News tagged ‘Time’

Steve Jobs answers a question from the audience about whether AT&T's service for the iPhone will get better anytime soon.

According to Zol.com.cn, which is a Chinese news site owned by CBS, Apple is going to assign 1-2% of its product profits to Foxconn workers.

As we wrote before, Apple decided to investigate the case about suicides at Foxconn plant, and recently found out that employees become unhappy because of low wages. The company sees the way of solving the problem in increasing wages for workers. The additional money will come directly from the profits of those of the products that are assembled there.

Workers who take part in the production of iPad will be first to receive the increased pay. Report reveals that currently Foxconn receives 2.3% of the iPad's total price.

Earlier Foxconn also claimed about its decision to give 20% more wage for its workers.

It is known, that entry-level employees who work at the factory in Longhua receive only $131,80 per month of work. To earn more, they usually sign special "voluntary overtime affidavits".

MacStories reader Nik Treiber has found out an interesting feature in the latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4. When you push the on/off button three times in a row while in the lockscreen, the iPhone goes in Flashlight mode. We aren't sure if this is a feature or bug, but it certainly would be quite useful.

Check out the video:

Mashable reports about new Chinese iPad clone and this time it's called very originally - the iPed. Its price is only $105, and it runs Android OS. With Intel chip, 16 GB of storage space and 128 MB of RAM the iPed is available only in China. Let's watch this cute video with people describing the device on a Chinese language:

MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev-Team announced via twitter that an unlock for iPhone 3GS with 05.12.01 baseband from iPhone firmware 3.1.3 will be released soon:

@MuscleNerd will there be a unlock software coming out for the 3gs 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01 when the new iPhone 4g comes out??
@EmmanueGT yep..so don't sell or give away your 3GS (at same time, remember not to accept Apple FW upgrades in future)

Yesterday iPad was launched internationally and in honor of that website iPadItalia created and uploaded a 10min-video devoted to Apple. It’s quite long but the work covers the lifetime of the company since 1976 till nowadays with every product mentioned, photos of its co-founders, magazine covers and more. If you're an Apple fan, this video will definitely warm your heart!

Today Engadget revealed new information on the next-gen Apple TV that was received from sources close to Apple.

The architecture of the upcoming device is based on iPhone OS 4, which means it will have the same hardware (A4 system-on-chip) with 16 GB of flash memory, video out and power socket. It will be 1080p HD capable, and will look like "an iPhone without a screen".

Read the rest of this entry »

New article posted by the Wall Street Journal reveals details on the hysteria around iPad in Japan, where people waited for days to acquire this innovation product. The exclusive carrier of the 3G in Japan Softbank reported it stopped making reservations for the iPad after three days.

"Softbank says it is under strict orders from Apple not to disclose how many reservations it has accepted or how many will be distributed Friday. It wouldn't even disclose whether consumers could buy the iPad on Friday without a reservation."

New York Times reports this is not the first Apple device that has such a huge success in this gadget-loving nation. Moreover, the Cupertino's company has 72% share of overall Japan's smartphone market.

The edition claims 1200 people lined up to buy an iPad at the Apple Store that is situated in Central Tokio.

Yesterday Digitimes posted an interesting interview with its own senior analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who disproved many rumors about upcoming iPhone.

He told that Apple once considered using OLED display in iPhone 3GS, but it was found to be unsuitable for displaying text, and now this is a key direction in which Apple is improving its iPhone since the company promotes iBookstore for it. Moreover, in February scientists unveiled that Apple iPhone 3GS' LCD display is much better than the OLED screen in Google Nexus One, because the latter doesn't reproduce colors accurately and has lots of artifacts.

Ming-Chi Kuo also revealed that the work on iPhone 4G was started at the end of 2008. Its codename is N90, and not many people knew about this, but Gizmodo found exactly the N90 prototype. There is another iPhone with codename N91 that is a lesser upgrade that must be used «in case there are major delays [of components] due to significant modifications.

With regard to the iPhone 4G's processor Ming-Chi Kuo told:

"Since the launch schedule of the Cortex A9 processor is estimated for year's end and iPhone 4.0 is not ready to fully utilize a multi-core processor, the A4 is the most likely candidate".

This is not the first words of Ming-Chi Kuo about iPhone 4G, previously we posted another information revealed by him, you can read it here.

Yesterday The New York Times had posted a Brad Stone's report that reveals interesting information on the online music market investigation started recently by US Department of Justice.

The story started two months ago, when Amazon began to seek music labels that would allow company to sell their new songs day earlier than everyone else in exchange for exclusive "MP3 Daily Deal" promotion on the Amazon's site (according to BillBoard). In answer to that Apple asked labels to refuse Amazon or the company will not provide marketing support to those of songs that appeared in Amazon first. Such negotiating tactics attracted the attention of DoJ and now, as the NYT reports, it started inquiries with different music labels to confirm the information.

Currently Apple has 69% of online music market, while Amazon holds second place with its 8% share.  Since 2003 Apple sold more than 10 billion songs and thus provided significant revenue for the music industry.

Yesterday Associated Press reported that a 19-year-old Li Hai, who had worked for only 42 days in Foxconn, which is responsible for iPhone manufacturing, jumped from a building and died on Tuesday.

This is a tenth death in a row for a last year among Foxconn workers. This and eight other suicides were commited at Foxconn's plant that situated in the southern city of Shenzhen. That was also the place for two feeble attempts when the workers have survived.

Terry Gou, who is a Foxconn Chairman, told reporters on Monday (beofre the tenth death):

"Foxconn is not running a sweatshop. We are confident we'll be able to stabilize the situation soon."

Last week Southern Weekend reported that employees are signing "voluntary overtime affidavits" to earn more than $132, which is a local minimum wage that a worker can earn through a 36-hour workweek. One of the employees explained:

"Without overtime, you can hardly make a living."

Days later, on Friday a 21-year-old Foxconn employee jumped from a 4-story building.

One of the heart-rending stories reveals a suicide committed in July of 2009, when one of the workers jumped from a 12-story building because he was allegedly responsible for one of the sixteen next-gen prototype iPhones disappearance.

The Taiwanese Internet resource Apple.pro has posted pictures of black and white next-gen iPhones that are very similar to those prototypes that have been leaked. As you see the color took up both the front panel and the recessed home button. Some time earlier the same site posted the photo of the white panel separately, so we can assume it was simply put on top of the rest iPhone just to show how it can look like.

Today Apple announced that its annual WWDC conference will start with a keynote from Steve Jobs on Monday, June 7 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. It is rumored that Apple CEO will finally introduce iPhone 4G.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s iBookstore is beginning to open internationally. It is accessible only on iPads via iBookstore app. Some day the service will be extended to iPhones and iPods.

Several international sites report that Apple's iBookstore is avaliable in several new countries. For the time being, international iBookstore offerings appear limited to free Project Gutenberg titles. Apple is doing its best to sign-up publishers in other markets, while local regulatory and business concerns are slowing the effort in some countries (like the UK).

Some time ago one of the TV-channels in San Francisco, California, broadcasted a news report that highlighted a woman who wanted to purchase an iPad with cash but was denied by Apple representatives in her request. Diane Campbell, who lives on a fixed income and was just saving money for an iPad, became a victim of the company's policy that ensures the device is properly distributed.

Now we received information that Apple had changed its policy and presented her the device for free. The company's senior vice president of retail Ron Johnson told the newscast Apple will stop following credit-only policy.

"It came to our attention that Diane, through your story was very interested in buying an iPad with cash. And we made a decision today to change that."

Two Apple employees came personally to Diane's home to deliver her an iPad for free. Later she talked to the ABC station with an iPad in her hands and said:

Read the rest of this entry »