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
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...
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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....
Mac App Store to Offer Unbundled iLife and iWork Applications?
Several MacRumors readers have pointed out that Apple's promotional materials for its forthcoming Mac App Store show that the company may be planning to offer applications from its iLife and iWork suites on an individual basis. Supporting that notion is the demo offered by Apple's Craig Federighi during yesterday's media event in which he showed how a user could purchase and install Pages from...
AT&T Joins Apple's Record-Setting Quarter With 5.2 Million iPhone Activations
AT&T today announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2010, revealing that it activated a record 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter. The number was significantly higher than the previous record of 3.2 million activations set last quarter. AT&T's third-quarter integrated device growth included 5.2 million iPhone activations, the most iPhone activations ever in a quarter. This is...
Video Stream of 'Back to the Mac' Media Event Now Available
Apple has posted the full video from today's "Back to the Mac" media event as a podcast on iTunes, and the stream is also available via a direct link to the .mov file. The stream was initially available for users on Safari for Mac OS X 10.6 and iOS, but users on other platforms now have options for viewing the broadcast.
Apple should also be making the stream available in multiple formats...
Apple Releases Java Updates for Snow Leopard (Version 3) and Leopard (Version 8)
Apple today released a pair of software updates bringing new version of Java to Macs running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Leopard. The updates deliver improvements to compatibility, security, and reliability.
- Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3 (74.30 MB, Requires Mac OS X 10.6.4) Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3 delivers improved compatibility, security, and reliability by updating Java SE 6 to...
Apple Releases Software Update for New MacBook Air, ProKit 6.0
Apple today released MacBook Air (Late 2010) Software Update 1.0, a minor update for users of the company's just-revamped MacBook Air. This update fixes a few graphics issues including:
- Resolves an issue where the system becomes unresponsive while playing back a movie trailer in iMovie.
- Resolves an issue where the system becomes unresponsive after waking from sleep when an external...
Aperture 3.1 Released to Support iLife '11
Apple today released Aperture 3.1, bringing compatibility with the new iLife '11 suite as well as a host of bug fixes and improvements. This update improves overall stability and performance, and addresses compatibility with iLife '11. It also includes a number of specific fixes in the following areas:
- Performance when opening large libraries
- Performance when exporting heavily-adjusted...
Initial Hands-On Impressions of the New MacBook Air
Those in attendance at today's media event on Apple's campus had the opportunity to spend some time with the new MacBook Air models, and early hands-on impressions and reviews are beginning to roll in.
Ars Technica calls both the 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch models "incredibly thin and light" and is particularly taken with the smaller version. Both devices are incredibly thin and light, but the...
15-Inch and 17-Inch MacBook Pros Receive 2.8 GHz Core i7 Option
Alongside Apple's other announcements today, the company also quietly added a new option to its 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros, allowing customers to configure the machines with a 2.8 GHz Core i7 processor. The upgrade comes as an additional $200 charge on top of the 2.66 GHz Core i7 processor that had been the top-of-the-line...
