Mitchel Broussard

A new trend study published by Nielsen this week looks into the top smartphone apps of 2016, as well as the operating systems that the apps were downloaded on. This year within the United States, Facebook won the top spot with more than 146 million average unique users each month. The social network company also dominated the second spot with Facebook Messenger at 129 million unique users...

AirPods manufacturer Inventec is planning to expand production capacity for the wireless headphones in the wake of high consumer demand during the holiday season. In a new report by China's Economic Daily News (via DigiTimes), the supplier is rumored to have begun expanding capacity in a few of its Shanghai plants. The report noted that Inventec has recently started expanding capacity at its...

In a lengthy new article posted online today, The New York Times has delved into the inner workings of Foxconn's major iPhone manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou, China, referred to locally as "iPhone City." The article describes how the facility became one of Apple's major global manufacturing plants, as well as the "hidden bounty of perks, tax breaks, and subsidies" uncovered behind the scenes of...

Samsung Display has again been rumored as the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the 2017 iPhone, according to new claims made by sources in the Taiwan supply chain (via DigiTimes). Back in April, The Korea Herald reported that Samsung would supply Apple with OLED panels in 2017, furthering rumors from as early as January that Apple and Samsung were in talks for an OLED manufacturing...

In a recent piece by The Wall Street Journal, hardware analyst Stephen Baker commented on the state of holiday sales figures for both Apple and Samsung. While many believed Apple would have it easy this season due to Samsung's Galaxy Note7 crisis, Baker said that "Apple's own lack of a wowing product this year" meant that woeful Note7 owners opted for other high-end Galaxy phones, and not the...

Lenovo recently announced a pair of docks in its "ThinkPad" accessory line, including one equipped with Thunderbolt 3 and one with USB-C (via Anandtech). The ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 dock includes a Thunderbolt 3 port, two DisplayPort options, HDMI, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, a headphone jack, and five USB-A 3.0 ports, with one that is always powered. Both images show the ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 dock ...

After the AirPods launched online and then arrived to the first set of customers earlier in December, some users have begun realizing that the charging case that comes with the headphones isn't holding Apple's advertised 24 hours of charge. In theory, the charging case should only lose noticeable amounts of charge when the AirPods are low on battery and recharging within the case, and when users...

Like it did on Thanksgiving, Apple today has begun notifying Apple Watch owners of a soon-to-launch Activity challenge, hoping to encourage users to get moving and work out in the new year. To earn the achievement, Apple Watch owners will have to close all three Activity rings each day for an entire week in January. Image via MacRumors forum member friednoodles The challenge should become...

Smart home company LEDVANCE today announced the Sylvania Smart Multicolor A19 bulb, a HomeKit-enabled Wi-Fi smart light that users can control through Siri and the new Home app without the need of a separate hub. Because there's no hub installation, all users have to do is screw in the bulb into a light source and sync it with HomeKit to begin controlling the Sylvania lights. The hub-free...

Earlier in December, Apple announced that it would begin allowing its artificial intelligence and machine learning researchers to publish and share their work in papers, slightly pulling back the curtain on the company's famously secretive creation processes. Now, just a few weeks later, the first of those papers has been published, focusing on Apple's work in the intelligent image recognition...

As 2016 winds down, Matthew Roberts has uploaded one last update on Apple Campus 2 for the year, providing fans with the usual coverage on progress made to the central spaceship building and the land surrounding it. The video, representing the work on Apple Campus 2 for December 2016, was taken yesterday on Christmas. Solar panel installation is believed to be 65 percent complete now, up from...

Target today is having a sale on a collection of iPad models, including the most recent Wi-Fi versions of the 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. For the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Target has taken off $150, marking the 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB iPad down to $449.99, $549.99, and $649.99, respectively. Not every version of the iPad is available to ship, however. At the time of writing, for the 9.7-inch iPad ...

Sources in Apple's supply chain are suggesting that "lower-than-expected" yield rates for the 10-nanometer manufacturing process could "disrupt the schedule" of next year's iPad launch, previously rumored to be coming in March 2017 (via DigiTimes). Specifically, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung are said to be facing the biggest issues with their 10nm processes, and TSMC's in ...

The Spotify Mac app was recently updated with support for the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro. Now, when Spotify is open users will be able to search, shuffle and repeat tracks, use traditional play/pause/skip controls, and adjust the app's volume. When in the background, the Touch Bar will update with a Spotify playback scrubbing tool as well as play and pause buttons similar to iTunes....

Nintendo recently began sending email surveys to a few Super Mario Run players who linked the iOS game with their My Nintendo account, MacRumors has learned. The 10-minute long survey asks basic questions pertaining to how users found out about the game, what modes they liked, and how much they are willing to pay for a game like Super Mario Run. The survey fluctuates between multiple choice...

Apple today got in the holiday spirit by announcing the top five best-selling holiday movies of all time on iTunes, ever since the movie rental section of the digital marketplace opened in 2008. The top five highest grossing iTunes holiday movies are: Elf [Direct Link] - $9.99 HD Purchase / $3.99 HD Rental National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [Direct Link] - $9.99 HD Purchase / $3.99...

The launch of a new Apple product usually comes along with the debut of many third-party accessories, but the only viable option for AirPods currently being sold are cables that attach to each headphone to prevent drops. One alternative that might see fruition down the road by a few companies is a charging dock that cradles the AirPods case in one convenient place. This week, Reddit user...

After first testing out a new update to the Photos web app on the iCloud beta website earlier this month, Apple has now rolled out the update to all users (via Mac Generation). The overhaul to the app on iCloud.com introduces a macOS-like Photos experience with a sidebar that can be toggled on and off, and a scrollable thumbnail view of every photo in an album at the bottom of the site when...

Uber today announced an update to its app that makes it easier to hail a ride and set a destination directly to person in your iPhone contacts list. After syncing contacts to Uber, users can type a friend's name into the "Where To" box in the app, and Uber will then send a request to that person to share their location with you, which can be set as a destination. The app can also update...

Apple's AirPods are now making their way into the hands of the first round of customers who ordered the wireless headphones last Tuesday, and more tidbits of information about the device have been shared online as users play around with Apple's newest product. Apple Watch Features One Apple Watch wearer noticed that when a call comes in through the wearable, there's a custom AirPods button ...