Apple Considering Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney for PR Chief Position

Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is one of the candidates being considered to replace Katie Cotton as Apple's new PR head, reports Re/code . In a piece on Uber, Re/Code's Kara Swisher suggests that Carney's name is "being bandied about" for the position.



Carney served as White House Press Secretary from 2011 until June of 2014, when he officially resigned. Prior to that, Carney served as director of communications for Vice President Joe Biden and before that, he was the Washington bureau chief for Time magazine.



Katie Cotton, who was Apple's VP of worldwide corporate communications before retiring back in May, served for more than 20 years under both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Cotton was known for being fiercely protective of Apple executives, serving as the gatekeeper for media access and keeping a tight rein on the company's PR operations.



Since Cotton's retirement, Apple has been actively searching for her replacement. Tim Cook is reportedly overseeing the search and hoping to find an external candidate with a "friendly, more approachable face" to replace Cotton as the company strives for greater openness under its new leadership.

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Posted in 2014 at 11:58PM, July 14

Shazam for iOS Gains Ability to Play Songs Directly in App via Rdio [iOS Blog]

Shazam today updated both its free and paid iOS apps to version 7.7.0, adding Rdio integration. When a Shazam user identifies a song with the app, the recognized song can then be played directly within the Shazam app via Rdio.



While it was previously possible to listen to songs identified within Shazam in the Rdio app, users are now able to listen to songs from Rdio without having to switch apps.

What's new



This release brings full track playback in Shazam, powered by Rdio. Once you’re connected, you can play any track and carry on listening to the music as you discover more in the app. Shazam a song to get started.

Songs identified within Shazam can be added to the playlist of a user's choice or an automatic playlist of all Shazamed songs within the Rdio app. Taking advantage of Rdio integration within Shazam requires the Rdio app to be installed and it also requires a Rdio account to be set up.



Shazam has been long known as one of the major song recognition apps and as of iOS 8, its song identifying capabilities are built directly into Apple's operating system.



Shazam can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]



Shazam Encore can be downloaded from the App Store for $6.99. [Direct Link]

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Posted in 2014 at 11:27PM, July 14

Scientists have developed a black so deep it makes 3D objects look flat

Coating objects with a layer so black it makes them look like flat holes in reality is potentially important for developing stealth weapons. But we all know the coolest implementation would be an iPhone that would look like a black splotch on the table.

We are now a step closer to this reality, as British scientists have developed a new material called Vantablack.

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Posted in 2014 at 11:30PM, July 14

This is how you can get Verizon customer service to cater to your every whim

Have you found yourself frustrated by Verizon's customer service? Well don't worry, there's now an easy way to get Verizon to cater to your every whim — you just have to get more than 1 million followers on Twitter.

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Posted in 2014 at 08:35PM, July 14

Samsung’s ‘Plan B’ already looks like a flop

The global slowdown in smartphone and tablet unit growth rates has been tough for a variety of vendors, from HTC to Apple. But for Samsung, the evaporation of mobile division revenue growth is particularly galling, because the company's winning streak was so long. Two years after HTC's sales growth stalled and several quarters after Apple's growth petered out, Samsung sailed on.

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Posted in 2014 at 07:35PM, July 14

Apple May Part Ways With Ad Agency TBWA, Plans to Tap Beats' Jimmy Iovine for Marketing Revamp

Apple may be planning to part ways with longtime ad agency TBWA/Media Arts Lab, according to a new report from The New York Post . Citing industry buzz, the report suggests that Apple is ready to put its entire advertising account "up for grabs."



The Cupertino company is also said to be planning to leverage Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine to bolster its marketing efforts. Beats is well-known for its aggressive marketing tactics and clever advertising campaigns that have skyrocketed its headphones to popularity. Most recently, Beats launched a "The Game Before The Game" advertisement for the World Cup, featuring key players wearing Beats headphones.




Beats' most recent advertisement

What's more, the industry is buzzing that Apple will look to music maestro Jimmy Iovine, the boss of newly acquired Beats headphones and its sister music-streaming service, to help it regain its marketing mojo.



"Apple bought Beats for a lot of reasons," said one new business executive at a top agency. "They think they're marketing geniuses. It is safe to assume Beats would be part of an assessment of all [Apple] partners."

Apple's troubles with advertising agency TBWA began back in 2013, after Eddy Cue sent a tense email to the agency following a line of highly popular Samsung commercials with the tagline "The next big thing is already here."



Apple reportedly considered parting ways with TBWA at that time, but instead began working on building out its own in-house advertising solution while continuing to allow TBWA to produce some of its recent popular advertisements like "Powerful."



Despite continuing a relationship with TBWA, Apple has pitted its in-house team against its longtime partner and it has also invited outside agencies to offer pitches on major projects, suggesting tension between the two companies has been ongoing.



Apple has plans to hire 1,000 employees for its in-house team, which may end up replacing outside agencies altogether when complete. Most recently, Apple's in-house team created "Strength," the company's newest advertisement that takes advantage of the "Chicken Fat" song and focuses on fitness.

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Posted in 2014 at 07:12PM, July 14

Reality sinks in for Microsoft

Here's one thing that's interesting about Satya Nadella's Microsoft: It's no longer insisting that it can keep partying like it's 1999. While Microsoft under former CEO Steve Ballmer used to point to its dominance of the desktop market as its ultimate trump card to use against anyone who said Apple and Google posed a threat to its business, the company is now acknowledging the reality that it's actually something of an underdog.

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Posted in 2014 at 06:51PM, July 14

Man tries wearing smartwatches for a week, still finds them virtually useless

Is Silicon Valley deluding itself into thinking that smartwatches are going to be the next game-changing gadget? That certainly seems to be the case for the early generation of smartwathces, as New York Magazine's Kevvin Roose tried wearing two different smartwatches at all times for a week and found them to be virtually useless.

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Posted in 2014 at 06:32PM, July 14

Eddy Cue Auctions Lunch and a MacBook Air to Benefit Basketball Foundation

Following in Tim Cook's footsteps, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue is auctioning his time to benefit the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation. Cue is widely known as a huge basketball fan, and has been seen at many basketball games, including those of his favorite team from Duke University, his alma mater.



In an auction on CharityBuzz, Cue is offering a one hour lunch meeting at Apple's Cupertino headquarters and a 13-inch 1.4Ghz MacBook Air with 256 GB of storage, a $1,199 value. The meeting is valid for two people, with lunch included, at a mutually agreed upon date.

Have lunch with Apple, Inc., Senior Vice-President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue at the Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California, and bring home a 13-inch MacBook Air!



Eddy Cue is Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Eddy oversees Apple's industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as well as Siri, Maps, iAd and Apple's innovative iCloud services. Eddy's team has an excellent track record of building and strengthening online services to meet and exceed the high expectations of Apple's customers. He is a 25-year Apple veteran and leads a large organization of amazing people.

Cue's auction ends on Wednesday, July 16 and is currently priced at $9,500 with an estimated value of $10,000. The auction was first listed in June, but was noticed earlier today by 9to5Mac .



The National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation is an organization that supports the charitable and education purposes of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC). The NABC has been responsible for founding national literacy program Ticket To Reading Rewards and it operates the College Basketball Experience, a facility in Kansas City that includes the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.



Tim Cook has previously teamed up with CharityBuzz twice, offering a coffee meeting in 2013 and a lunch meeting in 2014 for a collective $940,000. Tim Cook's proceeds benefitted the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

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Posted in 2014 at 06:04PM, July 14

Netflix streaming on Verizon just keeps getting worse

So now we know why Verizon decided to come out and accuse Netflix of essentially choosing to make its own traffic slow on its network — it seemingly wanted to preempt some more bad news in the most recent Netflix ISP rankings. Ars Technica notices that Netflix's performance on Verizon's FiOS network tanked by another 17% over the last month, which is a major embarrassment for Verizon given that it had already come to an agreement with Netflix months ago to improve the connections that Netflix used to send traffic through its network.

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Posted in 2014 at 05:57PM, July 14