ניווט נגישות
כתבות אחרונות מאתר 'MacRumors'
MacRumors

Apple Wanted to Buy Halide to Boost iPhone 18 Pro's Camera App—Now There's a Lawsuit‎

Apple's plans to enhance the iPhone 18 Pro's Camera app led it to consider acquiring Halide, but the talks ultimately collapsed and were followed by a fierce legal dispute between the startup's co-founders, according to The Information reports. In the summer of 2025, Apple reportedly held discussions to acquire Lux Optics, the developer behind the popular iPhone camera apps Halide, Kino, and Spectre. The company concluded that it could get a better offer from Apple in the future following updates to the app. Two months after the talks concluded without a deal, Apple set about recruiting Lux's co-founder and designer Sebastian de With. Lux CEO and co-founder Ben Sandofsky is said to have fired de With in December over financial misconduct. de With announced that he had joined Apple's design team in January. Sandofsky has now filed a lawsuit in the California Superior Court of Santa Cruz against de With, accusing him of improperly using more than $150,000 in Lux company funds to pay for personal expenses since 2022, as well as providing confidential material and source code from Lux to Apple. During the discussions to acquire Lux, Apple employees purportedly told the startup that its intellectual property was a major consideration in evaluating the company. Apple apparently wanted to acquire Lux to bolster the built-in Camera app, which is said to be "top priority for the company right now." The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ will "match professional-grade cameras in terms of certain advanced features," necessitating an upgrade of the built-in Camera app. Apple is not named as a defendant in the case and it is not accused of any wrongdoing. de With's legal representatives say that the lawsuit is meritless and deny that he "used, transferred, or disclosed any Lux intellectual property" as part of his new job at Apple. They added that the lawsuit was only filed after de With raised concerns with Sandofsky about financial irregularities at Lux and had requested access to its financial records and payments, suggesting that it was a "retaliatory response to those efforts and an attempt to avoid scrutiny of that conduct."Related Roundups: iPhone 18, iPhone 18 ProTags: Halide, Apple LawsuitsRelated Forum: iPhoneThis article, "Apple Wanted to Buy Halide to Boost iPhone 18 Pro's Camera App—Now There's a Lawsuit" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

16:13
תפריט כתבה
MacRumors

Apple TV Is Now Almost 20 Years Old‎

The Apple TV is now almost two decades old amid rumors of the announcement of a new model. Today marks 19 years Apple launched the original ‌Apple TV‌. Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the ‌Apple TV‌ at Macworld Expo in January 2007 alongside the original iPhone, but it didn't launch until March. The ‌‌Apple TV‌ was initially previewed as the "iTV." The device allowed users to wirelessly stream movies, TV shows, music, and photos from their Mac or PC directly to their TV. Unlike today, there was no App Store or third-party app support, and the experience was centered almost entirely around iTunes-purchased or synced media. The ‌Apple TV‌ was controlled with a simple Apple Remote and ran a Front Row-style interface designed for navigating iTunes libraries on a TV. It featured a 40GB hard drive for local content storage and supported 720p HD resolution, offering both HDMI and component video output, and was priced at $299. Apple famously described the ‌Apple TV‌ as a "hobby," reflecting its niche and experimental status within the company at the time. Over subsequent years, Apple slowly repositioned the device over time from a Mac accessory to a standalone streaming device. In 2010, it dropped the internal hard drive and shifted to a smaller, streaming-focused design. The introduction of tvOS and the ‌App Store‌ in 2015 marked a major turning point, enabling third-party apps and games. Apple later added 4K support in 2017 and continued to iterate with faster chips, culminating in the current model powered by the A15 Bionic chip. Unlike the original ‌Apple TV‌, which was primarily designed to stream iTunes content from a Mac or PC, the device now serves as a hub for Apple's services, with integrations for ‌Apple TV‌+, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, AirPlay, and HomeKit. While competitors such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV devices still dominate the lower end of the market, Apple has continued to position the ‌Apple TV‌ as a premium option with tighter ecosystem integration and more powerful hardware. Today's ‌Apple TV‌ is the third-generation 4K model from November 2022. A new Apple TV is expected to be announced soon, featuring a faster chip and Apple's custom N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Related Roundup: Apple TVBuyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)Related Forum: Apple TV and Home TheaterThis article, "Apple TV Is Now Almost 20 Years Old" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

16:13
תפריט כתבה
MacRumors

Apple Bucks China's Smartphone Slump With 23% Sales Jump‎

Apple saw a 23% year-over-year increase in iPhone sales in China during the first nine weeks of 2026, significantly outperforming a broader market decline driven by weak demand and rising component costs, according to Counterpoint Research. China smartphone sales apparently fell by 4% year-over-year in the first nine weeks of 2026. Within this environment, Apple emerged as the fastest-growing major vendor, with iPhone sales rising 23% compared to the same period in 2025. Counterpoint attributed Apple's impressive performance partly to a combination of e-commerce discounts and the inclusion of the standard iPhone 17 in government subsidy programs aimed at stimulating consumer electronics purchases. Counterpoint noted that the rising cost of memory components has been passed on to vendors, forcing several Android brands to adjust pricing strategies. Chinese smartphone makers OPPO and vivo have announced notable price increases for some existing models, with those changes set to take effect this month. In contrast, Apple has not announced any comparable price increases and is unlikely to follow competitors in raising prices, instead absorbing some of the margin pressure from higher component costs to maintain pricing stability. The firm added that Apple's control over its supply chain leaves it better positioned than rivals to withstand rising memory costs. Rising memory prices are expected to persist throughout 2026. The research firm expects China's smartphone market to remain under pressure in the coming months, with potential improvement in June driven by the country's mid-year "618" shopping festival. Counterpoint's findings are based on its China Weekly Smartphone Sell-Out Tracker, which monitors retail sales across the market. Tags: China, CounterpointThis article, "Apple Bucks China's Smartphone Slump With 23% Sales Jump" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

16:13
תפריט כתבה
דיווח על כתבה זו הסתרת כתבות מאתר זה המשך קריאה באתר המקור