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Posts tagged with "apple"

Apple’s Succession Proposal? Rejected

At Apple’s shareholders meeting today in the company’s Town Hall auditorium, a proposal to reveal Apple’s succession plan was rejected. For many months now, speculation has arisen that Apple should reveal its succession plans for Steve Jobs’ retirement (which, you know, is going to happen eventually) – but the company always refused to give out details, that are likely already in place, fearing repercussions in the management sphere with names of executives to succeed Jobs going public.

Apple COO Tim Cook took the stage today to introduce the board of directors, whose seven members – including Jobs – were reelected.

The most controversial shareholder proposal – that Apple adopt a detailed succession plan – was introduced about 20 minutes later. According to the representative of the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund who introduced it, Proposal No. 5 did not require the company to name names, she said, so management’s fears about the proposal were unfounded.

Apple has a succession plan for when Steve Jobs will leave, but they don’t want anyone to know just yet.

The Daily Set To Head To Android Tablets This Spring

Sources have told AllThingsD that News Corp’s The Daily, which is currently an iPad exclusive daily newspaper, will be heading to Android in the coming three months. Whilst it was always planned for The Daily to head to the Google operating system and propagate onto as many tablets as possible it wasn’t expected to happen at this rapid rate.

The News Corp team got some extensive help from Apple in regards to technical details and was also the pioneering app to use Apple’s new subscription service. The event in which The Daily was launched was not only supposed to include Steve Jobs, but Rupert Murdoch, News Corp CEO said at the event that “we think last year, this year, and next year will belong to the iPad.”

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Apple Confirms: iPad 2 Event on March 2

According to The Loop, Apple just sent out the invitations for the previously reported media event on March 2 – where the company is expected to announce a new iPad.

Apple on Wednesday sent an invitation to media inviting them to a special event on March 2 in San Francisco, Calif.

According to the invitation received by The Loop, the event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 10:00 am. This is the same venue Apple has used to introduce a number of products in recent years.

For a summary of the iPad 2 rumors surfaced on the Internet from September until today, check out our iPad 2 rumors timeline. The event will take place at 10 AM Pacific Time, and you’ll find our meta-liveblog coverage on MacStories, as well as posts as iPad 2 details will start coming in. The new iPad – dubbed “iPad 2” so far – is widely believed to introduce a front-facing camera for FaceTime, a thinner and lighter design, an updated version of iOS 4.3 with Photo Booth capabilities. It’s still unclear whether or not Apple will also include a rear camera and a USB / Light Peak port on the device.

Looking at the invitation, it appears that Apple is kind of putting a reference to other tablets from competitors in there: it says “Come see what 2011 will be the year of”. That’s a nice tagline. Does this mean we’ll only see an iPad 2 in 2011, and not an iPad 3?

Tune in at 9.30 AM Pacific Time on Wednesday for our live coverage of Apple’s iPad 2 event.

Lion To Feature “UI Overhaul”, Developer Beta Soon?

OS X 10.7 Lion was first shown off in October last year at the ‘Back to the Mac’ event with an expected launch of summer 2011. As we near the beginning of spring, TechCrunch has reported that it has seen a significant spike in traffic from computers running Lion. This, along with what TechCrunch has heard, suggests that Lion is being widely tested internally at Apple, perhaps in anticipation of a beta soon, they also note that:

And while we already know some of the new features thanks to Apple’s preview, there are still a few surprises, apparently. One of these is a much-anticipated UI overhaul. But that means that developers are going to need to be ready when it rolls out. And along those lines, we’re hearing that a developer beta should begin soon. There’s no firm timetable for this yet, but again, we’re only 4 months away from the summer.

This makes some sense to us here at MacStories; Apple would likely want to release a beta before WWDC so that some of the training sessions at WWDC can be about Lion, particularly if there are any significant changes to UI and then launch Lion at WWDC or soon after.

[Via TechCrunch]

Gameloft’s VP Talks Premium Games, Maturing iOS Gaming Market And EA’s Sale Tactics

Last week over at Mobile World Congress Gameloft’s vice president Gonzague de Vallois spoke to PocketGamer and had some interesting remarks regarding iOS gaming. One of the things he spoke about was iOS gamers gaining an increasingly high expectation for games on the platform, particularly in regards to graphics and utilizing the full potential of the device.

He says that taste’s of iOS gamers are maturing and are moving on from supporting the small developers who make small, casual games to the games that are more fully featured and more fully use the potential of the device. To me at least, this seems like a bit of an odd comment given the continuing success of games such as Angry Birds and the caliber of indie games that are continuing to come to the App Store such as Rockin’ Rockets.

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New “Drastic And Ambitious” Final Cut Pro Launching In Spring?

There is some speculation that the next release of Final Cut Pro which is part of the Final Cut Studio suite of video editing applications, will be coming sometime this spring according to sources that spoke to TechCrunch. Some people had been speculating that Apple may stop working on the far more professional-orientated Final Cut Pro and focus on the consumer iMovie program but Steve Jobs sent some of his trademark short and vague emails last year saying to “Stay tuned and buckle up” and also “Next release will be awesome.”

Supposedly Apple recently held a preview of the next version of Final Cut Pro on its Cupertino campus in which a small group of video editors were invited for feedback. This forthcoming version of Final Cut Pro, the eighth, is said to be “the biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago.”

A source told TechCrunch that the release would have a multitude of extensive changes from low-level architectural changes to a complete user interface redesign. 64-bit support is also expected to be on the list of improvements, something that its users have been quite vocal about. Those that have seen a demo of the product have said that the changes can be classified as “drastic and ambitious”.

[Via TechCrunch]

Apple Cuts The Minimum iAd Buy In Half

Now that the first run of iAd campaigns has concluded, AllThingsD is reporting that Apple has decided to cut the minimum required spending in half from a steep $1 million to $500,000. The change has presumably been made because whilst it has been reasonably successful, the number of ads being presented and filling ad spots actually decreased this year. As a result Apple may be wanting to attract some smaller scale advertisers which couldn’t afford to enter the platform previously and fill those ad spots.

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NPD: US Mac Sales Up 20%, Apple Set To Sell 3.6 Million Macs This Quarter

New US sales data from the NPD Group show that Apple’s Mac sales have increased 20 percent year over year, which is inline with what is required to meet analyst expectations of 3.6 million Mac sales in the March quarter.

The growth is slightly below the 22 percent growth that was predicted but analyst Gene Munster did note that Apple had seen increased international growth of the Mac platform. Furthermore the now near inevitable launch of updated MacBook’s this week will likely give the Mac sales a boost for the final month in the March quarter.

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Apple To Unveil “Joint Venture” Service at Retail Meeting This Weekend

Earlier today a report from AppleInsider suggested Apple might hold a “secret”, all-hands meeting with Apple Store employees this weekend, most specifically on Sunday right after the stores’ regular closing time. Speculation among blogs and publications were quick to indicate that the meeting could be about the new MacBook Pros (although we don’t know why, considering they’re rumored to come out on Thursday), the next iPad or an upcoming Apple event.

While it appears that both the iPad 2 and an Apple event are happening next week, BGR reports that the meeting will focus on a new retail service called “Joint Venture”. The service, aimed at small businesses and “prosumers”, sounds like a new kind of technical support provided by Apple’s Geniuses:

Joint Venture is an extension of Apple’s current Genius Bar services that is aimed at small businesses and prosumers. Subscribers of the new service will be able to speak with a store-based Apple technician — lovingly referred to as Geniuses — over the phone for one-on-one consultation and troubleshooting, or they can request an on-site visit.

The interesting part is that, currently, Apple Geniuses can’t provide phone and on-site support. Apple is expanding its support policy which, if you ask us, is just a great thing. Employees will be briefed about this new service on Sunday. On a side note, TUAW reported yesterday Apple is changing the way the Consultants Network handles requests.

Update: Stephen Hackett at ForkBombr (former Apple Genius) shares his thoughts on Apple’s plan to include on-site and phone support in the Genius Bar offerings:

On-site support and time for one-to-one care are two things that have set Apple-Authorized Service Providers and members of the Apple Consultants Network apart from Apple retail. Apple has been ramping up its in-store business sales teams over the last 18 months or so, and so far, that has paid off for third-party Apple shops in the form of numerous small business installs and support gigs.

If Apple store employees do venture out into the world, it could spell bad news for small Apple shops (like the one I used to manage). If given a choice, many may choose an “official” Apple support route over a third-party. That would cripple many small companies.