Apple : Tim Cook gets grumpy as greedy stockholders question green policies

Tim Cook gets grumpy as greedy stockholders question green policies
Apple pleads for more iTunes exclusives as streaming platforms hit digital sales
Apple to launch iOS in the Car with Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo next week?
Apple's SSL flaw-fixing OS X update is borking AirPlay

Tim Cook gets grumpy as greedy stockholders question green policies

Posted:

Apple CEO Tim Cook has reacted angrily to suggestions the company should abandon environmentally-friendly projects, if they have an adverse effect on profits.

The usually-level-headed Cook told one climate-change denying shareholder to 'get out of this stock' if they expected Apple to lessen its growing reliance on green energy and the production of green products

Cook rejected out of hand a proposal from the right-wing Think Tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which suggested Apple disclose how much it spends on its initiatives and whether they undermined the bottom line.

"We do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive," Cook said response to the proposal at a shareholder meeting. "We want to leave the world better than we found it."

Surrender?

The NCPPR's general council Justin Danhof had argued that Apple shouldn't be following government-mandated environmental standards, and should instead be fighting such measures.

He wrote: "We object to increased government control over company products and operations, and likewise mandatory environmental standards," wrote NCPPR general counsel Justin Danhof in a statement.

"This is something [Apple] should be actively fighting, not preparing surrender."

The majority of Apple shareholders agreed with Cook's sentiment, with the measure voted down by a whopping 97 per cent.

As interesting as Cook's standing up to a large shareholder so aggressively is the aggression itself. It was a rare show of fire from the calm and collected anti-Jobs who now leads Apple.

Meanwhile, Apple is reportedly preparing to launch iOS in the Car next week.

Apple pleads for more iTunes exclusives as streaming platforms hit digital sales

Posted:

Amid slowing iTunes music sales, Apple is reportedly on the hunt for more exclusive content as it seeks to counter the march of the free streaming service.

A Billboard report claims the company is putting pressure on record label executives in order to secure more deals, such as the Beyoncé visual album it got first dibs on earlier this year.

That self-titled album, which featured 14 songs and 17 videos and was only available to buy in full, debuted on iTunes a week before it arrived on streaming services and YouTube.

The result was an iTunes-record 800,000 sales in the first three days and over one million in the first week, before it became available from alternate sources.

Be more like B

Now Billboard claims Apple iTunes director Robert Kondrk engaged in 'tense talks' with record label executives during Grammys week with a mission to secure more exclusive sales windows.

Interestingly, the report claims, Kondrik also pitched that download stores other than iTunes could enjoy the same window of exclusivity, providing streaming services like Spotify and YouTube were excluded.

"The iTunes theory was that because of the easy availability to access albums on YouTube it has punctured sales globally for track and albums," a major label executive told Billboard.

Apple's move comes with digital music sales falling 5.7 per cent in 2013 as users flock to freely available streaming services.

Prefer streaming, but like to keep it Apple? Check out our iTunes Radio review.

Apple to launch iOS in the Car with Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo next week?

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Apple will finally unveil its in-car version of iOS at next week's Geneva Motor Show, according to reports this weekend.

The Financial Times brings word Apple has enlisted auto giants Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, whose next-generation connected cars will be fitted with iOS in the Car functionality.

Those manufacturers, and others according to the FT, will reportedly roll-out vehicles carrying the embedded software before 2014 is out.

iOS in the Car will allow iPhone or iPad owners to see Apple Maps mirrored on a dashboard display, use Siri voice commands, make iPhone calls through the car system and receive notifications.

Apple vs Google in the car

The company first announced the technology in June 2013 after its unveiling within iOS 7, but all has been quiet since, aside from a few pieces of code within recent Beta builds.

Apple's reported move comes at a time when Google is also making a play to control the future of connected vehicles.

At CES, the web giant announced it had joined forces with Audi, Honda and General Motors in order to bring Android into the car.

Is everyone set for another Apple vs Google battle? This time for the right to control the infotainment within our four wheeled friends? Let us know your thoughts below.

Did you know TechRadar now has its very own Car Tech section?

Apple's SSL flaw-fixing OS X update is borking AirPlay

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By all accounts, this week's OS X update appears to have fixed a lot of what was ailing Mac users on a number of fronts, but those who use AirPlay to mirror their desktop to an Apple TV may think differently.

The Apple Support Communities forum is seeing an uptick in Mac users complaining about AirPlay Mirroring issues after updating to the latest OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 update.

Although that update has done plenty of good - including patching a nasty SSL bug and squashing several persistent issues with the Mail application - Mac users who rely on AirPlay to mirror or extend their desktops onto an Apple TV feel otherwise.

Based on its own tests, AppleInsider speculated that the problem could be limited to older Mac hardware as the sight saw the issue firsthand on a mid-2011 MacBook Air and third-generation Apple TV.

AirDon'tWannaPlay

Judging from posts to the Apple support forum, problems range from the AirPlay Mirroring options vanishing from the menu bar to video-only connections when extending the desktop.

AppleInsider's tests noted "scaling issues on both the Mac and Apple TV, low frame rates, sporadic mouse freezing and video failures" even after performing a hard reset on each piece of hardware as well as the wireless router.

Our own independent test using a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display running OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 and a second-generation Apple TV with the latest 6.0.2 software update worked as expected.

Apple has yet to acknowledge the problem, let alone weigh in with a solution, leaving many afflicted Mac owners with semi-functional AirPlay Mirroring for the time being.

What's the latest on the iPhone 6? TechRadar will keep you in the know!

Yahuui Blog

Saturday, March 1, 2014