One of the great things about Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak is that he’ll almost always give you his honest take on something, even if it involves bashing Apple and its current product lineup. So when Woz tells us that he’s a fan of Apple’s decision to buy Beats for $3 billion, he’s not just towing a company line — he’s being completely sincere.
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Apple will reportedly unveil its own smart home plans at WWDC next week, but users shouldn’t expect any new Apple products or amazing software features for the home just yet, a GigaOm report seems to suggest. Apparently the company will not introduce any major products for the home, and will instead simply try to connect more home appliances and devices made by others to iOS products through its “Made for iPhone” (MFi) certification program.
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Game revenue stats from the first quarter of 2014 are grim reading for Nintendo. The ailing giant is now being overtaken by multiple mobile app companies, many of them riding on the success of a single, free download. Nintendo’s entire software stable — consisting of dozens of Wii U, Wii and 3DS titles —grossed just $411 million in the first quarter of the year.
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Apple has long been rumored to be working on its own payment service to turn your iPhone into a wallet, and 9to5Mac‘s latest report backs up these rumors. According to its sources, Apple has been in talks about a mobile payments service with “high-profile retail brands” that sell “luxury clothing and premium goods.”
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Earlier this year, Google-owned YouTube began collecting a different type of data when serving videos to its users. Instead of focusing solely on data that might help the Internet giant serve targeted ads to viewers, Google also started noting the quality of its users’ broadband Internet connections. Now, for the first time since it began its initiative in January, Google is sharing the data it collected in an effort to show users how their ISPs stack up against rivals in the area.
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So far we’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Apple decided to spend $3 billion to acquire Beats and most of them have involved getting into the music streaming game or bringing top Beats executive Jimmy Iovine into the fold. However, there is another reason that Apple bought Beats that we may have overlooked: Teenagers actually love Beats headphones.
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Star Trek-like teleportation for humans is a possibility one physics professor considers feasible in the distant future, The Telegraph reports, but the technology may be used for something else in the near future: Transporting information.
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There are plenty of great features Android users enjoy that iPhone owners simply don’t have access to (and plenty of awesome Android apps that do amazing things the iPhone can’t). For iOS device users who don’t mind jailbreaking their handsets, however, the gap in functionality is significantly less wide. Now, thanks to one iOS developer, Apple device owners have access to yet another nifty Android feature that had previously eluded them.
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Motorola can’t afford to build its smartphones in the United States any longer. The Wall Street Journal reports that Motorola will be shuttering its factory in Fort Worth, Texas by the end of 2014. The factory opened last year, despite the odds being stacked heavily against its success. Now, just four months after Google announced it would be selling Motorola to Lenovo for $2.9 billion, that factory is closing — a decision independent from the sale, according to Motorola President Rick Osterloh. According to the report, over 700 workers are currently employed at that factory.
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The recently released Watch Dogs video game is already an immensely popular title, so it’s not really a surprise that we’re already seeing some video parodies target the game. Machinima published a short but hilarious video in which Aiden Pearce, the main character in the game, switches to an iPhone and has to go buy it from an Apple retail store.
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