Apple moving international iTunes arm to Ireland next month

In a note sent out to developers, Apple has confirmed it’s moving its international iTunes business from Luxembourg to its European hub in Ireland effective February 5th. The company pre-empted the move last September, when it transferred all developer contracts and an estimated $9 billion in assets between the countries in preparation. And from next month, responsibility for Apple’s iTunes arm serving over 100 countries (not including the US) — and covering the iTunes, iBook and App Stores as well as Apple Music — will formally transfer to its offices in Cork, Ireland.

What’s particularly interesting about the commitment is the European Union’s kerfuffle with Apple over its favorable tax arrangements in Ireland clearly hasn’t put the company off expanding its operations in the country — Luxembourg is something of a tax haven itself, of course. At the end of August last year, the EU Commission concluded Apple must pay €13 billion (just shy of $14 billion by current exchange rates) plus interest in what are effectively back taxes, arguing that a seriously low tax deal agreed with the Irish government amounted to an illegal competitive advantage (aka “state aid”).

Apple CEO Tim Cook has called the ruling “total political crap,” while Ireland believes the EU is overstepping its authority and misconstruing local law. Both are working together to appeal the ruling, and it’s perhaps this solidarity that has convinced Apple to progress with its plans to ship its iTunes business out of Luxembourg.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Steve T-S (Twitter)

Seven Years Ago Today: Steve Jobs Introduces the iPad

After teasing fans to “come see our latest creation” in the weeks leading up to one of its famous media events, seven years ago today former Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the first-generation iPad to the world. The iPad was announced as a larger-screen counterpart to the company’s three-years-old iPhone, with Scott Forstall pointing out during the conference that the tablet could run “virtually every” iPhone app thanks to an on-screen button that users could press to scale the app’s resolution up and down on a whim.

The original iPad launched with a 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 resolution touch screen, in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities. The 1.5lb tablet included Apple’s A4 chip and was priced at $499, $599, and $699 for Wi-Fi only models, and $629, $729, and $829 for Wi-Fi + 3G models in each respective capacity. The Wi-Fi version debuted on April 3, 2010, while users interested in Wi-Fi and 3G had to wait until April 30 for Apple’s new tablet.

Steve Jobs on the iPad:

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

After the event in 2010, initial reactions to the iPad were largely positive, with sites like Engadget calling it “blazingly fast” and remarking that the tablet had no lag when hopping around its various apps. The screen was thought to be “stunning” and the iPad’s iBooks application impressed, thanks to its flipping page animations and library-inspired bookshelf space for eBooks that upheld Apple’s then popular skeuomorphic iOS design.

The original iPad’s largest drawback centered on its substantial 1.5lb weight, as well as the lack of Flash in its operating system, no multitasking, and no camera. Seven years later, Apple has iterated on its original design and addressed most of these user complaints with each update to the iPad.

The current 12.9-inch iPad Pro weighs about the same as the original iPad at 1.57lbs, and still runs a larger version of iOS, but it’s thinner (6.9mm vs 13mm) and is the “most capable and powerful” iPad yet, according to Apple, putting it on par with desktop-class machines.

While the iPad saw strong early adoption, Apple has experienced sales declines in the past few years, with users replacing their iPads less frequently than iPhones. Most commonly, users update their iPhones every year or two, while finding their iPads remain serviceable for longer.

In the company’s annual earnings report last October focusing on the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016, iPad sales were down slightly to 9.3 million from 9.9 million in the same year-ago quarter. Although they were also infamously down in sales in 2016, Apple still sold 45.5 million iPhones in the same quarter, down from 48 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.

New iPads are consistently part of the Apple rumor cycle, and 2017 has been no different, with current reports pointing towards the launch of three new iPad Pro models sometime during the calendar year. Apple is believed to put out a new 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad, but the exact screen size of a mysterious middle size model has been up for debate, including 10.1, 10.5, and 10.9-inches.

When it launches, the new 10-inch model may look very different from the 2010 iPad, reportedly doing away with the iconic Home Button, further reducing the size of the tablet’s bezels with an edge-to-edge display, and include the usual iterative bumps to camera resolution and speed. One of the ports that the 2017 iPad is rumored to keep intact from its seven-year-old progenitor is the 3.5mm headphone jack, which the iPhone 7 ditched last year.

The full press conference covering Steve Jobs’ introduction of the iPad can be viewed on YouTube here.

Related Roundup: iPad Pro
Tag: Steve Jobs
Buyer’s Guide: 12.9″ iPad Pro (Caution)
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Microsoft Says Windows PC Makers Seeing ‘Continued Growth’ in Premium Market Led by Apple

Microsoft on Thursday reported a 5% increase in revenue from licensing Windows to PC makers as part of its latest quarterly earnings results.

In a subsequent conference call, Microsoft’s chief financial officer Amy Hood said its “partner ecosystem continued to see growth and share gains in the Windows premium device category,” according to Business Insider. The comment has been interpreted by some as Microsoft stepping up its game against the Mac.

Microsoft reportedly defines “premium devices” as computers that are in the $900-plus price range, which equates to the higher end of the market traditionally led by Apple products such as the MacBook Pro. By its own definition, this includes Microsoft’s latest Surface Book and Surface Studio desktop.

Last month, Microsoft said “more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before” following “the disappointment of the new MacBook Pro.” The company has not released actual sales numbers to back that claim, however, while Microsoft’s latest results include licensing to all Windows PC vendors.

While research firm Gartner says the worldwide PC market continues to decline, Mac sales grew by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Lenovo, HP, and Dell, the top three vendors, saw an estimated 5.4%, 4.3%, and 1.6% growth respectively during the quarter as well, while Asus, Acer, and others faced declines, according to Gartner.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows
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First hydrogen metal created on Earth draws critical doubt

Scientists from Harvard University say they’ve ended an 80-year quest by compressing hydrogen into a potentially superconducting metal. Using a diamond-tipped anvil, the team squeezed a hydrogen gas sample to 71 million PSI, more than the pressure at the Earth’s core. “It’s the first-ever sample of metallic hydrogen on Earth, so … you’re looking at something that’s never existed before,” says research lead Isaac Silvera. However, other scientists have reservations, saying it’s possible the solid material they created (pictured above) is actually aluminum oxide that came from the anvil’s diamond tips.

It has long been thought that hydrogen could be compressed into a metallic form, where it could conduct electricity and possibly act as a superconductor. What’s more, it may remain “metastable” as a solid, even when cooled to room temperatures and pressures. If so, it could act as a superconductor without being chilled or compressed, resulting in cheap energy and new types of transportation.

Hydrogen can be cryogenically frozen into a liquid, and by ramping up the pressure, transformed into a non-metallic, non-conductive solid. In 1935, Princeton physicists Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington predicted that with enough pressure, solid hydrogen would become metal and conduct current. However, at higher pressures, hydrogen is forced into defects on a diamond’s surface, causing it to crack. What’s more, lasers used to measure the pressure and confirm the presence of a metal can cause excessive heating, further stressing the diamonds.

Ranga Dias and Isaac F. Silvera

To overcome those issues, the Harvard team fitted their diamond anvil into a cryostat cooled to just above absolute zero. They also perfect a new diamond-polishing technique that would eliminate surface irregularities. That enabled them to crank the vice up to 495 billion pascals (71 million PSI), the highest pressure achieved so far. By shining a low-powered laser that wouldn’t harm the diamonds, they detected a change in the hydrogen’s reflectance. “Then suddenly, it becomes a lustry, reflective sample, which you can only believe is a metal,” Silvera says.

However, other researchers are not convinced that the Harvard team saw hydrogen metal. Rather, they think that the team may have misjudged the pressure, and that the shiny material glimpsed could be alumina residue from the anvil’s diamonds. “I don’t think the paper is convincing at all,” French physicist Paul Loubeyre told Nature. “If they want to be convincing, they have to redo the measurement, really measuring the evolution of pressure.”

However, Silvera’s team only had one cryostat available, and wanted to avoid doing more tests for fear of breaking their specimen. “Now that that paper has been accepted, we’re going to do further experiments,” he said. Despite the skepticism, the team is confident of the findings. “It’s a tremendous achievement, and even if it only exists in this diamond anvil cell at high pressure, it’s a very fundamental and transformative discovery,” Silvera said. Pending further testing, you might want to temper your own excitement, however.

Via: Reuters

Source: Harvard University

Apple Formally Announced as ‘Partnership on AI’ Founding Member

Apple has formally joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member, confirming an earlier report, the organization announced today.

Apple has joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member. The company has been involved and collaborating with the Partnership since before it was first announced and is thrilled to formalize its membership alongside Amazon, Facebook, Google/DeepMind, IBM, and Microsoft.

Siri co-founder Tom Gruber, who heads advanced development of the assistant at Apple, will serve on the Partnership’s inaugural Board of Trustees.

The Partnership on AI is a non-profit research consortium established in September to “study and formulate best practices, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society,” according to its website.

Apple has always been notoriously secretive, but it recently started allowing its AI and machine learning researchers to publish papers. The company’s contributions to the broader artificial intelligence research community could help it attract top talent that would not otherwise want to join the tech giant.

Apple has been recruiting talent and acquired several AI-related companies in recent months, including Turi, VocalIQ, Perceptio, and Emotient, to build out its in-house AI team led by Carnegie Mellon professor Russ Salakhutdinov.

Apple is rumored to be working on “enhanced” Siri capabilities for next-generation iPhones to keep up with competitors such as Amazon’s Alexa.

Tag: artificial intelligence
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Huawei P10: News and rumors

Why it matters to you

Huawei smartphones are getting better and better, and the successor to the excellent P9 is looking like another winner

The Huawei P9 was one of our favorite smartphones released in 2016, due to its superb dual-lens camera produced with the help of camera experts Leica. We’ve subsequently been even more impressed by the Huawei Mate 9, and if the rumors turn out to be accurate, the P10 is coming to challenge it for supremacy in the company’s range. Here’s what we think we know about it so far.

Design

Huawei’s P-series smartphones are always the stylish ones, compared to the business-like Mate series, blending good-looks with high-quality materials, for a fashion-forward result. Leaks have shown the P10 may look similar to the P9, with a metal body, and a glass or other material section housing the camera lenses on the back. Interestingly, a Weibo-sourced leak points to Huawei shifting the fingerprint sensor from the back of the phone to the front, in a home button beneath the screen. This is a new design direction for the P-series.

More: Everything we think we know about the Huawei Watch 2

The front fingerprint sensor also appears on a leak that shows a phone said to be the P10, but with a curved screen and back panel, making it look quite similar to the Porsche Design Mate 9. It doesn’t entirely match other leaked pictures of the P10, aside from an image linked to a post quoting Huawei CEO Richard Yu. However, while none of this has been confirmed yet, but the possibility of a P10, a P10 Plus, and a Porsche Design P10 can’t be ruled out.

Another leak, this time originating from Chinese social network Weibo, shows the P10 in additional colors — a minty green, a champagne, and a purple — where a curved edge is definitely visible on the back of the phone. The source isn’t well know though, and its accuracy can’t be judged yet. Huawei did add a gorgeous blue and red color option to the P9 after launch though, so we know it’s not afraid of experimenting outside of the usual silver, black or white options.

Release date

When will the P10 be announced? The Huawei P9 was revealed in April 2016, and the P10 is likely to follow a year afterwards. A quote attributed to Huawei CEO Richard Yu says the P10 will arrive in March or April 2017. This would put it after Mobile World Congress, which takes place at the end of February, and does fall in with Huawei’s preference for launching a P-series phone at a separate, usually glitzy event.

Specifications

The P9 may have an awesome camera, but the other specifications won’t stand up to the competition in 2017, so what’s Huawei planning for the successor? Specs supposedly for the P10 were found in a log of GFXBench, and they give some insight into what we should expect. In the log, we can see the phone being referred to as LON-L29. This year’s P9 had a model number of LON-L19, so the model number found in the benchmark log most likely refers to what will eventually be the P10.

More: Porsche Design Huawei Mate 9: Our first take

So what exactly does the benchmark log reveal? Well, for starters the device will have a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels — that’s a bump up from the full HD display on the P9. On top of that, we should expect a new 2.3GHz octa-core Kirin 960 processor, as well as a hefty 6GB of RAM — an amount that very few phones, including the OnePlus 3, have today. The P9 has only 3GB of RAM, so the bump up to 6GB represents a pretty major upgrade. When it comes to onboard storage, the device listed boasts a whopping 256GB.

A further leak repeats the chance of a 5.5-inch screen with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, but also mentions a standard P9 model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, indicating the 6GB/256GB version will be a premium-style model for limited release.

Camera

The camera was the P9’s standout feature, so we’re hoping the P10 uses the Mate 9’s second generation Leica dual-lens setup, or even better. The benchmark report also mentions the camera, suggesting it as 12-megapixels, however the log doesn’t say whether it has two lenses. The front-facing camera apparently has 8-megapixels.

Software

The only leak mentioning the software so far indicates the device will ship with Android 7.0 Nougat. We’re hoping for EMUI 5 or later, and all the improvements it brings with it, to be placed over the top. Additionally, Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant may be onboard, following its debut on the Mate 9.

Overall, the phone seems to be shaping up to be pretty darn impressive. We’ll keep you updated with all the news and rumors here.

Article originally published November 2016. Updated on 01-27-2017 by Andy Boxall: Added in new leaked pictures, specifications, and launch date rumors.