Bryan Chaffin

Spotsetter was cofounded by ex-Google Maps engineer Stephen Tse and Johnny Lee, who had the title of CEO at Spotsetter. The LinkedIn profiles of both engineers now name Apple as their employer, with Mr. Tse's profile naming both Apple and Spotsetter. Spotsetter's service drew on multiple sources, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare, to provide…

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Source: Shutterstock The $3 billion price tag of the acquisition—$2.6 billion immediately and another $400 million that will vest over an unspecified amount of time—makes the Beats acquisition the most expensive purchase Apple has made. In comparison, the company spent just $400 million acquiring NeXT in 1997, a company that…

Amazon, the Big Five Publishers (and Apple) The move of issuing a statement such as this is unusual for the retailing giant. Similar to Apple, Amazon has long employed a strategy of seldom commenting on much of anything. To go so far as to both explain itself and defend its actions is even more rare,…

Currently and Artificially Unavailable Both books are highly anticipated titles that are available now from Apple's iBooks and from Barnes and Noble. A variety of independent book stores will also happily take your money. For instance, The Silkworm is available as a $12.99 preorder from iBooks, or as a $21 hardcover and $14.99 Nook ebook…

Those who have observed Apple for a long time will likely remember a time when Boeing was the industrial giant, while Apple was either a cocky upstart or a failing has-been, but today's Apple is apparently influencing companies far outside of the computer biz. According to Bloomberg, Mr. McNerney said that his company would no…

The problem publicly surfaced earlier in May, when Adam Pash detailed the problems he was experiencing. After switching from iPhone to an Android device, his phone number remained associated with his iCloud account within Apple's ecosystem. This resulted in text messages from Apple devices to that phone number being sent to iCloud/iMessage, rather than the…

This is just the first step in the bill becoming law—it would have to also pass the California Assembly and be signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown or his successor (likely to be Jerry Brown, for those keeping score at home). The new bill would require remote kill capability starting in July of 2015,…

Katie Cotton, Apple's legendary queen of public relations, is leaving the company after 18 years of managing what is arguably the most successful PR department in corporate history. According to Re/code, Ms. Cotton said it was a difficult decision, and that, “Apple is a part of my heart and soul.” “Katie has given her all…

In recent months, it has become evident that Apple's long-rumored “iWatch” product will have an intense focus on medical monitoring and fitness. 6-12 months ago Apple was hiring sensor experts and other engineers with sensor experience, but more recently the company has been bringing medical experts on board, including doctors. “There's no doubt that Apple…

Apple's Original iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S Apple's epic patent infringement battle with Samsung serves as the ostensible foundation of the article, but at the heart of the matter is a clear pattern of deliberate infringement by Samsung. When sued for that infringement, the company's strategy is to launch counter suits, delays, and to…

$AAPL last traded above $600 on November 1st, 2012, when the stock hit $603 in intraday trading. It last closed above that mark on October 26th, 2012, when it ended the day at $604 per share. Five Year Chart for $AAPL Source: Yahoo! Finance Those levels were on the downward slope of sharp decline that…

It's still early in the construction process, but the aerial photo reveals that almost all of the existing HP buildings have been demolished and the ground cleared. Mr. Cervi's tweet and photo: The spaceship! #ApplesNewHQ beginning to take shape. pic.twitter.com/hVEDKjx4w4 — Ron (@Sky1Ron) April 30, 2014 Once it's done, it's expected to look like this:…

Reports on Monday said that Apple might tap the European bond markets for the offering, but it ended up doing so in the U.S. after all. The company might make another offering later, however, as Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that his company was planning on matching 2012's $17 billion bond offering this year. Like…

Kristin Paget's Former Twitter Pic “Is this how you do business?” she asked in the blog post. “Drop a patch for one product that quite literally lists out, in order, the security vulnerabilities in your platform, and then fail to patch those weaknesses on your other range of products for *weeks* afterwards? You really don’t…

Square has revolutionized the payment industry for small businesses, particularly very small businesses, by making it possible for them to accept credit and debit cards from an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone. The company did so by charging modest fees compared to the traditional credit card industry and offering next-day deposits, a killer feature for…

To be sure, there are many other reasons why one might prefer Android, but for those who want a larger screen, Apple's refusal (so far) to release a larger screen iPhone—let's call it an iPhablet for fun—has been the one objective reason to say that Apple lags behind Android OEMs. iPhone aficionados can say they…

Aha, it turns out it's Yahoo!, whose CEO, Marissa Mayer, reportedly has a plan in the works to become the default search engine for Apple's iOS devices. According to Re/code, Ms. Mayer wants to leapfrog Google's choke hold on desktop search by developing a world class mobile and contextual search engine and the goal is…

David Fincher Source: Wikimedia Commons “You’re not doing Transformers here,” an unnamed source “with ties to the studio” said. “You’re not doing Captain America. This is quality—it’s not screaming commerciality. He should be rewarded in success but not up front.” In other words, according to this source, the director isn't making a huge movie with…

Nom nom nom nom “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” an Apple spokesperson said. This is the company's boilerplate response it uses for corporate acquisitions. Novauris bills itself as a “speech access company,” saying, “Novauris believes that voice will become the interface…

Brendan Eich Source: Wikimedia Commons Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of Mozilla, announced Thursday in a blog post that Mr. Eich was stepping down. In that post she also apologized to the Mozilla community for not acting fast enough, saying, “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage…

According to Re/code, Apple told the jury that Samsung would try to paint a picture where companies routinely copied each other in a process called “competitive intelligence.” Apple attorney Harold McElhinny told jurors that this wasn't the real story when it came to Samsung's attempts to get its flagging smartphone business off the ground in…

None of the various parties associated with the movie and this story have commented, but TheWrap cited an unnamed source who said that Mr. Fincher met with Sony executive Amy Pascal to discuss the movie. According to that source, Mr. Fincher made it abundantly clear that he'd only direct the film if Mr. Bale played…