Apple Inc.’s retail boss told employees the company made mistakes with its staffing levels, leading to news reports that the company was cutting employees, according to two people familiar with the matter.
In a communication with store leadership teams, senior vice president of retail, John Browett, who took the reins of Apple’s retail stores in April, said the company had been trying a new staffing formula for its retail stores.
When David Hegarty moved to San Francisco from Seattle in 2009 to start a company, he had a problem: He didn’t know anyone he could to team up with.
Mr. Hegarty, now 34 years old, was a business guy who knew how to manage sales, make deals and strike partnerships. What he needed was an engineer.
The company has begun telling retail employees that they may offer discounts of $49 on the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 to customers who cite lower prices from other outlets, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The outlets include stores operated by Target Corp., Best Buy Co. and Sprint Nextel Corp., according to Apple‘s communications with employees.
Apple Inc., one of the world’s most secretive companies, is finding there’s a price in pushing its grievances against rival Samsung Electronics Co. in federal court: disclosure.
In just the first few days of its patent trial this week, Apple has publicly discussed how it created the iPhone and iPad, showed early designs of the devices and described intimate details about its product team.
For decades, consumers have played videogames in arcades, on personal computers or specialized consoles hooked to televisions. Sony Corp. SNE +2.21% is placing a bet on a different approach—technology that streams games to Internet-connected devices.
A Southern California start-up is attempting to sell a game console to challenge more expensive devices from the likes of Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co.
Boxer8, founded by game industry veteran Julie Uhrma, has developed Ouya, a console about the size of a Rubik‘s Cube that connects to a television and comes with a controller for playing games. The company hopes to make games less expensive and easier to distribute.
Microsoft Corp.’s first personal computer, the Surface tablet, provides further evidence that Apple Inc.’s strategies and success continue to shake up the tech sector.
The software giant is for the first time emulating Apple’s longtime practice of managing both elements in a computing device—one that will directly compete with products from its biggest customers.
Though insisting it remains committed to helping other hardware companies make successful tablets using its software, Microsoft also endorsed Apple’s philosophy in forceful terms.
“We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when all aspects of the experience—hardware and software—are considered and working together,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, during the Surface launch event Monday.
Employees began learning of the raises in face-to-face meetings with managers last week, according to three Apple employees in various regions across the U.S. The raises, which are based on performance, will begin appearing in paychecks around the middle of July, two of these people said.
Employees said they were appreciative of the move, though they considered the raises had been a long time coming. The increased wages, one person said, more accurately reflected Apple’s position as a high-end retailer.
Software developers using a pre-release version of Apple Inc.‘s iPhone operating system have hit a roadblock while trying to access the popular video-calling application FaceTime on AT&T Inc.‘s cellular network.
The sudden change has prompted speculation that AT&T is gearing up to charge users for the data-intensive application. That‘s because a new notice about the restriction in the software strongly resembles a notification that emerged in another pre-release version of the software two years ago. At that time, the alert appeared just before AT&T began allowing users to pay for tethering, which permits other devices to use the phone‘s network connection.
Old is the new cool in videogames.
Videogame titles that once gathered dust on collectors’ shelves have found a new life on mobile devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, giving companies a cheap way to make money while also helping to promote new software.
It is what Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. did when it was preparing to release the third installment in a popular film-noire series called “Max Payne.” About a month before the new title went on sale, the company released “Max Payne Mobile”—the first game in the series released 11 years ago, reworked to run on smartphones and tablet computers rather than videogame consoles and personal computers.
