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
iOS 4.1 Bug Allows Access to iPhone Contacts and Voicemails Despite Passcode Protection
An iOS 4.1 bug discovered in our forums late last week has been gaining significant attention for its ability to allow users to bypass the built-in passcode protection on the iPhone to view contacts, call histories, and voicemail. While the bug does not permit full access to the iPhone's functions, as the home and lock buttons remain mostly non-functional, users have also reported being able to...
Read Full Article • 111 comments
Office for Mac 2011 Now Available
Microsoft today announced that Office for Mac 2011 is now officially available, offering consumers a number of new features in the company's flagship productivity suite. According to Wilfrid, three-quarters of all Mac users have Office installed on their machines. "That's the vast majority of Mac customers counting on Microsoft for a critical piece of their computing needs," he says. "Mac users...
'Apple Store' iOS App Updated With Location Aware Appointment Check-Ins, Reserve and Pick-Up, and More
Apple today updated its Apple Store application for iOS devices, adding several new features including location awareness to allow users to check in for appointments at their local Apple retail store. What's new
- Add engraving and gift wrapping to select purchases from the Apple Online Store
- Reserve products for pickup at an Apple Retail Store
- Check in for Apple Retail Store...
Apple Offers Free iPad Engraving in Time for the Holidays
Back in July, a rumor surfaced claiming that Apple would begin offering engraving on the iPad, much as it does with its iPod line. The rumor claimed that the offer could be set to launch as part of the holiday shopping season push.
Right on time, Apple has just launched free iPad engraving, allowing customers to add up to two lines of custom text to the rear of any iPad ordered through the...
iPhoto '11 Upgrade Causing Headaches for Some Users
9 to 5 Mac points out that a growing number of users are reporting problems upgrading their iPhoto installations to the newest version included in the new iLife '11. According to the report, users are finding some or all of their photos disappearing following the upgrade process. Specifically, some people are losing some or all of their photo libraries when upgrading. Also, iPhoto '11 drops...
New Evidence of Apple's Plans for a Second Data Center Building at NC Site
We've reported a couple of times over the past few days about the imminent opening of Apple's North Carolina data center and rumors that the company is already considering doubling the size of the facility.
All Things Digital has continued digging into the story and discovered a photo posted to the official Flickr page of Catawba County, North Carolina showing a schematic of the facility...
Early Benchmarks on the New 13-Inch and 11-Inch MacBook Air
Primate Labs publishes initial benchmarks for Apple's new 13-inch and 11-inch MacBook Air, comparing the new models to earlier generations of the MacBook Air, the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the iPad. There are two ways you can look at the new 11-inch MacBook Air; it's either a much smaller but slower MacBook Pro, or a much faster but larger iPad. The 11-inch MacBook Air is small enough...
Call Center Hiring Leads to More Verizon iPhone Speculation
A CNET report regarding a hiring spree by several customer service call center companies in the mobile phone business has been generating renewed speculation since late Friday that Verizon may be staffing up to support an early 2011 launch of the iPhone on its network. The hiring companies, Salt Lake City-based Teleperformance and Kennesaw, Ga.-based Ryla, are hiring at facilities around the...
VLC Gains iPhone, iPod Touch Compatibility
Applidium today announced that its VLC Media Player application has gone universal, adding compatibility for the iPhone and iPod touch to the iPad version released last month. This new version brings in the following major improvements:
- It works on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, as well as 3rd and 4th generation iPods.
- Decoding is quite a lot faster than in the previous version
- You can...
AT&T Prepares for Loss of iPhone Exclusivity as Subscriber Base Approaches Verizon's
Bloomberg reports on AT&T's preparations for the loss of iPhone exclusivity in the United States, which has been claimed by some sources to be coming at the end of the year. According to the report, AT&T's recent announcements regarding the addition of a plethora of new Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets is being accompanied by a significant retraining of its staff to handle the shift from...
Apple to Make All New Mac Shipments Adobe Flash-Free
As we previously noted, Apple's new MacBook Air is shipping without Adobe's Flash plugin pre-installed, requiring users to manually install the software if they wish to view Flash content. Engadget now reports that Apple has issued an official statement on the matter, noting that it prefers that users download the software themselves in order to ensure that they are running the most up-to-date ...
Apple's New Lincoln Park Retail Store in Chicago Opens Tomorrow
Apple is set to open its new Lincoln Park retail store in Chicago tomorrow at 10:00 AM, an event that will mark the debut of a yet another of Apple's "significant" stores that are meant to provide an iconic presence for the company. ChicagoNow and ifoAppleStore offer a sneak peek at the new store and the unique arrangement that has seen Apple construct a public plaza and refurbish a run-down...
Analyst Predicts MacBook Air Sales of 700,000 Units This Quarter
DigiTimes reports on an article from the Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times citing Concord Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo as predicting MacBook Air sales of approximately 700,000 for the quarter. Apple's MacBook Air shipments in fourth quarter of 2010 are expected to reach about 700,000 units, accounting for more than 17% share of the company's 4.1 million Mac shipments, while the...
Apple Accelerates Mac OS X 10.6.5 Developer Seeds With Build 10H562
As noted by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple yesterday seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.5, termed Build 10H562, to developers. The new version comes only one week after the release of Build 10H555, but even so marks a rapid increment of seven build numbers.
According to reports, the latest build of Mac OS X 10.6.5 continues to cite no documented known issues and once again asks developers to focus...
Apple Considering Doubling Size of North Carolina Data Center?
Apple's North Carolina data center under construction in February 2010
In a brief piece outlining some of his thoughts on how the new MacBook Air may play into Apple's strategy for cloud-based media storage, All Things Digital's John Paczkowski notes in passing that he has heard that Apple is already considering doubling the size of its massive North Carolina data center to one million square...
Barack Obama and Steve Jobs Meeting Today to Discuss Economy and Technology
Silicon Alley Insider briefly reported earlier today that President Barack Obama was scheduled for a one-on-one meeting with Apple CEO Steve Jobs today following Obama's arrival in the Bay Area for a fundraising visit. He's speaking at Google exec Marissa Mayer's house in Palo Alto this evening.
Before that, says a source familiar with the details, he may have a one-on-one meeting with Steve...
Teardown of Apple's 11.6-Inch MacBook Air Underway
iFixit has wasted no time in getting its hands on a new 11.6-inch MacBook Air and beginning to disassemble it to see what's inside. While the leaked prototype image offered an idea of what the innards would look like, iFixit will almost certainly find some additional tidbits of information.
Some notes of interest:
- The case is screwed shut with 5-point Security Torx screws, suggesting...
iLife '11 Still 32-Bit
Gear Live confirms that Apple's new iLife '11 suite retains the 32-bit codebase found in earlier versions, squashing hopes that the company would make the transition to 64-bit code for the release. So we figured that one unannounced "feature" would likely be that the iLife suite had been converted to 64 bit. After all, Snow Leopard has had more than enough time to mature out in the wild, and it...
FaceTime for Mac Beta Opens Up Security Hole to Allow for Compromised Apple IDs
As related by MacNotes.de, Apple's new FaceTime for Mac beta application contains several security issues that could easily result in a user's Apple ID and iTunes Store account being compromised by individuals with physical access to the user's machine.
The primary issue appears to be FaceTime for Mac's display of account information, which reveals the user's date of birth and security...
Apple Discontinuing Java Installation Packages for Mac OS X?
A number of readers have pointed out that Apple's developer documentation for its Java updates for Mac OS X released yesterday reveals that the company appears to be ceasing future distribution of its custom-ported Java packages. Java Deprecation
As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated....
