Eric Slivka
Eric is the Editor-in-Chief of MacRumors and has been writing for the site since 2008.
An avid swimmer and former biophysicist, Eric has been using Apple products for over 35 years and has been interviewed for pieces by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and other publications.
Eric's current primary role involves day-to-day oversight of the editorial operations at MacRumors, but he also contributes occasional news and review articles while handling various other duties related to the site's operation.
An avid swimmer and former biophysicist, Eric has been using Apple products for over 35 years and has been interviewed for pieces by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and other publications.
Eric's current primary role involves day-to-day oversight of the editorial operations at MacRumors, but he also contributes occasional news and review articles while handling various other duties related to the site's operation.
Eric Slivka's Articles
Apple to Require 'Made for iPhone' Program Accessory Manufacturers to Meet Supplier Responsibility Code
As we noted several weeks ago, Apple scheduled a meeting with members of its Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad (MFi) program for November 7-8 in Shenzhen, China to brief them on the latest developments with the new Lightning connector standard. With Apple having moved rather slowly to bring accessory manufacturers up to speed, Lightning-equipped accessories have been slow to appear and it was not until...
Read Full Article • 48 comments
Modbook Pro Gains Pen, SSD, and RAM Upgrades Ahead of Launch
Back in June, one of the founders of the "Modbook" project to develop an OS X tablet based on the internals of a MacBook, announced that he was bringing back the concept with a new Modbook Pro product scheduled for launch in late 2012.
Pre-orders for the Modbook Pro, which starts at $3499, went live in early October with a launch target of mid-November. With the release timeframe now...
Samsung Galaxy S III Estimated to Top iPhone 4S in 3Q 2012 Worldwide Shipments
Research firm Strategy Analytics today released a report estimating that Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone overtook the iPhone 4S for the top spot in global shipments.Samsung’s Galaxy S3 smartphone model shipped 18.0 million units worldwide during the third quarter of 2012. The Galaxy S3 captured an impressive 11 percent share of all smartphones shipped globally and it has become the world’s...
Apple Removes Code Hiding Samsung Court Order on UK Website
As noted by CNET, Apple has tweaked its international sites to remove code that automatically pushed footer text including a court-order acknowledgment that Samsung had not infringed the protected iPad design in the UK below the scroll unless the user's browser window was extremely tall.
While Apple has used such vertically responsive design before to automatically adjust page layouts based...
'Nightline' Looks at Apple's Woes as Stock Declines 20% from All-Time High
Apple's stock is now down 20% since its all-time high set in mid-September, with investors concerned about the company's prospects for the future amid a management shakeup and questions about where the company's next major revenue growth driver will come from. Samsung's rise to prominence in mobile device markets is also weighing on Apple as the iPhone's market share growth has slowed or even...
Foxconn Chairman Admits to 'Falling Short' of iPhone 5 Demand
Reuters reports that Foxconn chairman Terry Gou has acknowledged that his company is struggling to keep up with demand for the iPhone 5, echoing an earlier report addressing the difficulty of assembling the phone to meet strict quality control standards."It's not easy to make the iPhones. We are falling short of meeting the huge demand," Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou told reporters after a business...
Apple Hit with $368 Million Judgment in VPN Patent Lawsuit from VirnetX
Bloomberg reports that VirnetX has been awarded a $368.2 million judgment against Apple in a 2010 patent lawsuit over virtual private networking (VPN) connectivity related to Apple's FaceTime video calling feature.The VirnetX patents cover the use of a domain-name service to set up virtual private networks, through which a website owner can interact with customers in a secure way or an employee...
Pixar Names Main Building in Honor of Steve Jobs
The Pixar Times reports (via 9to5Mac) that Pixar has recently named its main building in honor of Steve Jobs, with a Pixar employee tweeting a friend's photo showing the new name on the building.Peering in through the windows, you can clearly see the outline of Sulley, confirming that this is the main building that Steve Jobs himself played a major role in designing. He came up with the idea that ...
Apple Notifying Former MobileMe Members of New iCloud.com Email Address Options
Back in July, Apple revealed during developer testing of iOS 6 that it would be launching new icloud.com email addresses for users of the service, with former MobileMe members using me.com or mac.com address also receiving equivalent icloud.com addresses.
Those new icloud.com addresses have been rolling out gradually over the past several months for former MobileMe members, and Apple now...
Microsoft Office for iOS Said to Launch in Early 2013, Offer Only Basic Functionality
There has been a significant amount of discussion about Microsoft's rumored plans to bring Office to iOS devices, and The Verge now weighs in with additional details and a few screenshots from the project. According to the report, Office Mobile for iOS and Android will launch in early 2013 but will not offer anything close a true Office experience, with the editing functionality it does offer...
AU Optronics Developing Retina Display for Second-Generation iPad Mini?
SlashGear reports on an article [Google translation] from Chinese site DoNews claiming that Apple's iPad mini display partner AU Optronics has a Retina-resolution display in the pipeline for the next generation of the device, which is expected to be launched next year. There has been considerable discussion about how quickly Apple might be able to move to a Retina display in the device, and...
Early Signs of OS X 10.9 Unsurprisingly Showing Up in Web Logs
In what should not be a significant surprise, Apple is already hard at work on OS X 10.9, the next major version of its Mac operating system. Signs of OS X 10.9 showing up in web logs were publicized [Google translation] earlier today by Czech site Letem světem Applem, and 9to5Mac confirmed that some of the OS X 10.9 hits showing up on its own site were coming from Apple's corporate network.
...
Microsoft Working on Gaming-Focused 'Xbox Surface' 7-Inch Tablet
Just as Apple's iPad mini joins the market of smaller tablets with displays of 7-8 inches, The Verge reports that Microsoft is preparing to launch its own 7-inch tablet. Interestingly, rather than simply being a smaller version of its just-launched 10-inch Surface tablet, the forthcoming "Xbox Surface" tablet will be a gaming-focused device running a scaled down version of Windows.
Alleged...
Fourth-Generation iPad Models Now 'In Stock' at Many Online Apple Stores
Following last Friday's launch of the fourth-generation iPad, Apple has apparently already come close to meeting demand for the new device. As noticed by 9to5Mac, Apple is now listing all Wi-Fi models of the new iPad as "in stock" in the company's U.S. online store.
The immediate availability appears to extend to a number of Apple's online stores around the world, including the U.S.,...
European Regulators Reportedly Set to Approve Apple E-Book Settlement Proposal
Reuters reports that regulators with the European Union are preparing to approve an offer from Apple and four book publishers to settle an antitrust action related to e-book pricing.Apple, Simon & Schuster, News Corp unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, made the proposal to the European Commission in...
Apple's Potential Shift from Intel to ARM for Macs Not Implausible, But Faces Hurdles
Following up on yesterday's report from Bloomberg that has rekindled discussion of Apple potentially making a switch from Intel's processors to custom ARM-based chips for its Mac lines, AllThingsD takes a closer look at the landscape to analyze the benefits and challenges of such a move.
The report contrasts Intel's focus on performance with ARM's focus on power efficiency and notes that...
Apple Sells Out of Meager iPhone 5 Launch Stocks in India
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has sold through its initial stocks of the iPhone 5 in India following the device's launch there on Friday, but the company was said to have delivered only 10,000-15,000 units for the first wave of sales.“We were sold out within 24 hours of launch. It’s all gone,” said Himanshu Chakrawarti, chief executive of The MobileStore Ltd., a retailer that...
iPad's Share of Tablet Shipments Falls to 50% in 3Q 2012
Research firm IDC today released its preliminary estimates of worldwide tablet shipments for the third quarter of 2012, finding that several Android tablet manufacturers saw very strong growth as Apple stagnated during the lead-up to the iPad mini launch. As a result, Apple's share of the market fell to 50.4% from 59.7% in the year-ago quarter and 68.2% in the second quarter of this year."After...
iPad Mini Display Judged 'Very Capable', But Falls Short of iPad and Android Competitors
Much of the discussion about the iPad mini has centered around the device's display, which reportedly represents 43% of the overall cost of manufacturing. While the display is said to take advantage of new "GF2" technology to allow for a thinner, high-quality display, it does not carry the Retina-level resolution users have become accustomed to in the iPhone and iPad.
DisplayMate's Ray...
Google Employees Suggest Apple Approval of Google Maps App 'Unlikely'
In the wake of Apple's move to replace the Google-powered Maps app with its own app in iOS 6, Google has been reported by numerous sources to be working on a standalone version of its service to be submitted to the App Store.
But while Apple has been willing to advertise a number of alternative mapping solutions while it works to improve its own Maps app, The Guardian reports that sources...
