Kelly Hodgkins

Apple allegedly is trying to tap Swiss watchmakers for their technical and metallurgy expertise as the company works to brings its rumored iWatch to the market, reports the Financial Times. Though Apple is reaching out to several companies, most are not willing to work with the Cupertino company. Swatch chief executive officer Nick Hayek confirmed the watchmaker has talked to several...

Apple is ready to open its first retail store next week in Turkey, with a grand opening gala that may feature Apple CEO Tim Cook and Turkish President Abdullah Gül. Located in Istanbul's Zorlu Center Shopping Center, the retail store will open at 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 5, 2014, reports Elma Dergisi. The Turkish store occupies approximately 20,000 square feet in the heart of Istanbul's ...

Western Digital today announced the new My Passport Pro, the company's first thunderbolt-powered, dual-drive storage solution. With user-selectable RAID functionality, the drive is suitable for graphics professionals looking for high performance or consumers who need reliable mirroring. The aluminum enclosure accommodates two 2.5-inch drives, providing a total of 2 TB or 4 TB of storage...

Tim Cook confirmed in a recent interview with ABC News' David Muir that Apple was manufacturing sapphire in its Arizona plant, but deflected any questions about how the company planned to use the material. Recent reports suggest the sapphire could land in the iPhone 6 or the iWatch as a display substrate, and a recent patent application lends some credibility to these rumors. As noted by App...

Connected Data today announced the Drobo Gen3, the next generation of its popular 4-bay storage array. The Gen3 is faster and cheaper than previous Drobo models. It also features enhanced support for Apple's Time Machine backups. This third generation Drobo is more affordable, three times faster than the previous release and includes new features such as USB 3.0, significantly faster rebuild ...

With permission from Apple, senior software engineer Greg Christie recently spoke with The Wall Street Journal about the development of the original iPhone, disclosing some details ahead of a new patent trial involving Samsung. The original article focused on the iPhone's software features, while a follow-up report highlights the environment and hardware that was used in this software development ...

Amazon today notified customers they are eligible for a refund for books they purchased through the Kindle book store. The refunds were paid by publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin as part of a settlement agreement in ebook price-fixing lawsuits filed by State Attorney Generals and other class-action plaintiffs. Amazon issued the settlement refund in...

As documented in its quarterly earnings reports over the years, Apple reported total sales of 472 million iPhones between the device's 2007 launch and the end of 2013. With analyst estimates of over 38 million units for the current quarter ending in just a few days, the company has undoubtedly already sold its 500 millionth iPhone, a milestone that passed without mention from the Cupertino...

Steve Jobs biopic, "Jobs", is now available on Netflix's streaming service for U.S. customers. Directed by Joshua Michael Stern and starring Ashton Kutcher as the Apple co-founder, the film is free for U.S. customers who subscribe to Netflix's $7.99 monthly unlimited streaming plan. Originally released in August 2013, the independent film received mixed reviews with many critics saying the...

A Japanese court ruled today that Apple's iPhone 4s, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 do not infringe on Samsung's data communication patents, reports Bloomberg. Tokyo District Court Judge Koji Hasegawa handed down the decision in the infringement case, which was originally filed by Samsung in April 2011. Samsung said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg that it was disappointed by the decision and may...

Apple iPhone 5c manufacturer Pegatron reported a 22 percent jump in fourth quarter earnings due to a revenue increase in its communications products division, which is responsible for manufacturing smartphones, tablets and game consoles (Via The Wall Street Journal). Apple is a major client of the Taiwanese manufacturer, accounting for approximately 40 percent of the company's revenue,...

Apple, Google and five other large technology companies were caught signing "no solicitation" agreements that prevented the companies from trying to hire away each others' employees. Court documents newly obtained by Pando Daily suggest these anti-poaching agreements extend far beyond this Silicon Valley seven. According to these documents, over a dozen companies and as many as one million...

Last night on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Billy Joel joined the talk show host in a doo-wop video so entertaining that it was singled out by Tim Cook on Twitter. Check this out. @jimmyfallon and @billyjoel with iPad and a cool app called Loopy HD. Magical. http://t.co/dWlZr6Lsm6— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 21, 2014 The featured iPad app is Loopy HD [Direct Link], which allows you...

Apple's iBeacon technology is poised to influence the retail sector by offering a personalized shopping experience to customers, but it may also have personal benefits by interacting with apps when a user is at home. As spotted by TechCrunch, new iOS app Placed gives us a glimpse into personal iBeacon usage, linking an incoming iBeacon signal to apps associated with common household...

A new report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) suggests iPad owners replace their tablets less frequently than their iPhone-owning counterparts, who upgrade almost every two years. The longer iPad replacement cycle may be more like the Mac, which tends to be replaced every 2-4 years, or possibly even televisions which have a five to 10-year ownership span. (Via Fortune) The...

Pebble launched its smartwatch Kickstarter campaign in 2012 and started shipping the device early last year. Since January 2013, the company has sold over 400,000 smartwatch units, earning Pebble an estimated $60 million in revenue, reports Fortune, which spoke to Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky. Pebble as a company has grown significantly in the intervening years, becoming profitable in early...

Developers working on the Tor anonymity service asked Apple months ago to remove a malicious Tor browser that poses a threat to its users from the App Store (via Ars Technica). After receiving no action through official channels, Tor project members now are using more public means to get this app removed. A report ticket published three months ago by volunteer Phobos details the issue with...

Samsung has released a new anti-Apple advertisement that highlights the perceived shortcomings of the iPad in comparison to Samsung's new Galaxy Tab Pro and Galaxy Note Pro tablets. Targeting not only Apple, the ad also criticizes Microsoft's Surface tablet and the Amazon Kindle. The ad uses three scenarios to highlight the advantages of the Galaxy Pro series over its competitors. The first ...

China Mobile Chief Executive Li Yue confirmed on Thursday that the carrier added one million new iPhone customers last month following the iPhone's launch in mid-January, reports the Wall Street Journal. China Mobile released these subscriber figures as part of its annual earnings statement, which also included the carrier's first profit decline in 14 years. To offset increasing competition...

Despite an earlier report suggesting a March launch, a new report from the Wall Street Journal now claims Amazon will start selling its video-streaming device in April through its own website and retailers like Best Buy. The device will run a version of Android akin to the company's Kindle Fire readers and will support common media streaming services like Netflix. The Amazon device will...