Want iOS 6? No Problem: Buy It Now From a Scofflaw Developer
If you’re a diehard Apple fan who desperately wants to run a buggy alpha version of iOS 6 right now, your only legal option is to shell out the $99 to join the iOS Developer Program. But your illegal...
View ArticleUnfixable Computers Are Leading Humanity Down a Perilous Path
I’ve been writing about Apple and the value of repair for the better part of the last decade. Repair is our mission at iFixit — and it always has been. Even so, I didn’t expect the scale of the public ...
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What Apple and Red Shoes Have in Common: Using Design to Block Competition
You might think that a fight over smartphones has nothing in common with a spat over stilettos. But in fact, both are about a critical frontier in copying and competition: using design to gain control...
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Greenwashing the Retina MacBook Pro
Apple’s latest unsustainable design was just greenlighted – verified "Gold" – by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool registry (EPEAT). And it’s a clear case of greenwashing. This...
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Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents, Since We Can’t Eliminate Them
Patents threaten every software developer, and the patent wars we have long feared have broken out. Software developers and software users – which in our society, is most people – need software to be...
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Open Letters To...: The Shady World of Repair Manuals: Copyrighting for...
Toshiba has discovered a new way to enforce such planned obsolescence by cutting the repair market off from critical service information. But the cost to society is significant: The e-waste problem is...
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Open Letters To...: When It Comes to Security, We’re Back to Feudalism
Some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, or Facebook: These vendors are becoming our lords, and we are becoming their vassals. In this "feudal" model of computing, we...
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How Facebook Can Totally Undermine Apple and Google in the Platform Games
The game changes as Facebook becomes really popular on mobile. At that point, Facebook’s platform starts substituting value away from Apple and Google. Who will control the data generated by the apps...
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So You’ve Discovered the Importance of Good Design. Don’t Make These Mistakes
It seems like famously engineering-centric cultures like Google are trying to integrate design thinking into their way of doing things. Even the traditionally conservative Harvard Business School now...
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Voices From The Field | Dear Jony, The Future of Design Is More Than Making...
Not only is the Jobs vs. Ive framing overly simplified, it’s also irrelevant to design discourse. Limiting our skeuomorphism and flat design discussion to what essentially boils down to a “do these...
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How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion
Much ink has been spilled drafting the Steve Jobs encomium. But Jobs and Apple are interesting for far more than technological prowess -- they provide an allegory for reading religion in the...
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Buying Apple Products Is a Form of ‘Narcissism’
The attraction of technology stems in part from our admiration of ourselves; personal technology points us back to ourselves. In the Mac narrative, differences in operating systems represent...
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If Apple’s iPhone Has Fingerprint Authentication, Can It Be Hacked?
Apple would be smart to add biometric technology to the iPhone. Fingerprint authentication is a good balance between convenience and security for a mobile device. But the reality isn’t that simple.
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Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’
While there’s a great deal of discussion around the pros and cons of fingerprint authentication, no one’s focusing on the *legal* effects of moving from PINs to fingerprints. Because the constitutional...
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Teardown: Apple’s Latest iPhones Are Not as Green as the Company Claims
When Apple’s chief marketing maven, Phil Schiller, said the new line of iPhones were designed to be "environmentally friendly," my interest was piqued (I’m the guy behind the iFixit teardowns). Because...
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The Latest Smartphones Could Turn Us All Into Activity Trackers
The separate M7 coprocessor makes constant activity tracking more power-efficient, which means we’ll start to see more Quantified Self (QS) apps without a noticeable drain on the battery. It also means...
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Apple vs Google: Did Apple Learn Anything From Its War With Microsoft?
It seemed unfathomable that Jobs would lose two battles the same way a generation apart. But with so many similarities between the two dogfights -- Microsoft vs Apple, Apple vs Google -- it was hard...
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How Steve Jobs Made the iPad Succeed When All Other Tablets Failed
The foundation of Jobs’s iPad pitch was counterintuitive. Most don’t buy a laptop for the heavy office tasks they were originally designed for. They use it mostly to communicate. What the world needed...
View ArticleTim Cook’s Leadership Opportunity: Painting the Apple Green
Apple CEO Tim Cook may never be able to compete with the myth of Steve Jobs, but he now has a golden opportunity to fix two things Apple's brilliant and mercurial founder got wrong: workers' rights in...
View ArticleApple’s New Fraud Problem: Cracked Walls and Broken Promises
Apple’s announcement of a dividend and stock buyback was a welcomed boon to already well rewarded shareholders. Yet to be addressed, however, is a critical issue that affects even more vital...
View ArticleLarry Page’s First Year as Google CEO: Impatience Is a Virtue
In January 2011, only hours before I had to send back the proofs for In the Plex, the news came out that Larry Page would be taking the helm of the company as the CEO. The transition would occur on ...
View ArticleAlt Text: 13 Imaginary Abuses Apple Employees Might Suffer in Cupertino...
Apple has pledged to improve working conditions at the Chinese factories where many of its products get built, but is the company overlooking even more unpleasant abuses closer to home? Sure, workers...
View ArticleWe Don’t Need Game Publishers, Hardware Makers or Retailers
Game publishers, retailers and hardware makers say they're all locked in a Mexican standoff. Great. Shoot each other in the head, because gamers and game developers don't need you.
View ArticleApple = Sony? Don’t You Believe It
Forrester CEO George Colony has written a controversial blog post provocatively titled "Apple = Sony" in which he argues that now that Steve Jobs is dead, Apple is coasting on fumes and will begin its...
View ArticleThe New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable
This week, Apple delivered the highly anticipated MacBook Pro with Retina Display — and the tech world is buzzing. I took one apart yesterday because I run iFixit, a team responsible for...
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