There seem to be two ways to make a Wi-Fi-enabled camera. The first is to build an actual camera and add a Wi-Fi radio. The second is to make an iPod Touch with a decent 5MP camera module inside. Depending on your requirements, either one can be great.
But there now appears to be a third way. Samsung has taken a camera, added an Android phone, and then taken away the phone part of that phone. Behold! The Wi-Fi Galaxy Camera.
Given that Samsung clearly likes to follow in Apple’s footsteps, it comes as no surprise to us that it is set to open 1,400 Apple-esque Experience Shops in Best Buy stores throughout the United States.
The Korean company is aiming to give potential customers the opportunity to get their hands on its mobile products and “experience how the devices connect together to enrich their lives” before they decide to purchase them. Specially trained “Samsung Experience Consultants” will also be there to offer post-purchase support.
There’s been a lot of buzzing lately about Samsung’s hot new Galaxy S4 phone and its gimmicky cutting-edge new features. But bizarre air gestures aside, we’ll tell you which of its features we’d love to see Apple “borrow” for iPhone 6 on our all-new CultCast.
Plus, a new Steve Jobs movie you’ll actually want to see; and, is it possible for Apple for make a device more perfect than the iPad mini?
All that and more on this episode of the CultCast! Subscribe nowon iTunes to download our new episodes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s newly updated Podcasts App.
Or, you know, just hit play below.
Its plastic chassis may feel cheaper than the iPhone 5’s glass-and-aluminum materials, but Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 smartphone actually costs significantly more to make. In fact, almost 20% more.
The Galaxy SIV is official, and it is a beautiful powerhouse of a phone with features unseen in any other device, but how does Samsung’s latest flagship phone stack up against the competition, spec-by-spec? Check out the chart below to find out.
It seems you can’t go anywhere these days without seeing an advert for the iPhone. They’re on billboards in the street, they’re there when you switch on the TV, and you’ll also find them in newspapers and magazines. But believe it or not, there’s one company that spends more — a lot more! — on advertising its smartphones than Apple does.
That company is Samsung. In 2012, Samsung outspent Apple by more than three to one in smartphone advertising, with a number of large campaigns on TV, in print, and on the Internet. In total, the Korean company spent $401 million advertising its phones.
Nokia has sided with Apple in an effort to help the Cupertino company in its fight against Samsung. The Finnish firm filed an amicus brief on behalf of Apple in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday, asking the court to permit permanent injunctions on the sale of Samsung smartphones that were found guilty of infringing Apple’s patents.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — Here at MWC in Barcelona, Krussell is showing off its latest lineup of waterproof smartphones cases called Sealabox, which let you take your smartphone swimming to snap pictures of the fishes. Available for almost all common smartphones, the Sealabox is IPX7 certified for water resistance up to one meter, and it’s been carefully designed to allow you to make the most of your smartphone in almost any environment.
Apple and Samsung have been exchanging blows with each other in the Australian courtroom for the past two years. Neither side has emerged as a clear favorite to win, but the case is already breaking records.
Because of the enormity of the case, Australia’s Federal Court has appointed two judges to hear the case together. It’s the first time Australia’s Federal Court has ever needed to have two judges hear a case together.
No, that headline isn’t wrong — Samsung has actually made a Galaxy commercial for the Super Bowl that doesn’t such. It features Knocked Up stars Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, who play two writers pitching ideas for Samsung’s next commercial to Breaking Bad’s Bob Odenkirk.
It doesn’t mock other companies or rival devices, and it’s actually pretty hilarious. Check it out below.
It’s official: the BlackBerry Z10, the first smartphone to ship with the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, and what many believe is the last chance for BlackBerry (formerly RIM) to save itself from complete irrelevance.
The early reviews of the Z10 aren’t bad, but aren’t great, pretty much agreeing that the smartphone is just good enough to buy BlackBerry some time. But how does it stack up, spec-for-spec, against the iPhone 5 and some of Android’s top phones? We’ve put together a chart for you to see for yourself.
Samsung vice president JK Shin has confirmed that the company will be announcing the Galaxy Note 8.0 at Mobile World Congress next month, but you don’t need to wait until then to see what it’ll look like. Thanks to these pictures of the device out in the wild, we can see that the iPad mini competitor looks a lot like a giant Galaxy S III, with a traditional button setup that’s unlike other Galaxy tablets.
If you believe recent reports and predictions from analysts, Apple must make its iPhone cheaper or introduce a low-cost model if it wants to compete with Samsung going forward. The Korean company currently boasts the largest smartphone market share in the United States, and its lead is expected to increase throughout 2013. But did you know that Apple has actually sold more devices? 88 million more, in fact.
Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt has been comparing Apple’s cumulative smartphone sales with Samsung’s, and it appears the Cupertino company’s iPhone outsold the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines 219 million to 131 million.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I always pack two cases when I’m about to embark on heavy travel with my iPhone: a battery case and my trusty Incipio Feather Ultralight case. I realize toting extra juice is a necessity I have to live with, but I haven’t yet found a serious battery case with dimensions I can live with — I simply hate the bulkiness. This means I’m often stuck balancing my need for my juice with my want for less bulk by constantly swapping cases, and frankly, it’s a pain in the ass.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re always a bit stumped at how PhoneSuit is able to stuff so much battery in to their batteries. Their new Flex line is another great example; those little battery logs above each contain 2600 mAh of juice, which is more than any iPhone battery case I can think of. And that’s not even the coolest thing about them.
Angry Birds Space for Android and iOS has today received yet another big update, introducing a brand new galaxy with 30 new levels. It’s called Splash, and every planet is filled with water, strange aquatic life, and pigs in boats. The update also promises the “ultimate under water boss level.”
Samsung’s request to keep some of its sales data sealed in an ongoing patent dispute with Apple in the United States has been denied by District Judge Lucy Koh. The Korean electronics giant wanted to keep its figures secret while it appeals an earlier sealing order, but it will now have to disclose the information to Apple.
Thanks to affordable offerings like the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus 7, Android tablets continue to increase their market share and claw away at the iPad’s lead. However, Apple’s tablet remains king of the web, accounting for a whopping 87% of tablet web traffic in North America.
One doesn’t see too many battery cases for the Galaxy S3. Unlike the glass-fortress iPhone — for which battery-cases are more numerous than species of bird — the S3’s battery is easily removable, somewhat lessening the usefulness of an external battery. But that didn’t stop iWalk from coming out with the Chameleon Easy, an impossibly sleek monster of a battery case with 2800 mAh on tap — which iWalk says is the highest capacity of any S3 battery to date.
Some of Apple’s lawsuits in Europe haven’t been going that well, but they’ve still been dominating Samsung in the Netherlands. A new ruling from the Dutch court has banned the sales of a few Samsung Galaxy devices after the court ruled that Samsung infringed on Apple’s patents.
Apple’s patent for scrolling through a photo gallery on a touchscreen was able to sink Samsung’s Galaxy devices, but then the court added more pain to the ruling by demanding Samsung pay Apple $129,000 per day.
This is a guest post by Ken Segall, a Silicon Valley advertising executive who worked closely with Steve Jobs. Among other things, Segall put that little “i” in front of the iMac and helped develop Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign. Segall is author of Insanely Simple, a very readable insightful account of what makes Apple tick.
Last time Apple went heavy on advertising in a sporting event, it didn’t exactly end well.
But let us not speak of the Genius anymore. All traces of that campaign have been hidden from our sight.
Now the baseball playoffs are here. And once again, Apple has made a very expensive media buy. This time, it’s blanketing the games with the new iPhone 5 ads.
But look. Someone else has moved into the neighborhood. Samsung showed up for the playoffs with equal force, in the form of its Galaxy S III ads. You know — the ones that make fun of the lost souls who line up to buy an iPhone, when they could just as easily have a much cooler Samsung phone.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt is currently on a tour of Asia, where he announced the company’s $199 Nexus 7 tablet in Tokyo on Monday. During his announcement, Schmidt found some time to talk about Apple and its patent wars against other companies. Schmidt revealed that while Apple is a “very good partner,” he doesn’t agree with patent wars, and feels they “prevent choice” and innovation.
U.S. Federal Judge Lucy Koh has moved the hearing for Apple’s request for an injunction against Samsung phones to December, possibly diluting the economic effect of last week’s patent trial verdict.
Apple’s victory in its patent trial against Samsung is already a few hours old but the shock of the damage tally is still hard to shake off. The final figure of $1,049,393,540.00 is a staggering rebuke of Samsung’s design and manufacturing process and may force the company toward more original ideas.
The completed jury verdict form, released late Friday night and attached below, reveals the Korean company maybe never really had a chance to win the case.
Apple has won a massive damages sum of nearly $1.05 billion in the patent trial against Samsung and the reaction from the technology community has been vast and swift.
In an email immediately following the verdict, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles Golvin told us the main takeaway from the verdict is the focus on innovation. Companies will now be forced to create legitimately different products, or at least engineer some without extravagantly similar features:
The jury particularly vindicates Apple’s software patents and their decision has implications not just for Samsung, but also for Google, other Android device makers like LG, HTC, and Motorola, but also potentially for Microsoft who employs features such as pinch to zoom, bounce on scroll, etc. These competitors are now forced to go back to the drawing board and come up with substantively different designs — or seek settlement terms with Apple. Since many of these controls are now built into the expectations of customers in how they work their phones, those are substantive challenges.
Gartner analyst and VP of Mobile Research Van Baker agrees the redesign of products in the long term is an issue but that it won’t affect any products anytime soon.
This is a clear win for Apple but it will have little impact on the market in the near term as it is highly likely that there will be an appeal so we will have to repeat the process. If sustained it has the potential to force Samsung to redesign a number of products and it will apply significant pressure on all smartphone and tablet makers to avoid trying to emulate the Apple designs as they bring new products to market.
Earlier, the two principals in the case immediately followed the shocking judgement with their own statements.
