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
Apple Passes Microsoft for Second Place in S&P 500 Weighting
MarketWatch reports that Apple today passed Microsoft for second place in weighting on the S&P 500 index of large U.S.-traded stocks. Apple's float-adjusted market cap reached $241.5 billion, surpassing Microsoft Corp.'s index market value of $239.5 billion, said Standard & Poor's. Exxon still remains in the top spot on the S&P 500 with a market cap of more than $300 billion, said S&P.The...
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Apple Preparing to Issue Developer Seeds of Mac OS X 10.6.4?
iPhone in Canada reports that Apple is set to begin seeding builds of Mac OS X 10.6.4 to developers in the near future, moving development forward on the next maintenance release for Snow Leopard. This week, in less than a month later since the last OS X release, Apple seems to be pushing forward with plans to update Snow Leopard. We have received reports that Apple is preparing to begin testing...
Apple Opens Door to Hardware-Accelerated Decoding of H.264 Video in Flash and Other Platforms
Michael Tsai reports (via Daring Fireball) that Apple has posted a new technical note describing how third-party developers can tap into hardware-accelerated decoding of H.264 video on compatible graphics cards. The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M,...
David Letterman's 'Top Ten Excuses of the Guy Who Lost the iPhone Prototype'
Late Show host David Letterman last night used his "Top Ten" segment to highlight the case of an Apple engineer who last month left his next-generation iPhone in a Redwood City, California bar, only to have it leaked by Gizmodo earlier this week.
Letterman's "Top Ten Excuses of the Guy Who Lost the iPhone Prototype" pokes fun at a number of targets, including Apple's 'i' naming scheming for...
Steve Jobs Responds to Customer Question About iPhone Leak and WWDC [Update: Hoax?]
9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has once again taken the time to respond to customer email, this time offering up a short response to a question about the leaked next-generation iPhone's effect on its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) presumably scheduled for this summer in San Francisco.
In response to the customer's hope that WWDC will still be exciting even though the essen...
ARM CEO Argues Against Need for Apple to Purchase Company
Yesterday, rumors began to circulate that Apple is preparing a bid to acquire ARM, the chip design company at the root of processors used in the iPhone, iPad and many other mobile devices. Reaction to the rumors has been mixed, with many observers noting that there is little reason for Apple to purchase the company, given its existing expertise in chip design and its licensing arrangements...
Lost Next-Generation iPhone Believed to Be Late-Stage or Final Design
Since the leak of a next-generation iPhone earlier this week, questions have been raised about how closely the device in question matches what ends up being the final shipping product, expected to be launched later this year. Apple undoubtedly creates a number of prototypes of its products as it seeks to settle on designs that will achieve its technical and aesthetic goals, and while one might ...
Hulu Reportedly Prepping Subscription Service for May 24th Launch, iPad App Coming Soon?
The Los Angeles Times reports that television streaming site Hulu is preparing to launch a "Hulu Plus" paid subscription service as soon as May 24th, pricing the service at $9.95 per month. Under the proposal, Hulu would continue to provide for free the five most recent episodes of shows like Fox's "Glee," "ABC's "Lost" or NBC's "Saturday Night Live." But viewers who want to see additional...
List of Apple Employees Authorized to Carry Pre-Release iPhones Personally Monitored by Steve Jobs
In the wake of this week's leak of the next-generation iPhone after an employee left the device in Redwood City, California bar, much has been made of Apple's tight security standards regarding its unreleased products. One tidbit of note shared by Bloomberg today is that the list of Apple personnel authorized to carry pre-release products like the iPhone in question is personally overseen by...
Legality of Gizmodo's Next-Generation iPhone Acquisition Examined
A DailyFinance article discussing the legality of Gizmodo's acquisition of a next-generation iPhone left in a bar last month has been receiving a bit of attention today. The report outlines the series of events that led to Gizmodo receiving the device and examines whether its possession of the iPhone constituted a violation worthy of either criminal charges of possession of stolen property or...
Apple Releases Another New iPhone Ad: 'Family Man'
They frequently comes in threes, and after the release of two new iPhone ads earlier this week, it's no surprise that a third one has now been posted to Apple's iPhone ad gallery. The new commercial, entitled 'Family Man', shows how various members of a family can use the iPhone's apps for their individual needs. Highlighted apps include:
- Photos (Built-in)
- App Store (Built-in)
- 20...
AT&T Activates 2.7 Million iPhones in Q1 2010 as Growth Slows
AT&T today announced financial results for the first quarter of 2010, revealing that the carrier activated 2.7 million iPhones during the quarter. The number is down from 3.1 million in the previous quarter, despite Apple announcing yesterday that it had sold 8.75 million iPhones overall during the quarter, an increase of approximately 15,000 units over the prior quarter.
The results...
Adobe to End Development on Flash-to-iPhone Compiler in Wake of Apple License Change [Updated]
Earlier this month, Apple made a change in its iPhone developer agreement that appeared to directly target Adobe's plans to release a Packager for iPhone feature in its forthcoming Flash Professional CS5 application that would allow creators of Flash content to export their projects into native iPhone format. The change resulted in a fair amount of fallout in what is becoming an increasingly...
Google Purchases Startup Linked to Apple's P.A. Semi Chip Division [Updated]
In another interesting twist in the relationship between Google and Apple, peHUB reports that Google has purchased startup firm Agnilux, a San Jose company founded by a number of defectors from P.A. Semi, the chip company Apple acquired in early 2008 to provide expertise in ARM chip designs for products such as the iPad and iPhone. A number of prominent P.A. Semi employees were previously known...
Apple Releases Final Cut Server 1.5.2
Apple today released Final Cut Server 1.5.2, bringing several fixes to the company's backend application for managing Final Cut Pro projects. Full details on the changes are included in the release notes for the update. - Fixes an expiring Java certificate in the Final Cut Server Java client.
Updates the Java signing certificate to avoid certification authentication issues in the Final Cut...
Pulitzer Prize Winner's 'NewsToons' Now Available in App Store
Last week, there was a bit of publicity surrounding Apple's December rejection of an iPhone application highlighting the work of online political cartoonist Mark Fiore, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work earlier in the week.
After Fiore's disclosure that his NewsToons application had been rejected by Apple last December for "ridiculing public figures", Apple invited him to...
Apple Releases iPhone OS 4 Beta 2 and SDK to Developers
Apple today released via the iPhone Dev Center its second beta version of iPhone OS 4 and the associated Software Development Kit (SDK) for developers to use in creating and updating applications. The initial versions of iPhone OS 4 and the SDK were released earlier this month alongside Apple's media event to introduce the features of the next-generation operating system.
iPhone OS 4 will...
Apple Reports $3.07 Billion Profit for Q2 2010, Best Non-Holiday Quarter Ever
Apple today announced financial results for the first calendar quarter and second fiscal quarter of 2010. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $9.08 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.62 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent,...
Apple Releases Two New iPhone Ads: 'Dog Lover' and 'Backpacker'
Apple yesterday released two new iPhone commercials, posting them to the company's iPhone ad gallery. The two ads continue Apple's recent pattern of narrative-style commercials showing off multiple applications used in succession.
'Dog Lover' tells the story of a family adopting a new dog, using the iPhone to find an available dog, share pictures of her, find dog parks, and stream webcam...
Apple Offers Replacement Program for iPod Shuffle Headphones With Remote
Apple today launched a new replacement program for users experiencing problems with the headphones that shipped with Apple's third-generation iPod shuffle that launched in March 2009 and was updated last September. Apple has determined that the Apple Headphones with Remote included with the iPod shuffle (3rd gen) may fail under certain conditions. A very small percentage of iPod shuffle owners...
