Apple, Gadgets | featured news

Apple's iPhone was a hot seller in the company's first fiscal quarter of 2012, but that's nothing compared to what one analyst predicts we could see in just a couple of years' time. Morgan Stanley thinks Apple's efforts in China could pay big dividends by 2013.

A new book examines Apple from the inside out, revealing details about the company’s level of detail that continue to give it an edge in the market. “Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired-and Secretive-Company Really Works,” by Adam Lashinsky, senior editor-at-large at Forbes, shares highly guarded secrets about the company’s development and design processes, as well as insight into former founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who passed away in October of last year.

Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad. "Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the “GarageBand for e-books,” so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.

Here we go again. On the tail of the Consumer Electronics Show, a juicy rumor is making the rounds. Bloomberg has the latest details on the next iPad: HD screen, faster processor, 4G LTE connectivity, according to people familiar with the product. Manufacturing parterns in Asia have already begun production this month, with factories running round the clock in China.

Apple disclosed a list of its major suppliers for the first time and said its inspections found they were in compliance with its maximum 60-hour work week only 38% of the time.

Angry customers and gangs of scalpers threw eggs at Apple Inc.'s Beijing store Friday after the iPhone 4S launch there was canceled due to concerns over the crowd's size. Apple reacted to the outburst by postponing iPhone 4S sales in its mainland China stores to protect customers and employees. The phone still will be sold online and through its local carrier.

You may have just unwrapped your new iPad 2, but rumors are already swirling about the iPad 3... That a new model will be rolled out February 24, which would have been Steve Jobs' birthday, or in March, the same month the iPad 2 was introduced.

Apple HDTV has been in the news for some time, and the latest Apple device is rumored to be launched in mid 2012. That means we might be able to see the iOS powered Smart TV crash into the market between the second and third quarter of the coming year. Find out more tech news here.

As far as years in technology go, 2011 was one for the record books. It wasn’t just about big battles like Apple vs. Samsung, Microsoft vs. Google, AT&T vs. the world, or Hewlett-Packard vs. itself. It wasn’t just about the growth of apps and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of the Web in our daily lives, though there were plenty of amazing developments both these realms. It wasn’t just about hardware or software. And it wasn’t just about towing the line or trying to hold onto it.