At the close of trading today Apple managed to reach a market cap of $330.90 billion, a full $100 billion more than the nearest technology company, Microsoft, which is at $228.8 billion. This is despite Apple only passing Microsoft in market cap less then nine months ago, since then Microsoft has only gained $1 billion.
Posts tagged with "apple"
Apple’s Market Cap Rises $100 Billion Above Microsoft’s
Apple’s Supplier Responsibility Report Updated with 2010 Data
Apple has posted an update to its supplier responsibility document that it has been publishing since 2007 with details of its improvements in 2010 and the core violations that occurred in 2010. Jump the break for a brief re-cap of the report. You can download a full copy of the report from Apple’s Supplier Responsibility website.
Intego’s Free Antivirus for Mac Gets 500K Downloads in 30 Days
In its first month of downloads, Intego’s VirusBarrier Express, which is being distributed exclusively on the Mac App Store, has racked up an impressive 500,000 downloads. VirusBarrier Express is Intego’s free antivirus and anti-malware offering that claims to protect Mac users from viruses, Trojan horses and other malware, including Windows malware that could be accidently passed on.
Help Desk Service Zendesk Releases iPad App
The web-based help desk service Zendesk has today rolled out a spiffy iPad app to allow companies and their employees to manage customer help desks on the go. The iPad application joins the existing offerings of iPhone, Android and BlackBerry apps that have a total of over 80,000 downloads.
The iPad app contains similar functionality to those existing mobile apps with some additions such as the ability for users to view a real-time list of tickets assigned and bookmark tickets for later response or reference. Zendesk’s CEO Zack Urlocker said to TechCrunch that he believes the iPad app will become their most popular mobile application as companies adopt the iPad in their businesses.
Three UK + Ireland Block Cydia Servers
Customers of Three in Ireland and the UK might wake up today with a little bit of a shock when they hear that Cydia has seemingly been blocked by the carrier, leading those who jailbreak their iOS devices unable to access certain content from Cydia when on the Three network. The block seems to be for Cydia’s servers so whilst the main page is inaccessible, Three users in the UK and Ireland should still be able to access other repositories and download from them.
Manuals on Amazon Suggest Late July Launch for Lion
Several manuals for the upcoming Mac OS X 10.7 Lion have been spotted by 9to5 Mac on the Amazon.UK website and all are set to be released sometime around late July, hinting that the OS will also launch around that time. WWDC is expected to be from July 5 to July 9 and it would make sense for Lion to be released shortly after WWDC as these manuals seem to suggest.
Whilst the release date of these guidebooks don’t confirm a late July launch it makes a late July launch likely because there have been several previous cases of Amazon guidebooks effectively revealing a products launch date, such as Office 2011 last year.
Some of the manual covers include references to the already known features of Launchpad, Mission Control and changes to the dock, all of which were revealed in the ‘Back to the Mac’ event late last year.
[Via 9to5 Mac]
greenpois0n Reaches Release Candidate 6, Jailbreaks Apple TV
greenpois0n, the tool for jailbreaking your iOS devices on version 4.2.1, has been updated again, and now supports jailbreaking the second generation Apple TV. By jailbreaking the second generation Apple TV you will be able to install NitoTV without all the hassle and difficulty of using SSH and entering lines of code into terminal as was previously required.
Now at release candidate 6, this version of greenpois0n is also said to fix some issues that had occurred when using zodttd’s emulators. For those curious, NitoTV allows users to play more video formats, run emulators, view RSS feeds, view weather forecasts and more in what is essentially a more fully featured media center application.
greenpois0n RC6 is available for Windows and Mac.
[Via Engadget]
iOS Notifications: No More, No Less
With today’s rumors about Apple considering the purchase of a third-party developer to improve the notification system of iOS, I thought I should explain why, in my opinion, Apple really needs to focus on this, developer buyout or not. The problem: iOS notifications get in the way, interrupt one’s workflow or media consumption and once they’re gone, they’re gone. In my usual setup, these are the apps that send me notifications: Twitter (replies from users I follow, DMs), Messages, Facebook, Calendar, Skype / IM, Appshopper. I think most of these apps are used by several iPhone and iPad owners. Read more
Is Apple Buying A Third-Party App To Fix iOS Notifications?
Most iOS users agree that notifications on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads are nothing compared to what Google has implemented in Android, or what HP showed at the webOS event a few days ago. Personally, from what I’ve seen so far, I believe the notification system demoed on the HP TouchPad is the most intriguing one, with messages staying out of the way in the top menubar but still accessible with a single tap that opens a popup menu.
Last year, it was rumored that Apple might improve iOS notifications after hiring Rich Dellinger, creator of the webOS notification system. It didn’t happen with iOS 4 and 4.2 before that, but according to Cult of Mac Apple is now seeking to buy a “smaller” third-party developer to entirely rebuild iOS notifications. According to Cult of Mac, who cites a source that asked to remain anonymous, the smaller company already has an iPhone app in the Store.
Our source, who asked to remain anonymous, didn’t know the identity of the company, except it already has an iPhone app in the App Store.
One candidate is Boxcar, a free app from Appremix that enables push notifications for Twitter, Facebook, and email. Boxcar’s system has been highly praised, especially the new iPad version.
There’s no doubt that Boxcar offers an advanced and easy way to stay on top of updates coming from social networks, email and websites; Boxcar currently has a universal app in the App Store but the service also works on the web. The app of course doesn’t deploy its own notification system on top of iOS, but it aggregates notifications inside a single UI that’s easy to navigate and manage. I can see Apple wanting to build something like this in iOS 5, although they would still need to find a way to get rid (and thus redesign) the annoying alert boxes and unread badges that come with iOS now. Apple might as well ditch popup alerts altogether and take an approach similar to HP, aggregating everything into a central notification app as well.
It will be interesting to see what iOS 5 will bring to the table with notifications and social connections; Boxcar can be a great fit for Apple.