Adele captures iTunes download record overnight with Skyfall theme song release at 00:07 on global James Bond Day.

Apple pays tribute to Steve Jobs as his legacy celebrated on the one-year anniversary of his death.

Starbucks to allow digital tipping.

American Airlines keeps finding more seat problems.

Arby's fixes TV spot that dissed Subway and angered Iowans.

Chipotle voted favorite Mexican chain in survey.Continue reading...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has apologized for the iOS 6 Maps kerfuffle, following the brand's eviction of Google Maps and proprietary (but glitchy) maps function — one of the key features consumers demand from their smartphones. Google, meanwhile, just upgraded its maps app with high-resolution aerial views.

A contrite Apple posted the apology online (read the full text below) in a mea culpa that the Financial Times calls "a rare moment of contrition from the world's most valuable company," and — unexpectedly — suggested installing rivals' map apps "while we're improving Maps." Cook's personal apology for "mapgate" also raised comparisons to how Steve Jobs handled the iPhone 4 "antennagate," for which the company — but not Jobs personally — apologized.Continue reading...

Everyone wants to tear down the guy at the top. But in a matter of a month, Apple has made that work a lot easier. And for once, it has nothing to do with China. Well, not Foxconn anyway.

First, Apple's court win over Samsung for patent infringements met with "rounded corner" derision with the brand seen as an anti-innovation patent bully (a German court ruling today puts the patent wars ball back in Samsung's court). Then, there is the ongoing iOS 6 Google Mapsgate. And now, Apple has been accused of jobbing its fans to promote the iPhone 5 release.

But really, it's all about the maps. The stupid, stupid maps.Continue reading...

With all the Olympic-themed ads that have been running during the London Summer Games, some might see the "Apple Genius" ads that debuted the first weekend of the games as a breath of fresh air. They featured a youthful employee who's been let loose from an Apple store's genius bar — still wearing his blue t-shirt and, whether it be on a plane, above, a street corner, or an apartment building, heroically ready to solve consumers' computer problems in the name of touting the brand's Mac line.

More often than not (under the watchful eye of an intensely involved Steve Jobs), Apple ads have always been considered a cut above the ordinary if not positively in a league of their own. Apple has always found a way to advertise a product with a good dose of humanity and a touch of humor. Witness the lauded "I'm a Mac" series from several years ago that brilliantly personified the differences between a Mac and a PC, and the current Siri campaign for the iPhone that feature celebrities including Zooey Deschanel, Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich and Martin Scorsese having intensely personal conversations with their iPhones.Continue reading...

The archives of brand marketing crawl with attempts by CEOs to use themselves and their personas as the instrument of redemption for the brand. Look under "Steve Jobs and Apple," for instance, or "Lee Iacocca and Chrysler."

But what Akio Toyoda is attempting to do in this regard at the company his grandfather founded, Toyota Motor, may be even more remarkable than the notably successful efforts by Jobs and Iacocca. That's because he is doing it in a racing suit, in really fast cars, on real race tracks. Toyoda, CEO since 2009, has literally become the face of the passion that his company wants consumers to feel when they consider its cars.

"I see myself as a bridge who can talk to both racing pros and average car owners," the 56-year-old chief told reporters at a news conference earlier this year, according to a profile published Friday in the Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

Five years ago today, Apple changed the world – again — by launching the first iPhone. The press release for the 6:00 p.m. EST, June 29th, 2007 launch noted:

iPhone introduces an entirely new user interface based on a revolutionary multi-touch display and pioneering new software that allows users to control iPhone with just a tap, flick or pinch of their fingers. iPhone combines three products into one small and lightweight handheld device—a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod®, and the Internet in your pocket with best-ever applications on a mobile phone for email, web browsing and maps. iPhone ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, which completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones.

Since then, the smartphone marketplace has changed considerably thanks to its innovation and design. And Apple has reaped the rewards, pulling in $150 billion from the iPhone alone — and creating an "app economy" the likes of which even Steve Jobs couldn't have predicted five years ago.Continue reading...

Apple watchers have been combing over the tidbits dropped by CEO Tim Cook as he took center stage at the All Things D Conference last night. At the 10th annual gathering of A-list Silicon Valley technology and media executives in Rancho Palos Verdes, Cook spoke on a broad array of topics from Apple’s current vision, to plans for the living room, an iPhone made in the U.S. and his views on China’s labor practices.

Cook didn’t disclose details about Facebook plans for the iPhone, but in response to a question about why the world’s largest social networking platform isn’t integrated into the smartphone like Twitter, he simply said “stay tuned.”Continue reading...

Apple nearly went out of business back in the late ’90s, but the creation of the iMac helped save it. Of course, then the iPod, iPhone, and iPad came along, all of which didn’t just change the revenue stream at Apple, but helped the change the culture overall.

Even though it’s already had such recent success, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, tells the Telegraph in part two of an interview (here's part one) that the company is still working on its “most important and best work.”

The London-born Ive, who goes by Jony, was back in his homeland for a momentous occasion — the newly minted knight is now Sir Johny Ive, thank you very much. Not that the soft-spoken Brit would want to be called that back at the office.

“We have become rather addicted to learning as a group of people and trying to solve very difficult problems as a team,” the design guru said of his colleagues at Apple HQ in Cupertino, CA. “And we get enormous satisfaction from doing that. Particularly when you’re sat on a plane and it appears that the majority of people are using something that you’ve collectively agonized over. It’s a wonderful reward.”Continue reading...