Apple shares set another all-time high today, closing above $509 for the first time ever. The sky's the limit, it seems, as expectations build around Apple's new iPad, due next month, and on the heels of a crazy record holiday quarter.
And here's an amazing thing: Even with Apple's size and momentum, there's still plenty of room left for growth. In its most important markets - mobile phones and personal computers - Apple is still being dramatically outsold by competitors.
That in mind, it's also reasonable to ask: How long can Apple keep its streak alive? When will it peak?
The tablet revolution. The post-PC era. The smartphone explosion. Whatever label you want to apply to it, personal computing is changing. People are spending more time with smaller devices like tablets and smartphones and less time on desktops and laptops. This been evident for awhile, but the trend is still relatively young and the data points are only just beginning to trickle in.
For evidence of this shift, look no further than Apple. The company just reported an absolutely bonkers financial quarter, in which it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads. The two products now make up 72% of Apple's quarterly revenue and the consumer demand shows no sign of letting up.
Yes, it's true. The FBI had a file on Steve Jobs. It's not what you might think, though. The FBI performed a "level III" background investigation on Jobs as a potential presidential appointee in 1991. He was described by most witnesses as an "individual of good character and integrity" that would be suitable for a "position of trust and confidence with the Government." Jobs also had a brush with the FBI when Apple received a bomb threat in 1985.
On Friday, February 3, at the lovely Delancey St. Theater in San Francisco, ReadWriteWeb and our new home company, SAY Media, co-hosted a release party for Adam Lashinsky's new book, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired - And Secretive - Company Really Works. It was our first joint event since we joined SAY in December. RWW and SAY are working together to figure out the future of media, so a gathering to discuss a book about Apple was a great place to start.
Apple lives at the center of the worldwide technological transformation that's underway, and Lashinsky's new book sheds light on how the enigmatic company works. It profiles Apple's leaders and their various styles and talents, it describes how the organization is woven around them, and it tells the stories of Apple insiders and outsiders at all levels.
2012 started with a flourish of new apps across iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for app publishers but the follow up in January was equally impressive. That is a testament to the growing app ecosystem and the number of developers starting to program for mobile platforms. We take a look at some of our favorite new apps from last month below.
The app update section returns for the its fifth month and we found that fewer of our existing apps issued updates for new features or bug fixes than in months past. We also have a new treat in the Apps of the Month: a limited Staff Picks section where some of ReadWriteWeb's writers picked the apps they found most interesting during the month.
The list, as always, is a bit subjective so please let us know in the comments if we missed an app or you have found one that you cannot live without.
iTunes Match, the cloud music-matching service that Apple launched last year, is a great way to sync one's music library across numerous devices. If your collection happens to contain songs with profane lyrics, however, you may be in for a surprise.
Apparently, iTunes Match has been inadvertently replacing certain tracks with the "clean" version of the same song, Cult of Mac reported.
The first untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 dropped two weeks ago, much to the excitement of the hundreds of thousands of people who rushed to download it.
Despite its recent growth in popularity, jailbreaking is still not a mainstream activity among iPhone and iPad owners generally. It's more for the tinkering type and those who want to customize their device's functionality and UI design. Whether it's done to download unauthorized (yet often quite useful) apps from Cydia or customize the look and feel of the OS, there are a lot of reasons why people jailbreak their devices. For iPhone 4S owners, that list is made all the more compelling by one thing: hacking Siri.
Not even 24 hours after Apple reported its jaw-dropping Q1 financial results, the company found itself the target of some relentless investigative journalism by the New York Times. In particular, as part of an ongoing series about Apple, the Times published a detailed investigation of some of the tech giant's biggest overseas suppliers, ugly labor abuses and all.
From deadly plant explosions and poisonous screen-cleaning chemicals to unsafe working conditions and long hours, the report was anything but forgiving. In response, there is a small but growing chorus of consumers asking Apple to do more about these issues. A petition demanding a more ethically-built iPhone 5 and other products is said to have amassed 40,000 signatories in its first 24 hours.
Macworld | iWorld was last week, and as Apple-watchers expected, the emphasis was on the i-part. The iPhone and iPad are becoming blockbusters, so this must have been an exciting year to be at that show. I wasn't cool enough to be there, but I'm pretty sure I read the blogs of every single person who was. And there's one iPhone app they're all talking about this week: Launch Center.
To a hardcore iPhone user, it seems like it should be relatively easy to explain what Launch Center does. But as the many meditative blog posts show, there's more here than meets the eye. Launch Center's creators at App Cubby are still figuring out for themselves what they're onto here. They've broken into something fundamental about iOS that it doesn't have yet, and they've made a $0.99 app we can all use to figure out together exactly what that is.
It's only been three months since Apple unveiled Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S. Although the product is technically in beta, it has already spawned imitations and Web video parodies. What is perhaps most exciting about Siri is not what it does now, but in its potential future uses.
The latest clues about that future come from a newly-published patent, which hints at some of the things Siri may be able to do after its first iteration.
