Apple Inc. - page 47

It’s a widely established fact that Android dominates the mobile landscape’s market share globally. IDC’s most recent numbers say Android accounted for 80% of the market in the third quarter of 2013, while iOS only accounted for 13%.

But there’s much more to consider than just market share when determining who’s winning the mobile wars. For instance, Apple brings in the lion’s share of mobile profits. We told you just earlier today why developers pick iOS to make apps on before Android: apps on Android generally make only a fraction of the money that can be mined from App Store users.

Adfonic tracked third-quarter mobile ad impressions and found that iOS received twice the number of ad impressions of Android. That means there’s a much higher level of user engagement on iOS.

2013 has been a rocky year for Apple Stock, but it looks like Wall Street might be ending the year bullish on Wall Street, with shares of AAPL closing at an all-time high last night.

To mark the release of Fred Vogelstein’s new book “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went To War And Started A Revolution”, Cult of Mac chatted to the author to gets his thoughts on the iOS vs. Android smartphone wars, writing a book without Apple’s approval, and why both sides could stand to learn a thing or two from their rival.

Who sells the most iPhones of them all? It’s not a carrier or a third party: it’s Apple itself. In fact, the Cupertino company sells 25% of all American iPhone sales, combined. Even more staggering, though, is that Apple sells one in ten smartphones, too.

Back in 2010, Apple was seemingly randomly sued by an eccentric 70-year-old crank who claimed to have “come up with the idea” of the smartphone. That lawsuit has now come to trial, and the crank has lost, but what’s confusing is how torn the jury seems to have been by the decision, even going so far as to call the alleged smartphone creator a “little guy” crushed by big business.

It’s Magic 8-Ball time here, as analysts continue to round-out 2013 by making predictions about what we can expect over the next year.

This time it’s analyst Canalys, which is forecasting that tablets will out-ship almost all other PC form factors combined in 2014 — representing around 50 percent of the total client PC market.

While Android hardware manufacturers were busy trying to pack as many cores as they could into their smartphone and tablet processors, Apple took a different route and decided to go 64-bit instead. It’s a move that makes the iPhone 5s and the latest iPads some of the fastest mobile devices on the market, and so it’s no surprise that its rivals are getting ready to follow suit.

Intel has promised that you’ll be able to buy Android-powered tablets with 64-bit “Bay Trail” processors next year.

Now here’s one for the record books – a special one-of-a-kind Product (RED) Mac Pro, created jointly by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, sold at Sotheby’s on Saturday for $977,000! The upper six figure bid makes the (RED) Mac Pro the most expensive desktop computer ever built or sold.

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Cult of Mac reported early today (or very late last night) that Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $290 million in its patent trial for copying key features of iOS devices — bringing Apple’s total damages to $930 million.

According to two of the jurors assigned to the case, however, the key factor that swayed the jury in Apple’s favor came down to just one witness: Chicago-based certified public accountant, Julie L. Davis.

Old computers tend to lead sedentary lives. Parked in shelves and closets, maybe touched by the occasional dusting; the lucky ones still run old games from time to time. But sometimes one becomes a sensation.

The Twiggy Macintosh is a prototype Macintosh 128k that used a 5.25-inch disk drive. Long thought lost to history, two of these primordial Macinti were recently resurrected and returned to life in full working glory. Their rebirth brought about a rare reunion of the original Macintosh design team. And one of them recently repaid the effort by fetching about $40,000 at an auction.

They are — without a doubt — the oldest working Macs in the world.

Here is the story of their amazing journey.

Smile software’s TextExpander Touch has used hacks to get around the lack of inter-app communication on iOS, but now Apple has stepped in to end the parade. Smile has been told to stop using the Reminders database to store your snippets and figure out some other way to share your data with other apps.

Apple won’t approve any updates until this is done, and third-party apps using the TextExpander SDK may also suffer the same fate.

In latest news from the Samsung vs. Apple patent case, Samsung on Wednesday filed an emergency motion with presiding Judge Lucy Koh to halt Apple’s damages retrial.

Why the halt? Because according to court documents, the US Patent and Trademark Office has suggested that Apple’s “pinch to zoom” patent (which much of the patent trial revolves around) might not actually be valid.

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Folks love to complain about Apple, but I figure that a lot of that bitching is down to the inadequacies of the bitchers themselves: It’s easier to just whine about something than to strive for greatness yourself. Which is to say, Apple is far from perfect, but it tries harder than almost anyone else. And the new solar farm which powers it’s North Carolina data center is a great example of this.

UPDATE: Cult of Mac has learned that the Apple 1 did sell after the auction closed. Read more here.
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Markets rise and markets fall – that’s true for stocks, real estate, tulips, etc. That’s also true with vintage computers – though even in a down market there’s still some money to be made.

At an auction in Germany held on Saturday November 16, a working Apple 1 – from the first batch of 50 units made – did not receive any bids. Nor did a restored Lisa 1, with dual Twiggy floppy disk drives. But a prototype Twiggy Mac, one of only two known working units, sold for €25,000 ($33,725), quite possibly the highest price ever paid for a vintage Macintosh.

We’ve dedicated this issue of the magazine to Sir Jony Ive, the Apple designer whose imagination brings us all the gadgets we love.

Inside, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from publisher Leander Kahney’s brand-spanking-new book “Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products” along with the story of how Leander met Ive for the first time. (It turns out Jony is nice, especially to forgetful reporters.) The book excerpt takes you back to where it all began: in the UK where a young Jony started working with his father in the garage.

As we do every week, we also bring you the best in new apps, picks from what’s worth your while in books, music and movies in iTunes and our exclusive Apple genius column delves into getting hired and what to do if you happen to find love while getting your iPhone repaired.

Keep the feedback coming — we’re listening!

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Unfortunately, Facebook kind of runs my scheduling life. I plan events there, accept events from other folks for parties and recitals and stuff, and–most importantly–keep track of many birthdays that I’ve never really put into my calendar over the years.

The last couple of OS X iterations have required some bit of effort to make the Facebook calendars show up in the Calendar app, though. Mavericks changes that by making it chimp simple to get your Facebook events connected to your Calendar app.

It’s hard to think of two analysts as different frome one another as Gene Munster and KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. While Munster has foolishly prattled on, predicting an Apple HDTV set every single year for at least five years without it coming true, Ming-Chi Kuo draws upon proven supply-chain sources across the Far East to make predictions about upcoming Apple products with almost unerring accuracy. When Munster opens his mouth, everyone laughs; when Kuo opens his, everyone listens.

So it’s odd to be writing a story in which Ming-Chi Kuo and Gene Munster’s predictions are lining up for a change, but it’s an odd world. In a recent note, Kuo argues that not only will an A7-powered Apple TV will be coming next year, but Apple will enter the living room with a proper HDTV set in 2015.

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With the new Mac Pro, Apple has proven its serious about bringing at least some manufacturing back to the States. The next step, though, is chips, and a new report says that Apple is bringing chip fabrication of its A-series chips stateside at a new $6 billion facility in upstate New York. And Samsung is said to be involved.

A judge has advised Samsung to prepare its defense after determining that the South Korean company probably violated a court order by leaking confidential Apple documents.

Apple provided Samsung with copies of its patent agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips as part of the massive patent battle between the two that started last summer, but it seems the company ignored the protective order that said the information could only be used in the context of that case.