Alex Heath - page 34

Since Apple won a $1 billion lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement last summer, both companies have been fighting to determine how the ruling will actually unfold. In March of this year, the presiding judge for the case subtracted $450 million from what Samsung owed Apple due to the jury’s miscalculations for damages.

The Apple vs. Samsung retrial kicked off earlier this week in California court, and Apple requested an additional $380 in damages from Samsung on top of the $600 million already owed. Samsung believes it should only have to pay Apple $52 million for infringing on five patents related to the iPhone.

Today Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, took the stand in court to talk about the iPhone’s importance to Apple, calling it a “bet-the-company” product. He also got pretty snarky about Samsung copying Apple.

Schiller began his testimony by recounting the original iPhone’s launch and the product’s success to date. He expressed frustration that Samsung started making phones that looked just like the iPhone after Apple started seeing success in the smartphone market. Schiller said he was “quite shocked” when he first saw the Samsung Galaxy. “My first thought was, ‘They’ve copied the iPhone.'”

These first few years of the iPhone’s existence have been “an incredibly important time” for Apple, said Schiller. And Samsung’s infringement has made it “harder for us to get new customers and bring them into our ecosystem.” The iPhone is Apple’s biggest money-maker by far. “At this point, it’s fair to say that most everyone at Apple works on iPhone,” said Schiller from the stand. “It’s our biggest product.”

While being cross-examined by Samsung’s lawyers, Schiller gave off a little Jobsian snark with his responses:

Schiller on Samsung gaining while other android makers lost share. “One is copying. the other are not copying… as much.” #icourt

— Ina Fried (@inafried) November 15, 2013

Samsung atty shows Schiller a Samsung device and Schiller says – “I can’t tell from here. It looks like an iPad to me.” #icourt

— Shara Tibken (@sharatibken) November 15, 2013

The retrial is expected to close next week.

Via: CNET

Image: AP

What if you could condense all of the credit, debit, membership, and gift cards in your wallet down to a single card? Companies like Apple and Google have tried to give us digital wallets, but nothing has really caught on. People still feel tied to their physical wallets.

Coin is a new product that became available for preorder today. It looks like a normal credit card at first glance, but Coin is much smarter than your average piece of plastic. A small display and a fancy magnetic strip let you choose from a range of your cards and memberships before paying.

Hot on the heels of the iBooks de-Forstallization for iOS 7, Apple has released iOS 7.0.4 with “bug fixes and improvements.” The update also addresses “an issue that causes FaceTime calls to fail for some users,” according to the release notes. You can download 7.0.4 as a 37.6 MB update.

iOS 6.1.5 has also been released with the same FaceTime fix for the fourth-gen iPod touch, a device that can’t run iOS 7.

Apple released iOS 7.0.3 with iCloud Keychain, improvements for iMessage, and other bug fixes last month.

Source: Apple

Facebook has released a major redesign of its Messenger iPhone app in the App Store. The update is a significant departure from the previous version, and Facebook has designed it with iOS 7 in mind. Profile pictures are circular like they are for contacts in iOS 7, and Facebook is using a brighter color scheme that comes close to mimicking the look of Apple’s Messages app.

Badges now appear over friends’ pictures when they are on Messenger. Facebook has done a good job of stripping pretty much all of its normal branding out of the redesign, so Messenger looks like a typical chat app now.

A key addition is Messenger’s new integration with phone numbers. If someone has their phone number listed on Facebook or in your iPhone’s contacts, you can enter their number in the app to find them on Messenger. You can also message people through the app by using phone numbers in your contacts list.

Source: App Store

Pocket, the service formerly known as Read It Later, announced a new version of its mobile and desktop apps today. Version 5.0 introduces what Pocket is calling “Highlights,” a new method for discovering articles inside the app.

The user interface has also been simplified to make the experience of using the app smoother, and Pocket has added a new side navigation bar and the ability to bulk edit lists of items.

While everyone seems certain that Apple is working on some sort of wearable, exact details on the mysterious ‘iWatch’ remain allusive. Publications like The New York Times have said Apple is working on a watch with a curved glass display, and Tim Cook has hinted that the wrist is “profoundly interesting” for wearables.

The latest rumor on the iWatch is that Apple is developing two sizes: a larger display to market towards men, and a slightly smaller display for women.

By now you should know that it takes an incredibly complex, efficient system to build Apple products overseas, assemble them, and ship them thousands of miles to then show up at your doorstep in the arms of a friendly mailman. Apple’s attention to detail extends outside of its Cupertino HQ to every area its business touches, including the machinery that makes the products overseas.

For 2014, Apple has committed to spending a record $10.5 billion on new manufacturing technology, according to a new report. Apple outspends all of its competitors to get exclusive deals on unique machinery that is needed for its product designs. 

The Retina iPad mini suddenly went on sale this morning, and the device’s benchmarks have been posted online. Apple chose to put the same 64-bit A7 processor in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and new iPad mini. The result is a hardly noticeable change in performance across the three devices.

Apple is currently developing multiple iPhone models with larger screens and curved displays for release later in 2014, according to a new report from Bloomberg. While reports from other publications have previously said that Apple is working on larger screen sizes, this is the first report that says Apple is working on curved glass displays for the iPhone.

Not only are new display designs in the works, but the company is developing “enhanced sensors that can detect different levels of pressure,” according to the report.

Alongside a few MacBook-related updates and a fix for Gmail in Mail, Apple has released its first update to iBooks for Mac today in Mavericks. Version 1.0.1 addresses “bug fixes and improvements to performance and stability,” according to Apple. It can be downloaded now in the Mac App Store.

iBooks for Mac hasn’t been particularly buggy, but this first update should fix many of the glitches with slow animations and other minor hiccups that have been affecting the app.

Source: Apple

Has using Gmail in Apple’s default Mail app on OS X Mavericks been nearly unbearable? If you’re like me, your inbox rarely fetches new mail or completely skips downloading certain messages at random. Deleting emails from my Gmail account in Mail has also been incredibly frustrating, as they magically reappear three to four times in my inbox after I delete them. My unread message count is almost always inaccurate as well.

Today Apple finally released an update to the Mail app in the Mac App Store that is supposed to fix all of the problems with Gmail. Hallelujah!

Have you ever wondered what it takes to design a great iOS app? The first edition of The App Design Handbook by Nathan Barry was made with iOS 6 in mind, and now the second edition is out, and it’s completely tailored for iOS 7.

Apple Design Award-winner Jeremy Olson has helped Barry update the book this time around and add additional resources, like video interviews with top designers. Written practically and simply, The App Design Handbook is a fantastic resource for novice and experienced app designers alike.

Today Pebble announced full support for iOS 7’s Notification Center and low-energy Bluetooth 4.0. In the past, you could only get push notifications from a limited number of iOS apps related to messaging, like Messages and Mail. Now, thanks to iOS 7, all third-party apps can send notifications directly to the Pebble with ease.

Any apps that you’ve enabled banner notifications for in iOS 7 will automatically push updates to the Pebble watch. But that’s not all; Pebble has announced some interesting partners and new tools for developers to make better apps on the platform.

In a rare move, Apple has announced upcoming features it plans to add back to its iWork productivity suite on the Mac. Following the release of the redesigned iWork apps last month, many users complained about how Apple had removed features from past versions. Pages 5 was even called an “unmitigated disaster” by some.

Features from iWork ’09 that are no longer present will be added back to Pages, Keynote, and Numbers in the coming months, according to Apple. “Brand new features” will also be added “on an ongoing basis” through updates in the Mac App Store.

Everpix, the young photo storage startup that aimed to solve your Photo Stream woes, is no more. Due to a lack of revenue and the inability to scale, the company’s founders announced today that the service will be shutting down in the coming weeks.

Apple has published a new report outlining the different kind of government requests it has received for its customers’ personal data. The report breaks down the number of customer account and device requests from different governments around the world, and the U.S. unsurprisingly leads the pack with the number of requests for each area.

Today Twelve South unveiled its new BookBook Travel Journal for the iPad, a leather-bound traveling case that has the vintage look Twelve South is known for. While the outside has the appearance of an old book, the inside of the case allows for storing headphones, cables, and other accessories.

Originally unveiled at Apple’s last iPhone media event, the Nike+ Move app has been released in the App Store for the iPhone 5s. The app utilizes the latest iPhone’s M7 co-processor to track the user’s physical activity and display it as NikeFuel, the same system used for Nike’s FuelBand.

Apple is continuing to build its manufacturing presence in the U.S. with a new plant in Mesa, Arizona. The project is projected to bring 2,000 local jobs and the building will be completely powered by renewable energy.

Sapphire glass will be made at the Mesa plant in conjunction with GT Advanced Technologies. Apple uses sapphire—a material that is incredible durable—in small parts of the iPhone, like the protective glass over the camera sensor. The Touch ID sensor in the iPhone 5s is also made of sapphire.

Western Digital has been emailing customers and warning them about hard drives “experiencing data loss when updating to Apple’s OS X Mavericks.” The problem seems to effect multiple kinds of drives, including the company’s popular MyBook lineup.

According to Western Digital, the incompatibility with Mavericks isn’t a hardware-level issue, but something to do with the software that is shipped with the drives it sells.

When the iPad Air went on sale, it was discovered that T-Mobile was offering 200MB of free data per month to customers who bought the tablet on its network. What a steal! On top of that, you can walk into T-Mobile and pay $0-down for a 16GB iPad Air. T-Mobile all of a sudden looked like a much more attractive carrier choice.

But if you think you can just walk into a T-Mobile store, pay nothing up front, and walk out with a new iPad and free data plan, you are sadly mistaken.

While Apple hasn’t released any official sales numbers for the iPad Air yet, AT&T is reporting that it saw over a 200% increase in iPad activations during the last three days.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has written an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing in favor of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a proposed piece of U.S. legislation that protects against sexual identity and gender discrimination in the workplace. Cook occasionally gives media interviews, but him writing something like an op-ed out from under the umbrella of Apple is pretty significant.

The iPhone just became much more cost-friendly in the second largest wireless market in the world. India’s third largest carrier, Reliance Communications, has started selling the iPhone 5c and 5s with a two-year contract. Indian customers have previously only been able to purchase the iPhone for its full, unsubsidized price off contract.

India is a key emerging market for Apple, and this move could significantly bolster iPhone sales in the country if it catches on at other Indian carriers.

For the first time in the country’s history, Turkey has an Apple online store. Apple’s full lineup of newest products is available except for the iPad Air and Retina mini—both should be available as the international rollout continues in the coming months.

Apple is expected to open its first retail store in Istanbul, Turkey next year. Apple executives recently flew to Turkey to discuss the country’s multi-billion dollar tablet initiative for schools.

Thanks: Sihirli