Edible Apple

Bloomberg reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook recently paid a visit to one of Foxconn’s newest manufacturing facilities in Zhengzhou, China.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook visited Foxconn Technology Group’s newly built manufacturing facility for the iPhone in Zhengzhou, China, as the U.S. company seeks to improve working conditions.

The iPhone production line is at the new Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park, which employs 120,000 people, Carolyn Wu, a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today.

I seriously doubt anyone finds this terribly surprising, but Dell has stopped manufacturing smartphones as it looks to enter a new market (tablets) where it can try to remain even somewhat relevant.

Dell has nixed its last standing Venue and Venue Pro smartphones and no replacements have been announced. The smartphones had run their course, a Dell spokesman said.

“Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops,” he said.

I wonder what that moron Rob Enderle has to say.. or perhaps he’s waiting for a paycheck before he formulates an “opinion.”

via PC World

Courier as a concept was cool, but was practically nothing to write home about. Still the leaked demoes showcased some interesting use cases.

Now some of the folks behind Courier have released an ipad app called Paper.

The Verge has the skinny over here.

Fascinating read from former Omgpop programmer Shay Pierce on why he ultimately decided against joining Zynga following their acquisition of Omgpop.

The tipping point? Zynga not beeing open to Pierce keeping his unpopular iOS game Connectrode up and running. Pierce emphasizes that Connectrode makes almost no money anymore but is nonetheless a piece of software he’s immensely proud of.

But Zynga, or perhaps their attorneys, aren’t the bleeding heart types apparently.

And then I wondered: why was I even trying to compromise? Zynga has an Austin studio, where several good friends of mine work. Yet I had never applied to Zynga. Why? Because the company’s values are completely opposed to my own values, professionally and creatively. Because I believe that developers are at the front lines of game development and deserve to be treated well, and I didn’t trust Zynga to do so. All this was still true — except that their complete unwillingness to negotiate with me only confirmed my concerns. Why on earth was I even considering joining?

The full entry is worth a read. Check it out here.

Adobe has much to be happy about.

There are so many analyst notes regarding  Apple’s nwo mythical HDTV that it’s hard to keep up.

The most recent rumor comes in the form of a research note from the Asian research group CLSA which is targeting an Apple HDTV launch for sometime in 2013. CLSA views Foxconn’s investment in Sharp as further evidence that an Apple HDTV is coming and that Sharp will be supplying the display panels.

The research note reads in part:

We continue to view Apple TV hardware as a 2013 event. The timing of Hon Hai/Foxconn’s equity stake and partnership with Sharp along with Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou’s separate 46.5% investment in Sharp’s Sakai City plant lends further credibility that Apple TV is in the works. This also follows reports that Apple is investing ~$1.3bn in equipment destined for Sharp facilities.

The fact that Hon Hai is investing rather than just procuring panels from Sharp underscores a deeper level of integration which Apple/Hon Hai are accustomed to, increased reliability as Sharp has struggled with iPad3 qualification, and an effort to improve Sharp’s financial position before becoming a more meaningful supplier to Apple.We also believe Corning has an 83% market share at the Sakai facility and would ultimately benefit from improving utilization that is expected to happen over time. Sharp accounted for 10% of Corning’s overall sales and 25% of its display sales in 2011

Most clients agree that a TV is coming; the critical question becomes how the video providers fit into the equation and how apple’s offering would/could differ from current tv’s beyond ios/icloud. Biggest commentary yesterday centered on LG Display as the big loser.

via Business Insider

Everyone’s got Apple fever.

Network World reports on a speech given by Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus about the origins of the Siri name.

In any event, Kittlaus recounted that Jobs wasn’t sold on the Siri name. Kittlaus, therefore, kept lobbying Steve Jobs to keep the Siri name, telling him quite consistently that “it’s a great name.”

Still, Jobs wanted to use something else, but failing to find anything better, decided to stick with “Siri”. What’s particularly interesting about this is that there are similar stories regarding the naming process behind the iMac and the iPod – two products with names Jobs reportedly didn’t care for either but ultimately acquiesced to after not being able to find better alternatives.

Seems like some Android manufacturers have been spending some extra time in certain aisles in CVS. So which is it, does your Android smartphone have something in common with a Condom?

via The Intercom Blog

Apple’s newest iPad is 4G compatible, that is of course, as long as you reside in North America. 4G functionality isn’t yet available on iPads sold in other parts of the world, and though Apple says as much in their fine print, Australian regulators don’t think that that’s enough.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accused Apple of misrepresenting the third generation iPad’s wireless data capabilities by including the term “4G” in product advertising. The country’s cell carriers don’t support the 4G radio frequencies the new iPad uses, but by including the term on the Apple website consumers are led to believe they can get the faster data access LTE offers.

The ACCC’s complaint reads in part: “The ACCC alleges that Apple’s recent promotion of the new ‘iPad with WiFi + 4G’ is misleading because it represents to Australian consumers that the product ‘iPad with WiFi + 4G’ can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case.”

The ACCC, therefore, alleges that Apple’s iPad advertising violates Australian Consumer Law.

via Mac Observer

New research from consulting group Parks Associates reveals that 87% of iPhone 4S users use Siri, in at least some form, at least one time a month. The data was the result of a survey conducted with 482 iPhone 4S owners.

The survey also found that most people use Siri to initiate phone calls and send text messages.

Many other Siri services are getting little pickup, however. They include playing music and scheduling meetings. Thirty-two and 35% of 4S users, respectively, said they had never used Siri to perform those actions. Those categories also had some of the lowest percentage of users that did either daily or almost daily.

Email usage is pretty split, with 30% saying they have never used Siri to send an email while 26% say they use it to send email daily or almost daily.

via WSJ

PC World reports:

Fans of Angry Birds Space downloaded the game 10 million times in less than three days after launching Thursday for Android, iOS, Mac and Windows, Game maker Rovio said Monday. Angry Birds Space is the fourth version of the popular mobile slingshot game and the first new game since Rovio introduced Angry Birds Rio in March 2011. Pricing for Angry Birds Space ranges from $0.99 for iOS and a new ad-free version for Android up to $6 for Windows PCs.

Despite offering 60 new levels at launch, some users are already begging for more after finishing the latest pig-smashing fest over the weekend. Rovio game maker is promising new free levels will be coming to users in the near future, but the free updates are not quite ready for release yet. The latest version of Angry Birds not only changes location, but adds entirely new ways to play the game accounting for space faring issues such as gravitational fields and orbital trajectories.