0x00000000 NEWS

Teardown reveals iPad Pro A9X sports dual-core CPU, 12-cluster GPU, built by TSMC The A9X is also 40 percent larger than the A9 processor found in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. That extra space has allowed Apple to double the number of GPU clusters, from 6 to 12. My favorite adjective for describing GPU power increase is double. Unless of course, it's quadruple.

Receipts data: 7-inch Amazon Fire tablet, not iPad, won Black Friday | VentureBeat | Mobile | by Mark Sullivan The 7-inch Amazon Fire tablet was a Black Friday hit, according to receipts data collected by Info Scout. Info Scout makes a series of apps that allow users to photograph and manage sales receipts. Could be significant: not sure about the sampling set.

Lumia 950 review: Windows Phone finally has a new flagship—will anyone care? | Ars Technica Fast forward, Microsoft finally announced a pair of flagships last month: the Lumia 950 and 950XL. The two are close siblings. They differ in screen size (5.2 inches or 5.7 inches), processor (6-core Snapdragon 808 and 8-core Snapdragon 810), and battery capacity (3000mAh and 3300mAh). Otherwise these phones are equivalent: 2560×1440 AMOLED screen, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, USB Type C with rapid charging, Qi wireless charging, 20MP rear and 5MP front cameras, and biometric iris unlocking. I think someone cares because this is the top story on Ars this week.

Cult of Android - Instagram update lets you manage multiple accounts Instagram is bringing a great new update to Android and iOS that allows users to seamlessly manage multiple accounts. The change means you’ll finally be able to access your personal and professional feeds — and the one dedicated to your cat — without having to log out and back in. Welcome to the real world.

Japanese 3D Printing Startup Kabuku Lands $6.1M Series A | TechCrunch Kabuku, a Tokyo-based startup that explores new uses for 3D printing, plans to expand around the world after raising a $6.1 million Series A round. The company runs Rinkak, an online marketplace that lets makers upload their 3D printed designs and sell them directly to consumers. Yes, available in English, too.

Raspberry Pi unveils Pi Zero: A $5 computer so small that six will fit in an Altoids tin | VentureBeat | Dev | by Chris O'Brien The Raspberry Pi Foundation today announced its latest wonder: The ultra-low-cost Raspberry Pi Zero. At $5 per unit, it may rank as the world’s cheapest computer. The internet of ridiculously cheap thingies.

Apple planning jump to OLED for 2018 iPhones, report claims The corporation has already notified suppliers about its intent, and LG Display is ramping up capacity accordingly, Nikkei claimed. LG was recently revealed to be planning a new Korean factory valued up to $4.2 billion, but there was no indication that the company was specially targeting the iPhone or even Apple. Grist for the rumor mill.

Twitter adds native video support to its Twitter Kit | VentureBeat | Dev | by Ken Yeung Twitter has incorporated native video support into its Twitter kit developer offering. When implemented, app users will be able to watch full-screen Twitter videos and GIFs without having to open up a new app or go to a browser. Tweet, tweet, tweedly-tweedly-tweet.

How to hide your apps in iOS 9 without a jailbreak | Cult of Mac Every once in a while, you might have an app or two that you really don’t want to show off. Whether it’s a racy game or two or dating apps you don’t want your children seeing when you hand them your phone to keep them occupied, being able to hide those apps from general view is a handy thing. Hidey ho!

Review: Apple goes high fashion with Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Dock The Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Dock is a revelation in design. Seriously. Its manner is nuanced and organic, more so than iPhone, iPad or even the cylindrical Mac Pro, and while Apple turns to familiar materials — rubberized sheathing, velvety cloth, immaculately worked metal — the form is fresh. He slept with his, in the biblical sense of the term.

iPhone 6s launch propels Apple to further gains in global smartphone market, Gartner says Android's cumulative platform share grew 1.4 points to 84.7 percent, still vastly ahead of iOS. The improvement came mostly at the expense of Windows Phone, which slipped from 3 percent to just 1.7. BlackBerry dipped from 0.8 to 0.3 percent, and the company will soon start contributing to Android numbers thanks to the BlackBerry Priv. I am very much enjoying my MotoG Android phone which does everything that I want and was inexplicably cheap. I spent a little over a year learning Android on the Google Nexus 7 (which I also really like) and now use my iPad for, um. Well, I was using it to watch HBO NOW until they couldn't send a low-bandwidth stream, and then when I moved outside the geographical zone where watching was allowed (have same problem with Amazon Prime purchased right before moving).

Jony Ive: Apple Pencil is made for marking, not a 'stylus' finger replacement In an interview discussing Apple Pencil's design and subsequent development, Apple CDO Jony Ive said one of the team's main goals was to create an input tool clearly for making marks, not a finger replacement. These boots were made for walking...

Marc Andreessen Sold 73 Percent of his Facebook Stock | Re/code Facebook board member Marc Andreessen is padding his wallet ahead of the holiday shopping season. What's going on in that forehead?

Apple considering person-to-person payments for Apple Pay - report The next phase of Apple's mobile payments initiative could reportedly include a new feature that allows users to send money to one another directly, with negotiations between Apple and major U.S. banks already underway. Our new strategy: attack everyone!

Sony finally kills Betamax 13 years after it last made a player | Ars Technica Still buying Betamax tapes for your sweet SL-HF 360 SuperBeta player? Well, brace yourself, because Sony has announced it's going to stop producing tapes for the failed format in March 2016. Yes, apparently Sony was still producing Betamax tapes in Japan, despite players and recorders having been discontinued in 2002. The format was dead far earlier than that, though, after a prolonged battle with the VHS standard in the '70s and '80s. VHS ultimately won out thanks to a wider range of cheaper players and a longer overall recording time. At launch, Betamax only offered up to one hour of recording time, but it boasted slightly better image quality than VHS. Whoever wrote the word finally has never worked in a corporation with a limited budget. The reason technology keeps getting used is because it was once chosen as the cornerstone of an important project. Also, a shout out to SONY for crushing t...

Google to discontinue Chrome support for OS X Snow Leopard, Lion & Mountain Lion in April 2016 The announcement came via the official Chrome blog, where the search giant revealed that Mac users will need to be running OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later to receive continued updates for Chrome., According to Director of Engineering Marc Pawliger, Chrome will continue to function on legacy platforms, but will no longer receive regular updates and security patches as of April 2016. Don't do that. Since when does Chrome require any OS specific services? Meh.

How to survive the iPhone 6s app purge | VentureBeat | Marketing | by Josh Todd, Localytics The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are already proving to be popular models: Apple is reporting record sales for both models, with 13 million sold in just the first three days. As we head into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we can expect even more exponential growth. Yawn.

Tim Cook insists Apple Pencil is not a mere stylus | Cult of Mac Tim Cook loves the new iPad Pro so much it’s the only product he travels with now, other than his iPhone. Mon crayon est grande.

TAG Heuer unveils $1,500 'Connected' smartwatch running Android Wear The Swiss watch industry fired its first significant shot across the Apple Watch's bow with the Monday revelation of TAG Heuer's Connected smartwatch, sporting a classic design, a titanium case, and a $1,500 price tag. TAG Heuer throws down.

F*** the monoculture: How Kickstarter is putting cultural ideology above profits | VentureBeat | Business | by Paul Sawers Founded out of New York in 2009, Kickstarter has facilitated crowdfunding to the tune of $2 billion to date, with more than 10 million people plowing their cash into often weird and wacky projects. Yeah, baby, yeah!

Brands embrace Periscope to cut through $60B worth of web advertising noise | VentureBeat | Marketing | by Mark Sullivan Brand advertisers have taken notice of new livestreaming platforms like Periscope, and they are trying to use them to cut through the noise of digital marketing. Periscope sounds more like noise whereas services like out brain seem very effective to capture anyone reading content on the internet. Wishful thinking I guess.

Google looking for chip partners to enable Android to compete with Apple's A9 chip A series of reports by Amir Efrati for The Information detail Google's concepts for making Android more competitive with Apple. I can't speak for anyone else but I really like my new MotoG with Android. It's a solid phone recommended to me by the staff at Virgin mobile.

Apple is already ordering chips for iPhone 7 | Cult of Mac Apple has placed LCD driver orders with Synaptics for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, indicating that the touch and display driver (TDDI) single-chip solutions its been developing in-house aren’t quite ready for prime time. Hmmm. A change is as good as a rest.

Apple's 'iPhone 7 Plus' expected to pack 3GB of RAM into 'A10' CPU in late 2016 Kuo's latest details from Apple suppliers were published in a research note Tuesday evening with KGI Securities, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider. In it, he revealed that while the 4.7-inch "iPhone 7" is expected to have the same 2 gigabytes of RAM as the iPhone 6s, the larger "iPhone 7 Plus" will add another gigabyte for even greater performance. Yaba dabba doo.

These Apple Devices Are About To Become Obsolete, Losing Official Repair Support | Redmond Pie On December 8, 2015, the products listed below will be classified as either vintage or obsolete in Asia-Pacific, Canada, Europe, Japan, Latin America, the United States, and Apple Retail Stores. These are the saddest Apple news stories.