Video game developer Square-Enix has released Tomb Raider I on iOS, bringing the popular 1996 action-adventure game to mobile devices for the first time. The latest adaptation of the title features touch-optimized controls with all of the levels from the original, along with gameplay that mixes gunfights and puzzle-solving adventure elements. Tomb Raider I on iOS also supports game controllers such as the MOGA Ace Power and the Logitech PowerShell.
Adventurer Lara Croft has been hired to recover the pieces of an ancient artefact known as the Scion. With her fearless acrobatic style she runs, jumps, swims and climbs her way towards the truth of its origin and powers - leaving only a trail of empty tombs and gun-cartridges in her wake. On this trail are breath-taking 3D worlds where exploration, puzzle and platform elements blend in a seamless real-time environment. A perfect chance for newcomers and diehards alike to jump back into the series' seminal single-player action.
Apple has released the 2013 version of its annual iTunes Store awards, which showcases the best music, movies, TV shows, apps, books and podcasts of the year.
Books: -Best Fiction: Tenth of December by George Saunders -Best Nonfiction: One Summer by Bill Bryson -Best Teen Novel: The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson and Ben McSweeney -Best Multi-Touch Book: Breaking Bad: Alchemy by Sony Pictures Television
This marks the first year that a language app has won App of the Year, and also marks the first time that an app from Disney has appeared on the annual list. As customary for its end of the year listings, Apple highlights various games and apps from a wide variety of categories, so it's well worth skimming the full list for hidden gems.
Beyond the top-level awards for music, movies, TV shows, apps, books, and podcasts, Apple is featuring a number of other awards and Editors' Choice selections across various genres and categories for the content types.
A list of previous winners are also available here: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009
Apple today released a new television ad for the holidays, featuring the company's flagship iPhone 5s capturing and sharing holiday memories in the form of a video shared over Apple's AirPlay.
The song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" plays in the background as the iPhone 5s is used to capture video of a family engaging in holiday activities like decorating Christmas cookies, participating in a snowball fight, and decorating a Christmas tree. Later in the commercial, the video footage is played back to the family over AirPlay. "Happy Holidays" is displayed at the end of the video.
Apple historically releases a new video during each holiday season and in 2012, the company focused on the iPad and FaceTime. In 2011, the holiday commercial featured Santa using Siri on an iPhone 4s. While those previous videos were more product focused, the newest holiday ad focuses on iPhone users and the way their devices enhance their lives.
Update: A Tweet from Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller highlighting the new ad:
Update 2: In addition to the commercial, Apple has posted the full holiday video in the ad on its YouTube page. According to the video's description, the "Harris family home movie" was shot entirely on the iPhone 5s.
Earlier this year, after Apple released the first 64-bit chip for smartphones, a Qualcomm spokesperson claimed the A7 processor was a "marketing gimmick" and that there is "zero benefit" to the consumer from the chip. Those comments were later walked back before the executive who made them was reassigned.
Now, Dan Lyons -- the former Fake Steve Jobs and tech columnist -- writes at HubSpot that the A7 chip "hit [Qualcomm] in the gut", according to an unnamed Qualcomm employee.
"The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut," says the Qualcomm employee. "Not just us, but everyone, really. We were slack-jawed, and stunned, and unprepared. It’s not that big a performance difference right now, since most current software won’t benefit. But in Spinal Tap terms it’s like, 32 more, and now everyone wants it."
[...]
"The roadmap for 64-bit was nowhere close to Apple’s, since no one thought it was that essential," the Qualcomm insider says. "The evolution was going to be steady. Sure, it’s neat, it’s the future, but it’s not really essential for conditions now."
But once Apple introduced a 64-bit processor, all the other phone-makers wanted one too. "Apple kicked everybody in the balls with this. It’s being downplayed, but it set off panic in the industry."
Since the launch of the iPhone 5s, Apple has gone on to put its flagship A7 64-bit processor in the latest iPad and iPad mini models, in addition to the iPhone 5s.
Both Samsung and Qualcomm have announced that their future smartphone processors will be 64-bit. For Apple, though many apps will not take advantage of the increased speed of the A7 processor, some apps -- Djay and Vjay for example -- do see significant speed improvements with the new processor.
Tim Cook and other tech executives will meet with President Obama tomorrow to discuss the Healthcare.gov website, as well as "national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures". In addition, the group will discuss ways the Obama administration can partner with the tech sector to grow the economy and create new jobs.
“Tomorrow, President Obama will meet with executives from leading tech companies to discuss progress made in addressing performance and capacity issues with HealthCare.Gov and how government can better deliver IT to maximize innovation, efficiency and customer service,” a White House official said. “The meeting will also address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. Finally, the President will discuss ways his Administration can partner with the tech sector to further grow the economy, create jobs and address issues around income inequality and social mobility.”
According to the report, the following executives will attend:
- Tim Cook, CEO, Apple - Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter - Chad Dickerson, CEO, Etsy - Reed Hastings, Co-Founder & CEO, Netflix - Drew Houston, Founder & CEO, Dropbox - Marissa Mayer, President and CEO, Yahoo! - Burke Norton, Chief Legal Officer, Salesforce - Mark Pincus, Founder, Chief Product Officer & Chairman, Zynga - Shervin Pishevar, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Sherpa Global - Brian Roberts, Chairman & CEO, Comcast - Erika Rottenberg, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, LinkedIn - Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook - Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google - Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft - Randall Stephenson, Chairman & CEO, AT&T
Earlier this month, Apple, Google and a number of other tech companies urged the President and Congress to reform government surveillance tactics.
Concerns about government use of user data collecting ramped up in June, when a U.S. government program named PRISM was revealed to be giving the U.S. National Security Agency direct access to user data on corporate servers across a wide spectrum of Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.
In response, Apple published a statement of "Commitment to Customer Privacy" denying its participation in the NSA's program and teamed up with a number of tech companies to request greater NSA surveillance transparency, allowing it to provide customers with regular reports on security related requests. Last month, Apple published a report outlining statistics on government and law enforcement requests it received from January to the end of June.
Apple and other companies also met with President Obama in August to discuss privacy issues and government surveillance. Recently, Apple and 30 other technology corporations signed a letter urging the U.S. Congress to pass the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013 and the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, which would result in increased surveillance disclosures and would give technology companies the right to publish detailed statistics on demands for user data.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Late last week, we noted that Apple's business sales staff have been offering customers price quotes for build-to-order configurations of the new Mac Pro, providing the first glimpse at what these machines will cost beyond the $2999/$3999 base configurations shown on Apple's site.
Since our initial report, we've heard from a few other business customers who received price quotes, and that information has helped us to piece together what we expect retail pricing to be for the various upgrades. Due to varying discounts for business customers included in the quotes and in some cases currency conversions that we have attempted to take into account, we consider our listed prices to be estimates, but they should be very close to Apple's retail pricing for U.S. customers.
For upgrades beyond the $3999 high-end stock configuration, here is our estimated pricing (all prices relative to the stock model):
As an example, for a customer looking to buy an 8-core Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, the machine would cost $3999 base + $1500 processor upgrade + $400 RAM upgrade + $300 storage upgrade, yielding a total price of $6199.
At the lower end, Apple's $2999 base Mac Pro model carries a quad-core Intel Xeon processor, 12 GB of RAM, and dual AMD FireCore D300 graphics, compared to the $3999 high-end stock configuration with 6-core processor, 16 GB of RAM, and D500 graphics.
We have not seen any exact breakdowns of how much each of those changes contributes to the overall $1000 price difference between stock configurations, but expect roughly half of the price difference to be represented by the processor upgrade, a somewhat smaller amount for the graphics upgrade, and a relatively nominal amount in the range of $100 for the bump in RAM.
The new Mac Pro remains scheduled to launch sometime this month, but Apple has yet to announce an exact date for either initial orders or availability.
With Apple's new Mac Pro scheduled to launch this month but no exact availability date having been disclosed by Apple, many customers have been anxiously awaiting word on when the machines will be available for ordering. It now appears, however, that units are starting to make their way to Apple's retail stores, suggesting that a launch may be imminent.
One Twitter user has posted a photo of the new Mac Pro on display today at the Bromley store in the United Kingdom. The Tweet has apparently since been deleted, but has remained viewable to some users due to caching.
A follow-up Tweet indicates the store has received just three units so far, with more due later this week.
Apple frequently releases new products on Tuesdays, and thus the delivery of new Mac Pro units to Apple's retail stores could point to a release tomorrow, although there have been no specific claims of a Tuesday launch.
Update: It appears that this image may be from Apple's October 22 event that gave press a chance to look at the Mac Pro.
Apple today released the final version of OS X 10.9.1, after seeding several betas to developers beginning in November. The last version of the beta, build 13B40, was distributed to developers on December 3 and to AppleCare employees on December 4.
The 10.9.1 update includes improved support for Gmail in OS X Mail, improved reliability for Smart Mailboxes, an update to the Shared Links option in the Safari Sidebar, and a fix for a bug preventing VoiceOver from speaking sentences containing emoji. Apple previously introduced additional Mail fixes in a separate Mail update released in early November.
This update includes the following fixes: - Improved support for Gmail in OS X Mail, and fixes for users with custom Gmail settings - Improves the reliability of Smart Mailboxes and search in Mail - Fixes an issue that prevented contact groups from working properly in Mail - Resolves an issue that prevented VoiceOver from speaking sentences that contain emoji - Updates Shared Links periodically when open in the Safari Sidebar
OS X 10.9.1 can be accessed via the Mac App Store. Apple has also released a specific version of OS X 10.9.1 designed for the late 2013 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros with "system specific enhancements" designed to improve stability and compatibility.
Apple's iAd team will be focusing heavily on monetizing iTunes Radio through advertising sales in the new year, reports Adweek. Apple's SVP of Internet software and services Eddy Cue reportedly told iAd staff that iTunes Radio ads, rather than app ads, are the new top priority.
Indeed, there is a new focus within the company’s advertising unit, and the mantra came direct from Eddy Cue, Apple's head of software. In a staff meeting before the holidays, Cue indicated that iTunes Radio is the top priority, and app ads are not.
"The message that came across was basically if you’re not working on iTunes Radio, you're irrelevant," an Apple insider said.
To facilitate ad sales, Apple also plans to build a real-time bidding exchange to automate sales, selling individual ad impressions one at a time rather than in bulk. With such a system, which emulates a stock exchange, iAds could ultimately become more affordable and more widely available to various advertisers, and it also allows for very specific targeting.
A source familiar with iAds said Apple has kept its real-time initiative under close wraps and is "not casting a wide net." That may be because the company is figuring out how to gradually transition from earlier aggressive sales efforts that had iAd prices starting at $1 million a pop. "It's a rare advertiser that is going to be willing to pay those rates,” said the source.
iTunes Radio became a new focus for the iAd team ahead of the music service's September launch, with iAd engineers and sales personnel working to secure deals with major advertisers to support iTunes Radio.
Prior to iTunes Radio, which represents a huge shift in focus for iAd, the service was designed to help developers earn money on the iOS platform. As a developer tool, iAd was historically unsuccessful in terms of attracting both developer interest and revenue. iTunes Radio is an important new endeavor as it represents a huge money-earning opportunity for the company. Apple is able to keep 90 percent of total revenue from its audio ads, sharing a mere 10 percent with music companies.
Ads on iTunes Radio are enhanced with Apple's targeting tools that deliver both audio and video ads to specific users on iOS devices, PCs and Macs, and the Apple TV. iTunes Radio initially launched with a number of major ad partners already on board, including McDonald's, Nissan, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble.
Pegatron, the factory that produces Apple's iPhone 5c, has implemented facial recognition technology to pre-screen potential employees ahead of hiring in order to prevent the company from hiring underage workers, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Underage workers pose a serious threat to Apple suppliers as Apple has a strict policy against the hiring of workers under 16, China's legal working age. Earlier this year, Apple dropped Pingzhou Electronics as a supplier after multiple violations for hiring underage employees.
To screen for underage workers, Pegatron, which implemented the technology earlier this year, reportedly checks government-issued IDs for authenticity, with the faces matched to their ID photos using facial recognition. This is designed to prevent employees from using fake IDs or IDs borrowed from other people.
Last week, a 15-year-old Pegatron factory worker, Shi Zhaokun, died of pneumonia, bringing underage labor violations into the spotlight once again. The employee reportedly used a fake ID to acquire the job, and according to Pegatron, though he too went through the same security checks, he used a fake ID with his actual photo to bypass the facial recognition system.
In theory, these measures should keep out underage workers, as they should catch people using fake or borrowed IDs. In Mr. Shi's case, he was able to obtain a government-issued ID card that included his photo but another person's identifying information, the company said.
Apple, which voluntarily joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA) back in 2012, sent a team of doctors to investigate the incident. The company maintains a Supplier Responsibility section on its website and publishes yearly reports on worker welfare at its suppliers.
Apple has pledged to prevent excessive work hours, poor working conditions, unethical hiring policies, and the hiring of underage workers at the factories that supply Apple with parts. Despite Apple's efforts, Pegatron continually finds itself in the spotlight, last making headlines in July when a Chinese Labor Group accused Pegatron of numerous safety and workplace violations.
The FLA recently completed a status report on the working conditions at Foxconn, finding improvements in both working conditions and working hours, though the factory still violates the 49-hour work week mandated by Chinese law.
Popular iOS sports news app theScore has received an update today, adding a new feature focused on personalizing and curating content based on specific sports interests. The app's "MyScore" section now contains a feature named "Feed", which allows users to create their own continuously updated stream of sports news, bringing user-designated information about games, leagues, teams, and players all in one place.
Speaking to MacRumors, theScore's VP of Product Jonathan Savage stated that Feed was developed by observing usage patterns and listening to user feedback, with the feature itself emphasizing a "mobile-first" experience. "We wanted users to have both a comprehensive and highly customizable experience," Savage said, also noting that the player data that can be uploaded into a user's Feed allows for quicker access to stats than individually checking games and can be useful for fantasy sports tracking.
Additionally, Savage discussed how theScore approaches delivering news stories in Feed and throughout the rest of the app, stating that the company has a 35-person newsroom that creates and curates "snackable" content, which involves breaking down the biggest stories into the most important elements and stacking each update to a story on top of the last one.
The app also accompanies league, team, and player news with multimedia content like Tweets and GIFs to provide more perspective on stories. Overall, theScore includes coverage of 23 professional sports, 800 teams, and 15,000 players, all of which can be imported into a user's Feed.
theScore is a free app for iOS devices and can be downloaded through the App Store. [Direct Link]
In a press release today, Apple said the album is the fastest selling ever on the iTunes Store, moving 828,773 units worldwide in its first three days of availability. The album sold 617,213 copies in the U.S., and went to number one on the iTunes chart in 104 countries.
The self-titled, BEYONCÉ, is the fifth solo studio album from Beyoncé, which was made available exclusively worldwide on the iTunes Store on December 13 by Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records. The self-titled set is the artist’s first visual album. BEYONCÉ is infused with 14 new songs and 17 visually stunning, provocative videos shot around the world from Houston to New York City to Paris, and Sydney to Rio de Janeiro, all before the album’s release. The album represents Beyoncé’s biggest sales week ever.
The iTunes Store is the world’s most popular music store with a catalog of over 26 million songs and is available in 119 countries. The iTunes Store is the best way for iPhone®, iPad®, iPod®, Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online. All music on the iTunes Store comes in iTunes Plus®, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings.
The album is currently featured in every slot on the promotion carousel at the top of the iTunes Store. It is dubbed a "visual album" because each song has an accompanying music video.
Philips today updated its Philips Hue app to version 1.2, adding a much needed iOS 7-style redesign to the app. Along with a new look, the Philips Hue app has gained a new sidebar that allows users to quickly select various in-app options like Light Control.
Previously, Light Control, which allows users to change the colors of lights individually, was accessed by swiping upwards on the screen to access the Light Overview and then turning the iPhone to landscape mode for a control view. The new sidebar simplifies the light manipulating process with easy access menus.
The app now lets users save the current status of lights as a scene directly from the Light Control menu with the "save" button and lights can also be reordered from within the app settings. Sidebar notifications have been added as well, to let users know when an update is available.
What's New in Version 1.2.0 Introducing the new look hue app:
- New iOS 7 style design - Added sidebar navigation to make functionality easier to find - Added introduction demo - Lights can now be reordered from the app settings - Save current status of lights as a scene from light control - Added sidebar notifications
First introduced in late 2012, Philips' Hue lighting system provides users with wireless-enabled LED lightbulbs that can be controlled remotely via an iPhone app. The lights have several variations of white and can also be changed into a rainbow of colors, also supporting themes, scheduling, and dimming.
The Philips Hue starter set can be purchased from Apple for $199.95. The accompanying Philips Hue app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Last week, Apple released its 12 Days of Gifts app, expanding the annual content giveaway to include the United States for the first time. While the giveaway runs from December 26 through January 6, Apple today is offering an additional bonus giveaway of "No Better" [iTunes Store], the new single from Lorde. The iTunes single includes both the song itself and a video for her hit song "Royals".
Apple's "12 Days of Gifts" giveaway will offer users samples of a variety of content, including songs, apps, books, movies from across Apple's digital stores.
68% of Americans are expected to own an iPhone when the smartphone market reaches its saturation point in 2017, according to new research done by Asymco analyst Horace Dediu. Citing a parallel between the growth of the smartphone market and the growth of the iPhone over the years, Dediu predicts that both will continue to grow alongside each other as the smartphone market hits a saturation point at 90% in February 2017 with a predicted 180 million U.S. iPhone owners by that time, giving Apple a 68% market share.
If we believe that the iPhone can be modeled behaviorally then it may be possible to forecast its growth. One can simply draw a line extending the existing red segment above and read the F/(1-F) figure at any point in time. Solving for F results in a measure of penetration and hence number of users (if population is known.)
An alternative is to use the following formula derived from the linear interpolation of the two measured market shares. iPhone market share is y/(1+y) where y=0.21x and x = F/(1-F) and F is the expected market penetration of smartphones.
So if F = 91%, x = 10, y = 2.11 and therefore the iPhone market share = 68%.
We also know from the plot of the market that F = .91 is reached around February 2017. So we can suggest that at 90% penetration (approximately saturation) the iPhone will have 68% market share of users in the US. Forecasting the addressable market (US population aged older than 13) at about 266 million that implies 180 million US users of the iPhone by early 2017.
As Forbes points out, the idea of smartphones being used by 90% of the population by Dediu's projected date would mean that the market would hit full saturation less than 10 years since the introduction of the original iPhone, making smartphones the fastest adopted technology in history:
And the remarkable thing about this is that the smartphone won’t even be ten years old by that point. Yes, the first real smartphone (there were attempts before this but nothing that really grasped peoples’ attention) was indeed the iPhone and it was released in 2007. But not until June: so if market saturation comes in Feb 2017 then market saturation will come in just under a decade.
And that is just amazing, stupendous in fact. It makes the smartphone by far the fastest adopted technology ever.
According to data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel posted earlier this month, the iPhone's market share in the U.S. hit 52.8% in October following the launch of the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. In the previous year, Apple's market share was at 53.3% following the launch of the iPhone 5, and was at 36% and 25% in the two years prior with the launch of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, respectively.
Apple CEO Tim Cook received a lifetime achievement award from his alma mater Auburn University at a New York event on Tuesday, with a video of the speech surfacing on the college's YouTube channel today (via AllThingsD).
Throughout his remarks, Cook highlighted his overall support for the progression of human equality in the United States and throughout the world. The CEO cited a section from the United Nations preamble emphasizing equality, and talked about finding a company in Apple that “deeply believed in advancing humanity through its products and through the equality of all of its employees.“
Now, much has changed since my early days at Apple, but these values, which are the very heart of our company, remain the same. These values guide us to make our products accessible for everyone...people with disabilities often find themselves in a struggle to have their human dignity acknowledged; they're frequently left in the shadows of technological advancements that are a source of empowerment and attainment for others. But Apple's engineers pushed back against this unacceptable reality; they go to extraordinary lengths to make our products accessible to people with various disabilities from blindness and deafness, to various muscular disorders.
These values have also recently guided us to support legislation that demands equality and non-discrimination for all employees, regardless of how they love. This legislation, known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. I have long believed in this, and Apple has implemented protections for employees, even when the laws did not. Now is the time to write these principles of basic human dignity into the book of law.
Cook originally graduated from Auburn University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering. He then joined Apple in 1998, and was named CEO of the company on August 24, 2011 after late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigned from the position.
Note: Due to the potentially controversial nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Back in June, just days after Apple teased the new Mac Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference, a Geekbench result appeared for a version of the machine using Intel's 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2 Ivy Bridge-E processor running at 2.7 GHz. Entries for 8-core and 6-core models followed in September and November respectively, but with those benchmarks coming under Geekbench 3 and the original 12-core model having been tested under Geekbench 2, the results were not directly comparable.
Still, John Poole of Primate Labs, the company behind Geekbench, outlined the likely processor performance options under Geekbench 3 for the new Mac Pro based on the tested Mac Pro machines where available and filling in the gaps with data from Windows machines running the same processors destined for the Mac Pro.
Now, with the Mac Pro launch likely very near, new sets of benchmarks from the 12-core Mac Pro running Geekbench 3 have surfaced, offering a better look at the performance of the high-end custom configuration. MacRumors and Poole both believe the results to be legitimate.
Three sets of Geekbench results have been posted, two run in 32-bit mode and a third in 64-bit mode. Averages for the two 32-bit runs (1, 2) yield scores of 2909 for single-core testing and 29721 for multi-core testing, fairly close to Poole's predictions based on results from Windows machines running the same chip.
As predicted, the single-core score for the high-end Mac Pro is actually lower than seen with the other new Mac Pro models due to the lower maximum clock speed of the 12-core chip, but multi-core testing obviously shows a significant boost in performance compared to the Mac Pro model carrying the 8-core processor. The new 12-core Mac Pro unsurprisingly also compares favorably to the 12-core Mid 2012 Mac Pro and high-end models of the current iMac and Retina MacBook Pro.
Comparison of high-end models using 32-bit multi-core Geekbench 3 scores
The third Geekbench result for this machine uses the 64-bit version of the testing suite, which yields scores roughly 10-11% higher than their 32-bit counterparts for both single-core and multi-core testing.
As with previous Mac Pro benchmarks believed to be legitimate, this latest 12-core Mac Pro is running a custom build of OS X Mavericks, the same 13A4023 build seen on the 6-core model last month.
Apple has announced that it will be launching the new Mac Pro sometime this month, but has yet to offer a more specific launch date or publicly outline full pricing details beyond the $2999/$3999 stock configurations. According to a price quote provided to one business customer, maxing out the new Mac Pro with the 12-core CPU, 64 GB of RAM, 1 TB of internal flash storage, and high-end dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics chips could bring pricing to roughly $10,000.
A digital compilation of 59 rare and unheard recordings from The Beatles is set to be released exclusively on the iTunes Store this coming Tuesday, December 17, reports NME (via BBC).
Titled The Beatles' Bootleg Recordings 1963, the collection of music is reportedly being released in order stop the expiration of the copyright protection surrounding the records, as the tracks themselves consist of BBC sessions, alternative versions of popular hits, and studio outtakes.
EU law protects songs for 70 years after they are recorded, but only if they get an official release. Otherwise, copyright lasts 50 years.
In the case of The Beatles, that means their 1963 debut album Please Please Me is protected until 2033, but the unreleased session tapes for that album are not.
If the Beatles chose not to release the recordings before the end of the year, it would mean other record labels could theoretically put them out and profit from them.
Earlier this year, after Apple released the first 64-bit chip for smartphones, a Qualcomm spokesperson claimed the A7 processor was a 
Late last week, we 
Apple's iAd team will be focusing heavily on monetizing iTunes Radio through advertising sales in the new year, reports 
Back in June, just days after Apple teased the new Mac Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference, a 
A digital compilation of 59 rare and unheard recordings from The Beatles is set to be released exclusively on the iTunes Store this coming Tuesday, December 17, reports 
