Fantastical can create, edit, and delete reminders with natural language recognition. In testing the app, I told Fantastical to “remind me to take out the trash”, and the app intelligently parsed the command as just “take out the trash”, interpreting the initial portion of the sentence as a reminder input.

MacRumors: Jordan Golson from MacRumors.

You talk a lot about the emotion of the customers, there's a lot of passion amongst customers. Do you think the sort of attention that's paid to Apple from rumor sites and news sites and everybody is a distraction or a driver? How does that affect you and the company?

Tim Cook: I think it's a privilege to have people that care about the company and care enough to write, care enough to talk, and care enough to send me an email and say "you're out to lunch on this thing" and "you should be looking at this differently".

I think all of that is great, I love it. And do I want something printed on a website that's confidential? No, but I don't think that's what you're asking.

I view our ecosystem as including great sites that care deeply about the company and want to inform customers. I have no problem with people that disagree with things that we're doing. That's our country and I love it. It's great that we have disagreements.

Does that make sense?

Kara Swisher: He loves you.

According to China's Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center, an Apple device with third-generation, high-speed wireless data capabilities has been issued the license needed for the company to begin sales in China.

The device, listed as "model number A1430" is compatible with the 3G standard wide band code division multiple access, or WCDMA. The language used by the regulator suggests the device is the new iPad, which has yet to launch in China. Vendors often begin selling new devices within weeks of network access licenses being granted.

Under the provisions of the contract "Asset Purchase Agreement Relating to the business as an ongoing concern of Redmatica S.r.l." (hereinafter the Agreement) with the present operation, Apple intends to acquire, through a transfer of assets, the business Redmatica.

The Nest Learning Thermostat helps you stop wasting energy, while providing control using your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Consider that your thermostat controls about half your energy bill—more than TV, appliances, and lighting combined. But it's wasting energy every time it turns on the heating or cooling system in an empty house. The Nest Learning Thermostat solves this problem by programming itself, turning itself down when you're away, and keeping track of your energy use.

This new OS is said to be much more feature-complete than the current OS that runs on the Apple TV, and is apparently the one that Apple’s upcoming HDTV will run. Yes, that one.

We’ve heard Apple is actively trying to court manufacturers to use a new “control out” API in order for third-party manufacturers to make accessories that are compatible with the new Apple TV OS and the upcoming “iTV.” It’s said that by using the API, it will be possible to control any connected components all from the Apple remote (and the Apple remote iOS app as well, we’re assuming).

For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the things they want to do. Facebook has hundreds of millions of customers. So, anyone that has an iPhone or iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms. So stay tuned.

But, there's more that it can do. We have a lot of people working on this. You'll be really pleased with the things you'll see over the coming months. The breadth that you're talking about -- we've got some cool ideas about what Siri can do. We have a lot going on on this.

This is an area of intense interest for us. Many of us, the TV that we do watch, is almost exclusively on [the Apple TV]. That's what my TV watching is. All of my movies, everything is coming through Apple TV.

So, the customer satisfaction with that product is incredible. We're going to keep pulling this string and see where it takes us. Many people would say "this is an area in their life that they aren't pleased with." They might not be pleased with many things about it. The whole TV experience. It's an interesting area. We'll have to see what we do. Right now our contribution is Apple TV.

We would look at this and say can we control the key technology? Can we make a significant contribution beyond what others have made in this area? Can we make a product that we would all want? That's all thing we would ask about any new product category. It's the ones we ask about products within families we're thinking about now.

We're going to double down on secrecy on products. I'm serious.

BGR has obtained exclusive information and photos of parts of Apple’s new Maps app from a trusted source, and the app features a refreshed user interface including a brand new navigation bar. This bar, we’re told, is silver instead of blue. Since the current Maps app follows the standard blue iOS color scheme, we think it’s possible Apple might shift toward a silver color theme in iOS 6 like on the iPad.

The iPhone version of Maps has a floating locate me button (it sounds very similar to Android’s Google Maps app) in the bottom left corner. To access 3D mode, which will make use of Apple’s C3 Technologies acquisition, you have to peel back the lower right corner of Maps just like the current version and enable 3D mode. Once enabled, you can switch in and out of 3D mode by tapping a 3D icon in the lower left corner.

The company has already hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said.

“Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms,” a Facebook employee said

I upgraded to the iPad 2 over the winter for the weight break and camera, and all has gone smoothly in 2012. I no longer bring my MacBook Air on the road, and am thrilled that the TSA doesn't require that the iPad be removed from my carry on! Using the iPad for what I do has proven to be efficient and entertaining. And, as usual for an Apple product, IT JUST WORKS. I've had to put a baggie over it a time or two in a rain situation, but other than that it absolutely does the job.

And once again the crew chiefs and engineers ask, "who does that for you?"

As the official App Store Twitter account posted earlier today, Cut the Rope: Experiments is their "Free App of the Week", which as far as we can tell is the first of its kind.

Now, don't get me wrong, Cut the Rope: Experiments is an excellent game and you should go download it immediately if you haven't already, no matter what the promotion is. But it will be interesting to see if this is something that Apple keeps doing each week, and I'd be curious to know how they decide on which games or apps to promote.

On May 24, 2012, the Compensation Committee (the "Committee") of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. (the "Company") approved amendments to each outstanding and unvested restricted stock unit award granted by the Company to its employees (other than Timothy D. Cook, the Company's Chief Executive Officer). The amendments provide that if the Company pays an ordinary cash dividend on its common stock, each award will be credited with an amount equal to the per-share cash dividend paid by the Company, multiplied by the total number of restricted stock units subject to the award that are outstanding immediately prior to the record date for such dividend. The amounts that are credited to each award are referred to as "dividend equivalents." Any dividend equivalents credited to an award will be subject to the same vesting, payment and other terms and conditions as the unvested restricted stock units to which the dividend equivalents relate. Depending on the domicile of the employee, accumulated dividend equivalents will either be paid in cash or used to offset employee taxes due upon vesting of the restricted stock units.

The Committee determined these amendments were appropriate in light of the Company's announcement on March 19, 2012 that it intends to commence paying ordinary cash dividends of $2.65 per share to its shareholders on a quarterly basis sometime during the fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. As restricted stock units are not outstanding shares of common stock and thus would not otherwise be entitled to participate in such dividends, the crediting of dividend equivalents is intended to preserve the equity-based incentives intended by the Company when the awards were granted and to treat the award holders consistently with shareholders.

At Mr. Cook's request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents. Assuming a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share over the vesting periods of his 1.125 million outstanding restricted stock units, Mr. Cook will forego approximately $75 million in dividend equivalent value.

Powered by a brand new engine, Autodesk SketchBook Ink introduces unique technology for artists to create stunning, high-resolution ink-style artwork. The SketchBook Ink addition to the SketchBook family increases the number of choices available to artists to express their creative visions in a digital environment.

And Ink has one noteworthy feature which SketchBook Pro doesn’t — the drawings you create aren’t bitmaps. Instead, they’re resolution-independent, so you can zoom in as much as you like and can save them to the iPad’s Photo Library, Dropbox, iTunes or email at resolutions that go beyond even the new iPad’s 2048-by-1536 pixels without introducing any jaggies. You can opt for up to 11,336-by-8727 resolution; that’s especially useful if you plan to eventually print your creation.

We believe that developers should have the freedom to price their games how they like, without interference from the online stores that sell the games. Why? Because it allows us to promote our games more freely, as we are doing here! We rely on the ability to promote our games for our livelihood and control over pricing is an important tool for this purpose.

What's New in Aperture 3.2.4

- Improves stability on Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
- Addresses an issue that could prevent the Viewer from updating correctly after editing a photo using an external editor.

Facebook seems to have learned a heck of a lot from Instagram. Photos in Facebook Camera are full-bleed, spanning the entire width of the iPhone’s screen (which was probably tested when Facebook tweaked the photo experience for mobile last week). You’re able to comment and like photos directly from the stream. And of course, there are filters (albeit ones with names nowhere near as fun as Toaster or Valencia).

More than this, it’s very lightweight. The app moves much faster than browsing photos within Facebook’s proper app. And by introducing a separate camera app, it’s another way of bypassing the cumbersome, clicky process of adding pictures via the main Facebook app.

The Facebook Camera team has been working on the app for months, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly kept his desire to purchase Instagram close to the vest, as if he almost impulse-bought it. Had the Instagram deal never occurred, Facebook Camera wouldn't really be much of an Instagram competitor anyway, lacking any mobile-only social circles and hashtagged sharing around specific topics. "Enhancing the Facebook photos experience on mobile is long overdue," Facebook's Derick Mains told me. "We really had to step up our game, and we're committed to building Instagram independently."

In some embodiments, a stylus is provided with an optical sensor, such as a camera, that is used in determining a location and movement of the stylus relative to a touch screen display of a computing device. It should be appreciated, however, that displays other than touch screens may be implemented in some embodiments. The optical stylus may be configured to transmit the location and movement to the computing device. In some embodiments, the optical stylus may be configured to process and/or filter the location and movement information prior to transmission, whereas in other embodiments, raw data may be transmitted.

Apple's generic iPhone stylus concept with enlarged view of encoding pattern for tracking movement

Generally, input devices do not provide haptic feedback to a user in response to interactions with the input device. The user can typically only feel the rigid surface of the touch screen, making it difficult to find icons, hyperlinks, text boxes, or other user-selectable input elements on the display. An input device capable of generating haptic feedback may help a user navigate content displayed on the display screen, and may further serve to enhance the content of various applications by creating a more appealing and realistic user interface. "Haptic feedback" may be any tactile feedback. Examples include forces, vibrations, and/or motions that may be sensed by the user.

Apple's concept for stylus with haptic feedback

Japan's Sharp Corp will supply technological know-how to Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co for a plant in China that will produce panels for Apple Inc's iPhone and other consumer electronics products, the Nikkei business daily said on Thursday. [...]

The Nikkei said that the new technology handover, for which Sharp will receive tens of billions of yen in fees, is aimed at improving quality management at Hon Hai's planned plant in Chengdu.

A 14-year veteran of the company, Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple's unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple's critical product-development process. In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It's almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy.

It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine," says Max Paley, a former engineering vice president who worked at Apple for 14 years until late 2011. "I've been told that any meeting of significance is now always populated by project management and global-supply management," he says. "When I was there, engineering decided what we wanted, and it was the job of product management and supply management to go get it. It shows a shift in priority."

Malkovich: Life.

Siri: Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book every now and then. Get some walking in. And try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Malkovich: That's pretty spectacular advice, actually. Thank you. I enjoyed this chat immensely. You are very eloquent.

Siri: That's nice of you to say.

"42"

"I Kant answer that. Ha ha!"

"It's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya."

"Life: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death."

"I don't know. But I think there's an app for that."

"I can't answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in which nothing happens."

"I find it odd that you would ask this of an inanimate object."

"That's easy… it's a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general."

"Life: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me."

"A movie."

"I give up."

The Public Staff presented this matter to the Commission at its Regular Staff Conference on May 21, 2012. The Public Staff recommended that the Commission approve the application and issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity.

After careful consideration, the Commission finds good cause to approve the application and issue the attached certificate of public convenience and necessity for the proposed 4.8-MW AC fuel cell electric generating facility located at 5977 Startown Road, Maiden, Catawba County, North Carolina.

While troubleshooting a home network issue today, I stumbled upon a new feature that Apple is introducing in OS X Mountain Lion. [...]

When you aren't connected to a network and pull up Safari, you get a message that tells you that you aren't connected to the Internet, but that your "Reading List articles are available for viewing while you are offline."

According to a resources file inside of the latest build of Safari in the newest seed of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion, Dictation might be making its way to Macs next. Since Macs do not sport virtual keyboards or physical keyboards with a microphone-labled key, users (by default) will apparently need to simultaneously click both command keys to start voice input.

Many MacBook Air cases offered today feature bulky, obtrusive designs, and are often composed of materials which may not last the life of a device. The iGlaze for MacBook Air is an ultra-thin, stylish case created from the same polycarbonate material that’s been proven for durability throughout Moshi’s iGlaze line of cases for iPhone, iPad and MacBook devices. The iGlaze is surface-treated with a specialized coating that not only offers better scratch resistance than alternatives, but also accentuates the device's elegant design.

"We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support."

"The transaction would combine two highly complementary product and technology portfolios, adding LaCie’s line of premium branded consumer storage solutions, network-attached storage solutions and software offerings to Seagate’s array of mainstream consumer storage products," Seagate said in a statement. "The combination would accelerate Seagate’s growth strategy in the expanding consumer storage market, particularly in Europe and Japan, and add strong engineering and software development capabilities, as well as relationships with several key retailers."

One seasoned industry observer who had viewed the early drawings called the building design exquisite. "It makes an elegant and dramatic statement. It is destined to become Apple's flagship store," he said. The structure features a tall glass cube with an overhang that extends well beyond the building. "It makes the space between the outside and the inside almost indistinguishable," the source said, adding that it will bear some similarity to New York's Apple Store Fifth Avenue, which also has a distinctive glass cube as an entrance.

It turns out that Horan is right to worry. In fact, Apple’s iPhone Software License Agreement spells this out: “When you use Siri or Dictation, the things you say will be recorded and sent to Apple in order to convert what you say into text,” Apple says. Siri collects a bunch of other information — names of people from your address book and other unspecified user data, all to help Siri do a better job.

How long does Apple store all of this stuff, and who gets a look at it? Well, the company doesn’t actually say. Again, from the user agreement: “By using Siri or Dictation, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri, Dictation, and other Apple products and services.”

Because some of the data that Siri collects can be very personal, the American Civil Liberties Union put out a warning about Siri just a couple of months ago.

The two technology giants could find no clear agreement through the talks, according to a Samsung official. Apple Korea declined to comment on the matter.

The patent battle is now headed for trial on June 27, despite both firm’s stated wish to avoid legal proceedings.

According to foreign media outlets, both technology giants held firm on their assertions: Samsung continued to demand Apple pay royalties for using its wireless transmission technology and Apple insisted that Samsung copied its design in various products.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is design and make; it’s what I love doing. It’s great if you can find what you love to do. Finding it is one thing but then to be able to practise that and be preoccupied with that is another,” he says. “I’m very aware of an incredible tradition in the UK of designing and making, and so to be recognised in this way is really wonderful.”

“We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.”

David Roth for WPP said “Brands help businesses create competitive differentiation, command a price premium and become more resilient to crises or economic turbulence. This year, those businesses that leveraged technology, focused on the customer experience or boosted control of their brands thrived."

Apple continues to innovate and maintain its ‘luxury’ brand status, but faces future competition from Samsung. Now worth more than $14.1 billion, thanks in part to the success of its Galaxy handsets, Samsung is successfully outpacing Apple in a significant number of markets by positioning as a cool, well-priced alternative to the ubiquitous iPhone.”

This update adds RAW image compatibility for the following cameras to Aperture 3 and iPhoto '11:

- Canon EOS-1D X
- Nikon D800E
- Nikon D3200
- Olympus OM-D E-M5
- Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF5
- Sony Alpha SLT-A57

The huge store will be located on Level 1 adjacent to the Gap store. The five-level mall is located in the La Défense district of Paris, along the north extension of the Champs Elysées, and sits adjacent to the iconic Grande Arche building.

The unique part is that the company claims that the TiVo Stream is the first product to enable streaming (or downloading) shows simultaneously to multiple devices without interrupting what’s playing on the television. The Verge tested a prototype in January and wrote that it "streamed a show from the TiVo across the room without any hiccups."

ForkLift is a robust and elegant file manager and FTP/SFTP client, fully embracing the Apple methodology of bringing incredible power to a beautiful and easy-to-use, approachable interface, it also integrates multiple features you would normally buy in many separate applications. Batch Rename, App Deleter, Archive creation & management, powerful Folder Sync, and the ability to Split and Combine large files are all at your fingertips.

These prototype phones are floating around Apple HQ in thick, locked shells in order to disguise the exterior design to “undisclosed” employees. We know of two next-generation iPhones in testing with a larger display: the iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2. These phones are in the PreEVT stage of development and are codenamed N41AP (5,1) and N42AP (5,2). Because Apple reserves certain models for internal-only usage (such as the N96 phone we previously reported on), we’re not sure which of the two devices will make its way into the world later this year.

Rendered mockup of taller iPhone with 4-inch display (Source: Ciccarese Design)
Click for larger

Like on the iPhone and iPad, when you buy and install an app on one of your Macs, all of your other Macs logged into the same App Store account will automatically install the app too.

Unfortunately, the feature does not seem to be working completely. While the App Store will still offer to enable automatic downloads (as seen above), it does not actually install anything when you purchase apps from another computer.

"There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple," JK Shin said, before departing for the United States for the mediation talks. "But we still have several negotiation options."

Court documents show the two companies have had at least one mediation session, although it is not clear if Cook and Choi were involved.

The plant, covering an area of 40,000 square meters, plans to hire 35,800 employees.

The annual output value of the plant is expected to reach 6 to 7 billion yuan ($949 million to $1.1 billion), and the import and export value will be $55.8 million, the office said.

Foxconn workers polishing iPad rear shells (Source: ABC/Nightline)

ElcomSoft researchers analyzed the communication protocol connecting iPhone users with Apple iCloud, and were able to emulate the correct commands in order to retrieve the content of iOS users’ iCloud storage. It’s important to note that, unlike offline backups that may come encrypted and must be broken into (a time-consuming operation), data retrieved from iCloud is received in plain, unencrypted form . The 5GB of storage space can be retrieved in reasonable time, while receiving incremental updates is even faster.