Filed under: Apple Corporate, Software, Apple, Security

A few Apple employees played some musical chairs this week. Executive Pablo Calamera, who was in charge of MobileMe while at Apple, is off to work as the CTO of Thumbplay, a company that peddles ringtones and music to mobile devices.

HR shouldn’t have to change the big “35,000 employed worldwide” sign, though: former Mozilla security chief Window Snyder was picked up by Apple this week. She’ll jump in as a senior security product manager, a job that will take advantage of her work both at Mozilla and previously at Microsoft, where she worked on both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Sure, she’s got the experience, but has she ever worked for a company that does this for its incoming employees? Didn’t think so.

TUAWIncoming, outgoing Apple employees originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scosche on Thursday introduced a redesigned version of its charger for iPhones and iPods, the reviveLITE II. The second-generation model features a smaller form than its predecessor, while improving stability when plugged into an outlet. The housing also integrates a USB port, allowing users to charge another device while an iPhone or iPod is connected….

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Surveys and Polls, Apple, iPad

For the third year in a row, Apple has topped the list of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. The list was based on a poll of 4,200 executives across the world’s top companies, and by the highest margin ever, they picked the Cupertino-based “mobile device company” as the world’s most admired brand. Obviously the millions of MacBooks, iPhones, and iPods played a factor, but it sounds like the iPad sealed the deal this year. BMW’s CEO is quoted waxing poetic about Apple’s brand power: “The whole world held its breath before the iPad was announced. That’s brand management at its very best.”

GE has actually had the most appearances at number one on the list, and Apple needs to stay high for two more years to take that record. But it’s certainly possible — if the iPad is as popular as expected, and Apple follows it up next year with an updated version and the kind of software revolution that the iPhone brought to handheld computing, they probably will nail down the top spot yet again.

TUAWApple tops Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list again originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More details about Microsoft’s Pure and Turtle phones have emerged tonight as part of a detailed leak from two sources. They now claim that the phones are due to reach Verizon in May or June and, unlike the path taken by Google with the Nexus One, will be sold in Verizon shops. Despite being made by Sharp, however, they may only end up carrying Microsoft and Verizon badging….

The US Patent Office is currently reviewing several of Apple’s applications detailing technology for cooling and heat dissipation. One filing, initially submitted in September of 2008, describes a system for cooling devices using flow sensors. The technology is designed to help reduce heat by limiting the performance characteristics or using active cooling systems….

Filed under: Gaming, Portables, iPod touch

While Sony appears concerned about its eroding share of the mobile gaming market since the phenomenal success of Apple’s App Store, gaming giant Nintendo isn’t worried about Apple at all. In an interview with VentureBeat, Nintendo of America’s Cammie Dunaway said that with 11.2 million DS units sold last year, and 125 million DS sales in total thus far, Apple’s mobile platform isn’t really a threat to Nintendo’s dominance of mobile gaming. “Consumers are still finding fun with our products, and there is a lot of room to grow,” Dunaway said.

Nintendo certainly has room to feel comfortable, at least for now. In terms of units sold, the DS has been the most successful gaming system in history, and the iPhone and iPod touch aren’t even primarily focused on gaming. If anything, Apple’s success in gaming came almost accidentally; it’s only relatively recently that Apple has been touting the iPod touch as a gaming device, and only after the success of the App Store did Apple even start to take portable gaming seriously. For many people, “Nintendo” remains synonymous with “video games” — compared to Nintendo, Apple’s only dipped its toe in the gaming waters. That said, the continued explosive growth of Apple’s mobile device sales and the popularity of the App Store means Nintendo can’t afford to rest on its laurels forever.

[Via slide to Play]

TUAWNintendo not concerned about competition from Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple

After a many-hours outage, the Apple developer site is back — and the changes are profound, at least on the Mac end of things.

On the iPhone side, users are required to update their profiles, take a rather obnoxious survey and agree to new terms [Developer credentials required for link]. Unfortunately, Apple needs to improve the default survey formatting. iPhone developer John Fricker points out, “If you go to My Profile you can take the iPhone developer ‘survey’ with better formatting.”

But it’s on the Mac side where the big news is. Apple has replaced the select and premiere memberships with a single-tiered, low-priced Mac Developer program. They write: We recently introduced a new Mac Developer Program that replaces ADC Premier, Select, and Student Memberships. If you are a current ADC member, you can continue to access your resources and benefits through the end of your membership year.

Enrollment benefits include Mac OS X pre-release software, access to development videos, access to the developer forums, and code-level technical support. The new Mac Dev Program includes two tech support incidents per year, with additional tech incidents purchasable on demand — the same as with the iPhone Dev Program.

As I’m enrolled in the Mac program myself, I can report that the updated Mac Dev Center knocks the old site out of the water. Very clean, very much like the iPhone site, and a very welcome refresh to the normal material. It’s as if the site itself made a Carbon-to-Cocoa jump, if you get what I mean. It’s all much better designed, much more easily navigable, and a positive change from the developer point of view. The connect.apple.com site remains active as I write, but I doubt it will be for much longer.

This newly restructured Mac Developer Program itself has been updated to match the iPhone dev program in terms of pricing and features. Formerly starting at $499/year, the new program is attractively priced at just $99 now. Missing are the high ticket items: notably Mac hardware discounts, WWDC tickets for premiere members, and the compatibility labs. It’s unclear what will happen to each of these benefits, although the first two are likely dead in the water.

The Mac hardware discounts continue only to the end of the current select/premiere discontinuance. Members who join from today, forward, will not likely be able to take advantage of that former Select and Premiere benefit. The hardware purchase page itself refers to “Each ADC Premier, Select, or Student Membership lets you purchase, at a discount, a limited number of Apple systems to use for development and testing.” Early anticipation of this move by Apple has hinted that the hardware discount program might be one of the first items to get axed.

It’s also unclear about the future of the compatibility labs. In the past, ADC Premier and Select Members could schedule time at the ADC Compatibility Labs (located in Cupertino, Beijing, and Tokyo) with its 500+ Mac configurations. We may have seen the last of those labs or they may continued as paid features, similar to tech support incidents.

The developer forums remain down at this time. They are likely to get their own reorganization due to the Mac dev program changes and will likely switch to a structure similar to the iPhone forums. Those features include an open section for free online membership and a closed beta-only section behind an NDA firewall. Both iPhone and Mac participants need to agree to an updated forum agreement at this time.

Thanks, Joachim Bean, John Fricker, Greg Hartstein

TUAWBig Developer News: Mac Dev Program reduced to $99 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The wireless industry has shown the largest growth in three years, adding a total of approximately 5.9 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a Wireless Intelligence report. AT&T and Verizon took the lion’s share of new customers, sharing approximately 4.9 million new subscribers….