cooking

Apple's having a pretty good week. After reporting what can only be described as blowout earnings yesterday, its stock price made a huge recovery today. The company also set another record, selling out its annual developers conference in less than two hours.

But it won't be this good forever warns Forrester Research chairman and CEO George Colony in a blog post today.

"Apple's momentum will carry it for 24 to 48 months," Colony said. "But without the arrival of a new charismatic leader it will move from being a great company to being a … Read more

Apple's CEO Tim Cook may have just thrown down the gauntlet to the Windows camp about nothing less than the future of portable computing.

Cook dismissed the idea of a hybrid MacBook-iPad device, during the company's second-quarter earnings conference call this afternoon. "You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going be pleasing to the user," he said.

The toaster-refrigerator hyperbolic analogy aside, it just so happens that Intel has begun to push the Windows 8 laptop-tablet hybrid concept. And it has even built a demo unit to prove the … Read more

Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is interested in settling patent lawsuits, as long as everyone "invents their own stuff."

Cook, speaking on the company's quarterly conference call today, expressed his desire to end the litigation that has engulfed much of the wireless industry.

"I would highly prefer to settle than to battle," he said. "But it's important that Apple not become the developer for the world. We need people to invent their own stuff."

Cook will get a chance to end some of the litigation when he sits down in the … Read more

If you were holding your breath for Apple to release a MacBook-iPad hybrid device, it might be time to get some oxygen.

During Apple's second quarter earnings call this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook knocked the idea -- which was brought up by an analyst asking about Microsoft's Windows 8 -- calling such convergence a "compromise" to the end user.

"Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about tradeoffs, and you begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left doesn't please anyone," Cook … Read more

Apple posted another blowout quarter, doubling profit to $11.62 billion, with revenue surging nearly 60 percent to $39.19 billion. Boosting its results: sales of more than 35 million iPhones.

iPad sales came in at 11.8 million. That's a 151 percent jump from the year-ago quarter, but it fell short of the 12 million to 13 million that Wall Street was looking for. Apple enters the new quarter with cash in excess of $110 billion.

Here is a breakdown of some key numbers for the quarter:

• 47.4 percent gross margin, compared to 41.4 percent in … Read more

Kitchens are full of compromises. Occasionally ingredients run out, equipment doesn't work properly, and of course, time is always a factor. But when thrown for a curve in the kitchen, the only answer is to make do. Recipes can be changed, equipment hacks can be invented, and shortcuts can be discovered. But nothing can be done to turn back the clock on original purchases.

Deciding between a gas range and an electric one may involve a variety of choices, but sometimes the answer can be both. A new line of dual-fuel ranges are coming this summer from Capital Cooking. … Read more

Apple fans joined gaming fanatics in frenetic speculation when Apple CEO Tim Cook was reportedly recently seen at the headquarters of Valve, the maker of ginormously successful games like Half Life and Portal.

The supposed visit was hot on the heels of Valve's job posting for someone with hardware skills. "For years, Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences," the post said. "Now we're developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen...We're not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here -- help us invent whole new gaming experiences."… Read more

Tim Cook reportedly visits Valve headquarters in Washington state the same week that the gaming company posted a help wanted ad for someone with serious hardware skills? Holy conjecture, Batman!

Reports that Tim Cook was seen at Valve HQ have yet to be confirmed, even though they're flying all around the inform-ether today. What's definitely true, though, is that Valve is looking for a couple of hardware geeks for an unknown project, as the job description itself indicates:… Read more

The Allrecipes.com DinnerSpinner app (free) lets you quickly find recipes and easily build grocery lists. If you like games of chance or dislike the first step in preparing any meal -- finding a recipe -- you'll enjoy the DinnerSpinner. And for more targeted searches, you can use the app's new bar code scanner, which arrived with an update earlier this week.

The main screen of the app is the DinnerSpinner, which features three spinnable rows of meal attributes: Dish Type, Ingredients, Ready In. You can manually swipe through each row and make your selection, or you can … Read more