Former Apple employee and JailbreakMe.com hacker Nicholas Allegra, better known as Comex, will be interning at Google, reports Forbes. Comex, who tweeted the news on Tuesday night, was hired by Apple as an intern in 2011. News broke that he was no longer with Apple late last year, after he forgot to respond to an email that offered him continued employment at the company. Though Comex did not mention what he will...

Charity auction site CharityBuzz is hosting a listing to have coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's Cupertino headquarters (via The Next Web). The proceeds from the auction will benefit the RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights, a fitting charity as Cook said at the D10 conference that Bobby Kennedy was one of his heroes. The high bid on the listing, which closes on May 14th, is currently at $5,250, with an estimated value of $50,000. Legendary investor Warren Buffett routinely auctions lunch with himself for charity. Last year's auction...

With the 10th anniversary of the iTunes Store coming up on Sunday, April 28, Apple has posted a new iTunes Store feature honoring the event. The feature is an expanded version of the iPod + iTunes Timeline that has long been available on the company's site. The feature walks through a number of important events over the ten-year history of the iTunes Store, from the launch day when U2's "Stuck in a Moment" and Beck's "Sea Change" topped the sales list to the 2010 launch of The Beatles on iTunes to new milestones of 40 billion app downloads and 25 billion songs reached earlier this year. iTunes has maintained its dominance in both the music and...

According to DRAMeXchange, a division of global research firm TrendForce, in the first quarter of 2013 smartphone shipments increased steadily worldwide, with total shipments reaching 216.4 million units, 9.4% Quarter-over-Quarter growth. Since the beginning of 2012, smartphone shipment figures have been up every quarter despite seasonality. Apple announced yesterday ... ...

There have been several rumors stating that Apple is working on a larger iPhone to compete with the large screen phones from competitors like Samsung, but Tim Cook’s comments during today’s Q2 financial results call indicate that the company is not currently planning to ship an iPhone with a larger screen size. When asked about his thoughts on the 5-inch phone market at this time, Cook had this to say:My view continues to be that iPhone 5 has the best display in the industry. We always strive to create the very best display. Some customers value large screen size. Others value other factors such as resolution, color quality, white balance, reflectivity, power consumption, compatibility of apps, portability. Our competitors have made some significant tradeoffs in many of these areas to ship a larger display. We would not ship a larger display...

During today's second quarter financial results call, Apple reiterated its commitment to creating innovative products.Work we do to produce truly innovative products is very hard. Challenges that we'll face in the future, but we're working very closely with our manufacturing partners and we are executing a very exciting roadmap.According to CEO Tim Cook, Apple has a lot of surprises in store for late 2013 and 2014, stating that "amazing new hardware, software, and services" will be coming this fall and "throughout 2014." Apple is expected to release an updated fifth generation iPad with an iPad-mini like design along with the iPhone 5S later this year. An upgraded mini with a Retina display is also rumored to be in the works, along with iOS 7 and Apple's rumored streaming music service. When asked to reiterate on the fall announcements, Cook...

Alongside today's earnings release, Apple also announced a major increase in its capital return program, boosting the previous $55 billion program to $100 program. Alongside a modest 15% increase in dividend payments, Apple is making a significant increase in its stock buyback initiative, taking advantage of the company's depressed stock price to reduce the amount of stock available on the market.The Company expects to utilize a total of $100 billion of cash under the expanded program by the end of calendar 2015. This represents a $55 billion increase to the program announced last year and translates to an average rate of $30 billion per year from the time of the first dividend payment in August 2012 through December 2015. As part of this...

Google has bought aggregation and summarization startup Wavii for more than $30 million, winning a bidding war with Apple over the firm. TechCrunch is reporting that Apple wanted to integrate the company with its Siri division. Both Apple and Google were competing for the Seattle-based startup, and Google eventually won. Apple wanted the company, which developed its own aggregation technology and natural summarizaton algorithms, for its Siri division. The 25-person-strong team including founder Adrian Aoun will be moving down from Seattle to join Google’s Knowledge Graph division.With more than $135 billion in cash, the $30 million price tag would not have been a significant outlay for Apple, but it appears the company did not value Wavii enough to outbid Google. Wavii had raised $2 million in venture funding. Wavii's iOS app automatically...

Apple today began offering refurbished models of the seventh-generation iPod nano in its online store, more than six months after the redesigned device was released. The addition comes roughly a week after Apple began offering refurbished fifth-generation iPod touch models. The refurbished seventh-generation iPod nano models come with 16 GB of storage and are priced at $129, a $20 discount from the standard price. All seven standard colors of the iPod nano are currently available, although the special (PRODUCT) RED version is unavailable in the refurbished store. Apple's refurbished units come equipped with the same one-year warranty that standard products...

NPD today released a new report highlighting the U.S. online digital video market for 2012, finding that Apple continues to dominate both purchases and rentals. In looking at purchased content, Apple holds a commanding 67% of the TV show market and 65% of the movie market, with its closest competitors Xbox Video and Amazon each holding roughly 10% of the market. While the competition is tighter in the rental market, Apple still holds a solid lead with 45% of the market for digital movie rentals, with Amazon taking second place at 18%. “Apple has successfully leveraged its first-mover advantage and of iTunes, iOS and the popularity of iPhone and iPad to dominate the digital sale and rental markets for movies and music,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “While worthy competitors have come along, no other...