Fresh from its purchase of the Nortel patent cache, Apple is in the hunt to purchase mobile technology owned by InterDigital. Cupertino “frenemies” Google and Samsung are also bidding, hoping Apple won’t lay claim to another piece of technology that Android is dependent upon.
Apple’s main mobile competitor, Android, isn’t exactly known for being the most secure platform. While Google’s ‘open’ mentality has proven beneficial in many ways for the Android OS, a non-curated system often leads to compromises in security.
We’ve already seen numerous malware programs surface on the Android OS, and the latest one is particularly villainous.
Earlier this year, a little Swedish company called C3 Technologies took CES by storm, demonstrating their incredible iOS and Android apps that leveraged formerly top secret missile targeting technology to create ultra-realistic 3D maps.
Fast forward seven months, and C3 Technologies’ website is a ghost town, and C3’s parent company, Saab, has sold off it’s 57.8% stake in the company in a deal that is worth over $157 million dollars.
So who bought them? Our best guess: Apple.
I’m sure you’re already aware by now that Spotify is finally available in the U.S., with over 13 million songs ready to stream on demand. But did you know that to accompany it there’s an awesome iOS app for listening to those millions of songs on the go? Spotify for iPhone is the first app in this week’s must-have roundup.
Coverjam Pro is another great app for music lovers that provides you with awesome slideshows of your favorite bands and artists while your listen to their music. It searches Instagram and Flickr for photos with the appropriate tags and aims to “enhance your listening pleasure.”
Google+ (yes, it finally hit the App Store!) is the official iPhone app to accompany Google’s latest social network, and “makes sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler,” with access to your Circles, Stream and Huddle.
Apple has just seemingly banned its first big name app for not playing along with Apple’s revised In-App Purchase rules, as Google’s official Google Books app, which contained a prominent web link to an outside e-store, has disappeared from the App Store. If it has happened to Google, will Amazon’s Kindle app be the next app to disappear?
Lodsys has gained plenty of fame (even infamy) in recent months for its continued pursuit of a number iOS and Android developers for their alleged infringement on patents that cover in-app purchases and upgrade links. Dissatisfied with its results so far, it now takes aim at some of the big names in gaming… but has Lodsys now bitten off more than it can chew?
Apple’s abundance of available cash is certainly no secret. With $76.2 billion in the bank at the end of the June quarter, the company has more money then the gross domestic product of almost two-thirds of the world’s countries. But what will it do with all that cash? Just sit on it in case of an (incredibly) rainy day?
Of course not. To begin with, it may just be about to buy Hulu.
A consortium that included Apple won an auction for a collection of Nortel patents earlier this month with a bid of $4.5 billion. According to the company’s 10-Q quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple’s contribution was a hefty $2.6 billion.
Google finally launched its highly-anticipated Google+ app for the iPhone yesterday, and the app has already climbed to the number one position in the App Store’s Top Free chart!
That’s an impressive amount of downloads for an app that’s still in an invite-only beta…
The wait is over! After two weeks stuck in the approval process, Apple has finally given the official stamp of approval on the native Google+ client for iPhone.
Since most companies’ mobile technology patent portfolios are woefully untested, now is a time of the survival of the fittest in the smartphone biosphere. Smartphone companies are suing each other to test the sharpness of their fangs and claws.
So imagine panther-like Apple with agate eyes stalking through the foliage, hunting the biomechanical wildebeest of Android OS. Now imagine, right before the panther sinks its fangs into the wildebeest’s flanks, the wildebeest suddenly rearing about and bleating: “You’re just jealous!”
Well, in real life, the wildebeest has bleated just that, and it came off as stupid as it sounds. According to Google chairman Eric Schmitd, Apple is suing HTC and other Android makers out of jealousy. Oh, right! And a lack of innovation.
On Friday, the U.S. International Trade Commission agreed with Apple and found that HTC’s smartphones infringed upon at least two patents.
The wound Apple has dealt HTC is not just a minor scratch, though. It’s a big victory, and it goes beyond just HTC. Apple may have just plunged its patent dagger right into Android’s achilles heel.
To accompany its upcoming photo sharing service, Google has just launched an official Photovine app for iOS which it dubs “a fun way to learn more about your friends, meet new people, and share your world like never before.”
Has Apple priced itself out of a potential $2.5 billion mobile ad market? As top-name advertisers flee iAd, the Cupertino, Calif. company cutting prices up to 70 percent. Is iAd in free fall?
Despite being accessible only to a select few for the time being, the official Google+ app for the iPhone will hit the App Store anytime soon — possibly before the service even goes public.
Have you noticed how Apple and Google have been going round in circles recently? Both OS X Lion and Google’s new Facebook challenger, Google+, sport circular frames around their user photos.
There’s a lot of truth in these Organizational Charts for various tech companies from Bonkers World.
Via Laughing Squid
Google launched its latest attempt at social networking yesterday dubbed Google+, a service which is said to focus on sharing content with groups of people that you place into “circles.” At the moment the service is available by invitation only, but by the time it goes public, there may be an official iPhone app for you to run it on.
By most accounts, Google’s new social network Google+ at least looks pretty good.
As it turns out, there’s a reason for that: it was designed by the guy who designed the original Macintosh.
Google’s just helped put another nail in Adobe Flash’s coffin. Their new tool is called Swiffy, and it allows you to easily convert simple SWF Flash animations and games into HTML5 compliant code, viewable and interactable on any iPhone or iPad.
Google’s just launched their biggest attack against Facebook yet with Google+, a new social networking service that emphasizes the sharing of content and updates to groups of people instead of Facebook’s universal wall spooge approach. But is Google+ destined to be just another wanna-be failure like Buzz and Orkut, or could it instead finally lead to Apple and Facebook to put their differences aside and strike a deal for iOS 6?
In an attempt to comply with pro-consumer laws, Apple is going to allow customers who mistakenly purchase an iOS app or get burned by a shoddy one the ability to get a refund within seven days of purchase. Don’t get too excited, though: you’ll have to live in Taiwan to take advantage of the revised return policy.
Remember back in April, when Steve Jobs replied to the overblown iPhone LocationGate mini-scandal by saying that it was Google who was tracking users, not Apple? As he often is, looks like Steve is right.
Speculation that Apple may build its own maps application into iOS 5 and ditch its partnership with Google has now been put to bed, after Google’s Executive Chairman confirmed the two companies are still buddies.
Apple’s iCloud music locker will not require users to laboriously upload all the music in their iTunes libraries, but will instead rely on “scan and match.”