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
The Wait for New MacBook Pros Continues, More Best Buy SKUs Found
Earlier this week, we noted that an image had been posted to our forums purportedly showing Best Buy's internal inventory system listing three unknown Apple products described only as "Dummy SKUs" and serving as placeholders for expected future products. While screenshots from Best Buy's systems have generally been unreliable, one such posting last year did turn out to presage the release of an u...
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New York Times' Print and Digital Units Reportedly Disagreeing Over iPad Content Pricing
Silicon Alley Insider reports that a "turf war" has erupted at The New York Times, with both print and digital units within the company vying for control over iPad content distribution and pricing. According to the report, the Times' print unit sees an iPad offering as an extension of the newspaper's print distribution and is seeking subscription fees of $20-$30 per month for iPad content, while ...
NPD: Strong Mac and iPod Sales in March Quarter So Far
Silicon Alley Insider reports on new data from market research firm NPD relayed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster showing strong Mac and iPod sales for Apple's March quarter so far, well ahead of most analysts' expectations. NPD's numbers show Mac sales currently up 36% year-over-year, double that of analysts' consensus expectations. Similarly, NPD is seeing 5% growth in iPod sales compared ...
Apple Launches Extended Repair Program for Hard Drives on Early MacBook Models
Hardmac notes that Apple has launched a MacBook Repair Extension Program for Hard Drive Issues, allowing customers of Apple's early MacBook models to receive free repairs or compensation for previously-paid repairs related to hard drive failure. Black and white MacBook models sold between May 2006 and December 2007 may be eligible for the repair program. Symptom
A flashing question mark appears...
Google and Microsoft Vie for iPhone Search Presence
In a pair of reports yesterday, Reuters noted that rumors of Apple dumping Google in favor of Microsoft's Bing for the iPhone's search functionality have hung in the air at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to the first report, Google vice president Vic Gundotra called the Apple-Google relationship "stable" and noted that Google has "no reason to believe that's going to...
Aperture 3 Reportedly Causing Hangs and Memory Leak Issues for Some Users
Softpedia and Computerworld have noted a significant number of complaints from users of Apple's new Aperture 3 professional-level photo editing and management application released last week. The complaints, which have been flooding Apple's discussion forums (1, 2), include crashes and hangs, as well as "out of disk space" warnings that appear to most commonly be associated with importing...
Nuance Acquires MacSpeech, Beefs Up Plans for Dragon Speech Recognition for Mac
Nuance Communications today announced that it has acquired MacSpeech, the leading provider of speech recognition products for the Mac platform. MacSpeech's "Dictate" product for Mac OS X, selected as Best of Show at Macworld San Francisco 2008, already utilizes Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition engine and will allow Nuance to build on its current success with Dragon...
Subscriber Information and Revenue Sharing Seen as Hurdles to iPad Newspaper and Magazine Deals
Financial Times reports that talks between Apple and a number of newspaper and magazine publishers have encountered several hurdles that have slowed the deal-making process as the periodicals publishing industry attempts to understand how the move to digital distribution will affect its business.
One of the major concerns publishers are reportedly having pertains to Apple's policy of sharing...
AT&T to Carry 3G-Capable iPad in Stores?
Boy Genius Report claims to have received information from a source at AT&T claiming that the company will be offering the Wi-Fi+3G models of Apple's iPad for sale in its stores. According to the report, AT&T will be dedicating substantial display space to the forthcoming device. One of our AT&T connects down south just hit us up with some pretty interesting info... According to them, AT&T stores ...
New Placeholder SKUs Appearing in Best Buy Inventory Database?
With another Tuesday right around the corner, the MacBook Pro update rumor mill is grinding away again, and this time it's a claim from our forums that Best Buy's internal inventory system has been updated with three new Apple products in the "Mobile Computing" category. Speculation on the identity of the new products ranges from updated MacBook Pro models to forthcoming Wi-Fi-only iPad models...
Apple Set to Deploy FairPlay Digital Rights Management on iPad eBooks?
The Los Angeles Times reports that Apple is planning to bring back its FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology for use on eBooks made available through its iBookstore for the iPad. Veteran iTunes customers will recognize the locks as FairPlay, a digital rights management software that once limited how many times digital songs can be copied onto different computers. (Apple phased out...
Meebo Brings Dedicated App to iPhone
Popular multi-protocol instant messaging service Meebo has released a free dedicated iPhone application that appeared in the App Store yesterday. Meebo allows users to connect to nearly all of the major IM services, including AOL/AIM, Yahoo!, MSN/Windows Live, Gmail/Google Talk, Facebook, and MySpace.
Meebo's iPhone application offers push notifications, seamless shifting between EDGE, 3G...
3G-Enabled 'SlingPlayer Mobile' Appears in App Store
Sling Media today announced that an updated version of SlingPlayer Mobile adding the ability for users to stream media to their iPhones via 3G has appeared in the App Store. The update comes less than two weeks after AT&T announced that it would allow Sling Media's application to stream over the carrier's 3G networks. "We're delighted the SlingPlayer Mobile App now has 3G capability," said John...
Microsoft, Samsung Take on Apple With New Smartphone Announcements
Windows Phone 7 Start screen
As predicted, Microsoft today unveiled Windows Phone 7, the next-generation smartphone operating system serving as the successor to and rebranding of the company's Windows Mobile software. One of the software's key features is the use of integrated "hubs", offering content views based on content rather than specific applications. Hubs will include People,...
Average iPhone Consumer Data Usage Pegged at Five Times That of BlackBerry
Consumer Reports announced this week the results of a study it commissioned assessing the monthly data usage for customers of Apple's iPhone and other smartphones. The data, obtained from over 1,000 consumer accounts linked to online bill analysis firm Validas, reveals that iPhone users consume an average of 273 MB of data per month, five times that of BlackBerry users and nearly twice that of ...
Microsoft Set to Demonstrate Windows Mobile 7 Next Week
Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report that Microsoft is set to demonstrate its next-generation smartphone software, to be known as Windows Mobile 7 or Windows Phone, at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to BusinessWeek: On Feb. 15, Microsoft will unveil its latest effort to get back into the game. The renamed Windows Phone...
iPad Cited in Huge Spike in New App Store Application Development
Mobile analytics firm Flurry today released a report revealing trends seen in its user data for the month of January. Among the more interesting developments discussed in the report was a nearly three-fold surge of new App Store applications registered with Flurry to integrate its analytics into the applications. Such increases have typically been seen in advance of new device launches, and...
Apple Rolls Out 'Countdown to 10 Billion Songs' Promotion
Apple today unveiled a "Countdown to 10 Billion Songs" promotion via the iTunes Store, offering the contest winner a prize of a $10,000 iTunes gift card. A counter on the main iTunes Store page and Apple's home page currently displays in excess of 9.8 billion downloads.
According to the official contest rules, participants may make up to 25 entries per day either by purchasing/downloading...
Apple Releases Software Update Addressing Audio-Related Mac Pro Heat and Performance Issues
Apple today released Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0, addressing heat and performance issues experienced by users of Apple's Nehalem-based Mac Pros when processing audio. This update is for Mac Pro (Early 2009) computers running Mac OS X v10.6.2. This update reduces processor utilization during audio activities, such as playing or recording music.Full details on the update, which weighs in at 1.64 MB and ...
Apple's Deal With Google for iPhone Search Pegged at Over $100 Million Per Year
Silicon Alley Insider reports on information from a source claiming that rumors of Apple looking to develop its own search engine are untrue and that Apple's current deal with Google to provide default search functionality for the iPhone is currently worth over $100 million per year to Apple in revenue sharing. Our source tells us "there's too many options" for search on the market, so there's no...
