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Mark Gurman
For Mark Gurman's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California, on June 5, 2023
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 4, 2024
Apple shifts focus from EV to home robotics as ‘next big thing’
Apple’s pursuit of the "next big thing” has been an obsession since the Steve Jobs era, but it’s hard to envision a product that could match the iPhone.
Apple started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 28, 2024
Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
Many employees on the team will be reassigned to focus on generative artificial intelligence projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.
Jeff Bezos — the world’s second-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Ranking — is investing in a business that’s developing human-like robots.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 24, 2024
Bezos and Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup
The startup Figure AI is raising about $675 million in a funding round that carries a pre-money valuation of roughly $2 billion.
Bart Andre, who joined Apple in 1992, told colleagues this month that he is retiring. He helped create the aesthetic for Apple products released over the past three decades.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 14, 2024
Apple’s longest-serving designer to depart, adding to exodus
Bart Andre, who joined Apple in 1992 alongside Jony Ive, told colleagues this month that he is retiring.
Apple is entering its first major new product category since the company began selling smartwatches in 2015, and the Vision Pro may take years to catch on.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 22, 2024
Apple Vision Pro deliveries delayed to March in sign of early demand
The device is also sold out for Day 1 in-store pickup at many locations despite preorders having just begun on Friday ahead of its Feb. 2 rollout.
Masimo's headquarters in Irvine, California. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled earlier this year that the Apple Watch violates two Masimo patents related to blood-oxygen sensing and imposed an import ban on the Ultra 2 and Series 9 models.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 28, 2023
The email to Tim Cook that set the Apple watch saga in motion
Masimo, based in Irvine, California, is the rare company to wound Apple in a patent dispute.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 devices displayed in Los Angeles. Apple said on Dec. 18 it will stop selling some of its smartwatch models in the United States while it fights a patent battle over technology for detecting blood oxygen levels.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 19, 2023
Apple plans rescue for $17 billion watch biz in face of U.S. ban
If the ban holds, Apple is working on a range of legal and technical options.
An attendee plays Fortnite, made by Epic Games, during the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles in 2019.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2023
Legal defeat for Google threatens $200 billion app store industry
Until now, Google and Apple have charged commissions of as much as 30% to software developers who typically have had few other options.
People stand outside an Apple Store in Shanghai as the new iPhone 15 officially goes on sale across China on Sept. 22.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 8, 2023
Apple postpones next year's iPhone and Mac software to fix bugs
Rather than adding new features, company engineers have now been tasked with fixing flaws and improving software performance, sources have said.
An Apple store in the Huangpu district in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 8, 2023
Apple grapples with turmoil in China days before iPhone 15 launch
The bans may just be part of a longstanding trend.
A customer browses iPhone cases at an Apple store in India.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 31, 2023
Apple trials making devices with 3D printers
The move could reduce the time it takes to build devices while also helping the environment by using less material, according to the sources.
Though Apple’s overall revenue of $81.8 billion came in just above Wall Street estimates last quarter, iPhone demand was weaker than predicted.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 4, 2023
Apple faces longest sales slowdown in decades as iPhone slumps
The company reported a revenue decline of 1.4% in the fiscal third quarter, hurt by an industrywide slump that has sapped demand.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 6, 2023
Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro headset will test marketing might
The wearable device mixes virtual and augmented reality, meaning it can fully engross a user in content with high-resolution displays or overlay apps on top of the wearer’s field of view.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
May 2, 2023
Samsung bans staff’s AI use after spotting ChatGPT data leak
The company is concerned that data transmitted to such artificial intelligence platforms including Google Bard and Bing is stored on external servers, making it hard to retrieve and delete.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 25, 2023
Apple app store policies upheld by court in antitrust challenge brought by Epic Games
Apple won an appeals court ruling upholding its App Store’s policies in an antitrust challenge brought by Epic Games.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 11, 2023
Apple to begin making in-house screens in 2024 in shift away from Samsung
The company aims to begin by swapping out the display in the highest-end Apple Watches by the end of next year.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 10, 2023
Apple plans to drop key Broadcom chip to use in-house design
Apple is Broadcom's largest customer and accounted for about 20% of the chipmaker's revenue in the last fiscal year, amounting to almost $7 billion.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
May 11, 2022
End of an era: Apple discontinues its last iPod model
The company has announced that it will discontinue the iPod Touch, the last remnant of a product line that first went on sale in October 2001.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2022
Apple, Nike and Hollywood spurn Russia, isolating Putin
From the iPhone to Air Jordans, highly prized U.S. brands are vanishing from the Russian marketplace in a way that will be hard for consumers to ignore.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 8, 2022
Apple buys startup that makes music with artificial intelligence
Technology developed by AI Music can create soundtracks using royalty-free music and artificial intelligence, according to a copy of its now-defunct website.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on