Apple

Apple today has made the Apple Watch available to potential customers in Malaysia. All three tiers of the device are available, including the Sport, stainless steel, and Apple Watch Edition. As usual, the prices are tiered between each level with 38mm and 42mm variants being available.

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Hyper’s new iShowFast Lightning drive adds a few features not available from competitors: USB 3.0 for faster performance, support for files over 4GB in size, and new low power consumption features that mean you’ll never have to charge it.

Lightning thumb drives have become more popular in recent years. With a standard USB connector on one side and Apple’s Lightning connector on the other, the product allows iPhone and iPad users to quickly and easily transfer files between devices (iOS and desktops) or stream content directly from the drive to their device.
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With Apple’s big fall product launches behind us and the last of its 2015 lineup launching with the iPad Pro, we now turn our focus to what’s on deck for 2016. Should you buy a new Apple Watch, MacBook, iPad, or iPhone now? Or wait until Apple’s inevitable refreshes coming later this year?

Below we roundup all of our info on what we expect from the company this year, starting with a March Apple Watch 2 event through the much rumored 4-inch iPhone, new MacBooks, iPad Air 3, an Apple TV streaming service and much more…
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This week, we have a special guest Greg Barbosa joining Zac to discuss our expectations for 2016 in the Apple world. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next year. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

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In a new class action lawsuit, Apple is being accused of deceptive trade practices and false advertising due to its claims of iOS 9 being compatible with older iOS devices, primarily the iPhone 4s. The lawsuit claims that iOS “significantly interferes” with the performance of the iPhone 4s and that Apple is in the wrong for not allow users to downgrade to older versions of the operating system.

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The Apple Watch was released 8 months ago and it has been met with a wide array of responses from users. The device presented a new dilemma for Apple. Instead of something like an iPhone, which while meant to be used daily, is not meant to necessarily be constantly sending you notifications, Apple Watch’s purpose is to keep you alert 24/7. As I’ve learned over the last 8 months, that has its own benefits and drawbacks.

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Every year during the holiday season Apple products top the wish lists of many consumers and end up being one of the top gifted items when it’s all said and done. Now, Yahoo-run analytics firm Flurry Insights has shared the gift giving trends for this holiday season, again showing that Apple devices were among the most popular items received this year.

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Apple has heavily touted the camera capabilities of the iPhone 6/iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 Plus/iPhone 6s Plus since the first introduction of the devices in 2014. The company ran a worldwide ad campaign called “Shot on iPhone” that showcased some of the beautiful photographs taken with iPhones. Now, the Chief Official White House Photographer has shared a collection of images that he took throughout 2015 with his iPhone.

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Last month in the UK, a bill that could significantly change how Apple is able to encrypt user data on iOS was introduced. Called the Investigatory Powers Bill, it has the potential to require Apple to hold a key to encrypted smartphones and services such as iMessage and FaceTime. While Apple didn’t comment on the bill at the time, it has now, as expected, spoken out against it in a written submission to the UK House of Parliament.

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Update: We’ve updated the 60 Minutes Apple episode via Vimeo at the bottom

As expected, this weekend’s episode of 60 Minutes on CBS was chockfull of Apple news and anecdotes. Retail chief Angela Ahrendts, design head Jony Ive, CEO Tim Cook, and many more all joined host Charlie Rose to discuss a wide range of topics, including encryption, terrorism, design, retail, and much more…

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As expected, Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour documentary is now available exclusively on Apple Music. Apple and Swift announced the partnership last weekend, marking a continuation of the growing relationship the two parties have developed since the launch of Apple Music this summer.

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Ever wonder where most of the world’s knock-off Apple products and electronics come from? Recently, I took a trip to Shenzhen in China and got to check out the madness first hand. In Shenzhen, they’ll slap an Apple logo on just about anything and try to pass it off as legitimate. Needless to say, it makes for a very comical experience…

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Apple today has given its Mac in Business website a major design overhaul, introducing a new tagline that says it’s “a brand new day for business.” The design refresh comes on the heels of Apple and IBM’s enterprise agreement hitting more than 100 apps across 14 industries and 65 professions earlier today.

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This week, we discuss some new details on the Apple Watch 2, an upcoming Apple TV Siri Remote app, and all the new stuff released between now and the last episode! The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

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Almost two years ago to date, Apple acquired a Topsy Labs, an analytics company that made various products that searched and drew data from conversations happening on services like Twitter. Now, Apple has shut down the service according to a tweet from Topsy.

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Last week, I wrote an article called The Top 10 Android Features Apple’s iOS 10 Should Steal, and — surprise — it turned out to be somewhat controversial. Over 120 comments reflected a wide range of opinions on the future direction of Apple’s mobile operating system, with most commenters agreeing that iOS should take some inspiration from Android, but only for the specific features they personally liked. Unfortunately, in keeping with our increasingly polarized society, a few particularly caustic Apple fanboys decided to go crazy, personally attacking fellow commenters who liked the ideas, the author who dared to suggest them (“poor old me“), and the very concept of taking any ideas whatsoever from Android.

On one hand, I understand where the fanboys are coming from. Some people just love whatever Apple releases and does, no matter what. Others are so emotionally or financially invested in Apple that any suggestion of potential improvement is perceived as an attack on the company’s well-being. But it’s hard to sympathize with people who freak out when Apple’s described as anything less than perfect. Walt Mossberg called out “cultists” for this behavior in his article, “It’s Not a Church, It’s Just an Apple Store,” naming it the Doctrine of Insufficient Adulation. Demanding unyielding praise is nonsensical, and ultimately unhealthy for the Apple community as a whole. Simple statistics suggest that under 0.05% of our readers fall into cultist territory, but they’re abrasive enough to turn off the other 99.95% of readers we care about.

It’s important to understand that these hard-core fanboys aren’t just a tiny minority of all iOS users — they also have fringe views relative to the general population. Reasonable people can debate the precise numbers, but Android currently powers roughly 4/5 of the smartphones out there. It’s easy to credit aggressive Android device prices, but it’s clear that Android has features that appeal to people, too. From my perspective, it’s perfectly reasonable for iOS users to want some of Android’s features — especially if they don’t want to switch to Android devices. Yes, Apple’s a great company, and yes, iOS is a great platform, but they’re not perfect. Even if you don’t like Google, there’s room to learn (and borrow) from Android…

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Earlier this month, Apple made good on its promise and made its Swift programming language open source. Following the announcement, Apple’s senior vice president of software Craig Federighi did a pair of interviews to discuss the motivation behind open sourcing the platform and what the future holds. Now, Federighi has joined John Gruber on his podcast The Talk Show to further discuss Swift

Federighi opened the interview by discussing what kind of things Apple has noticed during the first week of Swift being open source. The Apple exec noted that Swift is more active than any other language on Github and that because of this, the Swift team within Apple is more engaged with developers than any other team in the company.

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