Apple filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday, dropping its cross-appeal of Judge Lucy Koh’s verdict in its lawsuit against Samsung, and officially ending Apple’s pursuit of a product ban for the rival company.
Why make fun of existing Apple products when you could throw dirt on ones that haven’t come out yet? That’s Samsung’s latest approach in its newest TV ad titled “Screen Envy.”
There’s a line in 1990’s The Godfather: Part III when Al Pacino’s Michael describes his inability to extract his family from a life of crime, saying: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
Much the same could be said for Apple’s relationship with long-time chip supplier and bitter rival, Samsung. Having previously heard that Apple was handing the majority of the iPhone 6 chip orders to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), a new report suggests that TMSMC is now likely to lose future orders (most likely for the next-next generation iPhone 6s) back to Samsung.
KGI Securities analyst Michael Liu claims that TSMC will be supplanted by Samsung in the production of 14-nanometre A-series smartphone chips for Apple and Qualcomm, beginning in the second half of 2015.
The iPhone 5s is the number one smartphone in 35 countries around the world, according to new research conducted by Counterpoint Technology Market Research.
Samsung’s Galaxy S5 came in second followed by the S4, Note 3 phablet, and iPhone 5c at fifth place. With larger 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones on the horizon, Counterpoint notes that Apple will have another hit on its hands if it goes after the larger-screen smartphone market.
Back in 2012, Sharp’s Kameyama Plant No. 1 switched from making larger TV panels to smaller screens for smartphones. Apple became a key partner, and now the plant is at 90% capacity making displays for the iPhone 6.
You’d think that such strong business would keep Sharp happy, but that isn’t stopping the Japanese company from wanting to distance itself from Apple. The main thing Apple seems to be concerned with is that Sharp could end up doing business with Samsung instead.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has reportedly started shipping its first batch of iPhone and iPad microprocessors to Apple, according to sources familiar with the matter.
By making microprocessors for Apple, TSMC is taking over a role previously carried out by Samsung. Some skeptics had previously suggested that TSMC — which is the world’s biggest contract chipmaker in terms of revenue — wouldn’t be able to deliver the complex chips to Apple’s satisfaction.
Design questions aside, the true mystery about Apple’s long-rumored iWatch lies in exactly what types of health-related sensors the wearable might include. A recent report claims the iWatch will sport an astonishing 10 different sensors, including one for sweat.
While pedometers, accelerometers, thermometers and every other o-meter Jony Ive can get his hands on might all make sense for a smartwatch, we’re wondering what Apple could do with a sweat sensor? Other than verify that, yes, your sweat glands are pouring out more fluid per minute than Niagara Falls during your jog?
It turns out that adding sweat sensors would do more than differentiate the iWatch from smartwatches by LG, Motorola and Samsung right out of the gate. It could make the iWatch the most “personal” device you’ve ever shackled yourself to, with surprising applications that go far beyond fitness and health.
According to new research from market intelligence firm ABI Research, the iPhone was the world’s most popular smartphone in Q1 2014, leaving competitors in the dust as the top-selling handset globally.
Despite ripping off ideas, paying celebrities to endorse their products, and having a confusing matrix of dozens of smartphones on the market, Samsung was unable to capture the no. 1 spot from Cupertino — with Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s 16GB coming in at the premier position.
The iPhone 6 is poised to become the thinnest, lightest iPhone Apple’s ever made, but all that thinning might mean the iPhone still won’t be able to hold a charge for more than 10 hours.
Eight iterations of iPhones have been released and we’d love to see true all-day battery life added to the features list, but according to a report on the the iPhone 6’s battery, the thinification of the iPhone 6 means it will see minimal battery gains when it launches this fall.
The iPhone is far and away the most popular smartphone in the U.S., according to a new report by research firm ComScore. According to ComScore, 169 million cellphone users in the U.S. use smartphones — representing around 70 percent of all mobile users.
Of these, Apple can lay claim to 41.9 percent of users, while runner-up Samsung has captured 27.8 percent of the market. After Samsung, the numbers drop dramatically to 6.5 percent for LG, 6.3 percent for Motorola, and 5.1 percent for HTC.
It’s the iPhone’s battery life that gets attacked in Samsung’s newest TV ad for the Galaxy S5. With the tagline “don’t be a wall hugger,” the ad depicts iPhone owners in desperate need of a charge at the airport. We’ve all been there, sadly.
Galaxy S5 users walk about without a care in the world showing off the device’s powering saving mode (which basically makes it a dumb phone) and swappable battery. The ad itself is another attempt to make Samsung’s product look better than Apple’s by slinging mud, and it comes across just as petty as it did the last dozen times.
Apple’s first foray into wearables is expected to be revealed this October, but Apple’s not the only tech giant preparing a smartwatch for this fall: New rumors claim Microsoft has plans for its own wearable, only it won’t look anything like the big bulky bands we just saw at Google I/O.
We first got wind that Microsoft was readying its own iPhone-friendly smartwatch last month, but a report from Tom’s Hardware sheds new light on what the device will look like when it hits the market with an ungodly number of sensors.
Samsung wants to be one of the world’s top 10 places to work by 2020, but according to the latest third-party labor conditions report, working for the South Korean smartphone maker is still a horrible experience, especially if you’re one of its Chinese suppliers.
An audit of 100 of Samsung’s suppliers in China found issues like overtime, proper saftey gear and training are still prominent issues. You can read the full 69-page report on Samsung’s site, but here’s a quick rundown of the egregious conditions:
Samsung and GlobalFoundries have reportedly landed orders from Apple to produce the 14-nanometer A9 processor starting next year, according to DigiTimes.
These 14nm chips will be created in GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 factory in Malta, New York, which Samsung will also use to produce Apple’s A-series chips. DigiTimes’ source suggests that the two foundries plan to push their initial 14nm LPE (low power early) process — which was verified back in February — into risk production in Q4 this year, with small volume production in early 2015.
With Google showing off Android-powered wearables from Samsung, LG and Motorola at its Google I/O developers conference this week, the smartwatch competition has officially heated up.
The LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live will ship in early July, so Android Wear smartwatches will definitely beat Apple’s rumored iWatch to the market. In today’s video, Cult of Mac shows how these handy, Android-powered devices — which let users access smartphone features from the convenience of their wrists — set the bar high for the iWatch.
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From telling Tim Cook not to be dumb, to proclaiming himself the next Steve Jobs, Kanye West can always be trusted to chime in with a nuanced take on Apple business. Now the newly-married creative genius has offered his two cents on the reason behind Apple’s still-unexplained $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions festival, West says that last year’s collaboration between Jay Z and Samsung — in which 1 million Galaxy owners were able to pick up free copies of the rapper’s Magna Carta Holy Grail album — pushed Apple to acqui-hire Beats cofounders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. Claiming that Apple has lost touch with its culture since Jobs’ death in 2011, West thinks that the Beats deal allowed Apple to buy back some of the cultural relevance it has lost.
Apple’s Siri feature has been a crown jewel of iOS ever since it launched in 2011, but the company and the tech behind it might fall into the hands of Apple’s number one enemy – Samsung.
Nuance Communications is in discussions with a number of potential suitors looking to buy the company, and Samsung Electronics is at the top of the list, according to Wall Street Journal report that also names a few private-equity firms among the list of possible buyers, but Apple is nowhere to be found.
If you thought that round two of Apple vs. Samsung was the end, you are sadly mistaken.
Although Apple recently won $119 million in a second victory against Samsung in patent court, that modest figure is nowhere near enough to make Apple back down. Not only is Apple seeking a retrial, but it wants to ban past and potentially future Samsung phones from being sold.
Apple’s sapphire glass could be the biggest thing to hit the iPhone since Touch ID, and even though it hasn’t announced an iPhone 6 or iWatch with a Sapphire glass display yet, its chummy parasitic buddy Samsung is already looking for a way to copy.
Conventional wisdom is that while Beats has a lot of fashion credibility, the actual audio quality blows. So why does Apple want to buy them?
Rumors have swirled that it’s an acqui-hire, and that Apple wants Beats so that it can also own Beats executive Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, whose contacts in the music industry are unparalleled.
But there could be another reason, too. Apple might want to prevent Samsung from purchasing Beats.
Apple and Google may have declared a truce but the patent war with Samsung still rages across the Atlantic as an ongoing patent battle in the Dutch appeals court has upheld Apple’s plea for an injunction against sales of older Samsung Galaxy phones.
George Orwell once wrote that, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”
Yesterday we reported on the fact that Samsung and Apple were sitting down to negotiate an end to the ongoing litigation between the two companies — and unlike all the previous occasions, this time the plan was to make it stick.
Well, one day later, and talks between the two warring factions are reportedly breaking down — as lawyers from both sides express difficulty working with each other. What is seemingly particularly grinding gears in the Apple camp are statements made by Samsung’s top lawyer, referring to the protracted lawsuit as “Apple’s Vietnam” and Apple as “jihadist.”
The iPhone has hit a new all-time high when it comes to market share in Japan: representing a massive 36.6% of all Japanese smartphones in the first quarter of 2014.
This increase, which is up from last year’s 25.5%, was driven by Apple’s deal with NTT DoCoMo, a.k.a. Japan’s largest carrier. Apple launched the iPhone 5s and 5c with NTT DoCoMo back in September, and sales have been rocketing upwards ever since. Sales have proven so good, in fact, that Apple recently moved Doug Beck, chief of sales for Japan and Korea, over to handle the North American beat — where it is hoped he can apply some of the same sales mojo to increasing U.S. market share.
Critics slammed Steve Jobs when he opened the first Apple Store nearly 13 years ago, but now that Apple’s retail space makes more money per square foot than Tiffany’s, everyone from Samsung to Microsoft has been trying to duplicate Apple’s success.
To see just how quickly Apple Stores have invaded the U.S., Retale created an interactive map that plots each new store opening since 2001. Each blue dot in the GIF above represents a new store opening, starting with the original Apple Store in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
254 Apple Stores now dot the country with an additional 170 outlets open internationally, but six sad states in U.S. are still waiting for their first Apple shrines to open. Check out Retale’s site for a full breakdown on when each store opened and the flagship products that brought customers into Steve’s aluminum and glass utopias.
Think Apple is free from Samsung after defeating it yet again in court for flat out copying the iPhone infringing on several Apple patents? Think again!
In fact, when it comes to the iPad Apple is more reliant on Samsung than ever, according to a new report which suggests that the South Korean tech giant became the largest supplier of iPad displays in the first quarter of 2014.