Samsung - page 66

As you probably know, Apple and Samsung have been battling each other in court over a heated “copycat” lawsuit for awhile now. Apple accused Samsung of stealing the iPhone’s design for Samsung’s own series of smartphones, and Samsung has been retaliating with counterclaims.

Pretty standard stuff. What makes the legal battle between Apple and Samsung more interesting is that Apple has been using Samsung as an internal parts provider for the iPhone. Now that’s about to end. In the midst of this copycat legal battle, it appears that Apple is looking to give Samsung a swift kick to the gut by taking its $5 billion/year parts order business elsewhere.

Just as Apple recovers from the overwhelming launch demand of its iPad 2, one analyst says the company is preparing to release a second device before year end, with a high-resolution display dubbed the “iPad 2 Plus.”

In addition to a fancy new processor and Intel’s super speedy Thunderbolt technology, Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air may also boast the latest high-speed 400MBps flash memory.

Starting in 2012, if you want to see Samsung and Apple together, your best bet is in a courtroom. The two rivals’ “frenemy” status apparently has reached the breaking point, with a “deafening” roar of leaks indicating the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant will dumping Samsung built A5 and A6 processors as part of a larger purge that could completely eliminate the Korean manufacturer from Apple’s entire supply chain.

Apple might not have more money than God (yet), but come the end of this quarter, they are likely to have so much cash flowing from their coffers that, if they had a mind to, they could buy the entire mobile phone industry.

Don’t mess with Apple’s designs. That’s the message as the iPad and iPhone maker steps up its attacks on rival Samsung. As the two prepare to face off in court today, Apple has now amplified its verbiage, claiming that Samsung products “blatantly imitate” the iPhone and iPad’s sleek appearance. Earlier, the tech giant referred to Samsung as merely the “copyist.”

In what sounds more like a court case between a feuding couple than two tech rivals, The notoriously-secretive Apple reportedly described Samsung’s demand to get a peak at unannounced iPhones and iPads as “attempts to harass.”

Remember when Samsung announced that their then-upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb tablet would be a smidge thinner than the iPad 2? And remember when someone actually looked at the Galaxy Tab 10.1 prototypeand found out it was actually thicker than the iPad 2?

Confusing, right? But it’s about to get even more confusing: while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is just a hair thinner than the iPad 2 right now, Samsung will likely be forced to make it thicker than the iPad 2 in order to get around supply shortages. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will soon be both thicker and thinner than the iPad 2 at the same time!

Samsung just launched its new Samsung Galaxy Tab advert, and in addition to blatantly mocking the iPad for its lack of Flash support, it also concludes by claiming the device to be better at web videos, multitasking, and gaming.

Apple has begun certifying components from several Taiwan-based manufacturers for its upcoming iPad 3, but could the device be launching in 2011?

We knew this was going to happen. Stung by a judge’s recent decision to allow Apple to look through Samsung’s upcoming phones to look for IP violations, Samsung has just asked a judge in their own patent infringement case against Apple to make Cupertino fork over the prototypes of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3.

Remember yesterday’s sketchy report that Apple was looking to get Samsung to supply an AMOLED display for the iPad 3? So that’s not going to be happening, and it’s all because of the same problems that have plagued the tech from the start: the difficulty of ramping up large scale production on AMOLED displays.

One of the best attributes of Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone series is that beautiful AMOLED display, which could find its way into Apple’s third-generation iPad and finally deliver that Retina display iPad we’re all longing for. However, we’re skeptical Apple and Samsung will shake hands on this occasion.

Apple’s suing Samsung for copying the intellectual property of their iPhone, iPad and iOS designs. In return, Samsung’s suing Apple for patent infringement.

In the Apple vs. Samsung case, though, Apple has just won a weird little concession from the judge: they get to see five of Samsung’s unreleased tablets and smartphones. Can you imagine what would happen if Samsung got the same concession in their suit against Apple?

Apple’s domination of NAND flash is so complete that even when the industry figures out a way to greatly improve their efficiency, they’ve got to sit around and wait for Cupertino to approve it.

Despite Apple being their number one customer, Samsung’s done a healthy trade in ripping-off Cupertino’s gadgets and selling their own, often patent infringing doppelgangers… and with their new Series 9 ultraportable, Samsung now has the MacBook Air square in their sights.

In addition to unveiling a display today that could give the iPad 3 a Retina Display, Samsung has just debuted a new foldable AMOLED display that could be used to make your next iPad fit into your pocket, your next iPhone an iFlipPhone.

Samsung is preparing to launch a new 10.1-inch display next week which will boast a resolution of 2560 by 1600, making it the first ‘Retina’ display to be announced for tablets. But will it be making its way into the iPad 3?

Shipment delays to the iPad during the last quarter were reportedly due to light leakage issues with displays produced by LG, according to a DigiTimes report. Apple’s other supply partners were forced to increase their shipments this quarter to rectify the shortage.

During the first quarter, Samsung supplied a total of 4 million 9.7-inch iPad panels, outpacing its rival, LG, who only shipped 3.2 million. It is believed, however, that now LG’s light leakage issues have been resolved, it will increase its supply of displays during the second quarter.

Apple critics are accusing the company of ripping off Samsung, not the other way around. They say the Samsung F700, first shown at Cebit in 2006 and released in February 2007, is the inspiration for the iPhone, first shown at Macworld 2007 and released in June that year. LOL @ Apple: Suing someone you stole the design from to begin with.

UPDATE: It looks like the F700 was actually first announced in February 2007 — a month after Steve Jobs debuted the iPhone — and was released in December 2007, months after the iPhone’s debut. Worse, it was greeted with accusations of being a complete iPhone ripoff!

What do you think? Did Apple copy the iPhone from Samsung?

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Apple is suing Samsung for copying the look and feel of its iPhone and iPad, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The lawsuit claims several of Samsung’s smartphones and tablet — the Galaxy S 4G, Epic 4G, Nexus S and the Galaxy Tab — copy Apple’s intellectual property. The suit, filed last week in Northern California, claims:

“Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products,” the lawsuit said.

Of course, Samsung makes a lot of components for Apple’s products, from RAM used in MacBooks to flash memory used in the iPhone and iPad. It aslo manufactures the A4 and A5 processors for Apple.

Update: An Apple spokesperson elaborated on the charges for Mobilized:

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging. This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Samsung could be about to sell its dwindling hard disk drive business as flash memory becomes increasingly popular, according to a person “familiar with the matter.” Thanks to the success of devices such as the iPod, iPad and MacBook Air, Apple has boosted the adoption of flash memory devices and encouraged consumers to ditch standard hard drives for speedier storage.

Samsung has set a target price of $1.5 billion for its hard drive business, but the Korean company is reportedly keen to sell it for under $1 billion if the right customer comes along. The Wall Street Journal report notes that Seagate Technologies could be a candidate for the business, though neither company has commented on the rumor.

Apple is considered to be the largest consumer of flash memory in the world, and predominantly responsible for the shift away from conventional hard drives to solid state drives. It’s believed the company’s iPad is entirely responsible for the complete reorganization at Acer – whose netbooks sales were hit hard by the popular tablet.

Apple is undoubtedly responsible for my personal adoption of SSD drives; after purchasing an 11-inch MacBook Air my other Macs felt incredibly slow in comparison. It seems once you go flash, there’s no going back.

[via Electronista]

AnandTech is reporting that Apple has appeared to have made some changes to the MacBook Air released in October 2010. The Macbook Air refresh last fall included some welcome surprises for Apple fans — a new 11.6″ form factor, an external case redesign, faster graphics, and larger SSD drives. All of this came at a lower price. The most interesting part of the refresh was the new SSD drives. Apple didn’t use regular 2.5″ or 1.8″ SSDs and instead introduced a whole new type of SSD form factor called mSATA SSDs a.k.a. blade SSDs.

In their 2011 lineup of HDTVs, Samsung is throwing a new universal remote into every box with a design you might just have seen somewhere before, since it looks almost exactly like the iPhone 4.

Ignoring the Zune HD (as most consumers seemed to have done), the dominance of Apple’s iPod Touch over the touchscreen media player market has gone essentially unchallenged ever since it first debuted in fall of 2007… but Samsung — makers of the popular Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab — are looking to change that at this year’s CES, when they unveil the Galaxy Player.