s PR and Communications department that was compiled over two months into nine chapters. Mark also provides analysis on relevant technology industry topics, such as Apple’s recent executive shakeup. Mark kicked off his writing career at the end of 2009, and he had his first significant break in 2011 with a story detailing Siri and the iPhone 4S.
You can follow him on Twitter.
It appears plans for future Apple wireless accessories have (again) been spoiled by the FCC. According to a pair of filings that hit the organization’s website yesterday, Apple is preparing to soon debut new versions of its Bluetooth Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard. According to images indicating the FCC label location on the accessories, the new mouse will be called the “Magic Mouse 2.” As for the new wireless keyboard, there are no indications of a name change as of yet.
Apple and Best Buy have agreed to begin selling both the standard AppleCare protection plan for Macs and the more premium AppleCare+ for iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch through Best Buy stores, according to sources. The plans call for Best Buy to begin offering the AppleCare plans in its stores at checkout around the week of September 14th, just ahead of the iPhone 6S launch. This will mark a notable expansion of the Apple and Best Buy relationship, and Best Buy will become one of the only retailers, aside from select U.S. carriers, to offer AppleCare outside of an Apple Store.
While a larger iPad Pro and a thinner, more powerful iPad mini are likely in the cards for this fall, Apple’s flagship 9.7-inch tablet sounds like it will be left out of this year’s update cycle. In a new report today, hit-or-miss Taiwanese technology trade website Digitimes says that Apple is not preparing a third-generation iPad Air for this fall. This follows up on a report from earlier this year that claimed that such a tablet would not debut until 2016.
Twitter is getting serious about messaging today. The social network has begun rolling out updates to its iOS, Mac, and Android apps, in addition to TweetDeck and its website, that remove the long-existing 140 character limit from individual direct messages. This change will roll out over the course of the next few weeks, so all users may not see the change immediately. The old 140 character limit for messages will remain for Tweets sent publicly and direct messages sent via SMS.
Nearly one year after launching its first devices with NFC chips, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, to enable the Apple Pay mobile payments system, Apple has joined the official NFC Forum as a top-tier sponsor. Along with the sponsorship role, Apple has joined the forum’s Board of Directors, according to the forum’s official website. The site lists representation from Aon Mujtaba, a Director on Apple’s Wireless Systems Engineering team for the iPhone. Paula Hunter, the NFC Forum’s Director, made the announcement by saying that the organization is “delighted to welcome Apple to [its] board of directors as an NFC Forum sponsor member.”
One of iOS 9’s marquee additions is support for split-screen applications on the iPad. This allows users to operate two iPad applications simultaneously, side-by-side. However, due to processor limitations of older iPad models, the full 50/50 split-view functionality is currently only present on the iPad Air 2 thanks to the device’s A8X processor. However, with the help of developer Hamza Sood, we have discovered that the feature may soon be expanding to the iPad mini…
While Force Touch on the Apple Watch allowed Apple to add an additional layer of buttons to a small display, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus screens don’t lack for either real estate or buttons. So why would Force Touch be desirable on larger displays? Following up on our May report that Force Touch is coming to Apple’s next iPhones, sources who have used the iPhone 6S have provided new details on how Force Touch works and feels under iOS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQdeni5M-Q&feature=em-uploademail
Apple has uploaded its latest advertisement as part of its new “if it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone” marketing series. Today’s new TV ad focuses on the iPhone’s camera, photo taking capabilities, and video recording features. As it has done in past campaigns, Apple appears to be promoting pictures and videos taken by actual iPhone customers. Apple’s previous iPhone ads focused on customer satisfaction, hardware/software integration, and the App Store. Apple also recently published a new website to accompany the TV ads, which focuses on many of the same iPhone talking points.
TechCrunch’s lead Apple reporter Darrell Etherington quietly stopped writing for the news site at the end of June, and we’ve learned that he left to take up a job in Apple’s PR office in Toronto, Canada. Etherington’s modern journalism expertise should be beneficial for Apple as it improves its approach to press relationships, while the admiration of his former colleagues should go a long way in fostering those ties…
In a video this week to retail store employees, AppleCare chief Tara Bunch has outlined some changes coming to the company’s AppleCare+ program for the iPhone and iPad. In the video, Bunch and an associate in charge of AppleCare+ say that the service will now become simpler to add for international customers. For example, if a Hong Kong resident travels to the United States, purchases an iPhone or iPad, and adds AppleCare+ to their purchase, their new device will become automatically registered with AppleCare+ in their home country…
Apple’s first pair of applications for Android, Apple Music and Move to iOS, may be the start of Apple opening up even further to Google’s mobile platform. According to a new job listing on Apple’s website, the Cupertino-based company is “looking for engineers to help [Apple] bring exciting new mobile products to the Android platform.” The presence of the word “new” seems to indicate that Apple’s plans go beyond the already announced Apple Music and Move to iOS apps…
In yet another staggered feature rollout, Twitter has begun enabling full landscape support for its iOS app on the iPhone 6 Plus. Like with many of Apple’s bundled applications, Twitter app users on the larger, 5.5-inch iPhone can navigate their Timelines, Tweet, and Direct Message in landscape mode…
Apple has already taken over its homepage, produced video advertisements, and injected promotions into iOS to digitally promote its new Apple Music service. Now, the company is expanding its billboard promotion strategy, which has been mostly reserved in recent years for new iPhones and iPads, to include Apple Music. Several 9to5Mac readers and social media users have spotted posters and billboards for Apple Music across San Francisco, subway stations in Japan, London, Canada, and Los Angeles…
The Los Angeles Clippers posted a photo of its star point guard Chris Paul arriving in Africa for a milestone…
Less than a week following the previous beta, Apple has released OS X 10.11 El Capitan beta 5 to developers. The update is available via Software Update in the Mac App Store. The previous beta did not add any noticeable new features, but it instead focused on bug fixes. It is likely that this new beta has a similar focus, and we’ll update this post with enhancements as they are discovered.
Apple will be rolling out a refreshed line of iPods today, according to sources. As indicated by new colors recently found in iTunes on the Mac, the new iPod touch, shuffle, and nano will come in new darker blue and pink colors. A gold color will be added as well for all three iPods.
The new Nanos and Shuffles won’t get new features, but the iOS-based iPod touch will see a considerable upgrade. Here’s what we’re hearing is coming to the touch:
As indicated by the references last month in iTunes 12.2, the overall designs and screens of the new iPods will remain the same as their predecessors. These are the first major iPod upgrades since 2012, and with Apple’s focus on the iPhone and iPad, these will likely also be the last for some time.
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Top iPhone and iPad accessory makers Otterbox and Mophie both conducted job cuts this week, according to a pair of tips we received from a source. The source said that Otterbox cut 80 jobs, while Mophie let go of 60 employees. Both Otterbox and Mophie confirmed the job cuts to us today, with Otterbox claiming that its number was less than the 80 our source mentioned.
From an Otterbox spokesperson:
Last week, we noted that Apple’s latest iOS 8.4 release with Apple Music removes support for the long-existing Music Home Sharing feature. This function allows an iOS device user to stream music from a computer running iTunes on their own WiFi network. Today, Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services noted on Twitter that Apple is “working” to restore Home Sharing functionality in iOS 9. It is likely that Home Sharing was removed in iOS 8.4 due to changes necessary with the record labels to launch the new streaming music service. Cook previously revealed details on this week’s iOS 9 beta, streaming bit rates, and more via Twitter.
Apple-designed packaging for the Mophie Juice Pack and Logitech iPad Keyboard
Apple is looking to own yet another aspect of its product experience. The company is gearing up to revamp its third-party accessory selection across all of its retail stores by next week by reducing the amount of accessories available in stores to ones sold in packaging co-designed by Apple. Apple has been working with select third-party accessory makers over the past six months to redesign boxes so that the experience more closely matches the boxes of Apple’s own products…
Apple appears to be planning to enable its Apple Pay iPhone mobile payments service in the United Kingdom on July 14th, according to sources at multiple retailers. Apple has informed some Apple Retail employees in the U.K. that Apple Pay support will go live on that Tuesday, while an internal memos for supermarket Waitrose plus an additional retail partner indicate the same date…
Our look at the upcoming “iPhone 6S” continues today with a discussion of new internal components that are expected to be inside Apple’s latest smartphone. In addition to expected changes such as a Force Touch display, upgraded camera system, and new Qualcomm LTE chip for up to twice-as-fast data speeds, the next iPhone will likely include updated NFC hardware, fewer and more efficient chips, and new flash memory that may nonetheless remain at a 16GB minimum capacity.
Jony Ive’s well-documented aide Harper Alexander, who managed Apple’s secretive design studio, appears to have left his role at Apple. In his own words, Alexander was previously in charge of Ive’s design studio, calendar, security, meetings, expenses, and personal projects, since 2009.
Referenced in multiple recent profiles as Ive’s top assistant, Harper updated his LinkedIn on July 1st, Ive’s first day in his new “Chief Design Officer” role, to indicate that he no longer runs Ive’s design studio or serves as executive assistant to Apple’s CDO. On July 1st, this is what became of Harper’s biography:
The first in-depth video preview trailer for the upcoming, official Steve Jobs movie has gone live. The movie features Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs, Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, and it was written by Aaron Sorkin. The film is based off of Jobs’s official biography by Walter Isaacson. Earlier this year, the first teaser trailer for the movie appeared, but it did not provide an extensive look into the story or characters. The movie starts showing in theaters in October 9th.
Apple could be preparing to refresh its aging iPod lineup with new colors, according to a new image found inside of yesterday’s iTunes 12.2 update for Apple Music. With the new update, when a user plugs in an iPod for the first time, the above image showcasing a dark blue iPod touch, a gold iPod nano, and a dark pink iPod shuffle appear. None of those iPod color options currently exist, indicating that Apple could be preparing to refresh its line with those richer tones. Interestingly, the Touch lacks a hole for the camera loop.
It is possible that the image is simply a Photoshop error, which would not be unprecedented, but our look into the previous version of iTunes, version 12.1.2, indicates that the image is actually new, which means that it was intentionally designed. There is currently no indication as to if and when Apple is planning to release new iPod colors, but we are told that iPod nano and touch stock at Apple Stores is currently seeing some temporary shortages.
Update: We’ve now spotted new gold, dark blue, and dark pink tones for all iPods: