Alex Heath - page 58

Last summer, Apple won the biggest patent lawsuit in history against Samsung. After a long and tedious hearing, a California court ruled that Samsung had infringed on seven of Apple’s design patents. The jury for the trial decided that Samsung had willfully infringed five of the patents, which basically means that Samsung knew what it was doing when it tried to steal Apple’s mojo.

Samsung challenged the verdict, and Judge Lucy Koh has now ruled that Apple’s patents weren’t willfully infringed upon. This will save Samsung from having to pay Apple up to triple in damages on top of the $1+ billion it already owes.

This doesn’t mean that the case is over. There are still plenty of appeals to be made, and “Apple will presumably move at some point for an award of ongoing royalties for future use of its patents by Samsung,” according to FOSS Patents.

Source: FOSS Patents

It can be easy to get “unlocking” and “jailbreaking” confused, but the two terms mean totally different things. Unlocking refers to freeing your phone to work on any carrier instead of just the one you bought it on. Jailbreaking is the process of circumventing Apple’s security measures in iOS to install tweaks, hacks, and mods that aren’t allowed in the App Store.

The U.S. Library of Congress has ruled that it is now illegal for you to unlock your smartphone if it was bought after January 26th, 2013. Carriers can still legally unlock your device for you, but it’s illegal to go through a third-party unlock vendor.

Jailbreaking your iPhone has been kept legal through 2015 under an exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The crazy catch is that jailbreaking the iPad has technically been made illegal, while the iPhone and iPod touch both remain exempt. So jailbreaking is safe mostly, but unofficial unlocking is not. This is important to mention as the iOS 6.1 jailbreak approaches.

Keeping up with the U.S. legal system is very confusing, so what does all this unlocking and jailbreaking legal jargon mean for you?

Apple and the U.S. carriers have always had a bittersweet relationship. Carriers love Apple because the iPhone brings people into their stores, but carriers are also pressured by Apple to pay high subsidies so that Apple can maintain its high profit margins.

Given that there’s way more competition for the iPhone these days, Apple’s chokehold on the industry is starting to loosen. Carriers are trying new business models for selling smartphones. T-Mobile recently announced that it would be doing away with subsidized two-year contracts altogether. Instead, customers will pay a cheaper price up front for a device like the iPhone and then pay monthly installments towards the full price of the phone.

Carriers want to drive retail prices down on smartphones so more people will buy, and Apple may have to adapt to that model in the near future.

Apple is all about the iCloud these days, and Microsoft is also betting on the cloud with its new Office productivity suite. Today Microsoft announced the availability of Office 365, its new paid subscription service for accessing and editing your content from any computer via the Office website. Office 365 also lets you install the Office suite on up to five PCs or Macs.

Office 2013 has also been released for Windows machines. Mac users are still stuck on Office 2011.

Perhaps you’ve been combing through iOS 6.1 on your iOS device looking for the little changes that Apple hasn’t mentioned. A couple of our readers certainly have. One little change is pretty easy to spot: the lockscreen music controls have been redesigned with an aluminum finish.

Now we’re well aware that this tweak came in the first iOS 6.1 developer beta back in November, but for the many of you who just got 6.1 today, this is something totally new.

It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s nice to see that Apple is still interested in making smaller aesthetic changes to iOS on a regular basis.

Thanks: @RazrMann

George Hotz is known to his legions of online fans as “geohot,” the infamous hacker who was the first to unlock the iPhone and crack the Sony PS3. Hotz has been flying under the radar lately, but he’s about to make his first foray into the App Store with a new iPhone app.

The app is called Reactions, and it’s currently being reviewed by Apple. The idea is relatively simple, and it has the potential to either be a massive flop or make it big. It’s photo sharing with a twist.

You’ve probably seen quite a few headlines today about Twitter’s new Vine iPhone app displaying pornography. Vine went live in the App Store last week, and the video sharing service has garnered quite a bit of attention due to its parent company, Twitter.

Vine was made an Editors’ Choice by Apple in the App Store, but the app has been de-promoted following all the porn hubbub. Apple has yet to give an official comment on the issue or pull Vine from the App Store completely.

What does all this mean for Vine, and more importantly, the App Store’s policies on porn?

Last week Twitter released Vine, an iPhone app that’s kinda like the Instagram of video. You take a 6-second video and share it in your feed. It’s a pretty simple idea, and Facebook just coincidentally added the ability to shoot video in its official iOS app.

A new update to Facebook’s app also adds the ability to send audio messages to your friends. The app’s nearby tab has also been redesigned.

iOS 6.1 was suddenly unleashed on the world this afternoon, and the update includes some minor updates. There’s Fandango movie ticket purchasing through Siri, LTE support for a dozens of new carriers, individual song downloading with iTunes Match, and more.

A small but notable change in 6.1 is the re-promotion of Passbook-enabled App Store apps in Passbook itself.

Jailbreaking your iPhone gives you the ability to tweak and customize nearly every facet of iOS, but new jailbreaks are few and far between these days. For example, there still hasn’t been a full jailbreak for iOS 6 from last summer, although one is on the distant horizon.

People jailbreak their iPhones for all sorts of reasons, whether it be free tethering, themes, or quick access to settings. The most common reason to jailbreak is actually more of a philosophy. There are millions of iPhone owners out there who want to be able to have greater control over their iOS experience. What if you want to hide stock apps you don’t use, or even just get rid of your carrier logo?

Fortunately, you can actually do those last two things on a non-jailbroken iPhone with relative ease, and here’s how:

Reviews of the new JOBS movie starring Ashton Kutcher are mixed, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s sentiments about the film are certainly not. After the first clip of JOBS surfaced, Woz was quick to say that the scene portrayed never actually happened. That isn’t a surprise considering how Hollywood reconstructs history for narrative’s sake, but Woz’s also said that the portrayed personalities were “very wrong.”

Now it has been revealed that the makers of JOBS approached Woz to help with the project in its early stages, but he turned them down because the script was total “crap.”

Apple has released its fifth beta for iOS 6.1 to registered developers. Since the fourth beta was set to expire Monday, we were expecting Apple to seed a new release yesterday or Monday. Instead, the company has uncharacteristically seeded the new software on a Saturday. iOS 6.1 beta 4 was seeded on December 17th, 2012.

Everyone has been expecting the final iOS 6.1 GM build to arrive any day now, but Apple is still obviously pushing out betas. When the GM version does come out for devs, then a public release is not far behind.

A beta version of iOS has never gone past 7 beta revisions in years, and each version is usually about a month apart. That would put 6.1 on track for hitting beta 7 sometime around March, which happens to be around the time that Apple usually holds a press event.

Thanks: Sentry

Back in 2011, an app called iMAME surfaced in the App Store that allowed you to run thousands of classic arcade titles by sideloading the games onto an iOS device. Apple has never really allowed emulators in the App Store, and iMAME was swiftly pulled.

Now another app has crept into the App Store that allows you to emulate old games. It likely won’t be in the App Store long, so get it while you can!

Sometimes you see product concepts that straight blow your mind or make you scratch your head. The UpperCup does both.

This iPhone case comes from Amsterdam-based company Natwerk, and the creators are trying to raise $25,000 on Indiegogo to begin production. It will retail for $35, and backers get $5 off.

Source: UpperCup

The first movie made about Steve Jobs after his death, JOBS starring Ashton Kutcher, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last night. The movie has been generating a lot of buzz for the past several months, and a teaser clip was aired earlier this week. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak quickly called the clip out for its historical inaccuracy.

Anything that closely examines Steve Jobs’s life is bound to be controversial, and this movie has had a storm of anticipation swirling about it for quite some time. Does Kutcher give Steve Jobs a portrayal that’s engaging, and more importantly, believable?

Samsung has gone before the Seoul Central District Court to ask to see Apple’s iOS source code. The goal of seeing the source code is to confirm whether Apple’s iOS 6 infringes on any of Samsung’s software patents. Yes, this is the same Samsung that Apple won $1 billion+ in damages against for patent infringement in U.S. court last year.

Since the innards of iOS are full of valuable company secrets, Apple has of course declined Samsung’s request, “calling it ridiculous.”

Apple couldn’t make enough iPad minis to feed demand last quarter, but it looks like supply constraints are starting to loosen. The iPad mini has been plagued with delayed shipping times in the Apple online store since its release in October of 2012.

Shipping estimates dropped to one week in early December, and now Apple is showing 3-5 day shipping times for new mini orders.

During its holiday earnings call earlier this week, Apple revealed that it sold a record-breaking 22.9 million iPads last quarter.

Source: Apple Store

Via: iPhoneinCanada

It’s hard to forget the day that Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil to become the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. But a lot has happened to Apple’s stock since August of 2011. AAPL has ridden a chaotic roller coaster on the stock market. After announcing a record holiday quarter Wednesday with $54.5 billion in revenue and $13.1 billion in profits, AAPL dropped more than 10%. That’s more than $50 billion in market cap gone in a day. Poof.

Apple’s stock isn’t doing so hot, and after over a year in second place, today marks the day that Exxon Mobil dethroned Apple on Wall Street.

And that’s ok. This doesn’t mean that the company is doomed.

This morning we told you about how the iPad 5 will look a lot like an iPad mini with a 10-inch Retina display. iLounge’s report also said that Apple is preparing the rumored less-expensive iPhone to sell in China at a significantly cheaper price.

Now iLounge has shared some additional details regarding the iPhone 5S, namely that one of the next-gen device’s flagship features will be an upgraded camera. Apple’s internal code names for the iPad 5 and second-gen iPad mini have also been revealed.

An iOS 6 jailbreak has been in the works since Apple released the iPhone 5 last fall, and it’s taken a long time for hackers to crack the enhanced security measures in Apple’s latest mobile operating system. After many months, the pieces have finally been put together. There is a full jailbreak for Apple’s latest iOS devices, and iOS 6.1 is the key to unlocking it.

While the jailbreak could be released for everyone now, trusted hackers behind past jailbreaks are waiting to see if Apple squashes any of their exploits in the final version of 6.1. If the bugs that form the jailbreak are still working, the iOS 6 jailbreak will be unleashed on the world after 6.1’s release.

This morning we told you that the Steve ‘JOBS’ biopic starring Ashton Kutcher is hitting theaters April 19th, and now the first video clip from the movie has been released online. It features Kutcher as Jobs alongside Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak.

Twitter has released a new iPhone app in the App Store, and it’s called Vine. According to Twitter, “Vine is the best way to see and share life in motion. Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see.”

6-second clips can be uploaded to Twitter from the app, and you can play them back right in embedded tweets on the web and in Twitter’s official mobile apps.

2 million Apple TVs were bought in the last quarter, up 60% since this time last year.

During Apple’s earnings call today, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster asked Tim Cook about future Apple TV plans yet again. Munster has been beating the Apple HDTV drum for years now, and Tim Cook has been skirting questions for just as long. Something is definitely brewing.

Apple commented today on its poor Mac sales from this past holiday quarter. The company sold only 4.1 million Macs, missing Wall Street’s expectations and the previous quarter’s sales. Overall Mac sales are actually down 16% since this time last year. Ouch.

Tim Cook blamed the new iMac that Apple introduced in October 2012 for the poor performance. Supplies for the iMac were constrained overseas all quarter, and Apple didn’t start actually shipping orders until December. Shipping times have yet to reach normal estimates as Apple continues to catch up with demand.

The new iMac has an ultra-thin design and completely new display that is really difficult to make. Apple’s own innovation can occasionally be a thorn in its side.

During Apple’s Q1 2013 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook addressed recent reports regarding iPhone order supply cuts overseas. Publications like The Wall Street Journal recently claimed that Apple has significantly slowed iPhone production, causing rampant speculation that demand has been weakening. Apple’s stock has slid since the rumors started picking up steam earlier this month.

Today Cook threw cold water on the idea of Apple cutting its own orders.