apple

Robert Kessler · 10/25/12 04:50PM

It's time to panic: iMessage is down across North America and Europe. You'll never hear from anyone you love ever again.

Boycotting Apple Won't Help the Rioting Foxconn Workers Who Built Your iPhone

Adrian Chen · 09/25/12 04:45PM

Late Sunday night, a riot involving 2,000 workers broke out at a Foxconn plant in northern China that manufactures the iPhone 5, reportedly sparked by a fight between workers and security guards. Like the parade of horror stories out of Chinese factories, the riots once again underscored the notoriously dismal labor conditions of the young workers who make our gadgets. But it also highlighted a growing level of worker unrest in China. More than ever, Chinese workers are struggling to help themselves, which could improve labor conditions more than a thousand tearjerking This American Life exposes.

Anonymous' Big FBI Hack Was a Big Lie

Adrian Chen · 09/10/12 12:32PM

Anonymous leaked 1 million Apple device IDs last week, claiming they were found on an FBI laptop. This had the unexpected result of me wearing a tutu and putting a shoe on my head in order to elicit more information from the hacktivist group. But an NBC report has revealed the leak actually came from a boring app developer. Anonymous is full of shit—but at least everyone on the internet got to see my legs.

Apple Says No Thanks to App that Tracks Deaths from U.S. Drones

Taylor Berman · 08/30/12 06:45PM

Remember the "There's an app for that commercial?" Well, that's still mostly true, I guess, unless, say, you wanted instant updates for the number of people killed by U.S. drones. Earlier this week, Apple rejected NYU student Josh Begley's "Drone+" app, which keeps track of drone strikes, including the approximate location and number of people killed. There was even an option for push notifications.

Mike Daisey's Lying Was Great for His Ticket Prices

Adrian Chen · 07/10/12 04:25PM

We did not expect Mike Daisey to disappear after his non-fiction monologue about Apple was revealed to be full of fabrications, as feverently as we may have wished it. Mike Daisey is a serial liar, but he is a talented, famous liar, which in no way precludes him from participating in American public life and actually makes him a pretty good candidate for political office.

Steve Jobs' FBI File Released

John Cook · 02/09/12 09:50AM

The FBI has released, and posted on its web site, Steve Jobs' 191-page FBI file. Read it here. The file consists of a 1991 background investigation conducted when Jobs was being considered for an appointment to the President's Export Council in the Bush I White House, and records of a 1985 bomb threat against him.

Steve Jobs Playwright Lacerates Stephen Fry Over Brutal Apple Factories

Ryan Tate · 02/02/12 01:51PM

Stephen Fry, the British actor and vocal Apple admirer, defended the company on Twitter against accounts of brutal working conditions in its contract factories. This did not sit well, at all, with Mike Daisey, creator of a critically-acclaimed one-man show about those very factories, and, now, of a blog post in which he says Fry "is being a total idiot" and calls him a "fanboy," "apologist" and "pathetic."

I Can't Stop Looking At This Weird Chinese Girl Dancing In An Apple Store

Adrian Chen · 01/31/12 04:01PM

This whole video of teens dancing at a Hong Kong Apple store is entertaining. But go to around 1:06 and check out the moves of the girl in white. Her face is like the face someone would make while carving an ice block into a statue of a machine gun, with a chainsaw.