September 20, 2024

Author: Juli Clover

News

Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile

sprinttmobileSprint is abandoning plans to purchase T-Mobile US, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to the site, Sprint and its parent company Softbank believe it would be too hard to gain regulatory approval for the deal, with Sprint planning to make an announcement on Wednesday.

Sprint Corp. is ending its pursuit of T-Mobile US, according to people familiar with the matter. The company and its parent, SoftBank Corp. decided it simply would be too difficult to win approval from regulators, the people said.

News that Sprint was working on a potential purchase of T-Mobile US first came in December of 2013, when The Wall Street Journal suggested Sprint was preparing a takeover bid. The deal, which could have been worth more than $20 billion, would have been subjected to significant regulatory scrutiny.

In fact, the United States Justice Department met with Sprint board members to discuss the deal and expressed concerns about the merger. U.S. antitrust authorities reportedly believe that having four national carriers is necessary to maintain a competitive market.

Japanese carrier Softbank purchased a 70 percent controlling interest in Sprint back in 2012, while T-Mobile is majority owned by German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom. According to Bloomberg, Sprint will also be announcing a new CEO as soon as tomorrow, as current CEO Dan Hesse is said to be out following the failed merger.

This is the second time a T-Mobile purchase has fallen through. AT&T previously attempted to acquire T-Mobile but the deal fell through after being blocked by Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.



News

Pebble Launches Limited Edition Classic Smart Watches in Blue, Pink, and Green [iOS Blog]

As of today, the classic Pebble Smart Watch is available in three limited edition colors, including Fly Blue, Hot Pink, and Fresh Green. The bright neon colors are a deviation from Pebble’s line of classic smart watches, previously available in Jet Black, Gray, Arctic White, Orange, and Cherry Red.

Pebble’s new color variations extend to both the face and the band, which remains interchangeable, but the new watches are only available in limited quantities. Watchfaces to accompany the new colors can be downloaded from the Pebble app store, as can a new Weather app from The Weather Channel.

Fresh Green, Hot Pink, and Fly Blue are standout shades that give any look the right dose of fun. Fresh, Hot, and Fly come with matching bands and—just like the rest of the Pebble lineup—are fully customizable with the skins and bands of your choice. We’re having lots of fun mixing and matching bands around between the different colors ourselves.

Hand-in-hand with the debut of Fresh, Hot, and Fly are new watchfaces to enjoy on the Pebble appstore. We’ve got text faces in Fresh, Hot, and Fly and an amazing new app by The Weather Channel (appstore links available later today).

First introduced in 2012, Pebble’s classic smart watch connects to the iPhone via Bluetooth LE, delivering alerts and notifications. The watch is water resistant with a 5 to 7 day battery life and includes changeable watch faces and a readable daylight display. Pebble also sells its second-generation Pebble Steel smart watch, which includes a stainless steel body, a slimmer profile, and a face covered with scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass.

The Fly Blue, Hot Pink, and Fresh Green Pebble smart watches can be purchased from the Pebble website for $150.



News

Apple to Hold iPhone Event on September 9

Apple will launch its next-generation iPhone 6 at an event on Tuesday, September 9, reports Re/code. The company has reportedly scheduled a big media event for that date and in the past, September has been a month reserved for the introduction of new iPhones.

Following the September 9 introduction, the iPhone 6 will likely be available to customers on a corresponding Friday roughly a week and a half later, possibly September 19.

iphone_5s_6_grass4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 models compared to iPhone 5s

Apple has scheduled a big media event for Tuesday, Sept. 9 — a date to which Apple numerologists will strain to attribute significance. As with September events past, the focal point of this one is to be Apple’s next-generation iPhones, which are expected to feature larger displays of 4.7 and 5.5 inches and run speedy new A8 processors. Apple declined comment.

Apple’s iPhone 6 launch event will see the debut of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, which is expected to include a thinner, lighter chassis with an iPod-touch style design along with an A8 processor and an improved camera. The event may also see the introduction of the 5.5-inch iPhone 6, which is said to be experiencing production issues and may ship to customers somewhat later than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, in late 2014 or early 2015.

Re/code, composed of the former AllThingsD team, has a perfect track record when it comes to launch date reports. The site has also suggested Apple is aiming to introduce the iWatch at an October event.

Update 11:35 AM PT: The Wall Street Journal has confirmed Re/code‘s report, with a source pointing towards a September 9 debut date for the iPhone 6. Bloomberg has confirmed the September 9 event date as well.



News

Apple Says App Store Saw Record Revenue, Customer Transactions in July

app_store_icon_ios_7July was a record-setting month for App Store revenue, according to Apple, seeing both record revenue numbers and a record number of customers making transactions. The company revealed the news to CNBC.

Apple’s app store saw record-setting revenue numbers in July, the company told CNBC.

The Cupertino-based company also said that its app store saw a record number of customers making transactions.

During the company’s recent financial results call covering the third fiscal quarter of 2014, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that iTunes software and services were the fastest growing part of Apple’s business during the quarter that ended in June. iTunes billings grew 25 percent year over year to an all time quarterly high, and Apple saw iTunes revenue of $4.5 billion, largely due to the continued success of the App Store.

As of June, Apple has had 75 billion cumulative App Store downloads, paying out a total of $20 billion to developers, with $5 billion paid in 2014 alone. According to app-tracking site AppShopper, there are 1,211,461 apps available in the App Store, including over 1 million iPhone apps and 610,000 iPad apps. Apple also has more than 21,000 Mac apps available in the Mac App Store.



News

OWC Shares Mid-2014 Retina MacBook Pro Unboxing, SSD Tests [Mac Blog]

Following this morning’s release of Retina MacBook Pros with improved Haswell processors, OWC has procured both the entry-level 13-inch and and the entry-level 15-inch 2014 Retina MacBook Pro and provided a gallery of unboxing photos featuring the new devices.

As expected, the packaging on the updated versions is the same as previous-generation Retina MacBook Pros. The site did a quick teardown as well, revealing the internals of the new machines, which also appear unchanged.

retinamacbookpro13Internal view of the mid-2014 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro
OWC also conducted some speed tests on the solid state drives of the two machines, testing the 128 GB drive of the entry-level 13-inch version and the 256 GB drive of the entry-level 15-inch model using QuickBench 4.0.

The 15-inch machine (equipped with a Samsung SSD) saw random read/write speeds much higher than that of the 13-inch version, averaging in at 194 MB/s for random reads and 322 MB/s for random writes and 262/245 MB/s for sequential read/writes.

mbpr_15_2014_ssd
The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, meanwhile, saw average random read/write speeds of 165/131 MB/s and average sequential read/write speeds of 263/244 MB/s with its Marvell-controlled SanDisk SSD.

mbpr_13_2014_ssd
Launched earlier today, the new Retina MacBook Pros feature upgraded Haswell processors, more standard RAM for entry-level machines (8 GB for the 13-inch model, 16 GB for the 15-inch model) and a $100 price cut for the high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available at Apple retail stores and in its online store.

For the full array of unboxing and teardown images, make sure to check out OWC’s blog post.



News

15-Inch Mid 2014 Retina MacBook Pro Benchmark Shows Decent Entry-Level Speed Gains

Apple’s newly refreshed Retina MacBook Pros, released this morning, have already begun showing up in Geekbench benchmarks, offering a look at the performance boost of the updated machines compared to their predecessors.

A GeekBench 3 result for the entry-level 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro indicates that the new machine is eight percent faster than the entry-level 2013 Retina MacBook Pro, and only two percent slower than the mid-level Retina MacBook Pro released in 2013.

mbp-2014-sc
Single-Core performance for the machine came in at 3050, up from 2811 for the similar 2013 model, while Multi-Core performance was also impressive, at 11586 vs. 10730.

mbp-2014-mc
The new Retina MacBook Pros feature upgraded Haswell processors in 2.6 and 2.8 GHz dual-core configurations for the 13-inch versions, and 2.2 and 2.5 GHz quad-core configurations for the 15-inch models, with build-to-order options featuring a 3.0 GHz dual-core processor available for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and a 2.8 GHz quad-core processor available for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

All of Apple’s 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros now come with 8 GB of RAM standard (upgradeable to 16 GB), while 15-inch models come with 16 GB standard. The high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has seen a $100 price cut, and buyers now have the option to upgrade to 1 TB of flash storage on both 13 and 15-inch models.

As noted by John Poole of Primate Labs, with the newly refreshed Haswell Retina MacBook Pros, customers are receiving mid-level performance at an entry-level price.

Though the update brings some decent gains to Apple’s Retina MacBook Pro lineup, the new Haswell processors are largely a stopgap measure designed to hold customers over until Intel’s more powerful and more efficient Broadwell chips are available next year.

Apple’s refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available today at Apple retail locations and its online store.