A couple of days ago a pretty awesome meeting happened between Apple shareholders and Apple’s board of directors. It was an annual shareholders meeting which is normally pretty routine- the CEO, Tim Cook, fills everyone in on the progress of the company and everyone talks about the general outlook for the foreseeable future.
This one, however, played out a little differently. This time, a representative from the National Center for Public Policy Research or NCPPR (a conservative think tank) asked the company to disclose the costs of its sustainability programs, such as solar energy facilities, and how they affected their profits. He then said that Apple should be cutting climate change programs in order to focus on profits above everything else.
Mr Cook did not like that, he didn’t like it one, itty, bit.
He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.
“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.
Finally, Cook looked at the questioner and said “if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”
The shareholders, thank god, agreed with him. Apple is a company that rates social measures, innovation and advances in technology above all else, and that would be how it will remain.
Following the meeting, the NCPPR and the man behind the questions from them, a Justin Danhof, released an a press release that is heavily critical of Cook, saying that shareholder value is destroyed in favor of efforts to combat climate change in particular.
“Here’s the bottom line: Apple is as obsessed with the theory of so-called climate change as its board member Al Gore is,” Danhof said. “After today’s meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change.”
Well, we wish we were shareholders in Apple, and we would be really proud of ourselves if we were. Well done, Mr Cook, Well done, Apple Shareholders. Proud ‘a you.
We’re not crying, it’s just been raining on our face.
iMessage is an awesome way to send free text, photo, and video messages to friends who are using iOS 5 and above. Read receipts allow your friends to see whether you’ve viewed their message or not.
Now, we’re all good people around here, right, but sometimes there are circumstances when you don’t really want people to know if or when you read their messages.
If you don’t want your friends notified of when you have read their messages, go to Settings >Messages > Send Read Receipts > Off.
The iWatch! Could it finally be on it’s way onto our super deserving wrists? Well, we think so. We’re almost as sure as we can really ever really be with an Apple product release, especially a completely new product release. Here’s a bunch of stuff we think we know about the iWatch.
Way, way back in 2008, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak confirmed to the Telegraph that “Apple’s future could lie in an ‘iWatch’.”
Then, in the midst of a thousand iWatch rumors, Apple trademarked ‘iWatch’ in Japan, Mexico, Russia and a number of other countries.
Tim Cook has said this about wearable tech:
“I think the wrist is interesting. I’m wearing this (Nike Fuelband) on my wrist…it’s somewhat natural. But as I said before, I think for something to work here, you first have to convince people it’s so incredible that they want to wear it.”
So we know it’s coming, and we know it’s going to be incredible, which is pretty exciting.
The iWatch is rumored to be out this year. Definitely, probably, this year. We think it will be if not announced, at least hinted at during the WWDC in June, and if not, definitely revealed in the Fall, and released later in the year or early 2015.
The idea is that the iWatch will feature a small number of already established products combined into one, similar to the original iPhone when it came out.
It is said to be standalone with the option to be used in combination with your iPhone. It will most likely include watch, (duh) as well as fitness, health and phone functionality. Siri is a possibility, as is FaceTime capabilities, and maps, if not full iOS 8 functionality.
Fitness and health tech accessories were one of the big new industry product sectors at this year’s CES conference in Vegas. Many believe that it’s where the future of wearable tech lies.
Apple have recently made a bucketload of new roles rumored to be centered on the creation of the iWatch. Some of these are a little vague, others are quite telling. These include:
Sleep analysis experts who hold “several patents for integrating mobile devices with fitness equipment”
Biometric scientists.
Ben Shaffer (previously innovation leader at Nike) and Jay Blahnik, a health and fitness instructor who consulted on the Fuelband for Nike.
Sleep research expert Roy J.E.M Raymann, a scientist from Philips Research last month. Raymann’s experience includes extensive research into non-pharmacological methods of altering sleep quality and in wearable sensors and miniaturization of sensors related to tracking sleep and alertness activity.
Nancy Dougherty was hired as a hardware engineer in late 2013. Previously she worked with technology-based medical products with Proteus Digital Health. Her work there included a health metric-reading wearable patch and ingestible, Bluetooth-connected smart pills for monitoring dosages and scheduling. Most recently, Dougherty worked as a hardware lead for Sano Intelligence, whose tagline reads ‘the API for the bloodstream,’ working on a wearable sensor system.
Apple recently advertised for an Exercise Physiologist to oversee cardiovascular fitness and energy expenditure tests at its main headquarters campus.
The ad read: Design and run user studies related to cardiovascular fitness & energy expenditure, including calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking and other key physiological measurements.
Michael O’Reilly, M.D. was recently added to the Apple team. Previously he was the Chief Medical Officer of pulse oximetry (measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood) for Masimo.
In the fashion line, Former Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve, below, was hired last year to work under Tim Cook on a “special project”, and Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, joined Apple in a newly created position last year, as a senior vice president and member of their executive team.
Pretty promising stuff, right? So what else do we know?
A supply chain source indicated to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White in early October that it may also serve to integrate with home automation systems, allowing users to control heating and cooling, lights, and audio/video systems right from their wrists.
The design will come from the delightful brain of one Jony Ive (and his no doubt delightful team).
It is expected to have a 1.5-inch display, it will more than likely have a battery life longer than one day (Hi Galaxy gear!) and no one is brave enough yet to guess at a price.
What about competition? There are already a few smart watches, coming from the likes of Samsung with the Galaxy Gear (1& 2), the Pebble, the Sony smart watch 2 and now Google who has confirmed to the Financial Times after filing a patent that they are indeed manufacturing a smart watch, possibly for release this year.
Apple will be looking to blow them all out of the water, obviously. This means that it has to be innovative in the same way that shocked the world with the original iPhone, and that all the components such as battery life, synchronization with other tech, wearability and functionality will have to be perfect.
So, no pressure, Apple. Also: hurry up, cos we really, really want one.
Are we excited for the iPhone 6? Huh? Huh? Duh! Rumors about the upcoming 9th generation iPhone to be released by Apple are running rampant already, and we couldn’t be more excited.
Here’s a rundown of everything we know about the iPhone 6. And what we think we know. And what we think other people might be potentially correct on what they think. And some things that probably aren’t true but some people think they are. Etc. All photos in this article are not real and are representations of what people believe the iPhone will be, or photos or purported prototypes.
Most people agree that one if not two new iPhones will be released this year, and following Apple’s recent naming system one of them more than likely will be called the iPhone 6. The main hardware difference that most people are solid on is that the new iPhone(s) will be thinner and slimmer, just like your New years resolutions!
Tim Cook has revealed that 2014 is a big year for Apple product releases, and people are optimistically expecting the release of the iWatch, possibly the iTV, and the next iPhone update(s!). These possible new product releases alongside other factors such as the possibility of dual iPhone releases will obviously affect when and exactly how fancily updated the new iPhone(s) will be.
Some people are speculating that the iPhone 6 will be, in fact, the iWatch and the current mobile iPhone will only get a new iOS update.
The more trusted and reliable thought is that the iPhone 6 will be its own separate hardware update, and because of the rumored new product releases set most likely for the Fall, it will be released early this year; think sometime in the 2nd quarter, June, or early Summer. This is certainly a possibility – Apple released the first four generations of iPhone in June, before moving to an September/October launch schedule.
The other line of thought is that the iPhone 6 will follow the more recent iPhone release schedule and released in the Fall, leaving the Apple team plenty of time to make sure everything is perfect.
A lot of analysts believe that Apple will continue with their new 2 phone release model, this time featuring 2 differing size options. The sizing rumors range from 4.5 inches waaaay up to 5.7 inches. There is additional speculation that Apple will minimize or completely eradicate the bezels (the part bordering the screen) on the iPhone 6.
Arguments against the bigger screen sizes are backed up by Apple’s hard stance on one handed mobile use and their reluctance to provide a bigger screen at a loss to function just to compete with other smartphone companies. Tim Cook said this in April of last year:
“My view continues to be that the iPhone 5 has the absolute best display in the industry. We always strive to create the very best display for our customers. Our competitors have made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display, we would not shop a larger-display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.”
Two new hardware components that are rumored to be allowing the iPhone to be thinner, lighter and more durable are Sapphire Glass and Liquidmetal.
Apple has exclusive rights to Liquidmetal, but have done for quite a long time. However, in November, five new Apple patents relating to Liquidmetal were published. Liquidmetal is a very strong and very durable material, which, if used, could make the iPhone 6 stronger and thinner as less material would be needed in comparison to Aluminum. According to some reports, the iPhone 6 could be just 6mm thick compared with the iPhone 5s’s 7.6mm. Below is a purported prototype from Sonnydickson.com
Sapphire glass is the material currently used on the iPhone 5S’s Touch ID Home Button the cover of the iPhone’s rear-facing camera. It’s more than twice as durable than Corning’s Gorilla Glass, and is “extremley scratch resistant. Apple has apparently spent $578 million to enter into a multi-year agreement with manufacturers GT Advanced Technologies to provide sapphire materials from a huge new Apple facility in Arizona.
The iPhone 5s incorporates a 64-bit A7 28-nanometer chip manufactured by Samsung. Apple’s iPhone 6 will reportedly incorporate a 20-nanometer A8 chip from TSMC, which will be both smaller and more energy efficient.
Samsung will continue to be involved in the production, alleviating some of TSMC’s manufacturing workload. The A7 chip marked a 31 percent improvement over the A6 in the iPhone 5, and it is likely that the leap to a 20-nm A8 chip will offer similar increases in performance.
Apple’s next-generation iPhone should, and may support the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard that first began appearing in Apple products in 2013. 802.11ac, or “Gigabit” Wi-Fi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks, reaching speeds over 1 Gigabit per second. It’s though that Apple have been waiting for external technology to catch up before they update their iDevices with the Wi-Fi Technology.
Wireless Charging is something that has been tossed around in the great big salad bowl of rumors, but we don’t think it’s coming- yet. Curved Glass is also a feature many are looking forward to- and would be be beautiful on the iPhone 6, but we wouldn’t be betting the house on it.
According to a reports from The China Post, Apple will not be upgrading the resolution of the rear camera for the iPhone 6 later this year. Citing analysts from Nomura Securities, they indicate that while the iPhone 6 will have some camera improvements like enhanced optical image stabilization, it will continue to use an 8-megapixel sensor rather than a higher-resolution sensor in the 12-16 megapixel range.
Some people think that the Touch ID introduced on the iPhone 5S last year will be removed from future iPhone updates – we think this is pretty categorically not going to happen. What we think will happen is that Apple will, this year, introduce new payment methods using the touch ID.
Apple recently purchased PrimeSense, a firm specializing in the development of three-dimensional sensors for home appliances and mobile devices. This technology is similar to the gesture-detecting sensors of the Xbox’s Kinect controller. This purchase could certainly hint at a move to include gesture control on the next generation of Apple devices, although unlike Samsung, they would want to have it perfected before they release anything with gesture control.
The iPhone 6(s) will run on iOS 8. Yay!
So that’s it – so far. Everyday there are new rumors and people certain they know exactly what the iPhone 6 will be like. In actual fact, there’s very, very few people in the world who knows exactly what it will be like. This guy is one of them.
So if you see him, can you guys ask him for us? Thanks.
Here we go again. We have gathered all of our iPhone buyback data (from the best way to sell your iphone, obviously), and we have created a heat map breakdown.
This map shows the percentage of broken iPhones that were sold using our buyback service. Red states show that we purchased a higher percentage of broken iPhones from that state. Green areas show that we purchased a higher percentage of used iPhones from that state.
State by State Broken iPhone Buyback Comparison
Hopefully your state isn’t one of the dark red ones (sorry West Virginia and Kansas). The data tends to show that our customers that are tend to be in the country (Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho) tend to break their iPhones more often. While the Southern states tend to be quite good at taking care of their iPhones (as they tend to mostly sell their used iPhones instead of broken ones).
So maybe if your like us, and you happen to have broken your iPhone once or twice (or maybe more), then you should consider moving down to the South. Otherwise, well, maybe its easier just to use our buyback service to sell your iPhone (don’t worry, we still pay a ton even if your iPhone is broken!)
Well, the results are in. Since we are an iPhone buyback company (in case you were interested in getting an offer for your iPhone click here), we have decided to compile our latest purchases to make a map of where the majority of broken iPhone trade-ins come from.
We tallied up all of our transactions, and created a heat map that shows where the majority of our customers have had broken iPhones. The red areas on the map show a high amount of broken iPhone trade-ins for the area, while the green areas show a high amount of used iPhone trade-ins (meaning they did not break their iPhones).
Heat Map of Broken iPhone Sales
Hopefully your city wasn’t one of the bright red ones (sorry LA and New York). The data tends to show that our customers that are in larger cities (San Francisco, Chicago, New York, etc.) tend to break their iPhones more often.
So if you really care about your iPhone, well, move out of the city. Or maybe just get a good case. Or heck, just go ahead and break it, but make sure to sell it to an iPhone buyback company like ours if you do!
Happy Sunday Guys! Hope you’re having an awesome day filled with endless mimosa’s, friends and laughter!
but…
Whatcha going to do when your iPhone dies? And you’re stuck full of mimosa’s and you can’t figure out how to get where you need to be!? Huh? huh Mr & Mrs Mimosa? Because…
We got you! If you’re worried about the battery on your beloved iPhone running out, there’s a couple of things you can do. Hoorah!
1. Are you in a cave? No? Turn your brightness down! Settings> Wallpapers & Brightness ( Or Brightness & Wallpapers on pre-iOS 7).
2. At a concert? No? Turn your volume down! (uh… we hope we don’t really need to say this, but it’s the buttons on the side.)
2. Sometimes you just don’t need to be sending diagnostics to Apple, you know? This eats up your battery life, so turn it off! Settings -> General -> About -> scroll to the bottom of the screen.Click on Diagnostics & Usage and switch it to ‘Don’t send’.
3. Turn things off. Like Bluetooth. What, are you playing music through a wireless speaker while drinking mimosa’s? Well, that sounds pretty awesome actually. But if you need to save battery, turn it off!
We figure Unless you’re in a foreign country and relying on Wifi – turn that mother off! Settings> Wifi> switch to off.
If you’re down to urgent battery levels you can even turn your phone on Airplane mode until you need to use it, saves a boatload of battery!
4. Close out all of your Apps. in iOS 6 and below, double click the home button, press an App until it wiggles, then touch the red circles until it disapears. On iOS 7, double click the home button then swipe each image of an App that appears upwards until it disappears.
We hope these tips will help you out some, and we’ll be letting you know some more long term battery saving tips and tricks in the next week!
Apple, Cool Features, iPhone | iPhone-Antidote | 
March 13, 2014 4:04 pm | 
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