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
U.S. Trade Agency to Review Apple's Patent Complaints Against Nokia
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has been kept busy with claims involving Apple recently, as the company has found itself involved in several high-profile disputes with major corporations over claims of patent infringement. Just a day after the agency agreed to investigate claims made by Kodak against Apple and Research in Motion regarding possible patent infringement, Bloomberg...
Read Full Article • 29 comments
Apple Adds App Store Support for More Countries
Apple today announced that it has added App Store support for a number of new countries, with developers able to update their offerings accordingly via Apple's iTunes Connect service. You can now distribute your apps to more customers with the addition of App Store support in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda....
Apple Reportedly Lays Off 40 Final Cut Employees
AE Portal News reported last week on a Twitter post claiming that Apple has laid off 40 members of its Final Cut team focused on the company's professional-level video editing software tools. The cuts were apparently focused on remote teams based in the Los Angeles and Austin areas. And while it doesn't mean that Final Cut is doomed, it is interesting that Pro App teams in LA and Austin were cut...
Steve Jobs' Wall Street Journal Visit Reportedly Included Arguments Against Flash
Building on comments reportedly made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a town hall meeting for company employees last month, Valleywag claims that Jobs focused a significant amount of effort during his recent visit to The Wall Street Journal on selling newspaper executives on the need to move away from Adobe Flash for digital content. Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the...
Apple Increases iPhone's Cellular Download Cap to 20 MB in Advance of iPad Launch
MacRumors has received reports from several readers noting that the download cap for iPhone applications installed via 3G has been increased to 20 MB, a change that also appears to apply to iTunes Store content. Previously, users attempting to download content over 10 MB in size were prompted to connect to a Wi-Fi network or use a computer to obtain the applications. With the ceiling now...
Apple Patent Applications: Front-Facing Camera Depicted on Handheld Device, Rotatable Mouse
A pair of Apple patent applications published today have been generating a bit of attention for their disclosure of Apple's behind-the-scenes work on its products. The first application covers methods for addressing variations in individual digital camera lenses by capturing images of known color and calibrating the software driving the lens to compensate for any non-uniformity in the lens with...
27-Inch iMac Shipping Times Continue to Improve
Several MacRumors readers have reported that Apple's shipping lead times for its 27-inch iMac models in its online stores have improved today, with the U.S. and Canada now seeing lead times of 5-7 business days instead of 2 weeks and European stores seeing improvement to 2 weeks from earlier 3-week estimates.
Apple has continued to face lengthy shipping times for its 27-inch iMac models,...
Apple Reportedly Looking to Offer More Flexible iBookstore Pricing Than Previously Thought
The New York Times reports that recent shifts in the eBook publishing industry, spurred by Apple's entrance into the market, to allow for higher prices and greater publisher control over their content may offer more flexibility in pricing than previously thought. The "agency model" being promoted by Apple and pushed by many book publishers has been looking to break Amazon's stranglehold on the...
HP Looking to Undercut iPad Pricing With 3G-Capable Slate Device
The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on plans from other PC makers to tackle Apple's iPad head-on, and HP is looking at undercutting the iPad on pricing as a significant component to that strategy. In the next few weeks, executives from Hewlett-Packard Co. will meet in the U.S. and Taiwan to tweak prices and features on an upcoming keyboardless computer dubbed the Slate, said...
U.S. International Trade Commission Opens Inquiry Into Apple, RIM After Kodak Complaint
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has granted a request made by Kodak last month for an investigation of Apple and Research in Motion regarding possible infringement of Kodak patents related to digital camera technology. The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington said today it will consider the complaint filed last month and decide whether ...
Report Profiles Secrecy at Apple's Asian Manufacturing Partners' Facilities
Reuters today reports on the secrecy demanded by Apple of its Asian manufacturing partners, profiling a sprawling Foxconn facility in Longhua, China complete where employees live and work while producing many of Apple's devices. Inside the walled city -- one of several compounds run by Foxconn International, a major supplier for Apple Inc -- employees are provided with most of their daily needs....
Adobe Executive Kevin Lynch Discusses Flash on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
BoomTown today sat down with Adobe Chief Technical Officer Kevin Lynch to discuss the relationship between Apple and Adobe and the deployment of Flash on Mac as well as the iPhone and iPad. Apple's decision not to include Flash Player capabilities on the iPhone and now the iPad has resulted in apparent tensions between the two companies.
Lynch's comments about Flash on the Mac indicate that...
The Wait for New MacBook Pros Continues, More Best Buy SKUs Found
Earlier this week, we noted that an image had been posted to our forums purportedly showing Best Buy's internal inventory system listing three unknown Apple products described only as "Dummy SKUs" and serving as placeholders for expected future products. While screenshots from Best Buy's systems have generally been unreliable, one such posting last year did turn out to presage the release of an u...
New York Times' Print and Digital Units Reportedly Disagreeing Over iPad Content Pricing
Silicon Alley Insider reports that a "turf war" has erupted at The New York Times, with both print and digital units within the company vying for control over iPad content distribution and pricing. According to the report, the Times' print unit sees an iPad offering as an extension of the newspaper's print distribution and is seeking subscription fees of $20-$30 per month for iPad content, while ...
NPD: Strong Mac and iPod Sales in March Quarter So Far
Silicon Alley Insider reports on new data from market research firm NPD relayed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster showing strong Mac and iPod sales for Apple's March quarter so far, well ahead of most analysts' expectations. NPD's numbers show Mac sales currently up 36% year-over-year, double that of analysts' consensus expectations. Similarly, NPD is seeing 5% growth in iPod sales compared ...
Apple Launches Extended Repair Program for Hard Drives on Early MacBook Models
Hardmac notes that Apple has launched a MacBook Repair Extension Program for Hard Drive Issues, allowing customers of Apple's early MacBook models to receive free repairs or compensation for previously-paid repairs related to hard drive failure. Black and white MacBook models sold between May 2006 and December 2007 may be eligible for the repair program. Symptom
A flashing question mark appears...
Google and Microsoft Vie for iPhone Search Presence
In a pair of reports yesterday, Reuters noted that rumors of Apple dumping Google in favor of Microsoft's Bing for the iPhone's search functionality have hung in the air at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to the first report, Google vice president Vic Gundotra called the Apple-Google relationship "stable" and noted that Google has "no reason to believe that's going to...
Aperture 3 Reportedly Causing Hangs and Memory Leak Issues for Some Users
Softpedia and Computerworld have noted a significant number of complaints from users of Apple's new Aperture 3 professional-level photo editing and management application released last week. The complaints, which have been flooding Apple's discussion forums (1, 2), include crashes and hangs, as well as "out of disk space" warnings that appear to most commonly be associated with importing...
Nuance Acquires MacSpeech, Beefs Up Plans for Dragon Speech Recognition for Mac
Nuance Communications today announced that it has acquired MacSpeech, the leading provider of speech recognition products for the Mac platform. MacSpeech's "Dictate" product for Mac OS X, selected as Best of Show at Macworld San Francisco 2008, already utilizes Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition engine and will allow Nuance to build on its current success with Dragon...
Subscriber Information and Revenue Sharing Seen as Hurdles to iPad Newspaper and Magazine Deals
Financial Times reports that talks between Apple and a number of newspaper and magazine publishers have encountered several hurdles that have slowed the deal-making process as the periodicals publishing industry attempts to understand how the move to digital distribution will affect its business.
One of the major concerns publishers are reportedly having pertains to Apple's policy of sharing...
