Ed Sutherland - page 58

The next time you try to explain how your invention is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you may want to use the iPhone as comparison, instead. Turns out the iPhone ranks No. 8 in a UK consumer survey of the 100 most important inventions, far outdistancing sliced bread at No. 70.

The iPhone, which has been around just since 2007, beat out even everyday conveniences as the flushing toilet, painkillers and cars. Penicillin slipped in just ahead of Apple’s handset with the wheel, the airplane and the light bulb deemed the three best inventions. The Cupertino, Calif. company should take comfort that the Android cell phone operating system didn’t make the list and Internet giant Google ranks No. 25, behind toilet paper, vacuum cleaners and trains.

As we count down to Apple possibly announcing Verizon as a U.S. iPhone carrier and debate what such a move might mean to the current exclusive iPhone carrier AT&T, the head of that carrier weighed in on why a Verizon iPhone deal isn’t keeping him awake at night. CEO Ralph de la Vega told analysts at Wednesday’s JP Morgan tech conference that many iPhone owners likely will find it too difficult to switch to Verizon.

According to de la Vega, 70 percent of AT&T customers are tied to a family plan, which could make it exceedingly difficult to jump ship. Another segment of customers — those on corporate discount plans — account for 40 percent of AT&T subscribers.

In a world where smartphones are increasingly more popular than standard cell phones, Apple and Android appear to be the names most on the move, new research indicates. Apple’s OS now powers 15.4 percent of global smartphones, while Google’s Android has 9.6 percent of the market, overtaking Microsoft Windows Mobile while increasing from last year’s 1.6 percent of smartphone operating systems used.

According to Gartner, global iPhone sales rose 112 percent for the first quarter of 2010, compared to 10.5 percent for the same period in 2009. Even in the larger cell phone market, the Cupertino, Calif. company places No.7 with 2.7 percent, behind Motorola by just three-tenths of one percent.

We start out another week with a new crop of App Store deals. First up is the latest App Store freebies, including “Turn the World,” a puzzle game. A memorization puzzle game, “Mindshapes” leads off the iPad app price cuts. Finally, we round out our featured deals with an Apple Store offer: 8GB iPod nano for $99.

Details on these and many other items ( such as unibody MacBook Pros starting at $929) are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Little doubt remains that Apple will introduce its next-generation iPhone next month. The latest evidence: a report that Apple’s key iPhone supplier is set to ship at least 24 million iPhone 4Gs this year, starting in June. Many believe Apple will unveil the new iPhone at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference June 7.

According to Tiawan’s Digitimes, Foxconn will ship 4.5 million iPhone 4Gs in the first half of 2010, with 19.5 million devices ready for the remainder of this year. If correct, the shipping timetable would resemble the iPad, where Apple first pushed the tablet device out in limited quantities, then opened the flood-gate as manufacturing increased.

The first sales figures of magazines testing the iPad are coming in and so far they are muted. Conde Nast says it has sold 365 iPad editions of the December 2009 Men of the Year issue, so far.

“This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage,” GQ vice president of publishing Pete Hunsinger told reporters. “Everything is profit, and I look forward to the time when iPad issue sales become a major component to our circulation,” he added. GQ, which began selling the iPad version in April, sees the period as a testing phase, where the publisher can test the waters on pricing, advertising and ways to offer a digital version of the print publication.

Details are now emerging about how closely-involved Apple’s co-founder became during the search for a stolen next-generation iPhone that later was splashed across the front page of a prominent gadget blog. According to court records released Friday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contacted the site around April 19, asking for the phone’s return.

Soon afterwards, Gizmodo editor Brian Lam e-mailed Jobs, telling him the blog would return the device only after Apple acknowledged it came from the Cupertino, Calif. company. A letter asking for the return of “a device that belongs to Apple” was sent to Lam by Apple attorney George Riley. Talking with lead San Mateo County Sheriff’s investigator Detective Matthew Broad, the lawyer had said the prototype’s return was “invaluable” and the potential damage from its loss “was huge,” according to an affidavit.

We wrap up another week of deals with a trio of free, or next-to-free items. First up is a new batch of App Store freebies, including “Extreme ExposeIt! Awesome Ford Mustangs 2005-2010!” (Liberal use of exclamation marks also apparently thrown in for free.) Next is an acrylic case for your iPhone for under a half-buck. Finally is Pollux for the Mac, a music organization assistant for $7.

Along the way, we’ll also check out various gadgets that caught our eye. As always, details on these and many other bargains can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

British telecom company BT is readying a device similar to the iPad, but executives were reticent to compare it to Apple’s tablet device. BT CEO Ian Livingston told The Guardian newspaper the unnamed device is seen as a touchscreen telephone for the home.

“Someone else made a reference to it being a bit like the iPad but it is not,” Livingston said. “It is a different size and shape apart from anything else, but it is meant to stay in the home,” he added.

There’s nothing like a lawsuit to start the morning. The U.S. International Trade Commission announced Thursday night it would investigate Apple’s claims of patent infringement against Kodak. On April 15, the Cupertino, Calif. company alleged the imaging company violated two patents involving digital imaging and digital cameras.

The trade body said it would announce in 45 days when it expects to complete the investigation. Last month, Apple alleged Kodak violated Patent No. 6,031,964: a system and method for using a unified memory architecture to implement a digital camera device; and Patent RE38,911: modular digital image processing via an image processing chain with modifiable parameter controls.

In February, the trade court began investigating Kodak’s claim against Apple. Kodak claims the iPhone infringed upon a patent allowing other applications to “ask for help” in executing certain features.

[via 9to5Mac]

We start out with another deal on Core 2 Duo iMacs, including a 22-inch desktop machine with a 3.06GHz processor for $999. Also on tap: a 2.53GHz Core 2 Dup MacBook Pro with AppleCare for $1,699. Our final top deal is the Mac Box Set, including Mac OS X 10.6, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 for $119.

As always, details on these and many other items (such as a Metallic Stripe hard case for the iPhone) are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

In a double-barreled response to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ objections to Flash, Adobe’s cofounders released a public letter rebuking the Cupertino, Calif. company for undermining the Web while releasing a new advertising campaign marked by a tough love message.

Adobe cofounders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, in an open letter, charged no “single company” should control the Web.

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Wednesday filed a countersuit against Apple, asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to stop imports of key products sold by the Cupertino, Calif. company. The complaint, while centering on five patents, is the latest skirmish in a proxy war between Apple and Google.

“We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones,” Jason Mackenzie, HTC’s vice president of North America, said in a statement. In March, Apple sued HTC, claiming the handset maker infringed 20 iPhone patents. One analyst said the move was a “warning shot” for rivals building handsets aimed at the iPhone. The ITC soon announced it had begun investigating Apple’s claims.

Walmart may offer Apple’s iPad later this year as part of newly-expanded electronics sales. While the move could boost sales of the tablet device, talk of the world’s largest retailer spotlighting the iPad comes amid concerns Apple already is having trouble staying ahead of demand.

“We anticipate being able to have the iPad later this year,” Gary Stevenson, Walmart U.S. vice-president of entertainment, told Bloomberg. Although retail giant Best Buy already offers the device, Apple officially has yet to announce any retail partners for the iPad.

We start off with another deal on Apple’s newly-refreshed line of MacBook Pros. This deal spotlights a 27-inch iMac sporting Intel’s i7 processor running at 2.8GHz. ExperCom also added 8GB of RAM and AppleCare, all for $2,379. Also on tap: a new batch of iPhones, including an 8GB iPhone 3G for $49. Finally, a day of dealing wouldn’t be complete with the latest round of freebies from the App Store, including “KapselRacer,” billed as a bottlecap racing game.

As usual, we also have a number of other items, including new iPod speakers, the latest deals on iTunes albums and more. Details on these and many more bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

When you have deep pockets, you’re likely to be the target of lawsuits. That maxim has never been more true than with Apple. A week after Nokia again sued the Cupertino, Calif. company, a graphics display outfit in Washington State has sued Apple, claiming the iPhone infringes its patents on scaling web graphics to mobile devices.

Patent No. 7461353, entitled “Scalable Display of Internet Content on Mobile Devices,” mentions many iPhone-centric features, including manipulating the size of on-screen graphics. “Mobile devices enabled to support resolution-independent scalable display of internet (Web) content to allow Web pages to be scaled (zoomed) and panned for better viewing on smaller screen sizes.”

Verizon and Google are reportedly working together on a tablet device designed to rival Apple’s iPad. Although few details were provided, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam told the Wall Street Journal the device would leverage Google’s large library of content.

“We’re looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience,” McAdam told the newspaper. While Google’s Android was not mentioned, Verizon has heavily used the cell phone operating system to compete with Apple’s iPhone. In a similar vein, the Verizon executive admitted the carrier is behind rival AT&T in providing U.S. 3G coverage for the iPad, but said his company will have the majority of its 4G network up by the end of 2010.

McAdams also embraced the concept of tiered-pricing, where heavier users pay more. “The old model of one price plan per device is going to fall away,” he told the paper. AT&T currently offers unlimited data plans for the iPad.

The CEO’s comments come amid speculation Verizon’s CDMA network could gain access to a new iPhone later this year. Verizon’s long-time advertising company reportedly is developing a campaign possibly in preparation of the release of Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone.

[via AppleInsider and Wall Street Journal]

We start out with another deal on iPod touch – an 8GB iPod touch kit from Walmart. Also on tap are a 24-inch Cinema HD Widescreen LED display and the latest App Store price drops, including “Spike’s Deadliest Warrior: Defend and Conquer” game.

As always, details on these and many other Mac-related bargains are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page, which starts right after this jump.

The recent update of Apple’s line of MacBook Pro computers will help the Cupertino, Calif. computer maker have its third consecutive 20 percent gain in quarterly Mac sales, an analyst told investors Tuesday.

“Mac momentum is strong, helped by a recent significant refresh of the MacBook Pro to new Intel Arrandale processors,” Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. wrote. Along with a better price, Wu cited “an industry best 8-10 hours of battery life.”

AT&T may not be too concerned about chatter Verizon could be added to the list of U.S. carriers offering Apple’s iPhone. The Dallas-based carrier may have an insurance policy of sorts in the form of a deal with Apple hammered out in 2007, making AT&T the sole U.S. iPhone carrier through 2012, according to a report by Engadget.

Although much of an antimonopoly lawsuit against AT&T and Apple remains sealed, the gadget blog uncovered testimony from the Cupertino, Calif. company agreeing with a 2007 USA Today report saying the consumer device giant and carrier had signed a five-year exclusivity arrangement amid the unveiling of the first iPhone. Verizon, now in the news as a potential addition to AT&T, rejected the original deal, according to the newspaper.

The horse race between the iPhone and Android just gets muddier. The latest spec on the lens is a new study from retail sales analysts at NPD Group. In the U.S., Google’s mobile phone software is ahead of Apple’s iconic handset, NPD announced Monday. Android led Apple 28 percent to 21 percent, with RIM’s BlackBerry still leading with 36 percent, according to the research firm.

But didn’t comScore announce recently the exact opposite: Apple had 25 percent of the market and Android was still in single-digits with 9 percent of U.S. smartphones? How can Apple both lead and trail Google? “It’s entirely reasonable,” comScore’s Andrew Lipsman told the Wall Street Journal.

We close out another week with a deal on a refurbished 2.16GHz MacBook Pro with 17-inch screen for $899. Also at the top of our list: 3 percent off an iMac 22-inch or 27-inch desktop computer, plus the latest batch of App Store freebies, including “Coolrado,” a 3D platforming game.

Along the way, we’ll check out other software for the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as bargains on various gadgets. Details on these and many more items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Nokia is again back in court, this time claiming Apple’s iPad and iPhone infringe five patents. The venue — a federal court in Wisconsin — has some people scratching their heads.

In its latest legal jab at the Cupertino, Calif. consumer electronics giant, Nokia alleges the patents involve “enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space, allowing smaller and more contact devices.”

Apple announced Friday the iPad will be available in nine more countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK May 28. International pre-orders for the iPad are set to begin Monday, May 10.

The next round of international launches are expected to be announced in July with the Cupertino, Calif. company selecting Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore.

One wouldn’t ordinarily mention “scalpers” and “Apple developers” in the same sentence, but this time it seems appropriate. The World Wide Developers Conference has sold out the 5,000-seat San Francisco, Calif. venue in just eight days. This, despite a series of limitations Apple imposed on this year’s event.

First, the Cupertino, Calif. company hiked the ticket price from $1295 to $1599. Then the June 7-11 dates were announced a month later than usual. Apple also froze out the Mac, focusing on the iPhone OS 4 and awarding only designers of iPhone and iPad apps.