In the latest filing in the Apple vs Samsung patent case, the Korean-based electronics company argued that the documents they leaked after US District Judge Lucy Koh excluded as trial evidence were public domain, anyway, and that Samsung had done nothing wrong or unethical.
The New York Times recently said that Apple was considering a multi-million dollar investment in Twitter. The report was then refuted by other publications, including The Wall Street Journal. According to the WSJ, Apple’s investment talks with Twitter were more than a year old. It seemed odd that Apple, a company known for rarely buying (much less investing in) other companies, would pump so much money in a financially-healthy startup like Twitter.
In a new report today, The Wall Street Journal sheds more light on Apple’s relationship with Twitter, highlighting that the two companies have been focusing on how to tie Twitter into Apple’s OS X and iOS platforms. Interestingly, Apple is currently working to add deeper iTunes integration with Twitter.
Apple continues to top PC sales thanks to the iPad. Meanwhile, according to research firm Canalys, Microsoft will likely need to heavily subsidize the price of touch-first PCs and tablets if it wants Windows 8 to be anything like a success.
Echoing Tim Cook’s about Microsoft’s Windows 8 strategy being like converging a toaster and a refrigerator, the research firm notes that Microsoft’s approach could jeopardize the Windows 8 launch. Canalys notes that the big issue is that most Windows 8 features are designed for touchscreen use. That means that existing PC owners won’t get the full value or experience that Windows 8 offers unless they upgrade their hardware to a tablet, touchscreen notebook, or a hybrid device that functions as both.
Want a Retina MacBook Pro? Want to spend gobs more money on it? Apple has just expanded the build-to-order options for their most powerful notebook, allowing you to jack up the CPU to up to a 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, or even upgrade the SSD to up to 768GB of flash. Now the most expensive Retina MacBook Pro you can buy is a whopping $3,749.00!
Update: We originally misunderstood the nature of these new build-to-order options. It is only the 2.3GHz Retina MacBook Pro that has recently gotten the option to upgrade to up to 768GB of flash storage; previously, Retina Display MacBook Pros with a faster processor were the only ones capable of being upgraded in this manner. We’re sorry about the confusion. Either way, it now looks like Apple has pulled these build-to-order options from their online store.
We have written before about why we believe that Apple will adopt a 19-pin dock connector for the next iPhone, but a curious report this morning suggests that, instead, Apple will get by with only eight. In addition, iOS 6 will feature a new Bluetooth 4 bridging feature that will finally make a proper iPod nano watch possible. Interesting!
Early this morning, Apple put up a product page for a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter cable on the online Apple Store. Selling for $29.00, the cable would allow Mac owners to run their old Firewire accessories through Apple’s new Thunderbolt standard.
It appears, however, that Apple wasn’t ready for this product to be announced quite yet, as after the new product broke, the page was quietly pulled for unknown reasons. It also doesn’t show up in store search results.
It’s probably a matter of one of Apple’s web monkeys pushing the “go live” button a few hours prematurely, but we’ll let you know when the Thunderbolt to Firewire cable goes back on sale.
Update: It’s back!
Source: Apple
Via: Apple Insider
If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber or otherwise rent or buy a lot of Amazon Instant Video, you’ll have a one word reaction to this story: finally. Amazon has just released an official Instant Video app for the iPad.
Today, Apple and Samsung both presented their opening arguments in front of US District Court Judge Lucy Koh in the second day of the legal case originally brought by Apple against Samsung for patent infringement. Samsung countersued, claiming its own patents were infringed upon. Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846 began yesterday with jury selection, and opening statements were made today, along with some expert testimony by Apple designer Christopher Stringer.
Not surprisingly, Apple believes that Samsung has copied the iPhone wholesale. Korea-based Samsung continues to repeat that it has not copied anything, but rather a simple matter of American-style competition.
Lawyers for both sides squared off today in court with their opening arguments.
Quite a bit of chatter has arisen over Apple’s newest “Genius” television ads. Some have called them “embarrassing.” Others? “Ehhh?” Even Ken Segall, one of Apple’s former advertising creative directors has given the ads a big thumbs down.
But are they really so terrible? If you take a look back, you’ll see rather quickly that Apple has produced much worse. In fact, I’d go as far to say that some of Apple’s previous ads make the new ones seem not just good, but absolutely amazing.
Don’t believe me? Check out this gallery I compiled of what I believe to be the top 10 worst Apple ads of all time. Watch out- some of them are pretty shocking.
According to a report by Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments in general fell 5 percent in the second quarter of the current year, 2012. The market for smartphones in the second quarter of last year was 25.2 million, while this year’s second quarter only brought 23.8 million smartphones to the US consumer. In addition, Android lost ground to iOS, falling four points to 56 percent of the smartphone market.
While Android remains the top platform by volume in the US, Apple’s iOS is gaining, having risen 10 percentage points in the same period of time as last year, from 23 percent to 33 percent. We can only assume that the release of the iPhone 5, which many pundits believe customers are waiting for, causing a lull in current iPhone sales, will only increase Apple’s rising fortunes in the smartphone market.
An interesting jury has been selected today in the high-profile patent case between Apple and Samsung. Of course, any details about said jury would be interesting simply due to their inclusion in such a pivotal legal case, but the list does sound like somewhat of a lead in to a stand-up comedy routine. An insurance agent, an unemployed video game enthusiast, and a project manager for AT&T are three of the ten jurors selected today to decide the issues behind the patent case between the two electronics superstar companies.
The patent war between Apple and Samsung is just starting to heat up, with both tech giants scheduled to appear in U.S. court today. Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPhone and iPad back in April 2011, and Samsung countersued with similar accusations. In the months leading up to the trial, there have been treasure troves of previously hidden information uncovered, including hundreds of early iPhone and iPad prototype designs.
One design in particular, aptly named “Jony,” sparked an accusation from Samsung saying that Apple borrowed from Sony’s designs to create the first iPhone. To combat Samsung’s claim, Apple has since produced an early (and possibly first) prototype design of the iPhone from circa 2005.
The Samsung vs. Apple legal brouhaha has been a pretty tedious story to cover up until now, but over the last week, those of who with a professional interest in paying attention to the bickering were finally rewarded when Apple started coughing up images of their early iPhone prototypes in the court filings.
On Saturday, though, in preparation for the start of today’s trial, Apple released a new filing with dozens of sketches, prototypes and 3D models of early iPhone prototypes. We’ve seen some of them before, but a lot of them are new, and one thing that is abundantly clear is that back in 2006, Apple has already thought out every possible shape an iPhone could be.
We’ve put together a gallery below of all of Apple’s iPhone prototypes, culling the images from a longer slideshow from All Things D. Check it out: not only will you see iPhones that never made it in there, you’ll see the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 4 and even a longer iPhone that could be the iPhone 5!
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Apple was in talks to invest a significant amount of cash into Twitter. The multi-million dollar investment would raise Twitter’s company valuation to a healthy $10 billion.
But that doesn’t really sound like something Apple would do, does it? If you thought that when you first read this rumor, then you had the right hunch. Apple and Twitter have talked, but not recently. Beyond the current Twitter integration in iOS and OS X, the two companies are merely friends.
We thought about simply updating our original post on this story, but a separate article to debunk the former seemed more appropriate in this case.
Ping never had a chance, but a recent report may show the way to Apple’s eventual success in the social media space. According to a report in The New York Times, “people briefed on the matter” say that Apple has been talking with the social media startup about making a strategic investment.
The numbers bandied about include an Apple investment stake of hundreds of millions of dollars, which might in turn increase Twitter’s high valuation of around $8.4 billion to a nicer-looking $10 billion.
In a not-so surprise move today, Apple filed a proposal with the US District Court that is handling Monday’s trial between it and rival Samsung over possible patent infringements. The surprise move today is the fact that Samsung agrees with Apple.
Both companies have to submit documents as exhibits in the wide-ranging trial, scheduled for Monday, and each company would like to keep it’s sensitive business data private. The two tech industry leaders today came up with a proposal that, if accepted, will have them jointly submitting documents they would like redacted from the public.
Have you ever noticed that the Shuffle option on iTunes or on your iPod isn’t truly random? For example, if you have a playlist with ten tracks and start off by playing, say, the second track, iTunes will always shuffle to the exact same next track, everytime.
Doesn’t seem much like “Shuffling,” does it? It is, though: Apple’s just thinking about Shuffling a different way than you are.
Whenever Apple moves to purchase a company, you know they’ve got something up their sleeves, and it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities of their latest acquisition: maker of fingerprint sensor chips, AuthenTec.
During the period of April 2010 and March 2012, gross margins on iPhone sales in the US ran 49 to 58 percent. Gross margins on iPad sales during the same period were much lower, according to a court filing in the Samsung vs Apple patent dispute that begins in earnest on Monday, scheduled to take place in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, called Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.
The filing was unveiled today in a statement by an Apple expert witness, though Apple has declined to comment on the filing itself.
US District Judge George Daniels denied Apple’s proposal to move the patent dispute with Eastman Kodak Company out of bankruptcy court and into his own District Court today. If Apple had been granted the proposal, it could have been tough going for Kodak’s plans to actually sell the technology.
Today, a London court granted Apple’s proposal to postpone a controversial order given earlier this month that Apple must post a public notice on Apple UK website as well as several British newspapers. The reprieve will remain in effect until October, when Apple will have a chance to appeal the decision in a British courtroom.
The Podcasts app, released by Apple last month, is a thing of potential beauty. I’ve already returned to a state of podcast listening due to the app, which lets me find and focus solely on the podcast content I need, without all the kludgy hassle of syncing and downloading.
Notice I said “potential” beauty. The app is really not ready for prime time, with freezes, crashes and a dearth of sync between, for example, an iPhone and an iPad. That’s set to change later today, according to “sources” mentioned at AllThingsD, with an update to the Podcasts app that should fix these issues, at least.
The US Patent Office has awarded Apple another patent tonight, this one for the Cover-Flow interface that showed up in iTunes 7.0 in 2006, and then in the Finder as a view option in 2007 with Mac OS X Leopard and the iPhone itself.
US Patent Number 8,230,360 is credited to Jeffery Ma, Gregory Dude, Rachel Clare Goldeen, Justin Henzie, and Fainer Broderson, with Apple as the assignee. This patent was filed on January 14, 2008, which is a far less amount of time than the mouse cursor one granted today as well, but still – four years?
Today, the US Patent and Trademark office awarded Apple a utility patent that covers the use of the mouse cursor that changes according to the context of the task it is engaged in. Called a “Dynamically Changing Cursor for User Interface,” patent number 8,230,366 describes the functionality of the on-screen mouse cursor when it changes to the familiar spinning beach ball, the green plus symbol when copying files, or the red number of items being moved from one disk to another.
Beyond the numbers, there were some tantalizing tidbits about Apple and the company’s future plans during today’s quarterly financial call. While nothing quite lived up to Tim Cook comparing Windows 8 to someone trying to converge a toaster and a refrigerator into a single device during the last call, there were several choice comments.