Apple is in the middle of negotiations to launch an iPhone 5S with LTE-Advanced technology on SK Telecom, according to an unnamed executive for the Korean carrier. The news comes just days after Samsung announced a new Galaxy S4 variant with LTE-Advanced, which is an upgraded version of LTE that promises faster data speeds.
HP famously gave up on its smartphone and tablet business back in 2011 when it announced that it would no longer be developing hardware powered by its webOS platform. But two years later, the company is planning to have another crack at it.
Yam Su Yin, HP’s Senior Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets, has confirmed that the company is already working on a new smartphone — one that will deliver a unique experience that you won’t get from its rivals.
Apple has applied for the “iWatch” trademark in Japan following months of speculation that has claimed the company will launch its first smartwatch later this year. According to the June 3 filing with the Japan Patent Office, which was spotted by Bloomberg, the iWatch name will cover products including “a handheld computer or watch device.”
Apple is stil the top smartphone maker in the U.S. according to the latest quarterly report from comScore. While HTC, Motorola, and LTG continued to lose marketshare in the U.S. over the last three months, Apple and Samsung have continued to outpace the competition.
As of May 2013, comScore found that the iPhone now accounts for 39.2% of the U.S. smartphone marketshare. Even though Apple has the lead in hardware, Android is still the top ranking smartphone platform in the U.S. with 52.4 percent market share.
Here’s how Apple stacks up against the competition:
While the iPhone has been slowly making its way to carriers all over the world since its release in 2007, there are still a number of major operators that are yet to offer it. One of those is China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier with over 800 million subscribers; and another is DoCoMo, a Japanese carrier that serves almost half of the country’s mobile market.
But DoCoMo isn’t at all concerned, even though it’s losing customers to other carriers that do offer Apple’s device. A company executive has acknowledged that the iPhone is an “attractive” device, but points out that it also comes with some disadvantages, and insists that the latest Android-powered offerings are just as good.
Apple has lost its bid to add the new Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent lawsuit against Samsung. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal said that adding yet another device to the case is a “tax on the court’s resources,” and that it takes time away from other parties who require the court’s attention.
Apple has added a new promotional page to its website for iOS 7, targeting business users who will be using iPhones and iPads in a professional capacity. “iOS 7 offers more advanced ways to deploy devices and deliver a great user experience for your employees,” the Cupertino company says, before highlighting the many ways in which iOS 7 can benefit business users.
The iPhone 5 has been branded the “slowest smartphone” by Which? magazine after going up against its latest rivals in a group of tests that evaluate processing power and graphics capabilities. The Galaxy S4, Samsung’s latest Android-powered flagship, came out top in the tests, with a rating almost double that of the iPhone’s.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reached a deal with Apple to supply its next-generation A8, A9, and A9X processors for iOS devices, according to industry sources. The company will reportedly begin manufacturing the chips using a 20-nanometer process, then upgrade to 16-nanometer and later 10-nanometer processes in the future.
A Tokyo court has today found Samsung guilty of infringing an Apple “bounce-back” or “rubber banding” patent that covers the popular scrolling feature built into its iOS platform. Apple has been using the patent against Samsung in a number of courtrooms all over the world, but back in April, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office deemed it invalid.
NEC became the world’s first and only smartphone manufacturer to launch a liquid-cooled handset back in May, but it may quickly lose that claim later this year. According to some sources, a number of high-profile smartphones makers, including Apple, Samsung, and HTC, will be launching their own liquid-cooled devices in the fourth quarter.
If Apple is going to update the iPad mini with a Retina Display a year after it’s debut, they need to get cracking on sourcing the 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, 7.9-inch displays that will drive them. Now a new rumor suggests that Apple has contracted good ol’ frenemy Samsung to make them for them.
While competing smartphone manufacturers are producing devices in a whole host of different sizes, Apple’s iPhone has had only two screen sizes in its six-year history. But according to four sources with knowledge of Apple’s plans, who have been speaking to Reuters, the Cupertino company is “considering” iPhones with 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch displays.
It is also said to be working on a cheaper iPhone that will come in a range of different colors.
At a glance, Apple’s latest MacBook Air notebooks appear identical to their predecessors, but when you take a look under the hood, there are some obvious differences. Not only do they boast Intel’s latest Haswell processors, but they also have larger capacity batteries and smaller solid-state flash drives.
The New York Attorney General has called for Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft to invent new ways to curb the ongoing smartphone theft “epidemic.” Eric Schneiderman wants meetings with representatives from all four companies, and he has urged them to “be as innovative in solving this problem as they have been in designing devices that have reshaped how we live.”
Time Warner Cable is in talks with Apple to sign a video streaming deal for some of its content. After the successful launch of its TWC TV app on Roku devices this past March, Time Warner Cable announced that it’s trying to get ink more deals.
Speaking at an investors conference in London on June 4, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt told investors that the company wants to strike deals with Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung:
According to the latest report on smartphone subscriber market share from comScore, Apple still tops out over Samsung for market dominance, with both companies showing decent gains. HTC, Motorola, and LG are also in the top five smartphone makers, but lost market share this past quarter.
Following a win by Samsung in the International Trade Court claiming that older Apple devices violate one of its patents, the ITC has issued an import ban on iPhone 4, iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G devices that run on the AT&T network.
Google Play will overtake the App Store’s recently celebrated 50 billion downloads and become the most popular app platform in the world within months, according to a new report from Distimo. Driven by popular devices from Samsung, Google Play is currently seeing over 500 million more app downloads per month.
Android rules the worldwide smartphone market when it comes to market share, and its dominance in China could have a lot to do with that. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, Google’s platform claimed a whopping 51.4% share of all smartphones owned in China.
We’ve already brought you some of the most interesting topics that came up during Tim Cook’s interview at D11 last night, but if you’d like to watch the entire thing yourself, you can do so right now. AllThingsD has posted the entire thing — which runs for one hour and 20 minutes — online this morning, and you can watch it below.
Analysts have been trying to convince Apple for some time that it needs a range of iPhones to better compete with rivals like Samsung, but CEO Tim Cook doesn’t agree.
During his interview at D11 last night, Cook explained to Walt Mossberg that Apple doesn’t want to become “defocused” with multiple iPhone lines. He did suggest, however, that the Cupertino company may address different consumer needs in the future.
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Apple began adding the Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement case against Samsung last week, and it has now specified five patents which it believes the device is breaching. The Cupertino company has also taken aim at Google Now, which allegedly infringes its unified search patent.
U.S. Senator Rob Portman from Ohio has just raised a fascinating point at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc.
The American corporate tax system is so broken that Apple is at a competitive disadvantage against Samsung when it comes to the taxes it pays globally, and how easily it moves its money around.