Eric Slivka
Eric is the Editor-in-Chief of MacRumors and has been writing for the site since 2008.
An avid swimmer and former biophysicist, Eric has been using Apple products for over 35 years and has been interviewed for pieces by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and other publications.
Eric's current primary role involves day-to-day oversight of the editorial operations at MacRumors, but he also contributes occasional news and review articles while handling various other duties related to the site's operation.
An avid swimmer and former biophysicist, Eric has been using Apple products for over 35 years and has been interviewed for pieces by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and other publications.
Eric's current primary role involves day-to-day oversight of the editorial operations at MacRumors, but he also contributes occasional news and review articles while handling various other duties related to the site's operation.
Eric Slivka's Articles
Microsoft Issues Updates for Office 2011, 2008, and 2004
Microsoft yesterday released several updates for users of its Office for Mac productivity suites, bringing security and stability improvements to Office 2011, 2008, and 2004, as well as a pair of ancillary updates.
- Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1.2 Update (108.9 MB): Improvements include security fixes and several stability and reliability improvements for Outlook and Word.
- Microsoft...
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Facebook Prepping New Photo Sharing App for iPhone [Updated]
TechCrunch reports that it has receiving detailed information on a forthcoming iPhone application from Facebook that will focus on photo sharing, building on top of the company's massive existing platform to apparently pull together aspects of many other popular photo apps in what appears from the leaked documents to be an "awesome" offering.But again, the app looks amazing. We've heard that...
Inside Apple's Retail Store Operation
In the wake of yesterday's announcement regarding Apple retail chief Ron Johnson's pending departure to take the CEO position at department store chain J.C. Penney, The Wall Street Journal publishes an extensive look at the company's retail store operations and philosophy, relying on internal training materials and interviews with former employees to gain a sense of what Apple is doing...
Passcode-Collecting App Pulled From App Store [Updated]
Earlier this week, iOS developer Daniel Amitay published a report examining trends in passcodes chosen by users of his Big Brother Camera Security application. Amitay had anonymously collected over 200,000 passcodes used on his app and offered the data up as a proxy for actual iPhone passcode usage data based on the similarity of the input system style and functionality.
Amitay now reports...
Apple Releases AirPort Utility 5.5.3 for Mac and Windows
Apple today released AirPort Utility 5.5.3 for both Mac (10.8 MB) and Windows (10.1 MB). The updates to Apple's software for managing the AirPort Express Base Station, the AirPort Extreme Base Station, and Time Capsule primarily address an issue that may cause the application to crash during setup.This update contains bug fixes including the following:
Resolves an issue that caused the...
Final Cut Pro X and Third-Party Thunderbolt Peripherals Coming Next Week?
Japanese blog Mac Otakara reports that Apple is apparently set to launch its new Final Cut Pro X offerings next week, to be accompanied by the release of a number of new Thunderbolt-equipped accessories from third-party vendors.
Apple demoed Final Cut Pro X back in mid-April, announcing that the professional video production software would launch on the Mac App Store in June priced at $299. ...
Apple Retail Chief Ron Johnson Departing to Lead J.C. Penney [Updated]
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson is leaving the company to take the position of president at department store chain J.C. Penney, a move that will put Johnson in position to become CEO at the company within the next few months.J.C. Penney Co. is tapping Ron Johnson, head of Apple Inc.'s iconic retail stores, as its new president and...
Apple Calls Samsung's Request to See iPhone 5 and iPad 3 an 'Attempt to Harass'
Late last month, Samsung attempted to escalate its patent dispute with Apple by requesting to see Apple's next-generation iPhone and iPad models, ostensibly to help it defend itself against Apple's charges of copying and other infringement. The request was made after Apple requested and was granted access to unreleased Samsung hardware, although that hardware had already been extensively...
Apple's Back to School Promo Launching Wednesday With $100 iTunes Gift Cards?
Following a couple of missed rumored launch dates, a report surfaced over the weekend indicating that Apple will finally be launching its annual Back to School promotion this Wednesday. A new report from 9 to 5 Mac corroborates that claim and adds a new wrinkle -- instead of a free iPod as in years past, Apple will be offering $100 iTunes gift cards to education customers purchasing new Macs.In...
Ten Most Common iPhone Passcodes Revealed
iOS developer Daniel Amitay today took an interesting look (via The Next Web) at iPhone passcode trends as revealed by usage of his popular Big Brother Camera Security application.In my last update to Big Brother Camera Security (Free), I added some code to record common user passcodes (completely anonymous, of course). Because Big Brother's passcode setup screen and lock screen are nearly...
Mac OS X 10.6.8 Build 10K537 Seeded to Developers
Apple today seeded Mac developers with a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.8, termed Build 10K537. The new build, which continues to weigh in at about 1 GB as a combo update and is approaching 500 MB as a delta update, is the first to be pushed out to developers in over three weeks as Apple's team has undoubtedly been focused on WWDC.
Apple's documentation requests that developers focus their...
OS X Lion to Drop 'Rosetta' Support for PowerPC Applications
Soon after Apple released the first developer preview version of OS X Lion back in late February, we noted that Apple appeared to have dropped support for Rosetta, the system that allowed Intel-based Macs to run applications written for earlier PowerPC-based systems.
Apple of course made the transition to Intel-based processors five years ago, and Rosetta is an optional install under Snow...
HP Preparing to Take on Apple With TouchPad, Potential Cloud-Based Media Service
HP finally appears set to make its splash into the tablet market, announcing late last week that its webOS-based TouchPad will go on sale July 1st and match the iPad's price points of $499.99 for a 16 GB model and $599.99 for a 32 GB model. The pairing of HP and Palm has been seen as one of the most interesting contenders in the tablet market, although none of Apple's other primary competitors...
iOS Developers Embracing Alternative Mobile Platforms, Shying Away From Mac
Fortune reports on a new survey conducted by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last week in which he surveyed a number of developer attendees to gain an understanding of their development interests. Interestingly, nearly half of the 45 developers surveyed reported that they are also developing for Android, while only a third revealed that they are...
Nuance Increasing iOS Tie-Ins With New 'Dragon Remote Microphone'
With rumors of deep integration of Nuance's voice recognition technology in iOS 5 and evidence that such tools are hidden but included in current developer builds, there has been considerable interest in determining the extent to which the two companies are working together. Nuance technology has also been showing up in OS X Lion in the form of new text-to-speech voices and has been rumored to...
Steve Jobs Confirms Discontinuation of iWeb in iCloud Transition
Since last week's unveiling of Apple's new iCloud service and the transitioning of the company's existing MobileMe service into iCloud, many users have been wondering about the fate of some of the MobileMe services that were not mentioned in the transition discussion. In particular, users have been concerned about iWeb, Apple's website creation software included with iLife that can be integrated ...
iCloud Communications Files Suit Against Apple Over 'iCloud' Name
As reported by The Next Web, a company by the name of iCloud Communications has filed suit against Apple, alleging infringement over the company's new iCloud service. Apple of course acquired the iCloud.com domain name from Swedish company Xcerion and undoubtedly assisted that company in rebranding its cloud-based services as CloudMe, but Apple apparently did not engage iCloud Communications...
Apple Legal Filing Cites Fear of 'Inferior' Amazon Appstore Tarnishing its Reputation
The trademark dispute between Apple and Amazon over the term "App Store" continues to play out, with Computerworld noting that a new filing by Apple clarifies the company's stance that it fears a tarnishing of its reputation by association with the "inferior" Amazon Appstore for Android.In a filing on Wednesday, Apple countered Amazon's claim that "app store" is a generic label, and repeated its...
Nuance Text-to-Speech Voices Now Active in OS X Lion Beta [Updated]
Last month, we noted that Apple had integrated a number of new text-to-speech voices from Nuance in OS X Lion. While the voices themselves were not yet able to be installed in the Lion developer preview, samples available online demonstrated the significantly improved quality over existing voice options in Snow Leopard.
Several users working with the latest OS X Lion developer preview...
Apple Reportedly Beginning Production of Next-Generation MacBook Air Models
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities today reported to AppleInsider that Apple's manufacturing partners are scheduled to pump out nearly 400,000 units of revamped MacBook Air models this month as the company looks toward a refresh of the popular ultra-thin notebook.Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo exclusively told AppleInsider that the Mac maker has placed orders for the production ...
